6th November 2006

So I'm off to Australia today, and I can't wait to visit this beautiful country once again. It was a great pleasure to tour there in 2002 and I'm hoping to meet all the friends I made 4 years ago. Some of my most favourite gigs occurred during The Wintersun festival, especially the night in the small bar for the rockabilly crowd, I still rate that as one of the best gigs ever. Brilliant audiences, with a real passion for the music.

Thanks to everyone that turned up on Saturday for the benefit night for little Amy. About £2,500 was raised. Bill Guntrip is a legend for organising it all. Much as the night was tinged with sadness that such a beautiful little girl has been struck down with such a horrible illness, many will take heart from her bravery. She was a complete star all night and handled everything with a maturity beyond her years. We'll all be praying that she'll make a speedy recovery so she can go off to the States and swim with a few dolphins.

The new Enforcers CD - A Monochrome Dream - should be out just before Christmas. Its been re-mixed and I'm putting the final touches to the artwork.

You may have noticed that our Adam has just been endorsed by Innovation Strings. This is great news and we're all very proud of him.

I'll be back in two weeks with some more news.

6th October 2006

It's all changed around here. New songs added, photos galore, and a funky new home page picture. The three new songs from the forthcoming Enforcers CD are just a taster. But I've quite enjoyed working on all this for the past few days. So I'll make more effort in the future to keep things up to date.

More work has come in with Slim Jim, and it looks as if we will be touring Japan and Australia in November this year. Obviously a few Enforcer gigs have had to be cancelled, and my sincere thanks to Paul Barrett, The BAWA in Bristol, and the Thorngate Hall (Aidy & Chris) for being so helpful and good about it all.

Everything over at the Embassy Studio has been going well. Plenty of work going on, loads of bands to record. This brings me to a new venture that will be happening soon. Clive Duffin and myself are going to start up a new record label. The idea is to record up and coming bands that are doing something different with Rockabilly. The whole music and scene so desperately needs to be injected with some kind of youthful enthusiasm, and what better way than to record and release young bands that are trying to do just that. I already have a couple of bands in mind, and we will hopefully start work on this very, very soon. More info as and when it happens.

I've been busy designing artwork all week for a few more Foot Tapping releases. The Borderlines CD is ready to go, as is the Sean Foy CD. Both are excellent CDs and are well worth investigating. All enquires to Foot Tapping Records and I'm sure they will be very pleased to hear from you.

I reckon a good few of you out there got a good laugh from the last news bit, judging by the emails I got. I must admit, I really only write these things to have a good laugh myself. That's how seriously I take what I do! You gotta have a laugh... Mind you, I believe every word of it.

Let me know what you think of all the changes on here. If you don't like it then please don't bother. I only want to be told how wonderful I am, as I'm such a delicate little flower and I desperately need to be loved by everybody, at all times, every day of the year. I'm thinking of going on one of those reality TV shows because I need to act really outrageously, making a complete fool of and totally degrading myself and my entire family in order to achieve the deserved fame that has so far alluded me. And not through any fault of my own, if you must know. It's just that the world hasn't been ready for someone like me until now. There's a whole load of TV people just crying out for complete pricks like me to make fools of ourselves. I might even get into the Sunday supplements for getting out of a taxi in a really small skirt. I can ring up newspapers and tell them all about the footballers I've slept with. I can go on such a meaningful show as Big Brother just so the whole country can benefit from my talents. Then I can be famous for doing absolutely nothing. I can forgo the hassle of spending years and years and years of trying to be good at something by just making myself look like a right twat on TV for a few weeks. I can handle that.

People have often asked me why I've never gone in for something like Stars In Your Eyes, or The X Factor. Well, you have to be good at something to do that (well, not on the X Factor, I'll give you that). But why bother? That sounds like hard work to me these days. If only we had Big Brother when I was 18 years old. I'd have saved thousands of pounds by not buying all that useless musical equipment. Instead of staying in all the time practicing the guitar for all those years, all I would've needed to do was go down the pub and get pissed every night, as that's all the experience you need these days to be a 'media personality'. Besides, computers make all the music these days. Nobody actually sings anymore, as that's seen as rather passe (as they say in the Latin quarters). In fact, I'm led to believe that there isn't one real musical note plucked or sang by a human on any of the current Top 100 chart songs in this country at this moment in time. It's all done by those robots that used to make the cars at the Rover factory that went bust in the Midlands recently. That's absolutely true, that is.

