the World of Verbal Warning 6.3.2011

Here's a first, my first blog from outside the UK, New Zealand to be precise, it's 6.30 in the morning and I can't sleep, jet lag?, nah, I'm always like this.We were at the Derby Beer festival on Friday 25th, which went well, can't fail really can we? a room full of pissed up drinkers of, mainly, about the right age, with us in full sing a long mode.Had a bit of trouble getting home though, I lost my car keys a few days ago along with my only key fob, which meant to start my car I have to insert a code via my door lock and wait 5 minutes for the imobiliser to disengage, now I don't know whether it was Wendy Verbette getting in the car half way through me putting the code in, or the 2 jugs of free beer the band got afterthe gig, but would it start, no, 40 minutes we sat there in the car park trying tthe code over and over again, 3 attempts, wait 10 minutes, try again, we'd just resigned ourselves to getting a taxi, with the imobiliser light still flashing, a desperate last turn of the key, incredulous relief all round as the engine burst into life, first job when I get home is to get a new key fob. Second gig of the 'weekend' was the 'regular live music on a Monday night at the Half Crown' gig, where it had been a bit quiet of late apparently, but our Long Eaton contingent turned out in force, and a good night was had by all, there's a worrying trend developing though, started at the beer festival by Lee Cooper who managed to steal a couple of yellow plastic ducks from a stall, which were thrown at us during A Ploy Named Sue when we shout 'duck', they appeared again at the Half Crown, if this carries on I'm going to have learn to play the right notes while avoiding low flying ducks.See you all at the Greyhound, ducks, March 26th, sould be a good one.

the World of Verbal Warning 31.1.2011

We had our first gig in a month on Saturday night at the White Hart in Lenton, and it’s fair to say we were a little bit ropey, you can practice all you want but there’s nothing like gigging for sharpening things up.

The weekend didn’t get off to the best of starts when the starter motor packed up on my car, which meant it was off the road, so all my stuff, PA speakers and me, had to be somehow got into Guitar and Drummer Boys’ cars, fortunately they’ve both got estates so it didn’t prove as bigger problem as first thought although my musings that perhaps I didn’t need a car didn’t meet with universal approval.

A good crowd turned out to see us with lots of familiar faces, so a big thank you to them, Ruban the Landlord was well impressed, and as it was close to Wendy Verbette’s birthday so we even managed a rendition of Happy Birthday, not so sure about her going round kissing the rest of the band though!

We’d been practicing three new songs for a couple of weeks but in the end we just rolled out Ring of Fire which gave Singer Boy the chance to make the obvious comment about hot curries, We also gave a rare outing to Fight For Your Right which went down well and we even got the stop right which had been giving us a bit of trouble.

A Brucie Bonus for everyone was the free buffet at half time, the egg sandwiches were especially delicious, although I was a bit apprehensive at the sight of sausage rolls on offer seeing as how a boisterous Paul, who showered us with them at the Stumble gig was there, our luck was in though I think most of them had been eaten by the time we got to ‘State Control of Rock and Roll’.

All in all a decent gig, the next ones the Derby Beer festival which we’re looking forward too and 3 days later we’re back at the Half Crown in Long Eaton.

the World of Verbal Warning 30.12.2010

Phew 3 gigs in a week, don't think we could keep that up for long, still it stopped Guitar boy feeling too sorry for himself with his man flu, in fact all that sweating helped him out.
We were at the Half Crown in Long Eaton on Monday the 20th, bit of a funny one, Monday night, but good luck too them and I hope it's a success, especially as we've been booked for 5 more gigs next year. There were about 50 people in there and most stopped till the end, even after we inflicted our Christmas medley on them.

On to the Stumble on Thursday which turned out to be a cracker, the place was full all night and we all had great time with plenty of pissed up punters. Another Paul, one of our ever increasing fan club, well in Long Eaton anyway, decided that State Control of Rock and Roll sounded like State Control of Sausage Rolls and proceeded to start throwing Sausage Rolls at us during the song, well at least they were reasonable soft and they still tasted ok even after they’d been on the floor, I was feeling a bit peckish after the gig.

The last of our trilogy of gigs was the Horse and Groom in Derby which we last played on the same day last year, there was a decent crowd there and everything went well, apart from Drummer Boy’s floor tom collapsing, so hopefully it won’t be another year before we get another gig there, especially as we decided against doing the Christmas Medley, having decided that surely everyone must be sick of Christmas. Hopefully I will remember how to get there and get home, I thought my days of getting lost in Derby were behind me now I’ve got a Sat Nav, but no, Derby’s traffic systems proved too much even for that, after failing to get us there, we were at the wrong end of the street the pub was on and it was blocked off in the middle, we knew there was something wrong when going home we realised we’d gone round the same block 4 times and would have still been there now had we not, eventually, decided to stop turning left as the Sat Nav was telling us too.

