the World of Verbal Warning 16.8.2010

We have just returned from our annual trip to the Blyth Power ashes which was this year held in Norfolk .
We arrived after a 6 hour journey thanks to a gridlocked Grantham, a Pub stop, and the usual Kings Lynn traffic mayhem to rather wet weather, but it did improve on Saturday.
I have another holiday tip to go with my “make sure you don’t pack 2 left footed baseball boots ”. If you wake up in the middle of the night and find you’re lying on the floor because the airbed’s got a hole in it, don’t inflate it in the car to keep the noise of the pump from waking everybody up because although it is relatively easy to get a deflated airbed into a car it’s not quite as easy to get it out again once it’s been filled with air.
Helen Verbett and Drummer Boy came to my rescue for the second night as they had a spare airbed for me to use. Helen is the band lifeboat, as whatever you’ve forgotten to bring just ask Helen at it’s produced in an instant, from bottle openers to, err, spare airbeds.
The Goat Inn at Skeyton is a lovely setting with a thatched roof pub, unfortunately the toilet facilities turned rather medieval as well, a brand new toilet/ shower block looked promising but it was fed from a local well which ran out of water by Saturday morning, resulting in no ablutions for 4 hours, causing Singer Boy much distress as he likes to make himself as light as possible before we go on stage if you know what I mean.
The gig itself was bought forward to 12.15pm due to licensing problems, by which time the sun was beating down which meant it was getting a bit sticky in the Marquee where the bands were performing, Guitar Boy decided to wear a black hat for the gig which meant he got hotter than ever, I kept looking across expecting to see a pool of sweat, a black hat and a Gibson SG and not a lot else. Still we got through it, but because of the heat there were as many people outside the tent as in it, don’t blame them, I think I would have probably done the same, we did nearly get an encore, but it was decided there wasn’t enough time, and we did sell a fair amount of merchandise.
We’ve got the Olympic at Draycott this Friday, so it’s all go.

the World of Verbal Warning 18.07.2010

Just returned from a cracking weekend at the Rock and Bike festival, but first I'd like to clear up a potential misunderstanding over our none appearance at MFN last Wednesday, we bumped into a couple of fans and they'd gone to see us and were bitterly disappointed to find that NG26 were on and were somehow given the impression that we'd cancelled, this is not the case, we were moved by the venue to September 1st because of a "double booking" about 2 weeks before the gig.
On to Rock and Bike, we were on at 4 o clock on Saturday afternoon, before that a VW first occurred, an unplugged set, well, I say set, we actually had a practice in Drummer Boys tent before the gig, with Drummer Boy on a sort of drum Box, Guitar Boy on acoustic guitar and me using a little battery amp for my bass, it was certainly different, Singer Boy had to sing quietly for a start! the event was filmed on a mobile phone by one of the Verbetts so if the quality's not to bad some of it might get posted on our Facebook page.
The actual gig itself started off quietly but by the end when we finished the set with Jet Plane, My Way and 500 Miles the place was rocking, a memorable gig, as Drummer Boy commented we nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when we decide to do an unscheduled encore, trouble was Guitar Boy, not expecting to have to play anymore had put his guitar down and it got knocked out of tune, so White Riot was, frankly, a bit of a mess, but fortunately it didn't seem to matter. Singer Boy couldn't sell the merch fast enough after the gig and we shifted over a £100 worth of gear in about 10 minutes.
We all enjoyed the rest of the day, as we all had an access all area's pass ( Singer Boy was disappointed when we had to tell him it wasn't those area's) which meant we got into the hospitality tent with free booze and food and we also got to see the night time bands from the hospitality area at the front of the stage. Jimi Hendrix, not the real one silly, was suberb, looked like him and sounded like him, if you're a Hendrix fan I recommend you check out Are You Experienced, you definitely won't get nearer to the real thing. I even enjoyed Toyah's Rock Vampire Show against all expectations, it's hard not to like a show crammed full of rock anthems played well with top notch sound quality when you're full of free booze.
The Rock and Bike festival is brilliant value at only £24 for a ticket, Christ, even a tight arse like me would pay that.
Three weeks off now then a busy schedule in August starting with Blythe Power's Ashes in Norfolk.

