CHRISTMAS IS COMING - AGAIN??

 

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm finding it very difficult to believe that in 2 weeks, we will be in the last month of 2012, and preparations for the "festive" season will be in full spate (if they're not already)! Obviously, all my Christmas shopping is complete, and everything is ready for the big day (oh yeah!), so attention can be focused well and truly on other things - like 4 gigs between now and the end of the year!

We kick off this pre-Yule splurge next Friday, when we welcome back the "SAD Dads" to the Brewery! The masquerade that normally occurs at these events, is that a group of 50 or so gentlemen (and some ladies) of a certain age gather together, ostensibly to educate themselve in the finer points of Storm Brewing Ale. In reality, it is an excuse for them to have a good time, and let what's left of their hair down! When we first encountered this group (who are all actually attached to the Parents' Association of a local school!), they happened to be on a tour on our practice night, and we just carried on as if they weren't there! They enjoyed it so much that, on the their next visit, they specifically asked for us to play, taxis were cancelled at the end of the night, and we finished the evening about 12:45! This time, they have even changed the evening to Friday, so nobody has to get up in the morning - so God knows what will happen!

The following Friday (30th), we're off to Bollington for the first leg of a pre-Christmas mini tour of Happy Valley! We're starting at the top of the hill, and heading into the Cock and Pheasant where, no doubt, Charles and Ann will lay on their usual warm welcome - and, hopefully, move the big round table off the "dance floor"! It's the first time in a while, that we've played for the "public", so we're all really looking forward to it - and there are a couple more new songs to go in (if we can polish them at rehearsal next week!).

The rest of our mini-tour of Bolly and its environs takes us to The Poacher's Arms in the heart of the town on Saturday 15 December, and then we're back at The Windmill for a big Christmas party on Friday 21 December - as that's the last working day before the Big Ho Ho Ho, for lots of people, it promises to be a mad (and long!) night - so book it in your diaries now, as space will probably be at a premium!

If you check out the Gig Guide on the right, you'll see that we've already got quite few gigs booked in for 2013 - and even one for October 2014! I can see the life support system will have to move up the Christmas present list, if we're to make all them!

Finally - the ticker is just shy of 9000 visitors to this online gem - long may it continue, and hope to see lots of you in person, over the next few weeks!

 

NO WE'RE NOT DEAD YET!!

First up, a thousand apologies for leaving this literary masterpiece alone for the thick end of two and a half months! It's not been down to anything sinister - just a combination of holidays, lack of time (yes, really!) and general indolence!  Of course, what it means is that there is quite a bit to relate - only problem is knowing where to start and wondering if the old grey matter is working sufficiently well to enable me to recall even half of it!

So - where did we leave off? Ah yes, it was early July, with a post entitled "It might as well rain until September!" - and, guess what?? Here I sit on 21 September (the Autumnal Equinox, I believe), and it's STILL pi**ing down! Now I know there have been a few days when the sun has poked its shiny little face out from behind the clouds (and some of us/you have, no doubt, seen a bit more on hols), but they have been precious few and far between - roll on Summer, I say (I believe it's scheduled for 23 & 24 November this year)!!

Anyway, notwithstanding that, a number of us have managed to squeeze in some R&R over the last couple of months (some of us more than others!), so we're back refreshed, and raring to plough a musical furrow through the months up until Christmas and beyond (more of that later)!

Since we last wrote, we've even done a couple of gigs; Dave Hasler's birthday party, back in July, was a monster of an event! For those who don't know Dave, he and his wife Jill, are stalwarts of the local CAMRA branch, so when you put that together with a party in a brewery, a guest list that comprises most of the CAMRA membership of Macclesfield (as well as Matt Rose from the mighty VirginMarys, sporting his D&C T-shirt!), and includes music played loud and long into the night, you can imagine the carnage that ensued! In fact, to see Dave still standing at the end of the evening/beginning of the morning was one of the most remarkable sights of this, or any other, year!



We returned to The Old Ship on Beech Lane, at the beginning of September and, despite the fact that the gig clashed with the Loominus festival of live music in Macclesfield (which, due to an oversight, they neglected to invite us to!), which had several of the pubs in Macc showcasing 3 or 4 bands each, we were delighted to see the venue almost as full as usual - I'm sure the fact that I posted OUR gig on the Loominus Facebook page had something to do with it!. It was also as hot as usual because, even though neither of the famous fires were lit (must be a first!), the normal furnace-like environment prevailed! No matter, a brilliant night was had, as ever, and we gave a first airing to "Gold on the Ceiling", which is an excellent (if little known) song by The Black Keys, and which is rapidly accelerating up our list of favourite songs! As a side note to this, it actually took a bit of time for me to find the song on YouTube, because Andy had told me it was called "Ghost on the Floor" - well, I suppose it was close (no, it wasn't really!)!

