Left a good job in the city/Working for The Man every night and day

Friday 24 July - I had a little diversion on the way home from work when I stopped off at my publisher to drop off a sheaf of sticky labels with addresses on. This is for the distribution of those copies of my book that are to be posted out. David, in charge of YPS, kindly gave me a tour of the printing area where I was able to see the innards of my book all printed out and stacked on a couple of wooden pallets. Apparently, they are just waiting for the covers to be laminated and then they can start binding. He expects everything to be ready by the end of next week. I have to say that I'm extremely impressed with the service they've provided so far. It's really getting quite exciting!

Anyway, as per usual, I was out in the evening, meeting 'A' in The Roman Bath for some southern-fried covers courtesy of Travelin' Band. I get very confused about who is in this band, tonight there were six of them, probably: Steve (Crazy Horse) McLeod, Tony (Oscar) Smith, John (The Russian) Mitchell, Paul (Big foot) ???, Steve Kendra, and Mick "Broke-back" Weaver. The band's moniker is a reference to a track by Creedance Clearwater Revival from their 1970 album Cosmo's Factory.

Oscar's singing is a bit flat (like I can sing!) but they play recognisable songs and I think your ears tend to compensate for the odd duff vocal. The guitars were mixed properly this time so I could appreciate the twiddly bits as well as the bass, and the drummer (Big foot) was excellent. I think Oscar is a Stealer fan as he was wearing one of their t-shirts.

With three pints of John Smith's down my neck, I suspect my memory is a tad rusty, but I do remember them playing the following: Bad moon rising, Travelin' Band, Up Around The Bend (Creedance Clearwater Revival), Rocking All Over The World, Proud Mary (John Fogerty), Rocking in the Free World (Neil Young), Gimme three steps, Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry), Old Time Rock and Roll, Hollywood Nights (Bob Seger), Copperhead Road (Steve Earle), Crossroads (Robert Johnson), Battleship Chains (The Georgia Satellites), Call Me the Breeze (JJ Cale), and I Fought The Law (Sonny Curtis).

I rounded the evening off by shouting at four young thugs who were throwing stones at people's windows at 00:30 just around the corner from where I live. Luckily the beer I had consumed provided me with an invisible cloak of invulnerability so I was able to give them a jolly good ticking off and sent them back to the mothers, all without coming to any personal harm. Little blighters!

All your eyes have ever seen, all you've ever heard/Is etched upon my memory, is spoken through my words

Friday 17 July - following last week's brilliant weekend of music, it's back down to earth with a bump. There is just one glimmer of sunshine though, The Blueflies playing at The Roman Bath.

We've seen them before, but no matter, they're a very competent covers band, and apparently very cheap. A York-based three-piece consisting of Miles Gilderdyke on guitar and vocal, Gavin Ewing on bass guitar, and Trevor "Fatha" King on drums and backing vocals, t'Flies are adept at classic rock covers by the likes of Free, Cream and Hendrix.

If they have a fault, its Miles constantly teasing Fatha, poor chap. Anyway, the John Smith's was excellent and we were treated to songs such as: Lieber/Stoller Riot In Cell Block Number Nine, The Kinks You Really Got Me, ZZ Top Gimme All Your Lovin', Hendrix Voodoo Chile and Foxy Lady, Chuck Berry Route 66, Al Green Take Me To The River, Joe Tex Show Me A Man, Free The Hunter, Led Zep Whole Lotta Love, plus many more. Highly recommended.

I've been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel

Friday 10 July - first stop on a weekend of musical treats sees 'A' and I at The Duchess where Chris Helme is headlining. Now, the supporting line up was supposed to be Mark Wynn and Tom Euesden, but unless I had a dodgy pint (highly unlikey), I'm pretty sure that first guy's name was Tim and the second support act was Tom Euesden. Anyway, if I've got it wrong, I'm sorry. The layout was a bit odd for The Duchess. Tables were spread out in front of the stage, with clusters of chairs around them. All a bit 'jazz club'.

All three acts were basically one bloke and his guitar, and the first guy; I'll call him Tim, produced a decent performance and had a nice banter with the audience. His voice was distinct, with plenty of variation, and his guitar playing was great. Tom, (the second guy) was an even better guitar player but his voice was almost monotonal, so I didn't enjoy him so much. Sorry, it was probably just his style of singing.

