Throwing Stones in Glasshouses

Mr Pickles informed me recently that the average age of the members of Bombskare was 31 point something. Oldest member is Joe who is 43 and youngest is Tom at 22. And if you add all the ages up we’re older than the Rolling Stones. Fascinating, eh?

Not really. I nodded off typing it.  Good gig on Friday at Studio 24 and a welcome guest appearance from Big Andy. Andy left the band four years ago this week I believe, right after we came back from the Mark Foggo tour. He did come back for a one off performance later that year, which was also at Studio 24, a gig famous for the spectacular antics of Mr. Andrew Pandrew Pennycuick, which included getting his lad out, on-stage, jumping off the stage with his lad out and pissing into the till. Marvellous stuff. Some people still come up to me and say they saw us that night and thought we were great. Those people must enjoy watching car crashes or something. I remember I stormed off the stage before the end of the set and quit the band for three full hours before I calmed down, remembering that I had done something similar at the Pleasance (during Hamish Henderson’s wake) earlier that year. Yes indeed, people who live in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.

That’s all ancient history as they say. We’re not a bunch of unprofessional steamers any more. Or something.  We also tried to persuade Big John Ross, our other former frontman to get up too, but he was having none of it.  Anyway, the other night we played a bunch of songs we haven’t played live in years including Dance to Ska, our first single, and Odd Frank which was one of our best loved songs for years. It was good to dust them off. Sam did a terrific job of learning a whole new set of songs with only one rehearsal. As did Big Andy. He is a terrific front man and vocalist. We also threw in a bunch of old covers including Bad Manner’s Lip Up Fatty, which we hadn’t played in five years, in honour of Big Andy who is a well-known lover of pies. In fact that’s why he moved to England because they sell pies on rolls. We also played Your Wondering Now with a lovely boy band ending and concluded with a mammoth Sally Brown/Too Much Pressure medley. I had weird guitar/amplifier trouble, and so my trusty JCM 600 half stack needs to get put into the shop. I broke one string on my Schecter, curse these diabolical hands. Thank you to everyone who came down and made it a great gig. Thanks to Matt and Soo, who were indeed, the men of the hour.

No gigs till next month which feels a bit weird. We'll probably use the time constructively by drinking.  More recording to be done over the next four weeks at Verden. We will be recording guitar and keyboard overdubs over the next week or so and in a fortnight we will record the horns over the weekend. We’ve put twelve tracks down and so far the songs sound terrific thanks to Gav a.k.a DJ Default who is engineering. We’ve done bits of editing and the whole thing is sounding smashing super lovely. Sweeeeeeet!