In anticipation of our future gigs, we also had a "board meeting", in the summer, to stir fry some ideas in the strategy wok with regard to new songs! We actually came up with a list of 19 tunes that we want to work on - inevitably some will die a death (for some it will be a long and lingering one, no doubt!) but we hope to be drip feeding some of them in over the next few weeks - starting tomorrow night!

On which note, let me bring you up to date with future plans;  the gig list on the right hand side, should now be pretty much accurate (there have been some comings and goings of late), although there are a couple of "tbcs", which I don't envisage changing. As ever, there are a mix of private and public gigs, but if you fancy popping along to Bollington or Whiteley Green before Christmas, we would be as delighted as ever to see you!



Tomorrow evening sees us trekking out to the edge of Delamere Forest for the Annual Beer Festival, which is being held at Kingsley Cricket Club. I believe this is the second year for this event, and we don't really know what to expect - so what we are going to do is put our Macc Beer Fest "hats" on and just go for it! Pretty sure it will work, so if you fancy a balmy Autumn evening's entertainment, why not join us?!



So that pretty much brings us up to date - I will try not to leave it too long until the next time but, as Northern Spain beckons at the end of the month............

IT MIGHT AS WELL RAIN UNTIL SEPTEMBER!

As I sit here typing this, the rain is hurtling down, and they are promising a month's worth in one day - welcome to Summer! but are we downhearted? No we are not! Reason being that, after 2 great gigs last weekend, we are doing the same again this weekend - only this time it's private functions, rather than public ones (sorry about that!). This evening sees us returning to Sandhole Farm to pay at Daniel and Holly's wedding (we really hope the rain stops for them); we've not been there for nearly 3 years, but it's a great venue, and we just hope that the sound detection system is not so sensitive that it cuts out every few seconds, otherwise it's going to be a very fragmented performance!

Tomorrow night has us playing a private party in Macclesfield, which promises to be not only good fun, but also a very late night - as I'm off to the Lake District on Sunday (which, let's face it, could be anywhere in the country at the moment!), this is a bit of a worry!

Last weekend's frivolities saw us at The Windmill on Friday night - a really cracking gig, even if there were not quite as many punters as normal - look out for photos on the Facebook wall, once Paparazzi Pete gets them sorted. Saturday was Midnight Walk night, and our hour of "warm up" seemed to go down extremely well - over 600 people champing at the bit to get out onto the streets of Macclesfield, and the rain held off! A fantastic night all round and northwards of £60,000 raised for the Hospice!

Photos of the night Macclesfield turned yellow, and D&C through a fish-eye lens!!

Next gigs after that to be sorted - maybe we will be able to insert a pub date in the next few weeks - we'll keep you posted! Meanwhile this blog is only 13 hits away from 8000 - incredible! We've added visitors from the Isle of Man and China to the list but, as yet, no enquiries to play in either place!

A WINDMILL AND A WALK - ALL IN ONE WEEKEND!

Well holidays are over for the time being - except for Dave(!), so it's back on the road after a few weeks off - with a vengeance!! The next 2 weekends see us gigging on Fridays and Saturdays and, even though some of us will probably be close to expring by the end of it, we're SO looking forward to it! Who would have thought you could get withdrawal symptoms from playing music?!

Tonight (Friday 29th) has us back at The Windmill in Whiteley Green near Adlington; now, this always threatens to be a very sedate affair, because folk are having a very civilised meal in the dining room, and they view our appearance while they are eating with a mixture of astonishment and mild amusement! However, after a short while, and not least because there are normally some D&C diehards among them, feet start tapping and before too long, the mood overtakes them, and riotous behaviour rapidly ensues - let's just hope tonight is not the exception! If you've never been before, why not start the weekend in style - good food, good beer and EXCELLENT music! So good, that we even get celebrated astrophysicists/astronomers throwing some shapes (see below) - we'll withold his name to protect his reputation!

Assuming we survive tonight's festivities, tomorrow night (Saturday 30th) we will be the "warm up" act for the massive Midnight Walk in aid of the East Cheshire Hospice! We did this last year, and it was great fun, even if it was difficult to persuade some people to strut their stuff just before they embarked on a 10km walk in the middle of the night! This is a fantastic cause, as I'm sure many of our readers know - the Hospice needs more than £6000 a day just to keep going, and less than a quarter of this comes from Government funding, so the rest has to be raised through fundraising, donations etc., and the Midnight Walk is the biggest event of the year. If you are one of the 600+ folks that have registered for the walk, come and give us a shout, and don't be afraid to stretch those muscles - you know it's good for you! We'll be on stage around 10:30pm, and will be attempting to whip folks into a frenzy in time for big start at midnight!

