I am so innocent I swear to God oh but you pressure me / And I can't help but unwind

Friday 10 December - and as we rocket towards the end of the year the music is getting sparser, but in no way is the quality suffering as tonight two of us brave the snow and ice to see The Chantel McGregor Band at Fibbers. Now I've seen Chantel five times before, usually playing in a pub, but now she is writing her own material and doing a proper tour.

The turn-out tonight was disappointing low, probably in part due to the weather. We arrived in time to catch the last three songs being played by Steve Fulsham from Hull who was doing an acoustic set without the rest of his band. He sounded good, very good, and I'd like to hear more of him so I'll have to keep my eyes open.

Given that the crowd was a bit thin, we moved right down to the front next to the barriers and in a prime viewing position. In hindsight we were probably a bit too close to Martin Rushworth's drum kit and were therefore getting the benefit of the stage sound as well as through the speakers, but hey ho. The other member of the band was Richard Ritchie playing on a lovely looking 5-string bass.

Chantel took to the stage in her M&S slipper socks and immediately swung into action. As I have previously enthused, Chantel is a superb guitarist and has a great voice to boot. I didn't manage to get a set list but I'm pretty certain that she played Bridge To Better Days (Joe Bonamassa), Help Me (Sonny Boy Williamson), Come Back To Bed (John Mayer), Up In The Sky (Joe Satriani), Daydream (Robin Trower), High (Richie Kotzen), New Day Yesterday (Jethro Tull), and Sloe Gin (Joe Bonamassa). We also had a fair smattering of her own compositions; I'm No Good For You, Fabulous, Not Here With Me, Freefalling, Caught Out, and Like No Other. I have to admit that didn't really know what to expect of her own material, fearing that she wouldn't be able to pull off sufficiently sophisticated solos, but she blew my socks off with a range of musical styles, thoughtful and sometimes funny lyrics, and guitar solos to die for.

Between the songs there was a constant, endearing stream of anecdotes; snippets from Chantel's life ranging from buying dresses and perfume that she didn't want, ribs and chips, Dr Pepper and the women's toilets.

Finally, she encored with what she called her "15 minute" song which started with Had To Cry (Blind Faith) but may have segued into something else by the end, and an acoustic version of Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac).

We had a fantastic night's entertainment and I desperately implore readers to at least check out her videos on YouTube, but if you like virtuoso guitar playing get along to one of her live gigs. Very highly recommended.

I heard you cry in your singsong voice / We didn't have a choice but to sit and watch you die in the February air

Friday 19 November - I have to admit that I was a bit half-hearted about going out tonight as the only original music in town was at The Duchess where Dorien Starre were playing. Now I know I saw these back in September 2008 at Fibbers and I'm sure that I've seen them at The Stone Roses Bar, but they've always left me somewhat underwhelmed.

My trepidation was not helped when we arrived at The Duchess to find ourselves in an audience that seemed to consist solely of sixth formers. We felt like parents intruding at the end-of-term disco.

Anyway, tonight's support bill kicked off with Likely Lads an enthusiastic bunch of youngsters who managed to pull off a number of quite well constructed tunes even though I was unable to make out the titles. There was a tendency to slip into ska-by-numbers but generally I thought that these were rather good. They also used a word that I used to use darn Sarf but never heard before oop North; "you nuggets" (weird or strange person, usually when they have done something silly). The audience certainly seemed to enjoy them, so that was a reasonable start to the evening.

The second aural offering came in the form of people: in airports a 4-piece indie-rock outfit from York and Leeds. Formed in 2006 by Shed Seven bassist Tom Gladwin and singer/songwriter Paul Downes the line-up was completed in 2007 with the addition of Jimmy Greenall (guitar and backing vocals) and Ken Sayers (drums). These, on paper, sounded quite interesting but I'm afraid they never really took-off and I can't really put my finger on why. Musically they were mediocre, one song blurred into another. It was all a bit plodding, as if the whole experience was just a bit dull as far as the band were concerned and that certainly came across in their music. Sorry guys, it just wasn't that good.

I had no great hopes as Dorien Starre took to the stage. Based in Leeds, the band consists of: Leo Derevonko (lead vocals & rhythm guitar), Alex Derevonko (bass guitar & backing vocals), Ian Talton (lead guitar & backing vocals), and Andrew Ackroyd (drums & woodblock). Back in March 2010 the Duchess hosted the Hive Live competition for top local acts. The winners were Dorien Starre and this was them returning to show-off the product of the recording prize they won. Frankly, they blew my flippin' socks off. I don't remember any of the songs from my previous encounters with them, but this was like listening to a different band altogether. I believe we were treated to; Wager, Nightline, Cartel, Glances, Wolves, Dwelling, I Can't Sleep, and Soho, but there may have been more than this. Certainly this was a band on form and one that is definitely going places. Highly recommended.