the World of Verbal Warning 11.07.2010

We finally got back on the horse last night at the Poet and Castle in Codnor, it's fair to say we were a little bit apprehensive before the gig, especially after somebody pointed out it was the first pub gig, i.e a 2 x 45 minute set, since Kettering back in April, but it all turned out OK, in many ways it was typical VW gig, fast, furious with a sprinkling of mistakes, as somebody once said "you may not be the best, but you're good fun", it was a steaming hot night and the pub was pretty full, songs off the new CD seemed to go down well, the new Red Star Radio T shirts were also in evidence. I don't know who's stupid idea it was to put Jilted John next to Ace of Spades in the set, oh yeah it was me!, but they went down a storm, the fact that we had to restart Ace of Spades due to us losing the way, didn't seem to matter, in fact some would say it was better because I got to do the bass intro twice, well I would anyway. Due to the heat Drummer Boy finished up doing a Sandie Shaw impression, (the older readers of this blog will know what I'm talking about), by playing in his bare feet and the pub side door next to were we play was left open resulting in singer boy running up down Alfreton Road, all on his own, arms out stretched, during Jet Plane, oh yeah and doing his rock star impression by disappearing outside during the Whole Lotta of Rosie guitar solo only to reappear just in time to start the vocal again, I suppose we should just be grateful that this time he knew when the solo was due to end.
Anyway on to the Rock and Bike festival next week, slots on the indoor stage have been moved forward an hour, so we're on at 4 o clock Saturday afternoon, which just might be good thing because we were up against a Z Z Top tribute originally but now we're on our own, a nice rain shower would be nice as well, and it's not as bad as flying all the way to Japan to find out you're on at 11.30 in the morning (those of you who have seen the Anvil film will get that one)

the World of Verbal Warning 12.6.2010

We had an interesting weekend down in Sussex at the Glastonwick beer and music festival, I stopped off at my daughters place in London on the way down there for a couple of days and decided to have a day out at Thorpe Park, you would have thought that half term was not the best time for a visit and you'd be right, my initial delight at getting half price admission, with vouchers, was quickly replaced by the reality of the situation, I spent exactly the amount I'd saved buying priority passes for the rides so I wasn't queuing for over and hour in order to get terrified.
The weather at Coombes Farm where the Glastonwick Festival is held was very kind, ideal camping weather and a good time was had by all, until Saturday night that is, when a group of idiots thought it would be good fun to stay up all night and keep everyone awake, if you know who's van this is could you let us know so we can exact some sort of retribution on them


By the time of our slot on Sunday afternoon it's fair to say we were not at our best, a weekends boozing and a sleepless Saturday night had taken it's toll, concentration levels were not good in the band resulting in us making even more mistakes than usual, then the set got shortened due to previous acts overrunning, we nearly had mass suicide on our hands because we didn't play Jet Plane and 500 miles, well one or two of our Brighton contingent were having a moan. Still we managed to sell a dozen or so copies of our new CD, yes that's right we have finally got our hands on our new masterpiece thanks to heroic efforts by Singer Boy, going to the manufacturers personally on Thursday to pick them up, and a handsome looking thing it is too, if you can't wait till you see us to get your grubby little hands on it go to http://verbalwarning.bigcartel.com/.
No gigs for a month now, while the world cup's on then we've got 3 in a week, by the time we play the Rock and Bike festival at Draycott we should be really tight, that's musically tight, not financial, I don't need any practice to avoid spending money.