Next weekend, we are playing at a wedding on Friday and a Private Party on Saturday, so I guess we'll need to be on our best behaviour - fat chance of that!

SHE'S ELIZABETH THE SECOND AND SHE'S HAVING A JUBILEE - JUBILEEEE, JUBILEEE!!!

It's been pretty quiet on the D&C front for a couple of weeks - ever since Injector Pete's party, in fact! One reason may be that we're still all recovering, but more likelyh is that holidays, Jubilees and other such stuff has just got in the way!

Pete's party was brilliant - a positive festival of good music and bad dress! The theme was "Leather & Lace" and, while some of us went for the subdued "I'll just wear a leather tie" approach, others (notably the Birthday Boy!) went for the whole Village People, lock up your daughters (or more likely, your sons!) approach - see photographic evidence below!








Anyway, back to the music - Pete wanted all his musical influences to be there, so the fantastic Kontaani Djembe Drum Band kicked off proceedings - I'd forgotten how many of them there were, and they don't half make a loud (and good) noise! There then followed one of then high spots of the evening - the "SooperGroop" featuring most of D&C supplemented by musicians fromn Pete's other bands - Bobby Rocket and Dr Mick from the Injectors and Tim from Voodoo Juice. We'd "practised" a number of tunes a couple fo times, and these were unleashed on the ususpecting punters - in no particular order "Running Down a Dream",- "Rock the Casbah", "Never Lookin' Back", "Teenage Kicks" and a suprisingly tight version of "Moves Like Jagger". All seemed to be well received, and I think it will be a race between D&C and the Injectors to see who can put what in their sets permanently! Pete did  a few numbers with the Injectors, and then we applied the coup de grace to the evening's proceedings. A great night was had by all - and there were a few sore heads the following morning!

So, as 2 of our number are off on hols for a couple of weeks, the quiet period continues - however, we are back in harness at the end of June with a double header weekend! Friday 29 June takes us back the The Windmill in Whiteley Green for our 6 monthly dose of aiding the digestion of those that have eaten, and we hope to see our favourite astrophysicist throwing some shapes, as he always seems to do there (more of that in a future blog!). Saturday 30 June will see us at Macclesfield Leisure Centre warming up the participants in the East Cheshire Hospice Midnight Walk, as we did last year. This is a great event for a very worthwhile cause (who could resist a 10km walk round the streets of Macclesfield in the middle of the night?!) so, if you haven't already registered why not do it now - via the ECH webite (just click on the Fundraising tab when you get there, and you'll see the Midnight Walk link)?

Until then - enjoy yourselves, and don't have too many nightmares about Cheryl Cole's performance at the Jubilee bash!!

HOT, HOT, HOT - TO THE POWER OF 2!

What a weekend! For the first time in a long while, we did a "double header" to round off the Grand Pub Spring Tour; Friday night saw our debut at The Wharf while, on Saturday, we returned to The Old Ship Inn. We were hoping for a warm welcome at both venues - and we certainly got that!

The Wharf was taken over by Chris about a year ago, and it has taken us this long to get on stage there because Chris is a little nervous about the noise levels and the neighbours - so we provided a high level of reassurance for him, without having a high level of confidence that we would be able to match that reassurance! The first set started early (8:30), so that we could be done by 11:00 - this obviously fooled some people (despite our pre-publicity), because Pete Banks (Papparazzi Pete, to our regular readers!) arrived at 9:00pm and was bemused to find we were in the middle of "Paint It Black" - our fifth song! We did play a somewhat "mellow" first set, much to the consternation of Andy & Chrissie, who were complaining that they couldn't hear anything; so, we decided to surreptitiously "tweak" the volume for the second set and hope that Chris either a) didn't notice or b) didn't say anything! As it happened, the second set exploded! The pub was full, everyone was up and bouncing around, we finished spot on 11:00pm and nobody complained about the noise - all in all, a brilliant night!!

One thing that is worthy of mention is the great job that Chris has done in having the pub double up as a sauna - the temperature by the end must have been around 40 deg C (and that was without any obvious signs of additional heating)! There are a a set of mirrors on the wall behind where the band plays, and these were all running with rivers of condensation, coats that were hanging up were wetter than if they'd been left outside, and Paul's shirt was the focus of many hurtful and unnecessary comments about its resemblance to a used bath-towel!! However, all the heat and sweatiness actually added to the night, and it felt like a good old Chicago "speakeasy" by the time we were done! Hopefully, we'll be back soon.

