Confessions of a Drummer

It is not unknown for drummers to play the odd roll......but our drummer is.... role.... playing..... Gasp....scandal at last in Hot Machero .....!!!!! well I'm not one to gossip but that Barabanshik has only bought Mrs Barabanshik a Police officer's uniform!!!! complete with handcuffs allegedly.He said she looks quite nice in it....he is now trying to acquire an air hostess uniform and is considering a Russian army uniform...........it's amazing what people get upto at the weekend isn't it. I mean wifey and I spent the best part of Sunday stripping in our front room. We got it right steamy too.....you see wallpaper comes off better if you get the old steamer going.

So the aftermath of the last gig continues and the band's self imposed break reaches an end on monday when we are back rockin. We have tried to meet up and have a team viewing of the gig video and a chat about the direction of the band but there was more chance of getting the Beatles together for a meeting including Lennon and Harrison.

So I called up our singer guitarist ..Spaceboy. His young son answered the phone he can only be about three.....and after several attempts to raise his father from the front room where he was probably watching the film "Help" for the 100th time he calls out to his Dad "Earth calling Daddy come in Daddy" ...it's official he truelly is the Space boy!
One thing is for sure we all seem to be singing off the same song sheet (ahem ...ok... rubbish joke) We are all looking to steer towards producing original music ...our own creations . We'll still do some covers but we are going to let our creative side take over. But Barabanshik will hopefully be keeping his creative streak for role playing firmly under control

The Century!!!!!

So this is it the century,.....blog 100......... The first blog was published on to the 18/02/2007. It was meant to be an online journal regarding a couple in their thirties (that's wifey and I) setting up a rock band. The fact that it has degenerated into useless ramblings likened to the chatter of a baboon on speed (the blog ...not the band) is no real surprise really.

This 100th blog coincides with the gig report for probably our biggest gig yet, locker room James' 30th birthday party at the Abbey (Abbey Reading Rugby club) We were headlining the evening with two other bands and a soloist before us. The Dark Marge came along as the Hot Machero general dogs body....which consisted of being roady as well as Camera man...and a fine job he did at both (check out his handy work on the videos section of Myspace) Also in attendance was Mrs Barabanshik ,and Space Boy's ...Space Girl (couldn’t think of a better name ....thought of his “ground controller” but that would imply he is under the thumb.....which all us blokes are to a certain degree......but no the safe option......space girl!)so it was a night out for us without the kids. The set consisted of 14 songs some of which was the first time we performed them . All was going well until "There She goes" we faltered on that a bit but I think we managed to wing it....we soldiered on through the set and rocked the house with "Dakota" (featured on Myspace) It was then that Wifey did the bravest thing in our six gig existance......even braver than allowing me to sing "Don't you forget about me" in our first gigs!
For weeks now we have been struggling with Razorlight's America....I was struggiling with these two notes way up on the 18th and the 19th fret on the g-string (steady!!!!!) Wifey's part in the song is that solo guitar picking bit that plays on the quiet bits .....one mistake ...just one incey wincey mistake ........and it would stick out like a racing dogs gonads...we had decided that it wasn't upto scratch and we wouldn't play it.........so when Wifey actually anounced to the rest of us .........."I'm going to do America" at our penultimate song.....Bara wibbly wobbly banshik nearly did fall off of his little drum stool..........I had little stools of my own appearing!!!!!! So wifey stood up to the plate......well that isn't strictly true as she can only play America sat down!!!!! but you know what I mean....and off she set ....and she pulled it off ....so did we and it was good!!!!!!....

The post gig inquest began and to be honest Spaceboy, Wifey and I had our doubts regarding how well it went but upon seeing the DVD of the gig we were really pleased with it. Room for improvement but then the band has been together a year this line up only 4 months old and this was our first proper decent sized set.....with lots of new songs .....so yes quite rightly I am very pleased .

So what about the next 100 blogs....well who knows .....this first hundred has been like a soap opera....there were times of desperation .....like less than two weeks to a gig without a drummer and a singer....... times of elation. Our first gig !, when Bara kiss kiss bang bang banshik arrived and the Diddler nearly wet himself with excitement on the phone...! then of course there were the side issues .......Mother Dearest's escapades ...Jockanese K ......MBE's adventures.......Dark Marge's contributions in the form of replies to these blogs , MR T....and all the people that floated in and out of these pages ........one thing's for sure though....I'll have great fun reporting on all that happens to you in the next 100 blogs