Black man gotta lot a problems, but they don't mind throwing a brick / White people go to school, where they teach you how to be thick

Friday 12 November - I spend a lot of time listening to cover bands, some of which are very good, and also bands that produce their own material in genres which I'm comfortable in listening to. Sometimes though, it's good to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. Tonight was one of those occasions. Andy and I were in The Basement in York to immerse ourselves in hardcore punk. Before I start I should point out that, throughout the night, I had no idea of song titles, and could barely make out any discernable lyrics whatsoever, so you won't be getting any lists of tracks.

The first band caught us flat-footed as they weren't even on the bill and it was only thanks to a chat with 'Taffy' who turned out to be the guitarist's Dad that we discovered that they were called The Vexed. A York band, they consisted of; Bilo - drums/vocals, Dicko - bass/vocals, and Jim - guitar/backing. Dicko played bass like it was a lead guitar, Bilo beat his drums like a maniac, but Jim, although grinning like a Cheshire cat, seemed slightly out of place. Apparently he had previously played lead in a rather less punk band which meant that he wasn't sporting an outrageous hair-do or black clothes with spikes and studs.  The vocals were pretty much just shouting as far as I could make out and I understand that Dicko was later coughing blood in the toilets and that this was perfectly normal. We were located to one side of the speakers and so were saved from the full aural blast. It's not my kind of music but the audience seemed to enjoy them and were singing(!?!) along, so I guess they were ticking somebody's boxes.

The second act was one of two tonight that had crossed the Channel from France to entertain us. Monsieur Marcaille was a one-man outfit with two bass drums at and operated by his feet, and a cello electrified with some hocus-pocus. He started by whipping off his Meatloaf t-shirt and then launched into trash-metal mayhem generating sounds that were never meant to be wrung by such a classical instrument. In between each song he spat on the floor and put a single finger up to his audience, and somewhere in the middle he emptied the contents of one of his nostrils as well. So, France does have talent and Mr Cowell needs to know about this chap, the quintessential French performer.

We never even saw the third act coming. Charogne Stone, tonight's second French act,  quietly set up his drum kit and backing track machine in the stairwell up to the bar. All of a sudden the ambience was shattered as he regaled us with sub-two minute screeching and drumming of the most frenetic kind. His drum sticks were a blur to me, I kid you not. Okay, I might not like the music but I had to admire his skills as a drummer. First rate.

All of which led to the final act of the night. Originally bottom of the bill but now thrust into the lime-light came Comply or Die apparently returning from a tour of the UK following the release of their debut album. The band comprises; Smell- vocals, Gottie -guitar/vocals, DD - drums/samples/programming, and Lee - bass. The first two songs were kind of RAtM in style mostly led by Lee's superb bass licks but by song three, Gottie's high slung guitar had really swung into action and the music turned more ska-based. The final song returned to the bass-driven RAtM style but by now Gottie seemed demonically possessed and flung himself and his guitar to the floor in front of the stage where he lay twitching.

Whilst I personally won't be looking out for any of these bands again, I can see that each would appeal to their individual audiences and their performances were very professional within their genres.

Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine / I'm on the pavement, thinking about the government

As a self-confessed rubbish blogger it's time for me to play 'catch up' again with two outings rolled up into one blog.

Friday 15 October - saw a well attended outing to The Punchbowl in Stonegate to see Adam Dawson singing / playing his acoustic thing. We were treated to a variety of covers, performed in Adam's own personal style, as well as some of his original material. Of the covers we had songs recorded by such diverse acts as Lady Gaga, Damien Rice, Newton Faulkner, Coldplay, Ralph McTell, Mumford & Sons etc. But I particularly enjoyed his own songs; Lazy Susan, I'm Coming Home, and the fantastic Silver Skies. Very highly recommended.

Friday 22 October - and we pass up the opportunity to see Adam again, he might think we were stalking him, to see The Mothers at O'Neills. Now we've caught them before, 10 March 2009 actually, and on that occasion we only saw the first half of their act before moving on to watch another band. Tonight we had the same option but relented to watch the entire performance, which was really very good indeed.

I haven't been able to find out much about the band members themselves. The vocalist is Jon Stewart who also sings with The Supermodels and the bass player is Stuart 'Stu' Fletcher (ex-Seahorses, The Blueflies, The Yards, Rick Witter and The Dukes). Of the lead guitarist and drummer I'm afraid I have no details. Jon has a superb voice and they rattled off a string of covers. To the best of my recollection we had; Take Me to the River (Al Green), I Heard It On The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye), Mr Brightside (The Killers), You Really Got Me (The Kinks), The Seeker (The Who), Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon), Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (James Brown), I Predict A Riot (The Kaiser Chiefs), Back In The USSR (the Beatles) which segued into Jumping Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones), Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan), In The Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett), Valerie (The Zutons) Paranoid (Black Sabbath), Tainted Love (Soft Cell), The Jean Genie (David Bowie), The Snake (Al Wilson). Basically an excellent set delivered by a top notch band. Highly recommended.