When we recorded The Sweet Georgia Brown Sessions CD, Mick Wigfall (my old bass player) recorded the whole thing onto computer. It was the first time I'd done a whole CD like this, and it was a very quick and easy process. Very pleasant, actually. That was a few years ago and technology has moved on since then. When Slim Jim and I recorded Kat Men in LA earlier this year, I was amazed at how far everything had moved on with the recording process. All I needed to do was strum one chord and the computer automatically worked out how I would have played all the solos, and just put them in for me. I was asked to recite a small poem into the mic and then sing Humpty Dumpty and the computer accurately copied my voice to sing every song. Jim didn't even have to walk through the door, as the engineer simply sampled his heart beat and the computer used this as the basis of all the drum sounds. Quite incredible when you think about it.

21 August 2006

The new CD - CRAZY WITH LOVE - is now available for sale via Foot Tapping Records website or from us at the gigs. A new Enforcers CD has also been recorded, and will be released within the next month or so. The tracks are - PATCH IT UP, GONNA GET BACK HOME SOMEHOW, WASTING MY TIME, BUT SHE'S NOT YOU, THE RED & WHITE ARMY, BABY TAKE ME BACK, I'M ON FIRE, THIS IS THE NIGHT, ONE WAY TRACK, THE EP EXPRESS, LONESOME TEARS IN MY EYES, NO TEENAGERS ALLOWED.

Much as I joke about a Greatest Hits package, it has been on my mind to re-record some of our more popular club tracks and put them all on one CD. Songs like High Class Baby, Fancy Dan, Burning Love, etc. I want to get 12 Enforcer faves together to re-record, so any suggestions stick them on the guest book.

The idea of an acoustic CD is very tempting as well. It seems to be a very popular idea with bands these days, and I think we'll get around to it soonish.

I've had a lot of enquiries recently about the Ghost Of Love CD that I released with Julie Mundy on our short-lived Hunka Burnin' record label. We pressed 1000 copies and sold them over a period of about three years until we had no more, and we never repressed. This was with no promotion, and all were sold mainly on our gigs. Not one of our more popular CDs with the dancers, or anyone for that matter, this recent explosion of interest has naturally surprised me. I've decided to re-record the whole CD again with Les and Adam, repackage the CD with more up to date artwork - I've been using the same publicity pictures for about 10 years now, mainly because bathing in the blood of virgins on a daily basis has made it impossible to age a day in the last decade. However, and this is very much a sign of the times, its almost impossible to find a virgin in Edgware these days so I've decided to switch to botox in future. However, new publicity photos of my new improved permanently grinning face needs to be taken for the next 10 years worth of CD covers.
So, Ghost Of Love will get a face-lift as well, and should be ready before the year is out. If I wasn't so bloody lazy I would just go out and write 12 more songs and be done with it. But I can't be arsed. Also, I always thought that Ghost was a good CD but was badly recorded. Much of it was recorded at home on my four track recording machine, and much as I tried to tart it up in Sweet Georgia Browns studio you really can't polish a turd. You can make it smell a bit better if you've got a good diet, though...
For those that think this is a pointless and shameful example of flogging a dead horse - you're absolutely right. Couldn't agree more.

Another tour is about to get underway with the wonderfully apportioned Slim Jim Phantom in September. For three weeks we'll be bopping our way around Europe. Nick Drugstore, from The Drugstore Cowboys will be on bass. He's a terrific player and so we'll be looking forward to working with him. Dates are on the gig guide.

Not sure what's happening with the Kat Men CD, but it's a safe bet that it'll be released on a label in Europe later this year or early next year. Hopefully this will see the start of world domination. I've already decided that fame will change me considerably. None of this 'money or huge fame don't mean a thing to me' or 'I'll keep my feet on the ground' shite. I'll be more obnoxious than ever, if that's at all possible. And I might even venture into pretentiousness as well. I've always wanted to change the world with the lyrics of my songs, anyway. I've always believed that when I write songs I get help from the spirits of dead legends like Bono, Donny Osmond, the guy that won X Factor, etc. Little fairies dance on the end of my pen, singing little melodies for me to put lyrics to. I'll be coming out with all this crap and more, don't you worry.
I'll also have a huge entourage as well. There'll be somebody to carry my guitars, someone else to carry my gold-plated picks, and someone to carry me. I'll have a number of people employed solely for the purpose of telling me how wonderful I am. There will be an army of baggage handlers to take care of the obscene amount of luggage I'll have on tour, but I'll never actually use any of it as I'll just buy new clothes when I get to my destination or I'll just ponce freebies from all those chinless fashion designers.
I'll make unreasonable demands to promoters. I won't gig unless the moon in Jupiter is in line with the planets that govern my star sign. I'll demand 27 crates of John Smith on every gig, but the cans must have my name carved on the tin using a specially designed font that hasn't been invented yet. I must have the entire fourth floor of every hotel I stay in for myself, and all the windows must be blacked out using empty packets of Walkers smoky bacon crisps.
I will buy Sunderland AFC and appoint myself Chairman/Manager/Goalkeeper plus I will insist on singing at half-time at every home game.
Of course, all of this is highly unlikely.

