Abnormal Service Has Been Resumed

Yes, I‘m back, in front of the computer, and in the words of Mark Twain, the rumours of my early demise are greatly exaggerated. Just because I leave town for a bit and have thrown my computer and mobile phone out the window, people assume that I have ran off and joined Hezbollah. Pure nonsense. My commitments to them have been fulfilled ages ago. I have simply been too busy, and also wasted, to think about Ska. Too wasted for Ska?! I know, I know; its crazy talk but what can I say? My father gave me two things before he died; male pattern baldness and a genetic predisposition towards alcohol. Don’t worry, we cremated him. It was the only way to guarantee there was no chance of him coming back as a zombie.

We have had a few gigs since our last update, most notably our big Skalloween show with The Toasters, all the way from Noo Yawk. It was a great success. Thanks to everyone who came down, especially everyone who came in fancy dress and there were plenty of you. Cheers again you nutters. We love you. We have also had a couple of gigs in the North, Inverness and Aviemore which were also good nights. Its our first trip back to Inverness since our gig at the Ironworks. Ah yes, The Ironworks. Fond memories of that place. This time, however, we were back to our old haunt Hootenannies, which was a lot more relaxed, just how we like it. We turn up when we get there, we set up, we play for two hours and everyone’s a winner. We played Aviemore the following day, right after the England v South Africa rugby game. I am always amazed that whenever England play anyone, at any sport at all, everyone in all the pubs across Scotland are rooting for the opponent, even South Africa, traditionally a very unpopular place. Even if England were playing a German side from the 1930’s there would probably be Scottish punters wearing ginger wigs and bunnets, silly wee Hitler moustaches and rooting for the Nazis. As soon as the game finished, with England being gubbed, we kicked off with the usual shenanigans; up-tempo, bombastic pop tunes with a strong emphasis on the off beat. Sounds fucked, I know, but when you hear it, it makes sense.

One other piece of band news is that we have finally disposed of our van. Yes it was emotional at the time, selling it for scrap. We got eighty quid for it as scrap metal. We could have fixed it up and made it road legal again, but it was going to cost too much, and anyway I need another piece of dodgy unreliable machinery like I need a hole in my head. I don’t have a good track record with cars, or vans. Invariably, I always end up with the one cursed car in the entire fleet. Don’t get me started on cars. Anyway our van is history. I was driving past the scrap yard about a fortnight ago and noticed that our van was still sitting in the yard, on death row and un-scrapped. I still had the key for it, and had the idea of breaking into the yard and breaking the van out. We could have drove on to the next scrap yard and I could have got another eighty quid. Not a bad plan actually. We could have went on a spree, across country, scrapping the van repeatedly, collecting the ’reward’ and then breaking her out. Scamming scrappies across the country, a life on the road. Sounds great. It would have ended badly though. Eventually I would have to leave it somewhere, abandoned in the back of beyond. Let’s face it, I don’t think I’d ever get more than eighty quid for it. Tragic but inevitable. Cue the music.

We have pretty much finished recording our album. Some bells and whistles and other bits and pieces. Should be done by crimbo. We are going to try and have a single ready for the end of January, but I‘m tired of predicting deadlines. Every single deadline we have set has been ignored or abandoned. Patience, my lovelies. We have a few more gigs before the end of the year, our last being back up in Inverness. Do we love that place or what? After that its 2008. Where does the time go? It seems like it was only 2006 when we said, ’hey, lets record an album. It’ll be super killer fun!’