Sing it loud, sing it sweet / With hellfire fury, stomping your feet

Yep, I've been a bit remiss with postings of late, but in fairness I have been a busy bunny. As this blog was originally set up to be simply a log of gigs we'd seen that's more or less what I'm going to revert back to to get through the backlog.

Wednesday 15 September - and we were at Stereo in York for four acts, two of whom were new to us, or were they? We kicked off with Marbled (and on MyFace ) or should that be Marble D? All a bit strange, but basically a man and guitar which he played with nifty finger-picking. None of the songs actually stuck in my consciousness at the time but in attempting to track down some details about him I noticed a few York connections in the shape of Dave (NZ) Keegan and Sam Forrest (Nine Black Alps, Boss Caine) working with him on his EPs.

The second performance came from Gary Stewart with a more folksy style of playing. Gary was joined on-stage for his third song by Rich Huxley of Hope&Social and then the penny dropped, Gary is the current drummer with H&S. Apparently most of the songs were from his debut album, Boy Cries Wolf.

Act three was the ubiquitous GT Turbo aka Boss Caine aka Dan Lucas (on MyFace). It's hard not to like GT's style of music or maybe I'm just getting familiar with it. Tonight there seemed to be some new tunes and GT was joined on stage by first Tim Fox, and then Vinny North, both wielding harmonicas and both last seen in Hijack Oscar and the Fox-North Coalition (the band, not the government formed by Charles James Fox and Lord North in Great Britain that held office during 1783).

Finally, we moved forward for the highlight of the evening, Hope&Social who blessed us with tunes from both of their albums; Architect Of This Church and April. I did bring my kazoo but it wasn't required. I did take some photographs though. Despite seeing them fairly recently, tonight they were even better than ever and flinging themselves around the stage like crazy. It was a wonder nothing got broken. The highlight, as ever, was the acoustic sing-a-long to Looking For Answers. What a brilliant evening out.

Thursday 16 September - and the first outing to the newly refurbished Fibbers to see Shed Seven on the first of their 20th anniversary home-coming gigs. This was a big bash for us and my daughters and their partners had come along as well. The venue was much bigger inside than previously and the sound quality was quite good. I knew it was a sell-out gig but it was extremely crowed inside and I strongly doubt that everyone would have been able to get out in an emergency. The air conditioning was next to useless and dribbling a constant stream of water onto people's heads. Not a good start. The support act was Chris Helme (ex-Seahorses, ex-Yards, now a solo artist) and he had plenty of local support. Two of us were down at the front and I was singing along to most of his songs. After Chris had finished the front section filled up with what seemed to be a contingent of football louts, chanting and jostling each other. We moved out to the sides but it was very claustrophobic and one of our party, being pregnant, wasn't enjoying herself. They were good, very good indeed, but when they went in at half-time we all decided that we'd had enough and left, which was disappointing because the music was great but the venue let it down. For the first half they played; Dirty Soul, Speakeasy, Long Time Dead, Mark/Around Your House, Stars In Your Eyes, Sensitive, Dolphin, Ocean Pie, and On An Island With You. The second half, which we did not see, apparently consisted of; Disco Down, Bully Boy, Where Have You Been Tonight, High Hopes, She Left Me On Friday, On Standby, Going For Gold, and Getting Better. For the encore they played Missing Out and Chasing Rainbows.

Tuesday 21 September - was our second attempt to dip our toes in Fibbers. We were hoping that it would be less crowded this time as we were off to see Manchester band Oceansize. Sadly, it was an unmitigated disaster. We set off but half way into town I got a 'phone call to say that it had been cancelled. We met up with a couple of chaps in the Blue Bell on Walmgate where we found out that the sound requirements of the band were beyond the resources of Fibbers. In an effort to get around the problems they had wheeled out the old mixing desk but it blew a fuse every time their equipment was plugged in. I also understand that there was a lack of mains sockets at the stage end of the venue. In the end the band called it off and returned, very disgruntled, to Manchester. Fibbers had to print an apology in The Press and are, apparently, working to address the problems. Not good.