See you at the gigs, and thanks for your support. On behalf of Les and Adam, it's much appreciated.

7th July 2006

The new solo CD - entitled CRAZY WITH LOVE - has been sent away for pressing, and should be available for sale via Foot Tapping Records website in the next week or so. The tracks have already been mentioned on here, so I won't bore you with it again, but suffice to say I think this will get us back on top of the hit parade again in Afganistan. It's got 'classic' written all over it... It's going to be regarded as my 'White Album'...

I've been thinking of recording my Memorial LP early. I just think it'll be cool to have a signed copy of that for future eBayers to enjoy and mull over. A 'Greatest Hits' package has been postponed until we have some.

Embassy Studio is ticking along just nicely. The Itchy Feet Trio were in this week recording a blistering set of mad Rockin' toons. Rudy La Crioux have all been in to do their next CD, and they were quite wonderful. A great bunch of lads to boot. Colin Evans has finished his latest at the Embassy, and as mentioned on here before, it's a superb set of self-penned songs.

I'll be off in September to do another three weeks worth of touring with the stunningingly slender, Slim Jim Phantom. Our Kat Men CD is likely to be released in Germany on another label, Rodrec Records, and super-mega-unbelievable stardom beckons again. But I don't just do this for the money and fame, you know. I ONLY do it for the money and fame. But that's me all over - a warm, and sincere human being.

I've also been recording a new Enforcers CD with Adam and Les. It's been awhile since we did one of those - Urban Jamboree, and that was 27 years ago. I think this will be the greatest CD ever released in the history of recorded music, but I'm far too humble to mention it, in my humble opinion. So far we've recorded such Enforcer classics as PATCH IT UP, TREAT ME NICE, CHOPPIN' N CHANGIN', ROCK 'N' ROLL GUITAR, WASTING MY TIME, I'M ON FIRE, THE WORRYING KIND, WOULD YOU, BLUE JEANS & A BOYS SHIRT, GONNA GET BACK HOME SOMEHOW, THIS IS THE NIGHT, and four originals - THE RED & WHITE ARMY (and what is that all about, then?), ALL IN GOOD TIME, BUT SHE'S NOT YOU, and A WOMAN LIKE YOU (written by my wife, Imelda).

So that's something to look forward to, isn't it?

30th May 2006

More bits and pieces are being added to the site as and when I get time. I've put two new songs on the jukebox thingy - Temptation and Ah, Pretty Girl - that will be on the new CD. Also, I'll add pictures of guitars and amps and stuff on the gear page soon, and some new pics of the Embassy Studio as well.

The DVD that was recorded at Banbury last year will not be released. The company that recorded the show did a pretty awful job, and it's just not good enough for release. We feel very bad about this and apologise to everyone that has been asking us about it. Unfortunately, we couldn't say anything until we saw the finished article. We were kept waiting for ages, and when we finally saw it we knew it wasn't going to happen. We're trying to sort something out with another film company to record a gig later in the year.

The new Johnny Bach CD will be released on Foot Tapping records next month, and it's a rockabilly corker. Johnny Boy has come up with the goods again, and we feel it's as good as the first 10" LP we recorded 10 years ago (was it really that long?!). So it's taken us a decade to come up with another good CD...

I heard a cracking CD by the Ramshackle Daddies the other day. Really enjoyed that. Kept me proper entertained on my journey back from Norwich on Sunday.

