the World of Verbal Warning 25.12.09

Well its Christmas morning Ho Ho Ho and I’m hanging around waiting for the pub to open, so seeing as we had a gig on Wednesday I thought it was time to bring you all up to date. The Harrington gig was our Christmas party which nearly didn’t happen as the pub changed hands recently and the new landlady wasn’t keen, but Singer Boy managed to talk her round, can’t go into details, it’s their little secret. Her fears about having a horrible punk band on in her pub were dispelled though, a good time was had by all, a reasonable crowd considering 5 inches of snow had been forecast, and everybody stopped to the end resulting in the 11 o Clock bar being extended. For the second encore we decided we needed to do a song with white in the title and seeing as how we don’t know White Christmas we did White Riot instead.

Our day in the studio turned into a 12 hour marathon, Guitar Boy was well knackered at the end of it after doing god knows how many overdubs of 500 miles, I bet he wishes he’d done more wrist exercises now. And we’re still waiting for the results. Guy who runs the studio is a lovely bloke but he does seem to have trouble getting round to things. Back in on 29^th January we’re having to write new songs now as we’ve used up all the ones we’ve taken the last 4 years to write, well it is the difficult 2^nd album.

Next gig is on Sunday 27^th at the Horse and Groom in Derby which should be a good one if past trends are maintained, 3 good gigs 1 bad, which means I have bad vibes about the Langley Mill one on 3rd January, that’s the Sunday before everybody goes back to work!

the World of Verbal Warning 23.11.09

Well, the Stumble gig turned out to be a cracker, we had a good turnout of our Long Eaton contingent and a good time was had by all. We got the impression that Martin, the landlord wasn't keen on having live bands on in his new pub, we think that maybe he'd had a couple of bad experiences of too loud bands driving the punters away but he relented under pressure from Singer Boy and a few of his regulars and he seemed well chuffed by the result, free drinks all round and an extra tenner, can't be bad. Before the gig I got a blood blister on my thumb after trapping it in a mic stand, by the end of the gig it had burst and I'd got blood all over my new bass. Rock and Roll, copying Sid Vicious now, I think I'll stay off the heroin though, and Wendy Verbett will be relieved to learn that I'm not planning to murder my girlfriend.Had a bit of a result with my new amp which I got a bit cheaper cause it was an ex demo, sent it back to Marshall because of a fault and they sent me a brand new one .The remixes of the 3 tracks we did in the studio were deemed to be acceptable by everyone, although we still think there's room for improvement, we're back there on December 6th to do some more recording. Next gig is our Christmas party at the Harrington in Long Eaton, we've got to relearn Gary Glitters, Another Rock and Roll Christmas for that one, just love the line, "You'll never guess what you've got from me".

the World of Verbal Warning 06.10.09

We've just had an eventful weekend, in the studio all day Friday, managed to get 3 tracks down, guitar boy was knackered after doing God knows how many overdubs, we don't know how successful we've been till we get the final mix, by the way, be careful about the Burger King at the end of Meadow Lane, we saw a rat running AWAY from it.
Saturday night saw us at the Mill in Mansfield, we finished up first on with Chelsea headlining, which meant the crowd was on the thin side for the first couple of bands, it was also bad news for Ronnie, one of our Mansfield faithful, he normally gets thrown out for climbing all over the speakers during our set, but because we were first on he didn't get to see any of the other bands this time, and it was £9 to get in! Also out of 4 bands it turns out I was the only one to bring a bass amp, after Apocalypse Babies used it I decided enough was enough and took it off stage, the sound engineer asked if I was going and I said "yes" and he turned round to the guy behind him and said "We haven't got a bass amp then" amateur hour or what? It's not quite as disastrous as it sounds cause bass can go straight through the PA, not ideal though. I was going to stop long enough to see the next band till Wendy Verbett pointed out that I had said I was going and that I might be not a little inconspicuous standing on the front row with white jeans and a bright red tie on, so, in the best rock star traditions we left the building. On to the Vic at Derby on Sunday, now we may have had worse gigs but I can't really recall one at the moment, hardly anybody turned up, we made the mistake of using the amps that were there and the sound was truly horrendous, on stage as well as off it, Drummer Boy couldn't hear his drums! the rest of us couldn't hear the vocals, Phil Spector would have been proud of the wall of noise that engulfed us, front of house was just as bad apparently with a bass drum to take your spleen out and a sound as muddy as Morecambe Bay sands, there's not many gigs we've played when we couldn't wait for it to be over. Felt sorry for the guys from Still Dying promotions, everything was against them, King Blues at the Rescue rooms, beer festival down the road and a deaf sound engineer. A special mention in dispatches for Lee Cooper and his mate, Wendy and Janet Verbett who stuck it through to the bitter end.
Next gig at the Stumble Inn on November 20th, should be a good one we're doing the sound ourselves.