the World of Verbal Warning 31.05.2010

Sorry about the lack of a blog during the last 5 weeks but gigs are a little thin on the ground at the moment, still we played the Strummercamp pre festival party on Friday, we finished up going on first which was a "here we go again moment" but it all turned out very well, the crowd was a bit thin to start with, but filled up quickly, and by the end the place was rocking, we played some stuff off the new CD which went down well especially the State Control of Rock and Roll parts 1 and 2, which sounds a bit prog rock, but trust us it isn't. Unfortunately we didn't have any to sell as hoped due to production delays, but we've been promised it by this Thursday ready for this weekends appearance at Glastonwick, speaking of which, Attilla the Stockbroker who organisers the festival was so impressed when Singer Boy played him a copy he's trying to move us up the bill which is a good sign. Strummercamp itself was pretty uneventful with mixed weather, a not very inspiring lineup and nobody managing to put their foot in it, although me and Wendy Verbett did manage to find a shortcut to the nearest Whetherspoons for a cheap boozy lunch which went down rather well. Hopefully they'll be more news next week after Galstonwick.

the World of Verbal Warning 26.04.2010

Well, what an eventful gig at the weekend, it took me and Wendy Verbett a while to find the venue as the only Melbourne Hotel we could find had a poster outside saying a band called the Underlimes were playing there, eventually we found out the Venue had double booked the room, a compromise was reached, the Underlimes would play at one end of the bar in between Fightback, us and another band at the other end of the bar, not an ideal match as the Underlimes were a swing covers band, so a bizarre night was taking shape.

Guitar boy did his best to steal my crown as the most undiplomatic big mouth in the band, standing in the gents he struck up a conversation with the guy next to him as you do, and it went something like, “you in one of the bands then”, Guitar Boy replied “yeah that’s right”, the guy said “what you like then”, Guitar Boy “old school Punk, but don’t worry we’re not as bad as the first band”, guy in the next urinal “I’m in the first band”, whoops, quick exit by guitar boy.

I did my best later on in the night to reclaim my crown by totally falling to recognise the bass player from Fightback when he asked to borrow a pick, thought he was a fan wanting a memento of the gig, but I wasn’t in Guitar Boys league I’m afraid.

After the gig I saw Singer Boy trying to explain to a girl who had been throwing V signs at us that White Riot wasn’t a white supremacist song, a few minutes later Lee Cooper informed me we were all about to get a seeing too cause we’re a racist band, now with hindsight I could see the problem, the set consisted of England Belongs to me, and I had England Flags on my amp because it was St Georges Day, add to this playing White Riot, not to mention enthusiastic jumping about by a bunch of skinheads at the front and I could see why a few pissed up badly informed liberal thinkers would jump to the wrong conclusion, but it’s a bit sad when we can’t even show a bit of patriotism without being branded a bunch of racists, in the end the threats came to nothing.

The gig itself was cut down to 40 minutes because of the double booking problem, and predictable the covers went down a storm especially 500 miles, apparently the vocals were drowned out by the crowd singing along, song selection that’s what it’s all about.

the World of Verbal Warning 20.4.2010

You may well think that we’ve been a bit lazy during the last month, but not so, we’ve been beavering away in the studio trying to get our long overdue 2^nd album finished and if the final master turns out ok it looks like it might be out in May. If I’ve not mentioned it before it’s going to be called Red Star Radio, don’t know how we came up with that title but we did and for some reason we think it sounds rather good, it’s got 12 tracks on it and the last 2 are a sort of Punk Rock opera, so all you prog rockers out there, go and get it.

We did have a gig at Kettering last Saturday which seemed to go ok after a slow start, I enjoyed the 2^nd set after we were told to turn up, which meant I could actually hear what I was playing, though some of you may think that would be a bad thing, I don’t think Guitar Boy over enjoyed it though he was stuck round the corner which meant he had to have his amp really loud so the rest of the pub could hear him, unfortunately this meant that he couldn’t really hear what the rest of us were playing, still we did ok and the Landlord’s not canceled our September booking there, not yet anyway, which is a good sign.

There’s a gig this Friday at Melbourne with Fightback, so we’ll have to restrict our set to an hour, only about 20 songs then.