8 DAYS AND COUNTING!!

Had a great gig at Jane's party last weekend (and even got a new photo out of it!) - guest keyboard player John Wright was with us (in preparation for playing on a round the world cruise ship, would you believe?!), and it was fine preparation for the next one......

Only 8 days to go till the BIG gig of the year - Macclesfield Beer Festival, and everything associated with it! Latest intelligence (if I can use that word in this context) suggests that tickets are selling like hot pints of beer, and if you don't get one for you and your friends, you'll be as popular as Gordon Brown in Rochdale, because everyone wants to be there!

If you have never experienced the BF before, you have missed a real treat - 2 nights (and a lunchtime!) of amazing social interaction, with a vast selection of good real ale, ciders, wine and food, amazing music (of course), and all in 2 huge marquees. The atmosphere is genuinely brilliant - everyone is friendly, there is never any trouble, and the only problems seem to be with people trying to find their friends (or even the exit from the marquee!) at the end of the night! So get your act together, and purchase your tickets (a bargain at only £10) from the outlets mentioned on the poster above (you can even buy them on line this year - see attached link!). It's all in aid of an excellent cause (The Rossendale Trust), and you really do need to be quick about this as, last year, both nights had sold out well beforehand - there are extra tickets this year, but even so........

So how are Dazed & Confused preparing for the delights of entertaining 1600 people on each night, I hear you ask? Well, Dave has gone on holiday (I know, I know, but it has been 3 weeks, so give him a break!), so there was only 5 of us at rehearsal last night; our first task was to put together a set list, and that took up some considerable time in itself. Selecting tunes that go together, keep the momentum rolling, AND that we can remember the words of, is no easy task I can tell you! Anyway, we have managed to cobble together around 25 songs to choose from, and these should see us through the 90 minute set comfortably. Our biggest challenge is to try and stitch them together seamlessly because, as those of you who have seen us know, we do have a tendency to mess about between songs, tell jokes, have a sleep etc., so we have to try and avoid that, if at all possible!

Another practice scheduled for next week (after a cold, wet Bank Holiday weekend in Wales!), and that will be on Wednesday after watching City clinch 4th place by beating Spurs, so at least 1 of us will be up for it!

So, more news next week when, of course, you will all have your BF tickets, and will be as excited as us!!

A VERY ENJOYABLE WEEK - ALL TOLD!

Sitting here on Sunday night, recovering from the disastrous football yesterday, contemplating work tomorrow, and feeling really glad that I missed most of the "Dorothy" rubbish - obviously, it's gone downhill since the Macc Lass was voted off (so much for the "vote for me" poster campaign around town!), so I thought I would bring you up to date with what has been a pretty eventful week for the mighty D&C, and tell you what lies in store over the next few.

As previously trailed, Wednesday was our return date at Canalside Community Radio and, as arranged we met on the banks of the canal at Bollington at 7:30pm, primed and ready to go - well, 5 of us did! I had done my usual ring round to make sure nobody had died since we last met the week before; Andy, Dave, Hugh and Chrissie checked in OK, but there was radio silence from Matt (i.e. his phone was switched off!). Now, bear in mind that this is not unusual, and the volcano cloud had not yet made its presence felt, so we were not unduly alarmed; however, as the minutes ticked by, we thought we had better go for Plan B (as we didn't even know whether he wanted an acoustic or electric bass set up), so Matt's boss (Pikey Jeff) was duly contacted to make sure nothing evil had befallen the hairy one. The conversation between Andy/Chrissie and Jeff went something like this:
Chrissie/Andy: "Jeff, do you know where Matt is?"
Jeff: "Yes, he's sitting here next to me, why?"
C/A: "Well, he's supposed to be on the radio in about 18 minutes time!"
J: "Matt, are you supposed to be on the radio in about 18 minutes?"
Matt (in the background): "Oh S**t, I forgot!!"

Now, maybe it's because I'm not used to this sort of thing, but I would have thought that doing a session on the radio was pretty memorable, but obviously not on Planet Matt! Anyway, cue a mad drive back to Macc by Chrissie to collect the prodigal bassist (and pick his guitar up!), while we stalled for time in the shoebox that masquerades as the CCR studio! Despite this inauspicious start to the evening, the session actually went really well. As ever, we had a few laughs, and the tunes seemed to go down well - got a few plugs in for the Beer Fest as well! This Tuesday sees our mates The Injectors in the shoebox so, if you want to hear about their back story (and who doesn't?!), tune in to 102.8fm (or listen on the web) at 8pm this Tuesday (20th).