the World of Verbal Warning 28.09.09

Seems a long time since my last blog but we've finally had another gig, it was at the Poet and Castle in Codner which happens to be our "local" after practice, the omens were not good when my car refused to start in the car park after Wednesday's practice, after spending 40 minutes fiddling around, the immobilizer was still stubbornly stopping the car from starting so we ordered a cab, and guess what, yep, it suddenly burst into life, it's getting expensive running these modern cars, it's only 5 years old and I've had to replace the battery in the key fob already.On to the gig which despite Wednesday's troubles, turned out to be a cracker, the place was punk rocking, people were actually dancing around, there was some inter band violence towards Guitar Boy when Singer Boy got carried away and smashed him in the face when he spread his arms during Jet Plane and then I hit him on the head with the end of my Bass (fortunately there was no damage to my bass) all it needed was Drummer Boy to spear him with a flying drum stick and he would have had a full house, the place was still pretty full when we played our 2nd encore, we're on a roll at the minute, that's 3 good ones on the trot it's bound to go pear shaped soon, anyway so far so good and we think we'll be back there in March sometime.We're in the studio on Friday to start recording our 2nd album so we're all looking forward to that and then we've 2 gigs next weekend, on the minus side we've just heard the Fishpond gig has been cancelled due to the pub being refurbished, we've been promised a date when it reopens.

the World of Verbal Warning 01.09.09

Just returned from a better than expected weekend at Lumb Farm playing at the Blyth Power Ashes, didn't bump into any Australians fortunately, or is that unfortunately after England's victory in the real Ashes? Overdid it a bit on Friday night, the Abbots was slipping down a bit to well, after being a bit poorly I was freezing cold in the tent and decided to stumble down to the car to get warm, woke up 2 hours later with the engine still running, still I was nice and warm, got back to the tent at 3.30 where Wendy Verbett, imagining I was lying face down in some ditch was about to call out mountain rescue.On to the gig, we had a Saturday Lunch time slot again, I think we've resigned ourselves to the fact we aren't going to get a prime Friday or Saturday night slot, they seem to be taken by the same bands every year. In spite of that it went very well, unlike last year, I had sobered up enough to remember the bass line to the opening song and the room was pretty full to start with and more importantly at the end of the set as well, and we had some very nice comments from people who hadn't seen us before. After the gig we were having a drink on the site, when the strains of OCD wafted through air, someone was playing a Kick in the Verbals, glory glory.Next years Ashes are in Norfolk, so we're all looking froward to that, next gig is the Poet and Castle in Codnor, rock on

the World of Verbal Warning 17.08.09

Got 2 gigs to talk about this time, first one was the Birthday Party of the son of someone who works at Guitar Boys place, it was in a normal pub near Ripley, family party's are always a bit tricky because of the wide variety of people there, and to be honest we thought we were going down like Billy Bragg at a National Front rally, the pub was L shaped and we seemed to be playing to ourselves, as opposed to with ourselves, then when we finished the last song all these people appeared from round the corner shouting for more, so we finished up doing an unexpected encore and to top it all we got a booking for a scooter rally next year, so a worthwhile exercise as it happens.On to the Air Hostess gig and we weren't sure what to expect, a 70's pub in the middle of a housing estate in Tollerton on a Sunday tea time, strange eh? But it turned into one of the best gigs we've done in a long time, not a very big room and the Verbal Warning barmy army turned out in force, that's when it started to occur to us, there's not a lot to do on a Sunday tea time is there? First half was ok then it looked like we were doing our normal trick of emptying the place when it suddenly started filling up, by the end the pub was packed, loads of applause and 2 encores and we've been booked again for February 7th next year.

the World of Verbal Warning 27.07.09

Just got back from our Rock and Blues weekend, which we survived intact. Bought a new amp because my old one was still playing up, and it sounded awesome, really clear and powerful, the only trouble is everybody can hear my mistakes now, every silver lining has a cloud, huh . On to the gigs, we got moved to 6pm on Friday which we thought was an improvement, but the gig was real hard work, very little feedback from the crowd so we were a bit down at the end but everybody said we went down well, the guy running the PA promised to get us gigs and everybody enjoyed the set, just to cool to clap I guess.Exhibit A were next on but not till 10.30, and what a difference, can't argue with the decision to put them on last, they're better than us, play all covers and a wider variety as well, but a pissed up crowd went wild and they were playing some of the stuff we do, I couldn't help thinking we'd have done just as well at that time of night .The second gig of the weekend was a strange one, it turned out we were playing to the fully indoctrinated Outlaws in there inner sanctum which was separated from the rest of the sight by fences and guards, a little bit intimidating, they too were to cool to applaud much, but I enjoyed the gig, we played well and sounded good and I got the chance to listen to Verbal Warning from the crowd, when Neil the PA guy, who got us the gig, asked if him and his bass player from another band, could play Teenage Kicks with Guitar and Singer Boy, so me and Drummer Boy retired to the audience and very good it sounded to, I'm hoping it wasn't anything to do with the fact I wasn't playing.The worst thing about the weekend apart from having a freezing night under canvas on Saturday night was the bar, what a very poor effort, cans only and on top of that they stopped anybody taking their own booze on site, Alfreton's Wetherspoons was an irresistible draw on a couple of occasions.Got a gig next Friday but it's a private birthday party, but apparently it's just at a pub, "the Railway" on Peashill Rd Codner, so you VW fans can pop along and see us if you're in the area, it's free! otherwise you will have to wait till the Air Hostess gig on August 16th to get your next Verbal Warning fix as we can't do the Fightback gig next Saturday as they moved it to Friday and forgot to tell us!