Thursday 30 October - and with some trepidation we headed for Fibbers again, this time to see The Union. Once we were inside, things weren't too bad. The air conditioning appeared to have been fixed, the second bar area was curtained off, it wasn't so crowded and certainly not as hot. Bar prices were through the roof though at £4.80 for a bottle of Peroni and a small coke. Support came from GT Turbo but he was more or less finished by the time we got there. Now, technically speaking this was a double headline as Ricky Warwick had the show booked but The Union piggybacked on it at his request. Because he was playing solo he went on first. Ricky is probably best known for being in The Almighty and is the newly appointed lead singer of Thin Lizzy. Most of his songs appeared to be from his latest album, Belfast Confetti plus his latest single The Whiskey Song. Although he played acoustic, he played with vigour and energy. He's gonna make a hell of a front-man for t'Lizzy. Brilliant. And so to the main event and we were right down at the front but there was no jostling down here. No giants with big hair to stand in front of us. Altogether a much more enjoyable and appreciative crowd.

The Union consist of Luke Morley (ex-Thunder) on lead guitar and Pete Shoulder (ex-Winterville) on second lead and vocals. For the tour they were joined by ex-Thunder bassist Chris Childs and a drummer whose name I believe to be Dave McCluskey. Apologies if I'm wrong. They came on to Part Of The Union (The Strawbs) and immediately belted out most of their eponymous album bar except that they excluded Amazon and played a new track, Rollin', instead. The final song of the encore was a cover of Proud Mary (written by John Fogerty and first recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival). The middle eight turned into a highly entertaining 'guitar war' between Morley and Shoulder. Most of the audience seemed to be fans already and there was plenty of clapping and singing along. Luke's guitar playing was sublime and Pete has a truely fantastic voice. This was quite possibly my gig of the year. Highly recommended.

Play the best song in the world, or I'll eat your soul.

Friday 10 September - Good music in York seems to have been a bit thin on the ground over the last couple of weeks but tonight we are in the Royal Oak in Goodramgate to see Adam Dawson perform. Adam joined Breathing Space as their new guitarist in July of this year. Tonight he was doing a solo gig, singing and playing acoustic six- and twelve-stringed guitars, mostly covers.

This was the first time we'd seen Adam although The Druid had caught him in July. Adam is an affable chap with a great sense of humour. He was quite happy doing covers on request if he was familiar enough with the lyrics or if he could get the audience to join in with him, which we did. Everyone loves a sing-a-long.

From memory, Adam treated us to; The Cave, Little Lion Man (Mumford & Sons), Mr Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan), Hotel California (The Eagles), Space Oddity (David Bowie), Rule The World (Coldplay), Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol), Poker Face (Lady Gaga), Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd), Shine (Take That), When You Say Nothing At All (Ronan Keating), Tribute (Tenacious D), Streets Of London (Ralph McTell), Wild Rover (Trad.), Dream Catch Me (Newton Faulkner), Wonderful Tonight, Tears In Heaven (Eric Clapton), Dedicated Follower of Fashion (The Kinks), Use Somebody (Kings of Leon), I think it was Take A Chance (Magic Numbers) and two renditions of Lazy Susan (Adam Dawson) one of which was demanded as an encore.

Adam has a fantastic voice and a great guitar style. I haven’t caught the new incarnation of Breathing Space yet but look forward to doing so. I’ll also be looking out for more solo gig from the boy Dawson, highly recommended.

Do all that I can to heal you inside / I'll be the angel on your shoulder

It's been a while since we've been out in York on a Friday evening, partly because Fibbers is closed for refurbishment and partly because The Duchess doesn't seem to have much going on. All of which reduces us to watching covers bands at either The Roman Bath or The Terrace. That's not to say that other venues such as The Basement or Stereo have been lacking, but none of their acts has actually caught our eye, or ear.

This week however, we were pleased to see that Rubber Bullets were playing at The Terrace. Now we first encountered these guys back in April this year at the same place and were very impressed at the quality of their singing/playing and the material they cover, quite unlike most of the cover bands we watch.

Rubbers Bullets are 5-piece from York comprising Eddy Andersen on vocals, Dan and Phil Hardcastle on guitars, Andy Miller on bass, and Mark Lee on drums.

Tonight they gave us (not in this order); Rock 'n' Roll Star, Supersonic, Cigarettes and Alcohol (Oasis), Shoot The Runner, Underdog , Reason Is Treason, (Kasabian), Jailbird, Get Your Rocks Off (Primal Scream), Geraldine (Glasvegas), North Country Boy (The Charlatans), She Left Me On Friday (Shed Seven), Sun Goes Down, Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, Fake Tales of San Francisco (Arctic Monkeys), The Bucket, Molly's Chambers (Kings of Leon), The Riverboat Song (Ocean Colour Scene), Sally Cinnamon, She Bangs The Drums (Stone Roses), Song 2 (Blur), Common People (Pulp), Love Is The Law (The Seahorses), and Golden Touch (Razorlight). Every song was performed extremely well and made for a fantastic night's entertainment. Highly recommended so check them out.