NWB - Community Blog

The following because it got me in the Guinness Book Of World Records AND raised money for a worthy cause........

Jamming with Dave Grohl and Orianthi Panagaris. It made me believe I was worthy of calling myself a drummer.

@ Ang, this will explain it. July 2009 -

I won a big talent show which gave me the confidence to believe that I can achieve anything. I was a lot younger and had been trying to work on stage presence. I wanted to be more relaxed on stage so I used nervous energy to move around and be lively. It worked and I've never had a problem since with performing.

I was a drummer back in 82 with a band called ''Never Never'' n we appeared on an ITV talent show called The Fame Game hosted by Tim Brooke Taylor n Stan Boardman, the show went out ''live'' to 13.5 million n we won it one week only to get knocked out by some Country n Western singer the week after. See how it's affected me !!!
Dang Nammit ;-)
but it was great being slightly famous in my home town fer a short while !!!

My Highlight was playing Galway Girl with Tex,& Willow last friday.......T

For me it was in 1972, the band I was in then was called Hard Cash (not long after this gig they split and became Old Tennis shoes), we played at the Liverpool empire in front of a full house in a country & western competition (we did`nt play country & western it was mostly original material a combination of Rock & country rock) the judges were a guy called Tex Ritter and Faron Young both very well known personalities at the time, we had our own dressing room and there were signatures all over the walls of very famous people, including Phil Lynotts (I had been to watch Thin Lizzy at the Liverpool empire the night before we played there) on stage I was absolutely shitting myself, we did a 20 minute spot at the end of which Tex Ritter said "Im not sure whether that was Country & western or not ?, but I did like it", we came fourth.

this is all far too impressive - gonna have to get me some of these highlight thingies :)

Loving the video Rick. Great stuff and for a very worthy cause too. Nice one matey!

Loads: ;-)

Appearing at four Genesis fan conventions and going down a storm.

Matthew St Festival in 2010...22,000 people all singing In The Air Tonight was something I will never forget.

In my original band years ago we had the opportunity to support a few american signed acts. We were obviously buzzing at this. We had a rider of whatever we wanted, free bits of gear, a sound guy for our monitors!!!!

Anyway, after one of the songs had finish my mates from work started to chant my name, and soon enough all the academy 3 was chanting my name..... this did not go down well with the singer/guitarist. Got booted out not long after.

After the gig we went inot the crowd signed cds, arms......boobs hehe.

Will always have this rockstar moment with me, it makes it all worthwhile.


Gary
BOF

Cheers Ang and Stu !

I played @ Wembley arena with Brian May, John paul Jones, Bruce Dickenson, Paul Gilbert, and Chad whatshisface out the chillipeppers in 1999.

Im quite lucky to have had a lot of highlights but that is obviously the biggest one

Best wishes

Kev

Wish I had something of the same vintage as all you guys to tell everyone! So far my best moment was winning a holiday camp talent contest at the tender age of 12 for performing 'my heart will go on' by celine dion (just picking the melody out on my geetar) with the camps house band (which featured an ex gerry and the pacemakers drummer I'm told). It was 1998 and I'd only been playing a few months so was pretty chuffed to win another week's holiday to come back for the final.

Then there was the glorified hot dog stand that Si and I played one christmas in our acoustic days. We were asked if we wanted to play the event for switching on Chorley's xmas lights so we said yes. Turned out it was bullshit - we were nothing to do with that event it just happened to be on the same day haha froze our bollocks off outside booths for nothing!

@WagonTel, was gonna put that but folk would just think I was REALLY showin off !!!!! ;-) was fookin brill tho ;-)

I have nothing that can compete with you lucky buggers above but i would say the best for me was very recently at D.O.A 's first outing at Mark Vankwishs charity do....

We opened with Synchronicity II by the police and seeing Mark Miller from Marauder, a guy i have a helluva lot of time for as a musician, person and as a friend, mouth the words "fucking bastards!" out in the crowd as we started playing it was priceless for me .... The after gig backslapping and handshaking and "you were wonderful" stuff is all very cool but that moment was a crystalized piece of 'yes you have done summat rather different and clever' from a peer. Admittedly would have been nicer if 80,000 people had been mouthing 'fucking bastards' at wembley but from small acorns and all that...

A few so far, played the Royal Albert Hall when I was 16, on drums, but with a Brass Band.

Carl Rock and I played the Guildhall in Preston (him on guitar and me on drums) as a 2 piece, to several thousand Asians, during a cultural festival - loads of Bangra bands, and us playing Van Halen and Malmsteen - very surreal!

I played in a backing band for Jim Bowen quite a few times at his pub in Arnside.

And, at the time, John Thomson and I were the only drummers at Runshaw College - he was FAR better than me though!!

Not me but my owd fella.......

Back in the 70's he had a show band that on one particular occasion was boked to back The Three Degrees, Peters & Lee and Rod Hull and Emu.

As a little kid to see these BIG stars of the day up so close was amazing and then to be attacked backstage by that bird wow!!!

Has it affected me???

Oh yeah as a drummer I backed Bill Tarmey doing cabaret in his early Corrie days ..... All I can remeber is that is act was based on taking the piss out of Vera :o)

My first was going to the Chippy for the Inspiral Carpets when i did my work experience at Square
One Recording Studio's in Bury.They were mixing their album down at the time.

The second also in Bury,was Supporting Alexander oNeil at Chicago Rock in Bury with Paul and Karen.
The SKP line up before SKP ever existed.(Long Story)Paul was only 18 at the time!We got the gig by winning a Northwest heat in a talent competetion run by Chicago rock.

Anyway There you go. Nowt major really.lol

Scotty.:-)

"I played in a backing band for Jim Bowen quite a few times at his pub in Arnside"

Winner! Winner! Winner!

