ComEnts

Yes indeedy, Friday night was great. I really like the venue (a boxing gym/hall - the ring was the stage, so nice and elevated and it was just a shame that they couldn’t leave the ring ropes up, I know Mikey was looking forward to doing a Nasim Hamed-esque flip into the ring and I wanted to run through my repertoire of WWF/WWE impressions, especially the Ultimate Warrior's "Rope-shaker"). The sound was great, the crowd was great, the gig in itself was - according to reports - a good 'un. Daily Dose play some clean, fluid, bluesy funk rock - the singer has a great voice for this sort of music - we did everything we could to stay in time and in tune and got some good feedback (from the audience, not just my amp) so I think we can be pleased with it. Into Ashes, the only "metal" band of the night played well, although it was a bit too emo for my tastes: I know there are plenty of people who really dig that stuff, they should do OK for themselves. But the Palestinians (formerly the Pale Skinny Ones, The Palestines, etc.) were on top form and deserved to go on last in front of the large crowd on the big stage. Angsty and full of attitude, driving punk rock guitars and shouty choruses, seems like they are finding their feet on stage (I thought they were a bit subdued at the After Dark, they didn’t really grab it by the external reproductive organs) and will be interesting to see how they develop over the coming months. I like 'em, and not just because they have a song that could - wrongly - be accused of being a novelty tune. You'll have to see them to make up your own mind, I suggest "sooner" rather than "too late!"-er.

Yeah, Mike's comments about my singing ring true. It's a confidence trick, relatively speaking. I'm so confident about playing guitar that I just don't worry about 99% of the classic "worries". So, it's a shock to my system to have to start worrying about things - but having dealt with most of the vocal issues, I'm somewhere close to being relaxed about singing now. I love singing, it's one of the best things anyone can do, ever. To write our own songs and melodies amplifies that pleasure several times, but to give a performance worthy of a paying crowd instead of singing myself hoarse in the shower? Well, I guess that's where the pro's show their mettle - hopefully I'm a lot further down that line than I was 6 months ago. Bottom line? I'm an arrogant fecker and I like rising to challenges more than I like looking bad in front of crowds.