Following this warm experience, we approached Saturday evening with some trepidation! The Ship is known for its hospitality, and part of this reputation is based on the 2 welcoming coal fires that blaze in hearths at opposite ends of the bar - whatever the time of year, time of day, or temperature outside! Having been broiled within an inch of our lives the previous night, we weren't sure we could survive the dehydrating effects of 3+ hours in that sort of environment! Sure enough, we pitched up at 8:00pm, to set up, to find that The Ship's version of the twisted Firestarter had indeed been in action! We worked up a fair sweat just assembling the gear and when 9:00pm came around, and the pub had filled up a bit, it was blindingly obvious that some serious fluid replacement therapy would be in order - in the spirit of water conservation (even though it was pi**ing down outside) we decided that pints of Storm Brewing's finest ales would be the best means of achieving this!

We put a few different numbers in the set from Friday night, and they seemed to do the job - there was an additional, unplanned, variation to the set when we had to embark on a Shadows version of "My Generation", as Paul forgot the words! Now, this song only has about 20 words in total (one of which is "Ba" as Matt so helpfully pointed out!), so it really does take some doing to forget about 18 of them - especially when we've only performed it about 200 times! Anyway, nobody died, and I'd like to think the audience appreciate these occasional divergences!

A big thanks to everyone who turned up for the gigs, and a SPECIAL mention to those who came to BOTH gigs! We do appreciate it immensely, and it is quite humbling to see people turn out time and time again - we love what we do, and we hope we give you just a little bit of enjoyment - after all, if you can't have fun, what's the point?!

So, our Spring Tour is complete - next gig is a Private Party for Injector Pete's 50th (oops, said I wouldn't mention that!) and, before that, we shall be enjoying the delights of the Macclesfield Beer Festival - hope to see some of you there!

FRIDAY THE 13th - PART ONE and WHAT, NO BEER FESTIVAL?!

Easter came and went pretty damn quickly - as did the Summer and Winter (if that's what that very hot week, followed by the very cold and snowy week were!). However, the calendar suggests that we are still in April, which means that we are VERY busy!

The 2nd Leg of our Spring Pub Tour hits Porter's on Roe Street in Macclesfield this Friday the 13th!! A quick perusal of my encyclopaedia of gig dates reveals that the last time we played there was March 2011, so we are long overdue to give Michelle & John's patrons another dose! As ever, we'll be kicking off around 9pm, so don't worry about anything bad happening (as if anything could!) - just get there, and start your weekend with a bang! Possibly 3 new numbers in the set as well!

Next Thursday sees us playing at a wedding in Prestbury (yes Thursday!), and then we're back on the Pub Tour the following weekend - consecutive nights at The Wharf on Brook Street on Friday 27th followed by our return to The Old Ship Inn on Beech Lane the following evening. We'll be kicking off a little earlier at The Wharf (so the neighbours can get their beauty sleep!), so be there around 8:30, but Saturday night at the Ship will probabgly see the normal mayhem through to the early hours!

Apart from that, not much to report - Dave's been on holiday, but don't suppose we can class that as news, and we're all getting ready for the Beer Festival in May - about which a little explanation is needed! We're starting to lose count of the number of questions we've had along the lines of "Are you playing the Beer Fest this year? You're not - why not??". I've even had people say "Well if you're not playing, we're not going!" So let me clarify things a bit; as many of you will know, we have been privileged to play the best gig in town for the last 6 years - from the dark days of 2006, when we supported the Glass Onion Band from Ireland,( and Frank had to go to the loo about a minute before we were due to start!), through sharing the bill with the Screaming Beavers in 2008 and 2009 (and remembering to wear dark glasses to protect our eyes from their flashy suits!) to playing with Monkey Harris in 2009/10. When we were asked about playing this year (yes, we were asked!) we felt that 6 years was a good run (nobody else has ever done more than 3 in a row), and we wanted to enjoy the event for itself, and give someone else a chance! Believe me, there are moments when we regret that decision - probably every time we mention it to each other actually, and a return next year has already been mooted so, who knows - but all that is a long way away!

So this year, we will be on the floor of the house (probably literally!), along with the rest of the punters, and would urge as many of you as possible to get along and "drink for charity" cos it's all in a good cause! Monkey Harris are on again, along with our stablemates from the Storm Brewing Company, The Chinese Marbles - so get down and give them a cheer - not too loud, mind, we're very sensitive!