The main event, of course, was York's own Chris Helme, a tireless supporter of music in the city, former member of The Seahorses, solo performer and currently member of The Yards. Tonight Chris was accompanied by two cellists from the "Yardbirds" which added a richer layer of sound to his performance. As always Chris delivered in spades with superb guitar playing and his best ever vocal form. We were treated to a selection of his own material, some from The Yards, and even a few old Seahorses tracks, including; Rollin', Pure, Fireflies, Hello, Cars, Last High, See the Lights, and Blinded by the Sun. For his encore we had his a cappella, foot-stomping, hand-clapping song which I think is called Be my Wife. This was probably the best and most consistent performance I've ever seen from Chris. I highly recommend that you try and catch him on his current tour.

As per usual, we'd finished early at The Duchess and therefore headed off to The Roman Bath, not actually knowing what to expect this week. It turned out to be Alice in Thunderland, a metal/heavy rock band from the Bridlington/Scarborough area. This was both good news, and bad news. The good news was that their noise drove the York race-goers away, the bad was that it also drove the ladies away. The band played a mixture of original material and covers, including; Highway to Hell (AC/DC), Rock 'n' Roll and Whole Lotta Love (Led Zepplin), Radar Love (Golden Earring), and Bang a Gong (T Rex). Actually, I thought they were rather good.

Saturday 11 July - it's always a highlight for us is when we get to see one of our favourite bands, and so it was a full turn out tonight; The Druid and Debbie, 'A' and Lou, Roy and myself all in The Roman Bath to see Breathing Space. The Bath was the first place that lead singer Livvy ever sang in public (over eleven years ago apparently), and other members of the band also have strong connections to this oasis of music. Hence, we are privileged to watch the band, for free. How great is that!

The line-up of BS has recently undergone a bit of a transformation. Guitarist Mark Rowen has been replaced by Liam Davidson (of Mostly Autumn), and saxophonist John Hart has also left. Tonight Mark was unavailable and The Mostlies send on a substitute in the form of Bryan Josh, their mainman in fact. The result of all this re-shuffling resulted in a much rockier, raw sound.

We were spoilt tonight. They delivered nearly two hours of superb music, including You Still Linger, Belief, Coming Up For Air and Searching For My Shadow. The set also included several new songs from their forthcoming album Below the Radar, including the title track, but the best of which had to be the encore, Questioning Eyes, an epic, soaring track that left us all on an incredible high. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new album.

As we were ejected from The Bath we realised that the heavens had opened above us and rain of biblical proportions was bucketing down. We dashed for the cover of Brown's doorway were we whiled away about an hour discussing: music, Tommy Cooper, and the occupation of Ireland by the Norman-English from about 1300 (and the origin of the expression 'beyond the Pale' from the self-isolating defensive barrier of a few hundred square miles around Dublin known as 'the Pale' and occupied by the royal government in Ireland). I even treated my fellow gigsters to a rendition of Steeleye Span's All Around my Hat. I'm not sure how well that went down. Meanwhile, the rain continued unabated, soaking more race-goers, mostly of the female variety, who staggered around St Samson's Square in high heels, higher skirts and clutching teeny-tiny handbags over their heads. On what fun we had. The rain didn't ease up of course, and so we eventually sped off home in our various different directions.

Image courtesy of The Druid

Judge gimme me life this morn'in/Down on Parchman Farm

Friday 3 July - So, 'the blues', that'll be one tune that loads of people have written different lyrics for then? When I say different lyrics, I mean 'I'm going down to Georgia' or 'California' or 'Parchman Farm' or 'Macclesfield', to 'see my baby' or ''cos she left me' or 'to kill ...' someone. The truth is, the blues can be played that way, but in the hands of John Mayall it becomes a Coat of Many Colours, ranging from the rawest delta variety to jazz/blues fusion, and variety is what we got tonight.

It was all a bit strange as I entered The Duchess, a little after 20:00, there were chairs laid out for the audience! I couldn't see a way through to the bar except by walking between the front row of chairs and the stage. I tripped up of course. Well, it was dark. I reached the bar to find that a very orderly queue to get served was on the other side. Fortunately I was saved as The Druid hove into view bearing pints of Theakston's aloft. We stood just in front of the bar on the left side of the seats. I couldn't bring myself to sit down, it just didn't feel right. Within minutes John appeared on stage and promptly launched into a blues number a cappella accompanying himself on harmonica.