Space Boy

It's 1500 hours on a Wednesday afternoon another day in paradise...a busy work schedule ? very much so I have a client coming in at 1700 and there is a lull in my working day just enough to impart my words of wisdom on the marauding hoards that regularly frequent these pages which are the product of my warped and sometimes insane mind. I suppose it can't be worse than Saturday when i fell out of one of our "customer's"windows onto the front garden .......tis a long story ..nothing broken just some bruised pride. So without further a do I will tell you that today I'm not feeling funny!!!!!!! nope...i sat and watched the news today eating my prawns in pitta bread and i can categorically say that it was depressing!!! (not the prawns you imbeciles!!!!!!! the news...) Doom gloom and more doom gloom...and that was just the adverts!
Well I 've got our gig to look forward to at the weekend.....except I know I'm going to open my mouth to harmonise with our singer Spaceboy (formerly known as Boots ...keep reading and I'll explain in a bit) and i know that I will let out a noise similar to the QE 2 entering harbour.....My Ipod thinks that the only two songs that exist are Good Enough by Dodgy and I want to hold your hand by the Beatles. These two songs are easily the two most irritating songs in the universe now!!!!!

I drive my car singing "I can't hide......I can't hide .....I can't hide!!!!" at the top of my voice .......some poor old woman jumped out of her skin at the traffic lights the other day as I belted out " I feel happy......inside!" So although I'm looking forward to the gig I feel as nervous as a stratocaster in Pete Townshend's grasp...but still......... three days to go and one rehearsal left.......

Yesterday I treated Freddy (my Fender Jazz Bass ) to a nice set of Rotosounds. I've been playing on the strings provided by the good people at Fender since he was purchased and decided he needed a treat.....I feel obliged to buy some for the big red monster too (My Dean semi Acoustic) especially as recently he has acquired a little dent in the back of the neck where it joins the body from a falling surround sound speaker.

Space boy? well our Mc Cartney sound alike brought with him to rehearsal a machine that helps you meditate aptly called an LSD ??!?!?!?!?!? it consists of specs which throw bright lights into you closed eyes and headphones that play pulsating sounds into your ears ......Apart from looking like an extra for Deep Space 9 or something from outer space you end up precisely that .......spaced out.......amazing! I tried it on and the effects are awesome.....after about thirty seconds voices around you start going distant and you feel like you are ..........well ..................high on drugs.........

So he is now known as Space boy!

Too old for street cred

Street cred. is there an age limit on it ?...I pose this question on the back of a conversation I had with the road runner the otherday...she said ."What 's wrong with going to a spice girls concert ?" after asking where do I start? I went into a long schpiel regarding street cred and her lack of ........this good humoured bout of shit slinging turned nasty (if having faeces slung at you can get worse!!!!!!!!!!!) Roady runner then said ...."You are too old for street cred..........!!!!!!!" hmmmm.......that can't be right can it? I mean you can commit social suicide at any age can't you. Ask Mr T at work......he admitted to the blogster extraordanaire (ie Me ) that when he first went on to Google Earth he zoomed in on his house saw his car on the drive and got his sun to rush out to see if he could see him .........I thought he was playing a trick on his boy ...but sadly no he actually thought it was live satelite footage! then there is Mother dearest of course........I mean fancy telling me that she fell asleep at her computer the other day. She lifted her head off the keyboard wiped the dribble off of the space bar deleted the 5,000 full stops from the document she was typing and took herself to bed going through the full range of abloutions climbing into bed only to realise it was only 1730 !!!!!!! then if that wasn't enough ammunition for me to assassinate any street cred she had she told me that when she eventually got to bed she decided she would listen to a podcast from a morning chat show and she dropped off to sleep. when she woke up the man on her show said "the time is 6.30" So she got up and started to go through the morning ritual of getting up and breakfast etc.......you guessed it ..................it was only 0230 in the middle of the night......Don't get me wrong I don't believe one should be a victim of fashion and wear inappropriate attire on the belief they look cool! but surely street cred is ageless. Is it indeed important? ............ If Hot Machero started playing Carpenters and Jim Reeves hits would we not completely lose street cred???!?!? there you go i rest my case!.........

Less than two weeks to the gig in Reading....we are busy rehearsing so much so Wifey fell asleep slumped over her lecky guitar whilst going over "Good Enough" for the umpteenth time last night.

