Strangefish

Fishy Happenings

My third gig with Strangefish last night. It was a long day…

I started at 7:30am – I had planned to be at the venue at around 10:30 and with a 2 hour journey ahead I needed to be ready.

Freshly showered and breakfasted I set off – only to make much better time than originally planned. Aren’t the motorways dead on a Sunday morning (apart from the mandatory middle lane owner’s club).

My route took me down the M6 Toll… And since I was on the “posh road” I thought I’d call into the country’s most exclusive service area. Only because you have to pay a toll to stop there.

Norton Canes Services. Britain’s most exclusive motorway services.

After a brief stop I carried on to The Robin, arriving there at about 10:15. The organisers and sound guys were already there so I loaded my gear in (my bass amp was being used for all bands).

The rest of the morning was pretty much spent waiting for the rest of the guys to arrive, and since we were partaking of a full soundcheck (our gear was being used by a few bands) we were rather lucky!

The rest of the day was pretty much spent fooling around and socialising, although I did have a walk into Bilston in an attempt to find a sandwich of some variety. I failed. It was closed. All of it.

Mexborough or Bilston? It’s hard to tell. One has trams…
A bit of socialising with the guys

Come 6 o’clock we started getting ready for our performance. That, of course, involved blowing up inflatables (we have a thing about inflatables in this band)

Bob found the golfing supplies…

The gig itself was superb. I’m sure more photos will be coming soon, but for the moment all I have is a few camera phone ones. There were some seriously good cameras in there though.

We take our bows.

Rehearsal the… Oh I don’t know…

I’ve lost count now! But I know we’ve had quite a few. This one was to get ready for the forthcoming gig at The Robin 2 in Bilston.

It was great to get together with the guys again after all the messiness of Christmas and New Year getting in the way. We’re now back at it and chugging on to get both the “back catalogue” gig of Bilston done, plus the Fortune Retelling event in April.

In other news through, sadly, Jo Lene has decided to give up the RS Bar. That means our gig in May is now unlikely to proceed and I’ll need to move it. I wonder if Jump fancy a tie in?

Songwriting with the Fishes

Again, last night we had a songwriting session with Strangefish. The four instument players gathered at Paul’s and we spent a good few hours working on The Power of Good – a rather old idea which has been hanging around for years (before Fortune Telling I’m told).

Of course, first, we had to get Food; so Paul and I hunted around for a chippy (not a Kebab shop, there is a difference) so we could have a chip butty each (or a Barm as he kept insisting it was called – but I think that sounds like something that might bite you).

Eventually we located a chippy after the first one had a queue outside, the second looked well dodgy. The third was a charm. I suspect a 2* health rating door sign might have been hidden away somewhere in the depths of a dirty drawer, but actually, the food was rather good and the peas had the colour of a 1979 Vauxhall Chevette, which surprisingly, is actually a very good thing for mushy peas.

Whilst we had dinner I educated Paul into the fineries of Hendersons Relish, and explained why chips should swim in it. It can’t have been that unsuccessful a trip as the Hendos was left behind as a “souvenir” of my trip.

Dave and Bob arrived shortly and we worked on the new song – currently called “The Power of Good”. The idea has now developed and we have a rather nice thing building up now. Having listened back to the recording from last night I’m now really digging it.

We’re meeting again in a few weeks, after my hectic gig schedule calms down a little. Perhaps then the song will have taken on a little more structure?