I believe that Lee Gocher, Fever - who I'm really looking forward to hearing - and Carlos Mejuto will be in the Embassy soon to record new CDs for Foot Tapping. We're just finishing off a new CD for Colin Evans, and it's fantastic. Again, Colin has written every song and there are some terrific tunes on here. The Sean Foy CD will be released soon. He's a Dublin lad, a huge Cochran fan - which works for me - and is a top singer/geetarist. He's picked 13 stonking Rockabilly tracks, and all in all, it's a stonking CD. Well worth investing in when it gets released.

There will be another Slim Jim Phantom tour at the end of August. I'll put the dates on the gig guide when it's all been finalised. And there's talk of the Kat Men CD getting a pretty big label interest in Germany. Mind you, they like David Hasslehoff over there...

14th May 2006

Hope you like all like the new look website - again. This new super-dooper look comes courtesy of my old school chum, Rob Amos. When we were very, very young, we used to sit and listen to Elvis records and marvel at how skinny the King was when he was young! Funny the things you remember sometimes...

Rob has done a terrific job, and he's currently putting a website together for Embassy Studio - Oh yes, the studio has a name!

The Slim Jim tour was great fun. Thanks to all of you that came to the shows or bought the Kat Men CD. I've been really pleased with the reaction to the CD, especially as it was the first to feature some of my own songs for quite sometime. Since Ghost Of Love, I think. Jim is a terrific guy, a drummer of the highest quality, and wears a drape with great style. He's also very slowly becoming a fanatical Sunderland fan, although he doesn't realise it just yet. But he has been very sympathetic this season... Enough about football.

Huey Moor, our bass player on this tour, was wonderful. You all know him from The Ragtime Wranglers, and he has a CD out with this fabulous band, that also features the most superb Joe Six-Pack on geetar. It's a great instrumental CD called Groove A Tune. Visit their website www.ragtimewranglers.nl for more information.

It's going to be an expensive time if you're into collecting our records. There's a whole bumper of top hepcat-boppin'-sloppin'-desperate-cool-50s bop nonsense on it's way to you. Firstly, I've got another solo effort about to be released on Foot Tapping. I haven't managed to bribe Steve 'n' Shaz into finding a title just yet, but here's the track listing:
1/ TEMPTATION - Duet with the wife.
2/ AH, PRETTY GIRL - Another nod to the Cochran fella. Mind you, I nodded so much to him I'm surprised my head hasn't fallen off.
3/ CRAZY WITH LOVE - The Guy Mitchell track. The fella that used to host that holiday programme in the 70's. I think. I could be wrong...
4/ FEELIN' LOW - Ernie Chaffin Sun track.
5/ TENNESSEE STUD - My favourite Eddy Arnold song. I copied his version.
6/ DOWN THE LINE - My favourite Huddy Bolly track, at the moment.
7/ CORNER DATE - Don Feger original, I think. Where's Neil Scott when you need him?!!
8/ KINGSTON TOWN - Originally recorded on the Mercury label in 1956 by UB40. I was tempted by retitle it Kentish Town.... And I nearly did.
9/ ANYPLACE IS PARADISE - Listen to Higham make a fool of himself as he murders ANOTHER king song.
10/ CRAZY - A ballad.
11/ NEVER MIND - A solo effort just wouldn't work without another Sir Cliff cover. I just gotta get over that High Class Baby crap... He didn't like that song either.
12/ GONNA BACK UP BABY - I recorded this instead of covering Edgware in more 'Gene Vincent Is God' graffiti.
13/ BUTTERFINGERS - Another ballad. A Tommy Steele one this time.
14/ LOVE IS MY BUSINESS - A Cliff Gleaves track. Unusual in that it's the first time I let someone else take over the lead guitar on one of my records - Big Boy Bloater! This absolute giant amongst giants was helping out in the Embassy for the day, and I paid him a staggeringly obscene amount of cash in order to pry the fez out of his hands in order for him to contribute some stinging geetar riffs on this pleasant enough jiving ditty. He's a marvellous chap.

Also, a new Johnny Bach & The Moonshine boozers CD has been recorded. Now I'm not one to brag, but this is just a terrific record. OK, I will brag. It's Rockabilly of the very highest quality from the Welsh wonder himself - John Lewis. Roger Van Niekerk is supplying all the great drumming sounds, and I'm slappin' away like an out of tune knob, but the guitar is OK. Even if I do say so myself. Watch out for this on Foot Tapping very, very soon.

