Mickeyboro

Graham Parker and the Rumour, Nick Lowe and Jona Lewie in tribute show for Bob Andrews. Putney Half Moon. Haven’t seen Parker in 45 years. Now the Rumour were a band...

Pretty sure its killed the thread too! 😂 Maybe we all fear being described thus…

I think in non-club/pub venues people like to show appreciation and identify with the band. Important if you have a lineup like ours thats ever changing.

If your guitars are as old as that joke, I’m quids in! 🎸

And your address is?😉

If a little limiting…

I have been advised not to discuss the guitarist’s extensive collection for fear of burglary😮

Don’t forget (John) Burke Shelley!

Mine is Mick St Michael, a pseudonym I invented in 1984 when editing a short lived music paper, Soundcheck. It inflated the number of writers under my control! Alvin Stardust once bought me a coffee. Amazingly, that was what appeared on his Mastercard rather than Bernard Jewry…

You mean you’re not really Dan Dare? 🚀😮

Have you ever been in a band with someone so publicity-shy they don’t even want to be introduced to the audience? Asking for an anonymous friend…😁

The man bought a CD from me despite my ineptitude in giving him the wrong PayPal address. Efficient and courteous, recommended!

My feelings, Ted. 👍

Suffice to say, my friend, that I inherited the ‘spokesman’ mantle from a frontman, now departed the band, who was hopeless at communicating. Awkward silences between numbers don’t do anything for me, so I blundered in. I have now been informed by one band member that I should let the music do the talking, and that ‘bigging up’ band members is ‘cringy’. My immediate reaction is to ask the others with mics to take a share of creating the stage act. I am what I am, but if you get a third of me rather than the full Monty then maybe it will be more acceptable.

Another first rate transaction with a first rate Basschatter! 🙏

How important/divisive/controversial is stage patter to your band? Do those without microphones comment on those with? Do you share the duties or is it solely the frontperson? Have any disputes resulted from comments made? Were/how were they resolved? I seem to have inherited the between-song duties for my band, but I suspect trouble is brewing…. 😈 Need perspective. Thanks

We encored with Mustang (our soundcheck only number) on Friday. Audience loved it. I put it down to the added organ…somehow legitimises it

Our twice yearly date at the Ringwood Meeting House. They’ve been hugely supportive of the Otis Jay Blues Band for the last three years and we have rewarded them with four different line-ups in the past four visits! Cecilia our new singer went down a storm with 53 paying customers - a reasonable haul and very appreciative. Rig: Sandberg VM4, GK MB200, BF One10, Clarks leather shoes.

Thanks! Sad that the feeble current Ali-led UB40 does so few of the political songs. The first two albums (ie pre covers) had a real bite to them you just don’t hear these days. Seeing them with the Pretenders made a big impact on the young would-be bassist me.

Agree with you, and the current line up is diabolical, but UB40 in their prime (a different matter) probably turned a lot of people on to the real thing. I am one of them.