Being the gluttons for punishment that we are, we re-convened on Thursday evening to do a bit of practice - actually, we quite enjoy each other's company, so it wasn't too much of a chore! Had some discussion about Beer Fest set lists etc. and a bit of playing about with tunes for the following night - early finish too, we were home for 12:30am!

So, Friday saw us at The Hollins for the first time since Nov 2008, and what a great night it was! The pub was absolutely jammed from start to finish (even Pete Munro stayed till the end!), and Chris recorded record beer sales (that Bombardier went down well, as it always has!), so a good time was had all round. Garry the Hat was there, so we'll see whether we were good enough to merit a mention in next week's Macc Express (depends whether Rough Twist were playing somewhere else I guess!). All we need to do is persuade Andy to keep his volume down in those sort of confined spaces - we were walking around with bleeding ears at the end! Any ways up, we will be back for sure!!

Next week sees us playing a private party on Saturday, and then next stop is the legendary Beer Festival (more of that in a week or so, but get your tickets NOW!) Now is also an opportunity to remind you about the big gig in aid of the East Cheshire Hospice on Saturday 12 June; it's being billed as The Gig & A Game and features ourselves, The Screaming Beavers and the England Football Team!! Copy of the poster and details of how to get tickets in the flyer below:

The Hospice needs about £5000/day to survive, and gets very little money from the government, so it seems an ideal opportunity to see England get off to a flying start in the World Cup, enjoy some great music AND provide a boost to a local facility that I'm sure many of us know people that have benefited from (was that gramatically correct??!)

OK - LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

At least 4 weeks since anything appeared on here, and there's lots to tell you, so let's get to it!

The holiday sheepdogs have been out and rounded up Dave & Chrissie, so everyone is back in the fold now - Dave is mellowed out from his wonderful sail around the British Virgin Islands, and Chrissie is totally knackered from her whistle stop tour of the USA! Not to be outdone, Andy, Hugh and Paul all had a few days in Wales, and Matt had a morning in his Mum's front garden (think he fell over the wall on his way back from the pub!). I also had a week in the US - but that was business (apart from the Bon Jovi gig, that is!)

Thursday night was the first time the 6 of us had been together for about a month, and it was brilliant fun - old numbers, new numbers, bad jokes, good beer - no wonder it was 12:40am when we wrapped up! All of this had a serious purpose of course (several in fact), because we're back in action from next week, and there are loads of things coming up that we need to prepare for. Here's just a sample:


Next Wednesday sees us making a return to CANALSIDE COMMUNITY RADIO for another session on Matt Isaacs' Rock Diversity show. Some of you may remember that we made our maiden appearance there back in November, and either Matt has a very short memory, or he was sufficiently impressed to ask us back again! The show is on from 8:00-10:00pm so, if you are anywhere close to Macclesfield (and a radio, of course) tune in to 102.8fm, and give us a listen.
We've chosen some different numbers from the ones we did last time and, hopefully, Matt will remember to record it this time, so we will have some memories to treasure - starting to sound a bit like Desert Island Discs!


Next Friday (16th April) has us pitching up at The Hollins on Black Road in Macclesfield. It's over a year since we played there, and it will be good to go back, as landlord Chris is building up quite a reputation for his music Fridays, and so it should be a good night. We just hope there is not as much snow around as in the photo above. Facebook invites will be sent out for this to the Dazed & Confused "Massive" (you can join the group if you want!), and you can check The Hollins out on Facebook as well.

And after that? Well, we have a private party to play on 24 April, and then it's flat out, no nonsense, full speed ahead for the Macclesfield Beer Festival on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th May!!


Difficult to believe, but this is our FIFTH consecutive appearance at the BF, and it is still the high spot of our gigging year! This year's event will be even bigger than previous years, with sell-out crowds of 1600 people expected on each night - nervous, us? Never! We had our usual pre-festival meeting with Mickey Jones on Wednesday evening; as well as sorting things out, and meeting members of Monkey Harris, who will be playing with us, it was a good opportunity to have a couple of beers and watch United lose!! We'll talk more about this in the next couple of weeks but, in the meantime, you can get more information (and tickets!) via the Festival website. On the subject of tickets, be sure to get them early, as they really do sell out quickly, and we'd hate you to miss out!

That's all for now - got a football match to go to - I'm sure you will all join me in wishing City all the best as they move towards securing a Champions League spot - sorry Liverpool! If I don't see you at Eastlands, maybe we'll see you at The Hollins next Friday?!