Yesterday evening I met Dino Coccia at the Princess Louise Pub in Holborn to pick up the last available copy of  the “Got Blues If You Wannit” cd, and of course to have a quick drink. We had done a gig the previous week at a wake for a friend of Dino’s and had really enjoyed the gig, with people eventually persuaded to get up and dance.  Enid, for whom the wake was organised, had been a lively enough soul and would have been first on the dance floor, as her daughter Sue had informed me, so I was pleased to see the dancers.

During the course of the drinking at the Louise, I realised that this had almost certainly been the place in Holborn where I had promoted the Hellhound Blues Club, way back in the late sixties. It had also been the venue of various jazz sessions some of which Dino had worked in. These reminiscences led to the usual comparison with the London music scene then and now. Perhaps the new easing of the licensing laws will encourage a return to busier pub venues but I’m not holding my breath.

Back to the here and now, the duo gig I’ve been doing with Jim Mercer every other Tuesday is cancelled next week and we’ll be back at the Alley Cat happy hour session on the 30^th of this month. Before that Jim will be on bass and vocals with my band on the 27^th at my local, the Red Squirrel on the junction of Elgin Avenue and Chippenham Road in Maida Hill. Jon T-bone Taylor also sent me an email about doing a repeat gig in the greenhouse at Ravenscourt Park in July. No rest for the wicked then.

I spoke to Chris Youlden yesterday but he is unable to do the band gig at the Squirrel as he has serious leg and ankle swelling  which he’s having antibiotic and zinc-dressing treatment for. He has been told to rest so lets hope he improves soon. as we’re due another drinking session. Which leads me to another  meeting on Saturday with friends of the late guitarist Bruce Langsman, who gigged with me in the early days and may well have gigged at the Hellhound blues Club. Mel Wright and Wolfie Witcher are attending at this annual get-together of Bruces mates which is being arranged as usual by Bruce’s brother Rex. The late bassist /vocalist Ron Skinner was a regular at this event too. Incidentally, I have not been invited to play at Maggie Thatchers’s wake, but perhaps there isn’t one…