Weymouth invasion

So there I was 4th of January 2008 sitting at my desk . The 22nd of December 2007 was along long way away. That day was great, just been paid looking forward to a lovely christmas break, I'd had a great result at work and even the sun was out. Today the weather is grim....I'm back at work and I don't know why but all my work clothes seem to have shrunk!!!!!
It was a great Christmas and yesterday it was capped by Wifey's brother (Doggit ) who came for a visit with his family.
They moved down to Weymouth a few years back to run a Bed and breakfast. ( a very nice establishment I hasten to add, if any of you in blog land wish details I will supply them to you )
Anyway Doggit together with his wife "Tiny Tears " ( So named because she always cries at goodbyes.....even if you are just nipping to the shops!!!!!) his two children our Nephew Master Chavster of Weymouth and our niece Little Miss Chavster of Weymouth who is famed for turning a boy gay after going out with him.....or was it Doggit's threat of a painful slow death involving genitalsand choking that did it , after Miss Chavster had these mysterious bite marks appearing on her neck?
Now Doggit is no light weight he is very much your shaved head,kickboxing ,power lifting , power house that I'd have to admit i wouldn't like to upset and would contemplate all other options rather than incur his wrath! but to turn your sexuality ? or maybe Little Miss Chavster just didn't taste nice! I mean I love Brussel sprouts many don't ....maybe Miss Chavster was this poor lad's brussel sprout! and he has decised he' doesn't like roast dinners anymore !
So back to work....they changed the security code on the door of the building ...it had changed whilst on holiday...but it was ok they sent me an e-mail telling me of the fact...........the computer for which is where? yeah in the office....duh!!!!!!!! i tried to tell my new Boss Sasquatch that i had in fact arrived on time and was stood there for hours but it was to no avail. Apart from that nothing has changed ...my new boss (The Sasquatch so called as she has size 2 feet!!!!) has settled in ( not heard from Cruella recently)....., Mr T is all refreshed from his Christmas break, ...the Road Runner worked most of Christmas and actually went to a Spice Girls concert at the O2 arena....what a crap Christmas!!!!!!!!

Jockanese K...MBE's New Year's party

An Arab Sheik dancing with two nuns ......Snow White handing out champers to Wonder Woman ,Batman and BatGirl.....Darth Vader sharing a cuddle with pink panther......hallucinations after eating some of Mother Dearest's weird mushrooms.......??????? ...No!!!!!! it was Jockanese K....MBE's New Years party! (incidentally Mother Dearest went sick for this party ....she blamed a dodgy prawn she eat ....I reckon it was the mushrooms me self)

......Anyway I dressed as a monk and had to endure the ...."what's wrong with you...? do you have a monk on ?" jokes all evening . Jockanese K .....MBE was dressed as a clown ....(no change there then?) Mrs Jockanese K (Snow White) with the help no doubt from her mum...(belly dancer) and sister Auntie Ria (Nun) put on a wonderful spread of food. I have some great footage of Wifey (who rather alarmingly made a fantastic nun) dancing to Jockanese K....MBE's MP3 collection......(not easy to say on the morning after the night before!!!!)

Now the Jockmeister is a wonderful man . (cue lone piper in background) fighting for Queen and country .....for good against evil... a pillar of society ..etc etc.......but bye heck is his music collection Shit!!!!!!!! There was Blue ,Mika ,S club and music of this ilk pumping away........in despair I went and spoke to the Sheik cunningly disguised as Auntie Ria's husband Chucky...who was still recovering from his wife lifting her habit to reveal black fishnets and backside inches from his fake beard!!!!!! We sat , slagging off Jocky K...MBE's music collection as Lavender by Marillion came on and I got up and started to move on to the dance floor dancing in a Magners induced dance as I got up......(rather Peter Kay stylie) only for it to be changed as I reached the middle of the room to some crap by some geezer by George Michael. So I took my Monk arse over to J and J (another couple) and commented on how good J the boy racer's costume was ...ingenious I told him coming as a deck chair!!!!! my comment was met with a stony......."I'm not in costume.....it's my shirt" but bless he had just had a stone chip his windscreen on his Audi on the way to the party

So at midnight poppers popped and Shampoo drunk and the rather bizarre sight of a Mexican kissing a Leprechaun and Wonder woman hugging an Arab, a Clown kissing Snow white ,a Monk kissing a Nun ....well you get my drift.

So to quote that great band Hot Machero .......words written by Boots

"All of those dear to us Happy New Year !!!!!!"

Into the Poo ....!!!!!!

In the words of John Lennon......."So this is Christmas what have you done?" (Boots will be proud of me for that ) So here is a Christmas round up of the Hot Machero band , fans and hangers on.

