the World of Verbal Warning 11-01-2010

These are worrying times for Verbal Warning another 3 gigs and all of them went surprisingly well, we must be due a apocalyptic one any time now. 1st up was the old school punk gig at the Horse and Groom in Derby, Singer Boy was predicting a no show with his voice due to laryngitis, I do think this was a little more serious than his normal complaints about his throat though, as we had to take one or two songs out the set but a good crowd had turned up by the start and the old adrenalin kicked in and he was still talking 10 to the dozen by the time we left, everybody enjoyed our efforts, we had a few dancing and we have been promised a return gig, a guy was chatting to us while we were loading up and he said “you might not be the best but you’re good fun” a comment which immediately came under consideration as a title for our new CD.

On to the Great Northern in Langley Mill, a strange one this 6 o Clock start on a Sunday evening and a wall down the middle of the pub which served to divide the sound, if you think my bass playing is not far off God like you could stand to the left and hear a bass heavy mix, if you think Guitar boy is son of Hendrix you stood to the right and couldn’t hear me very well, why anybody was standing to the right is a complete mystery to me.

Finally we were back to the Poet and Castle in Codnor, all of you who have been paying attention to my earlier blogs will know this is our preferred watering hole after practice, apparently it had been very quiet all week due to the snow but we had a half decent crowd some of them had come along after seeing our Great Northern gig and it all went well, Singer Boy’s battery in his radio mic packed up at the start of the encore though, and he’s only had it a year, I’ll have to watch my step otherwise he’ll be taking my crown as the tightest member of the band. I was partially hidden from the audience due to the PA speaker being right in front of me, but this turned into a bit of a blessing as I forgot to put my sunglasses on for the second half so didn’t look my usual cool self, this was despite Wendy Verbetts frantic hand signals, no she wasn’t calling me a wanker, well I don’t think she was.

Next gig in a fortnight a Scooter Rally at the Out of Town in Ripley, after last nights gig somebody said they’d come along if we did Jilted John, you never know.

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.