Guitars and Life

From good old FlatEric ... Who remembers the Bells catalogue ? As a kid I used to send off for these and wear them out thumbing through them :-) Page 24 - look at the bottom right hand corner - that was the first electric guitar I ever owned! My Mum and Dad helped me buy it when I was 12. Les Paul gold top deluxe for £239 anyone!! Or a Black Custom - like mine at the top of the picture here... yours for £389!!! Although you had to pay £18.90 for a hard case! Memories!

Well I throughly enjoyed the Lamb & Flag gig yesterday. We (that is Mrs F, Daughter-of-Furtheron and I) made our way up to London on the train and met up with my brother, his wife and daughter for a meal before heading to the venue. By the end of the meal I was into the usual pre-gig nerves which I think Mrs F could easily spot - I had been talking with my brother about the Grand Prix and other stuff but slowly started to shut down. This is my way a bit before any gig - I get to the point of wanting to a) get to the venue to check all is ok b) get on stage and get it over with! Funny isn't it I really want to play live to get my stuff heard by people and I do genuinely enjoy it once I'm playing but before hand that day all the "Why on earth did I agree to this?", "It'll be crap", "I'll be booed off" etc. thoughts can't help but invade the brain. I've read several autobiographies of other performers who have similar issues, od...

I'm still in decorating mode... we have a big open plan house so once you start in the dining room you have to continue into the lounge, then the stairwell then the upstairs landing... you get the picture in the end you've pretty much decorated the majority of the house! Well you've painted at least one side of every single door in the place! Anyway the end is in sight, I've only the paper to hang on the landing now and then next week a friend is coming to do the stairwell - I haven't the right ladders etc. to hang wallpaper in a stairwell - plus Mrs F didn't trust me up a ladder with my vertigo :-) Anyway - as a diversion I'm playing a 30 min acoustic set (all original material!) at the Lamb and Flag 24 James Street. It is just north of Oxford Street very close to Bond Street tube station. If you are at a loss or in the area come along - it kicks off about 7:30 and I'm on sometime between 8 and 9 I believe.

Last night I went to Folkestone to see Joe Bonamassa. I went with my brother, it's been years since we went to a gig together but it was just like the old days when as teenagers we went to loads together and met a couple of friends in the queue just before the doors open. Mr Bonamassa admitted he'd never heard of Folkestone and was confused by the venue. The Leas Cliff Hall is built, as its name implies, on a cliff overlooking the channel - on a clear day you can see to France from the roof. Now since it is built on a cliff you enter at the roof of the building and there is a little building above ground as you approach the top of the cliff... see the photo below. So Joe was looking at this little building thinking "And you are going to get 1500 people in that !". To the gig - no support and Joe hit the stage just before 8pm and left just after 10pm. 2 solid hours with now breaks, he hardly spoke at all between numbers so in terms of value for money cannot be fa...

In the middle of a bit of a gig fest at the moment... 3 gigs in 4 days! I finish off with Joe Bonamassa at Folkestone tonight but here are my reviews of the first two... Supertramp - The O2 This was billed at the 70 - 10 All the Hits and More tour. 70 - 10? For those that don't know Supertramp formed in 1970 so this year is their 40th anniversary. It has been some years since they toured and to be frank I thought that Rick Davies had had enough and was happy to put his feet up in retirement living out his days in the USA. Luckily not... some context... Supertramp were a hugely important band for me, in 1974 I heard Dreamer on the radio and was like - who/what was that? They were one of the first bands I discovered for myself and got into rather than others leading me to them if you see what I mean. Crime of the Century was a stunning album I thought, and still do. The opening harmonica of School through to the dying chords of the title track it is just brilliant. However i...

Now if you like modern globe trotting ancient relic hunting thrillers ... this is quiet a good one. The scene is set by the prologue that indicates nearly 2000 years ago a bunch of pretty hard men go through a lot to conceal something in a pretty desolate location, but we don't know what, where or why. Fast forward to the 21st century and an old British stately home owner is being tortured to give some information he doesn't have about something his father is supposed to have been searching for. Thus starts the romp. Three protagonists are chasing the relic (whatever it is), one is a British Museum worker and her policeman ex-husband, the second is a very very nasty man - i.e. the one who tortures our home owner and a USA multi-millionaire. So they shoot off here and there in the world and what they are searching sort of changes as well as you follow more the English couple as they try to catch up and over take the others searching for the relic. Some bits totally unbelievable...