Christmas eve we discovered that you can track Santa as he goes all over the world via a site called Norad.....it basically plots Santa on Google Earth. this was a great source of amusement for Rockstar our 6 year old....and his cries of " Dad, Dad Santa is over Mongolia" as he sat wide eyed on the edge of the computer chair were met with equal wide eyes and quick steps of excitement by his Mother and Father. We actually had to check ourselves.......but we get caught up in the whole Christmas thing using the Mini Machero as excuses for many yuletide occurrences such as the lights on the front of the house the decs all the way through Christmas Songs at full volume throughout the house and the waist expanding food and drink . all for which we use...."well it's for the kids innit!" really........the crate of Magners and the two bottles of Baileys? Closing up for bedtime is an hour long event in it's self at the moment.......no ....not carrying Wifey upstairs suffering from one or five too many bottles of Barcardi Breezer.....or the strain on the legs getting upstairs because of copious amounts of mince pies....no it's because of the amounts of flippin Christmas lights to turn off

It was a great Christmas in Machero Towers , Santa was kind to us all. The neighbours were away so Wifey got to try out her Line 6 Spider III guitar amp just as amps should be played..........LOUD!!!!!!

As for your truly ? Wifey brought me a wireless receiver for my Bass....Marvellous !!!!!! You see to allow the kids their time to open their presents Christmas morning Wifey and I open ours at midnight on Christmas Eve........(the fact that we used to do that before kids is neither here or there......it's for the kids innit!) So there I was at 0030 hours cordlessly plank spanking in the front room , kitchen, in the bedroom then I ran out into the street with my pyjamas on stood outside next doors house and I could still hear my Ashdown pumping bass lines . To impress the kids in the morning I did the very same, still in my jimmy jams I quickly slipped on my sandals and ran to the bottom of the garden right in the middle of "Into the deep" I trod " into the dog crap" yes Doodles our dog had left a Christmas present on the lawn.....Merry Christmas dog!!!!!!!

Mother Dearest came over for Christmas day and my brother the Dark Marge came up from Dorset for a couple of days on Christmas morning ladened with gifts for the mini Machero and generally being quite Christmassy( This is however after he managed to get lost around the ring road in town for most of the morning .....again . The Outlaws came round too and the house was filled with Christmas cheer!!! Rockstar jumped into the drumming hot seat fresh off the School Nativity play gig where he really was a star doing the drumming and percussion for the whole show. Wifey and I grabbed our musical weapons and mini minx was let loose on the mic and gave the rellies a rock version of Jingle bells and Little Donkey...The Dark Marge carried on assembling Rockstar's Hogwart's Express Hornby train set which Santa had been so generous to give him and Uncle Marge had brought some accessories for . Putting the Dark Marge on the spot I asked him in front of his 6 year old nephew " So ...how did you know Santa was going to get Rockstar a train set....????" rather cleverly he replied " Santa's Elves paid me a visit and told me.....they were female elves wearing long boots.................just long boots" he then grinned like Scooby doo locked in a Scooby Snack factory!!!!!!

Shall I talk about the band for a bit? we are busy rehearsing for the 26th of Jan gig....Barabanshik is recovering from RSI in his wrist......not a good injury to have for a drummer ...he is still bashing away though . He has re kindled his love for some of that classic rock such as Deep Purple and Led Zepp. His BMW pulled up the other day with Deep Purple pumping away even chucking it on the school CD player as we set up........His suggestion that he'd like to do a purple cover was met with excited grins by wifey and I...Boots however didn't seem as enthusiastic......and his suggestion that part of one of the Deep Purple songs was almost "Beatles like " was met with the groans of disbelief the comment deserved.. I'm going to play him some really hard thrash or speed metal ..........and run a book on how long it takes him to find a Beatles influence in it.............

Wifey is busy with America (The Razorlight song that is not the country) as it happens her Spider III has a Razorlight setting and it sounds just like Razorlight's guitarist is sitting in the back room when she's playing the riff.

Me well I'm cordlessly playing away....I've kind of got to grips with most of the bass lines for the set I'm concentrating on fine tuning them getting into time with Bara bauble and tinsel shik and learning harmonies and backing which you all know I don't really enjoy and do struggle with.

So with 2007 drawing to a close I can only reflect on an awesome year........Hot Machero has made huge leaps forward and would like to thank the band for giving me an immense sense of pride to what we have achieved so far and the potential I'm know we have. I'd like to thank former members SJ, Chippy, Diddler, Dom and Pugwash for their help along the way...the band is only 10 months old yet as I write these names those early sessions when we couldn't even get through a whole song during rehearsals in a church loft with borrowed drums and 10 watt practice amps seems like another lifetime ago. With the greatest respect to the aforementioned , their predecessors Boots and Barabanshik are very talented and more experienced musicians that are pushing mine and Wifey's boundaries constantly.
2008 is going to be even more exciting I know it!

So all that is left to say is on behalf of Hot Machero I hope you all had a great Christmas and hope you all have a fantastic New Year........

We're off to Jockanese K...MBE 's New Year's fancy dress party tonight ........yes the man is back all in one piece ....I will report on this later this week. Until next year this is the Bass man signing out .