Who's been at The Embassy lately, creating wonderful R&R for all you jive bunnies out there? I hear you ask... Well, Bernie Woods & The Forest Fires, Pete Hutton & The Heartbreakers, my old mate Colin Evans, and Dublin's Eddie Cochran, Sean Foy. All these lovely chaps decided that they couldn't live another day unless they made their way into the legendary Embassy Studio in order to record some top Rockin' for all you lovely people.

And a new Enforcers CD will be recorded next weekend, I'm going to start the instrumental CD soon (I promise), and a duet CD with my beautiful wife, Imelda.

Thanks again for all your support. I really hope you like the new site.

16th February 2006

Hope you all like the new look website - and there was me getting depressed and thinking of chucking it in....
It may not look as professional as some sites you'll see here in cyberspace, but I'm able to put on the songs and photos I like, and I quite enjoy messing around with it. I'm getting it to look how I want, and I'll be able to update songs and pictures as and when they come in. The site is now more managable for me, is basically what I'm saying in a very long-winded way...

Loads of things have been happening - the new recording studio is all ready and two bands have already been in; Bernie Woods and The Roughcuts. Both have recorded terrific CDs, and they will be released on Foot Tapping very shortly.

I've recorded two new CDs this year already - one with Slim Jim Phantom, recorded in Sherman Oaks, LA, Calif. at RedRum Studio. This studio is owned and run by Guns n Roses guitarist, Gilby Clarke, and he did a magic job of producing and mixing this CD. Don't fret, it's not gonna sound like a heavy metal record... Daft sod. I wrote 6 songs for this, and I'm mighty happy with the end results.

The second CD was also recorded in LA, the weekend after the Slim Jim recording. This was recorded at my good friend Reb Kennedys' house in Glendale, Calif. I have Omar & The String Poppers backing me -well, Omar on acoustic guitar (and he sings two songs as well), Iggy on bass, but Angel the drummer works with The High Strung Ramblers. It's a pretty raw Rockabilly effort from me, and was all recorded live in Rebs' garage. This will be released on Wild Records and will only be available from their website, and I'll give out the details as and when this is likely to come out but I doubt it will be in the very near future.

I got to jam with one of my favourite singers whilst gigging in the states as well on this visit - the very wonderful Big Sandy. I've been a huge fan for an awful long time now, and so it was a real pleasure when he joined me onstage for a rather inpromptu version of Hold Me. A terrific memory.

So, loads of things already happening - I'm also starting a new covers CD for Foot Tapping this week, and this'll be very much in the same vein as The Sweet Georgia Brown Sessions and Midnight Commotion CDs.

See you out and about.

14th SEPTEMBER 2005

The Slim Jim Phantom tour was a great experience, and I'd like to thank everyone that came out to the shows and supported us throughout.

At the moment, I'm busy building my new recording studio with my old mucker, Mick Wigfall. This studio will be run be myself and Colin and Clive Duffin from Foot Tapping Records. We hope it'll be up and running within the next month, or six weeks. This will be a new opportunity to carry on working with other musicians, and to record some more decent studio CDs.

We will be recording a DVD at Banbury Rock 'n' Roll club on November 12th. This promises to be a very professional affair with no less than 5 cameramen filming the evening. There will also be an interview and perhaps a couple of 'Pop Video' type-things added as bonuses. We certainly hope that as many of you as possible will be there, as it'd be a really special night and we'd like to see you all jiving away in the background in order to be captured for posterity on film! The finished product will be available directly from Foot Tapping records within a week or so after the actual gig...

This website will be totally revamped in the next few months, and a new concept will be added. As soon as it's up and running, we will be selling individual tracks that will not be added to future CDs directly from this site as MP3s. I hope to have between 10 - 15 new tracks ready in this format for the new site as soon as it can be put online. I will also slim down the site to make it more easy to navigate and many new, more recent photos will be added.

As from next year we will be doing less club gigs here in the UK, but the touring schedule throughout Europe will increase. Apart from the mainly Saturday night R&R gigs, we will do the odd weekender. The Shake Rattle & Rock in March 2006, and most probably The Wildest Cats In Town weekender are penciled in. We've been asked to back Carl Perkins son, Stan for the Shake Rattle and Rock and also to once again work with my good friend Rocky Burnette for the Wildest Cats weekend, and so it's only logical to perform our own sets on both weekenders. We couldn't possibly turn down the opportunity to work with two such artists, and so we're not going to...

That's about all the news so far.