John Mayall (OBE) is arguably the grandfather of British blues, after dallying with a couple of bands he was persuaded by the legendary Alexis Korner to enter a full-time musical career and move from the Manchester area down to London. In late 1963 the band, now called The Bluesbreakers were playing the Marquee Club. John McVie (later in Fleetwood Mac) was on bass. In fact a plethora of musical 'greats' passed through The Bluesbreakers or played alongside Mayall including: (on guitar) Eric Clapton, Roger Dean, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Harvey Mandel, Jerry McGee, Jimmy McCulloch, James Quill Smith, Don McMinn, Kal David, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, Randy Resnick, Sonny Landreth, Buddy Whittington, Eric Steckel, Robben Ford (on bass) Jack Bruce, John McVie, Steven Thompson, Larry Taylor, Tony Reeves, Rick 'RC' Cortes, Hank Van Sickle (on drums) Hughie Flint, Keef Hartley, Aynsley Dunbar, Soko Richardson, Jon Hiseman, Colin Allen, Mick Fleetwood, Keith John (on keyboards) Dr. John (and on vocals/harmonica) Paul Butterfield. John himself is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, keyboards and harmonica. In November 2008 Mayall disbanded The Bluesbreakers to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians. However, three months later a world tour with a new band was announced: Tom Cannings on keyboards, Rocky Athas on guitar, Greg Rzab on bass, and Jay Davenport on drums.

OK, these are new names to me, but digging around in their backgrounds threw up outstanding pedigrees. Rocky was a childhood friend of Stevie Ray Vaughan (I've heard of him!) and was inducted into Buddy Magazine's Texas Tornadoes two years before Stevie. Thin Lizzy wrote the song Cocky Rocky after hearing Rocky play one night. Brian May was so floored by Rocky's finger tapping style that he incorporated it on the next Queen album. He played in Black Oak Arkansas, had his own band, the Rocky Athas Group, and has toured with huge acts such as: Ted Nugent, The Kinks, Rick Derringer, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, and Peter Frampton.

Greg has played bass with, among others: Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, The Allman Brothers Band, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Black Crowes, Albert Collins, Luther Allison, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Hubert Sumlin, Junior Wells, and Jimmy Page.

Now I'm not big on drummers and their careers but Jay was mentored by Clifton James who drummed for Bo Diddley, which must have been a good start. Among others, his drummed for Junior Wells, Valerie Wellington, Pinetop Perkins, Dion Payton, 'Southside' Denny Snyder, Gloria Hardiman, Jimmie Johnson, J.W. Williams, Carlos Johnson, and most recently with Melvin Taylor where he met up with Greg.

Over the years, Tom has toured and recorded with such diverse artists as Bonnie Raitt, Robbie Robertson, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh, Elvis Costello, Albert Lee, Juke Logan, Freddie King, and Johnny Shines, as well as legendary French singers Johnny Hallyday and Eddy Mitchell. He has also produced critically acclaimed albums for Stephen Bruton, Scott Cossu, and New Age artist Ray Lynch. Since then, he has been invited to record a total of eight albums with JM and The Bluesbreakers, including Along For The Ride, Stories, No Days Off and The 70th Birthday Concert. An official member of The Bluesbreakers touring band from 2001 through 2003, Tom has rejoined John for the current line up.

OK, that's a lot of background, sorry, but I guess the point I'm trying to made is that this was a bunch of musicians of the highest calibre and this was evident by the quality of their performance. Each song (most of which I'd never heard before) was about 10-15 minutes long, and usually bookended virtuoso performances in the middle section that were simply breathtaking. The second song was an epic jazz/blues fusion worthy of early Caravan, fantastic. JM alternated between singing, playing the harmonica, keyboards, and sometimes the guitar. At one point Greg did a bass guitar solo that was absolutely jaw-dropping. Of the songs that I caught the names of, Parchman Farm (named for the Mississippi State Penitentiary), and Dream About The Blues, were outstanding. I would thoroughly recommend anyone with the slightest interest in the blues to try and catch JM on his tour.

The evening was still young when we left The Duchess so we headed across town to The Roman Bath where The Mojos were playing. We arrived about half way through their set and, as usual, were treated by a bunch of well-known tunes played exceptionally well, including: Van Halen Jump, Whitesnake Here I go Again, Dire Straits Sultans of Swing, The Darkness I Believe in a Thing Called Love, The Jam Town Called Malice, Robbie Williams Let Me Entertain You , and as an encore: Donna Summer (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher, Guns 'n' Roses Sweet Child of Mine, and Kings of Leon Sex on Fire. Terrific stuff, always good for a sing-along, and they get my feet shuffling.