We’ve got a month to recover now, next gig is at the White Hart in Lenton on the 29^th January, shouldn’t need my Sat Nav for that.

the World of Verbal Warning 22.11.2010

We've had a couple of gigs since my last blog, first up was the Olympic in Draycott, and that bought us down to earth with a bump after the Greyhound gig, a very small crowd, in fact apart from the 10 or so Warning faithful the pub was practically empty, still we tried to put on our usual enthusiastic show with Drummer Boy kicking his kit over at the end (for only the second time). The highlight of the evening was the chant of "You fat bastard" as Singer Boy rather unwisely decided to change his T shirt after the gig in front of everyone. The landlord enjoyed Nellie the Elephant and wants to book us again, 29th January is looking a possible date.Last Friday we were supporting Sham 69 at the Old Bell in Derby which turned out to be an enjoyable night for everyone, we were first on which raised concerns about whether anyone would actually be there, having suffered a similar fate at the Mill in Mansfield, but our fears were unjustified as the place was a nearly full when we went on for our 35 minute slot, and it all went well with lots of compliments afterwards. No Jimmy Pursey in Sham but I still thoroughly enjoyed it, I've got a soft spot for Sham anyway because it was the first punk gig I ever went to back in the mists of time, and I was able to sink a few pints as well having set the stage by scrounging lifts off Guitar Boy and Singer Boy, thanks lads.No gigs now until 20th December, which is the first date our Christmas tour, 3 gigs in 7 days, ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

the World of Verbal Warning 4.10.2010

If it carries on like this I'm going to have to stop doing this blog, it gets really boring when nothing goes wrong, the Greyhound seems to have been our best gig yet, the place was rocking with a great crowd singing along to the songs, even our own! and we sold loads of Cd's and T shirts. We started off with Monster Mash, especially learnt for Halloween and to get into the swing of things we all bought masks to wear, it frightened everybody to death when we took them off. Backing Vocals proved a problem, I had to do a crib sheet because they altered every chorus, what a waste of time, with the masks on our backing vocals were totally inaudable, watch the phone video on facebook, still we made the effort. We must have been good Paul, the landlord bought us all a pint afterwards, just hope the rest of the band don't expect all Paul's to be as generous.
Next gig is at the Olympic in Draycott 13th November.

the World of Verbal Warning 20.10.2010

The Nottingham Beer Festival turned into a rollercoaster ride, but I think we managed to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat in the end. We had a disastrous start, after the traditional shout of “1234” we launched into Blitzkrieg Bop, I was just thinking "Guitar Boy's quiet" and then it dawned on me that he was very very quiet. So we stopped and Guitar Boy played about with his leads, no sniggering at the back please, and he got a satisfying kerrang noise from his speaker, right we're ready to rock now, “1234”, silence from the guitar, ok swap the lead, kerrang from the speaker, “1234”, silence from the guitar, the sound engineer came on stage and they swapped amps, kerrang from the speaker, “1234”, silence from the guitar, I’m standing thinking “bloody hell, there by the grace of God and all that, I’m glad this isn’t happening to me” and even Singer Boy’s running out of things to say. Only one thing left to do swap guitars, kerrang from the speaker, “1234”, for the final time thankfully, and away we went everything firing on all cylinders. Now as you can imagine concentration levels were not good by this time and we made a right pig’s ear of Teenage Kicks, fortunately it didn't get any worse after that, there were one or two more errors but to paraphrase Basil Fawlty “I think we got away with those”. From Should I Stay or Should I Go midway through the first set to the end the place was rocking, when I asked Wendy Verbette what the backing vocals were like she said “Don’t know couldn’t hear them for the crowd singing along” and we got the loudest shout I’ve heard for an encore, finishing off with 500 Miles and Nellie the Elephant. This was probably the biggest crowd we’ve played too, and we like to think we did our bit to make this year’s Nottingham Beer Festival the most successful ever.
See you all at the Greyhound on the 30th October

the World of Verbal Warning 28.9.2010

Well we had a 'smash it up' time at the Stumble Inn on Friday night. Our overly enthusiastic Punkette turned up again, she was even dancing to the sound check! No bubble wrap trousers this time though. But she did manage to last the whole gig this time, jumping around and grabbing microphones, unfortunately our equipment doesn't seem to be designed to withstand such treatment, we finished the gig with one PA speaker and one microphone knocked out, nothing serious as it happens, just leads giving way under the strain, you could say it was a proper punk rock gig, and most of the crowd seem to enjoy the extra entertainment that was on offer. In fact we earned ourselves some kudos points for carrying on like the troopers we are, mind you I couldn’t really do anything else after publicly slagging off Jake Burns for throwing a hissy fit because somebody threw some beer over him during a SLF gig at Rock City .I was a little concerned that the Stumble might not have us back again if they thought we were attracting a overly boisterous crowd but Martin the landlord gave us an extra 20 quid and promised to fix us up another date, bless him.
Next gig could be a big one if it doesn’t rain, it’s the Nottingham Beer Festival in the Castle grounds.