You keep me coming but you just ask for more/The clocks ticking there’s a hole in my heart

Sunday 4 November. Oi, it’s a work day tomorrow, you can’t go out on the town! Oh yes I can. A trip down to Fibbers, I’ll only drink J2O, honest guvnor. Sadly I missed the first band but I will at least give them a mention, Untitled Music Project. Sorry chaps. I believe they trawled all the way from Birmingham for me to miss them.

Next up were The Dirtys. Very loud. The vocals were a bit Kings Of Leon and the lead guitarist was very good, although a tad too distorted for me. Clean up the sound and it could have been Slash on guitar. Really. I’m not sure who was who but the band (according to their MyFace page) consisted of Kyrill, Gee, Keiran, and Martyn.

Finally, the headliners, The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. Now these were VERY loud and VERY fast. Hailing from Brighton, this band have been around since 1999 and is currently comprised of: Guy McKnight (Vocals), Rich Fownes (Lead Guitar), Marc Norris (Rhythm Guitar), Sym Gharial (Bass), and Tom Diamantopoulo (Drums). Their weird name comes, apparently, from a car once driven by Winston Churchill, and a couple of the band members are Buddhists, so a nice bunch of chaps really. The music is psycho-billy punk, thrash played at the speed of bands like Trivium. Which goes a long way to explain why their first album, ‘Horse of the Dog’, only lasts for twenty five minutes although it still fits in ten songs. Guy is a scary… well guy. During their opening number (I’ve no idea what it was called) he hurled himself into the crowd where he tossed and turned for a few minutes before being gently deposited back on the stage. Nor was this the only time he went crowd-surfing, and in the middle of the act he came down amongst the audience, clambered over a railing (nearly kicking over a table full of glasses) and then made his way back again, singing/growling/shouting all the time. One of their songs, ‘Mister Mental’, was featured in the movie ‘Shaun of the Dead’, the film also contained posters and other references to the band. The band is working on their third album due for release in late 2007/early 2008. Sorry chaps but I won’t be parting with my plastic for that one.

Saturday 3 November and I’m up bright and early to start the Xmas shopping. OK, it’s a bit soon, but you’ve got to start sometime and when you can only shop at weekend it cuts down the options. My David Gilmour 2-disc DVD of ‘Remember That Night’ plops through my letterbox at lunchtime and I spend an extremely pleasant afternoon watching the whole, breathtaking performance. Brilliant.

Friday 2 November and a rare appearance by the full Hazzard County line up at the Old White Swan. Yes, Mostly Chris is in attendance and the place is heaving because Country John appears to have invited all his mates along. John Smiths is a no no, mine’s a pint of Black Sheep, thank you! The Hazzards are brilliant, as usual, a full on Dylanesque show plus an almost psychedelic version of ‘Who Do You Love’. This is how Friday nights should always be. Sadly, although the full line up is playing again next week, Whole Lotta Led are at Fibbers so I will only be catching the second half of the Hazzards. Well something’s gotta go.

Hailed brilliant, another conversation/but they couldn't touch your Hemingway

Thursday 2 November and it’s a mid-week sortie to Fibbers to check out the new Arctic Chiefs, er, Kaiser Monkeys, er, you get the picture. First up is the Duels, a five-piece from Leeds; Jon Foulger (vocals, guitar and keyboards), Jim Foulger (his brother, guitar), Jon Maher (bass and shouts a bit), James Kirkbright(drums), and Katherine (Jon and Jim’s cousin, keyboards, bells, branches and violin?). Duels formed from the ashes of band SammyUSA. Their first limited edition single ‘Potential Futures’ was released on the Transgressive Records label on 18 July 2005 and featured on the Fifa 2006 soundtrack. Their first album, ‘The Bright Lights And What I Should Have Learned’, was released on the Nude label on 31 July 2006. The band have since parted from Nude and this gig is part of their ‘The Barbarians Move In’ tour in advance of their new album of the same name. Their new single, ‘Pressure on You’, is due for release on 7 November 2005, bugger, too early! Duels toured with Graham Coxon, The Rakes, The Kooks, Kaiser Chiefs and The Zutons. They have played the V Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals and opened the Main Stage at T in the Park in 2006. Apparently they’ve been together since 2004 and it certainly sounds like it. They are a tight band with the instruments producing a rich and complex sound that was breathtakingly good for a support act. My only disappointment was that there was no CD on sale at the back of the room; I was ripe for a purchase.

