We enjoyed another interesting gig at the Oval Tavern a week or so ago. Pete Miles depped on drums for Dino Coccia and Alan Vincent was on guitar. Chris Youlden was back with us after his illness and Jim Mercer was on bass.We had a good time and so did some other people, which was where the interesting thing comes in. Continue reading
Au Revoir Les Enfants Terribles – the end of a Sixties Soho blues dive.
Guest Post by Mel Wright – January 2010
“It’s progress isn’t it?” the massive Nigerian security guard said, hovering over me in a kindly way on the corner of Dean Street and Diadem Court, Soho.
“But my history is at stake,” I protested, pointing to the boarded up building behind him. Continue reading
Long Gone
Recently Chris Youlden, Mel Wright, Bernie Pallo and I met up in Soho for our regular drink session, but instead of using the Blue Post behind the Hundred Club, we reconvened at our old haunt in Greek Street, The Coach and Horses. Mel Wright and I were the first to arrive and Mel mentioned that he had been by one of our old gigs, Les Enfants Terribles which was about to be demolished. Mel said he’d taken a photograph of the place but couldn’t get access to the interior. He suggested doing a piece about it for the web site. There is access to that now on the site plus another photograph of myself and the late Rod Price, our guitarist at the time, who later joined The Black Cat Bones and then the successful american arena band Foghat. Perhaps I’ll persuade Mel to do more on the past events we shared. When Chris arrived, he offered to search out an old interview he did, so perhaps we can get that on site too. Continue reading
That Time Of Year
It’s over a month since I wrote anything here so perhaps I should do some catching up. I suppose I’d be well advised to leave out the embarrassing bits, or at least most of them. I’ll definitely leave out the juicy bits because in this season of goodwill, I shouldn’t make you envious, so I won’t. Continue reading
All quiet on the depression front
On Halloween I gave up all pretence of being sensible and ended up wearing a mask and a cloak. Talk about entering into the spirit of things. It was all Gigi’s fault – of course. We went to a friend in Pimlico, dressed sensibly at first. Naturally we stopped at a pub on the way where we were able to sit outside and watch the evening’s halloween costumes going past with people in them. Suitably reinforced we proceeded to our destination and donned the necessary garments. Once inside the house. I attempted to divest myself of the encumbrances imposed on me, but was swiftly rebuffed and whilst I lost the mask, (which incidentally reminded me of those awful wartime kids’ Mickey Mouse gas masks we were issued with… couldn’t breath properly in clean air never mind in a gas attack…) I was persuaded to retain the cloak. The dagger came out later. Continue reading
A little night music.
Well life isn’t so dreary after all, even during a recession. I don’t know what the saying is about things coming in threes, but in my case good things happened three times to me in a couple of days. Mind they did follow three miserable days after my dumb argument with Gigi. Finally we agreed to meet to discuss things and I’m happy to say, after a long and serious conversation, we are together again. Continue reading