The next band had drawn its own group of devotees. I Was A Cub Scout are a two-piece from Nottingham (I can’t help saying Dottingham, as if I have a blocked nose; it’s from an old TV advertisement featuring a character called Malcolm.) IWACS consist of William Bowerman (drums) from Collingham, previously in Sixteen Hours, and Todd Marriott (vocals/synths/guitar) from Long Bennington, previously in Through Winter, both punk bands. Their first single ‘Pink Squares’ was released on 27 November 2006. They played over pre-programmed keyboards and frankly they need a third band member. How can you improvise when playing over a karaoke track? A bit disappointing really, a bit like Athlete (who I like) playing in their bedroom when they were spotty youngsters. A bit emo, a bit techno, a bit rubbish.

Finally, the star turn, the new saviours of music, iForward Russia! Oh dear. The vocalist moved like Kate Bush on speed and had a voice resembling Justin Darkness Hawkins. All their tracks (bar one) sounded the same, the double-time ska that is the trademark of so many bands these days. Apparently it’s called math rock. iForward Russia! Feature Tom Woodhead (vocals/synth), Whiskas (guitar/synth/shouts), Rob Canning (bass), and Katie Nicholls (drums/shouts). Musically, it's rock built on jabbing guitar lines, scrabbling chords, bruising rhythm-section riffs, jarring dissonances and irregular meters. The band formed in early 2004 from Leeds band The Black Helicopters, of which Tom and Rob were members. They joined siblings Katie and Whiskas (previously of Leeds band les Flames amongst others). In April 2005, they released ‘Nine’, a split 7-inch single with This Et Al, released on guitarist Whiskas' label Dance To The Radio. They’ve toured with We Are Scientists and played alongside The Automatic, The Long Blondes, Howling Bells and Boy Kill Boy on the 2006 NME New Music Tour. Their first album ‘Give Me A Wall’ was released in September 2006. Each track has a numerical name which allegedly indicates the order in which the tracks were written. Most of their output since GMAW has had conventional non-numerical titles. They are currently working on a new album ‘Life processes’ which is due for release shortly. Their track ‘Nine’ was featured on the soundtrack to the 2007 PSP game Burnout Dominator. In a slight support band link up, Katie remixed IWACS’s single 'I Hate Nightclubs'. The video for ‘Eighteen’ features cameo appearances from members of The Pigeon Detectives, This Et Al and The Playmates. The only track that sounded different, and that I liked, was the finale, a slow burning, torch song in the style of Four Day Hombre. I’m sorry, but if I wanted to hear 4DH (who I highly recommend) then I will go and see them, or play their excellent CDs.

And they're all made out of ticky-tacky/And they all look just the same.

Sunday 29 October. Just a quick round up of this week’s goings on... There’s no more word from the Police on the “hideous assault in the middle of York in broad twilight” saga. It makes me despair. I’m not surprised, but I should be!!! (Steps up onto soap box) I want to recycle as much as I can, but York council don’t collect plastic around my way. Ooh, I could take it to a recycling centre (and add more pollution as I go, grr.) They won’t recycle tetrapak drinks cartons, except at a recycling centre either. (Steps down again.)

Anyway, we celebrated my grandson’s fifth birthday on Saturday (it was actually on the previous Monday but we like to keep the kids confused in my family.) This coincided with a flying visit from my sister and her husband who were on their way back to Kent after visiting their daughter in Scotland, and stopped off for a few days. We had an enormous Chinese take-away on the Friday evening (and again for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, yum, yum). Then went ten-pin bowling on Saturday, where I was beaten by an eight year old girl for whom the ball weighed almost as much as she did! Back to Chez Moi for nibbles, pizza and a birthday cake that middle daughter had made in the shape of a wizard’s hat, with stars and moons, and surrounded by spiders and worms.

All of which is a round-about way of making excuses for not going to the PO club on Friday evening to see the Breathing Space CD launch. I’m really sorry for not being able to attend, especially so since the fabulous Angela from Mostly Autumn/Odins Dragonfly was there. I’m grateful to “I” who send me a report of the event. He took his missus and was so impressed that he came away with 3 CDs; both Breathing Space/Iain Jennings CDs and a 13-track one of Amberstone (Paul Teasdale, the bassist with Breathing Space.) Apparently they encored with Mostly Autumn's The Gap is Too Wide. Oh, see me weeping into my keyboard!

And all the peacemaker turn war officer/Hear what I say

Sunday 21 October. More like one Big Second-Place Weekend. After an excellent effort by both players to get to 5-5, Ronnie suddenly seemed to get bored by proceedings and finally crashed out at 6-9. Hamilton came unstuck at Interlagos with an unnecessarily attempt to re-pass his team-mate on the outside into the Subida da Lago corner and ended up in the run-off area. He then skipped out of gear on lap 8. Lewis spent the rest of the race desperately trying to cawl his way up the field, only to be pipped at the post, denied world champion status by 1 point. Ooh, and United Northern got beaten 18-25 by the All Golds. Ho hum.

I won’t be making the Breathing Space album launch on Friday 26 October at the PO Club in Marygate as I have family visiting. Can someone let me know how it goes?

Saturday 20 October. My statement is now signed off but we had to go to the police station for my daughter’s as it hadn’t been typed up correctly and we wanted it to be right. Today is the start of one Big Weekend of sport. Oops, England lost to RSA. Well, it was a good match and I think they did really well to get to the final. Ronnie O’Sullivan is through to the final of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix and Hamilton is in P2 for tomorrow’s F1 race from Brazil.

Friday 19 October. I had the day off work today, but everything that I was going to do was cancelled, so I ended up working on my book. It was productive day in the end. Didn’t go out, so no musical news.

Thursday 18 October. The police came for our statements, now they just have to be typed up and signed. After the policeman left I had to make a trip to A&E to ferry one of my daughters and her family back home. It’s all in a day’s work!

I'm a juvenile product of the working class/Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass

Saturday 13 October. I had a really good day, to start with. A group of us visited the National Railway Museum, rode the Yorkshire Wheel, and ate tea at the Happy Valley café in Goodramgate. We decided to to take a taxi home as we were all quite shattered, but as we got to the front of the queue at the rank in St Saviourgate, a drunken youth punched an elderly gentleman to the ground in front of us, and then kicked him in the face. I immediately ‘phoned for the emergency services, but it was the ambulance that came first and it was only 15 minutes later that the police finally arrived. Luckily the attacker was so drunk that he didn’t have the wit to run away and various people managed to keep him occupied until the police got there, cuffed him, and carted him away. The police are wanting to take a statement from me but haven’t been in touch so far (as at Monday.) Of course, we lost our place in the taxi queue and rather than hang around any longer, we walked home. Should have done that in the first place! I hope the elderly chap (I think his name was Dave) recovers OK.

Oh, and England beat the French after all.

Take this letter to the one I love...

Friday 12 October, and there’s three musketeers abroad tonight. We are heading straight for the Roman Bath and a group called the Travelling’ Band (a reference to a track by Creedance Clearwater Revival from their 1970 album Cosmo's Factory .) The lead vocalist/rythmn guitarist is called Oscar and he looks a bit like Noddy Holder after a night on the tiles. His singing is a bit flat but they play recognisable songs and I think your ears tend to compensate for the odd duff vocal. The bass player is solid and the lead guitarist (Bernard Breslaws dad?) is very good, although some of his twiddly bits were a bit lost because he wasn’t mixed loud enough. The drummer was excellent, but for some strange reason they swapped him for the last tune (Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama) for some other guy who wasn’t really up to scratch. As you might have guessed, the repetoire was Lynyrd, Creedance, Quo mixed with some old Rock ‘n’ Roll, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Roll Over Beethoven, Johhny B. Goode etc. All very entertaining.

Afterwards “I” caught the last bus home and “A” and I poked our noses around the door of the Old White Swan where “G” was propping up the bar in the usual place. Simon Snaize and NZ Dave were fronting some hap-Hazzards; the violin girl, Marty Feldman on snare drum and a chap on double bass (tell me your names and I will use them.) We only caught the last three songs. As they packed away, we debated the merits of Saturday’s England v France Ruby World Cup match. “G” and I were convinced that the idea of beating the French on their home turf would be sufficient incentive to tip the balance our way. “A” was not convinced.

Nerve gas, nerve gas, no class/I get asphyxiated/Funny how fast you faded

Dear Diary, I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date, I must try harder. So let’s go back in time (Cue wavy special FX)...

Friday 5 October. It’s Open Day at the University and your truly is wandering back to the Library after lunch. But stay! What’s that niff? It smells like gas, and it turns out that the gas smell is being drawn into the Library through the air vents. Ooops! We quickly move through the building hustling users and visitors towards the entrance, then the alarm goes off and we evacuate outselves. Resplendent in my ‘Hi Vis’ vest we ushers everyone back to the far end of the footbridge which is taped off whilst we await a visit from Transco. While standing there, repelling boarders, we even get a visit from a photographer from The Press, but there’s nothing to see so he just snaps off some pictures of the Transco van when it arrives. It transpires that it wasn’t gas at all, but rather a smell-alike cloud that had escaped from the Chemistry building. Ah, but it was a bit exciting. No musical outing this weekend.