Tel & Tex .... shurrup !!

:0)

Probably our soon to be 500th stories gig ,a good few people didn"t think we"d stand a chance & we"d be over in less than a few months (gotta admit we was crap at the beginning & drank way to much at gigs lol!),but little did they know .

getting a review for my cd "STONEMAN" in the rock/metal magazine Powerplay and it being given 8 out of 10, also having the singer Jorn Lande expressing an interest in my music was a huge complement.

Supporting Stiff Little Fingers in Stoke on Trent, supporting UK Subs and getting to meet the Great Charlie Harper in Bolton. Supporting Ed Tudor Pole and having a drmk and a chat with him afterwards, he gave me his number but I would never dare to ring him!
And best of all Rat Scabies posting my version of Love Song by the Damned on his facebook wall, chuffed to bits.

being invited to perform at a couple of events in California and Las Vegas a couple of years ago, all expenses paid for 5 weeks !!!!!!! was great fun if a little hot !!

just thought of a miles better one and one that i always think of when im in and around Southport ..... This one might appear a bit 'right on' but i really dont give a fuck! There's a 'special needs' holiday break place over on the north end of the lagoon at southport (cant place the name but it will come back to me - and i hate myself that ive forgotten it!) and we, a young cabaret band at the time doing a whole variety of stuff (Proclaimers, wet wet wet, bangles etc etc etc) got booked through an agency to play there. Background to the place and how it works is this - people with disabilities (severe and not as severe) go there like a holiday camp - there are all manner of events going on and they love it (but as much as that its other purpose is to give their carers a break as well)..... So we get the booking - and i know little or nothing about the place and i will admit 'i wasnt too sure about the gig', was ignorant about it all and basically really wasnt up for it.....

We get to the place (we all took our other halves) and there are people of all ages with all manner of disabilities, both physical and mental milling around the room we are due to play in...... I was horrified as i was loading up our gear (this was a major dose of reality for me, and my initial discomfort says a lot about how mature i was i guess as this was my first real first hand exposure to lesser capable people).......anyway to cut short this rather trite tale through the night i had an epiphany moment, had one of the best nights, most fulfilling nights of my life (certainly as a musician), had my eyes really opened to some issues and met 100s of truly lovely unfortunate people including possibly the most frustrated musician i have, or will ever meet in my life. He was about as able bodied as Steven Hawkins i would guess (that kinda level of disability) and had the most amazing computer setup on his chair and wrote music using one hand on a mouse and blowing through a tube (it was techno stuff but not too bad at all) .... he also used the same equipment to talk through a voice sythesizer ... and told my missus she had an impressive rack.....it took him some time and we could see the words forming on his computer screen T........I........T........S.....! hahahaha ....

Thats it!! that was my proudest and most memorable moment!!! and I cried like a baby in the car on the way home - now you dont get that from many gigs do you....

@LA80 Mark - much respect mate and a welcoming dose of reality for a few others. Humbling ain't it?

going to guitar shops with my dad and playing in bands together, wonderful memories, its my dad that got me playing guitar from age 15 when he started again and i will be eternally grateful to him for that, he also got me into awesome music when i was a little pup and i love him to bits

and seeing some of my favourite bands ever live, cant beat that feeling of being there seeing live the music that means so much , always shed a happy tear during times like that :0)

@ 4mostwanted - wasnt meant to be a buzz killington type of thing guys and certainly wasnt looking for brownie points and am sorry if it has done ...... but would honestly recommend anybody who gets offered a gig there (or places of a similar ilk) to take em without a moments hesitation, you will not regret it.. Was a truly wonderful night and we went back 3 times afterwards....

@LA80 Mark - Didn't come across as that at all mate. It shows how wonderfully human you are and I, for one, take my hat off to you sir. You've actually made a point about somebody less fortunate than yourself and how it affected you. If half of the egoists took a step back and realised the same thing, can you imagine how much less ignorance there would be?

All you've done is highlighted what really matters. The fact that you can walk, talk, see, hear and breathe without any mechanical or artificial aid, shows how lucky you really are. And how lucky most of us really are. Take nothing for granted as it can so easily be taken away.

Now that's probably a buzz killington type of thing! But fuck it, some people really do need a reality check!!

the missus has just come in and read this and has added to it ... apparently the guy in the wheelchair was chatting her up all night while we were playing .... little bastard!!!! hahahaha she also reminded me about one of the other guys that night ..... we were all asked that if we smoked to watch our cigarettes cos this one guy (he had some mental disability or other - forgive my ignorance) was on instructions from his parents to be rationed to 5 a day - he was offering me, the missus, the singer, the drummer and the drummers missus fags all night - wouldnt take no for an answer, absolutely insisted we have a fag off him at regular intervals...... we felt bad that we had smoked so many and thought we will give the nurse our fags to reinburse him.......only we didnt appear to have any fags left (little sod had ransacked our coat pockets and had kindly been passing them round to all and sundry!!!!!!!

I was Playing at the Springvale in Chadderton one Xmas eve when Simon Wright Jumped on the kit and played Cigarettes and Alcohol with the band. Apparently he was in a band years ago with our guitarist and when the band split up Wrighty up sticks and joined AC/DC. He said I could do a song for him when he next came back with Dio. No chance of that now eh?

Come Here Theres More. We once did a gig with Jimmy Cricket (honest). He Was Fucking hilarious.
His wife was fit as well.

Supporting Marillion, Shakin Stevens and the Sunsets, Chris Rea, Ian Gillan band, John Miles, Saracen.
Getting a little mention in Vic Reeves auti-biog.

Chances gone, but, better to have loved and lost eh?
Karl.

Vinegar Joe ( without Elkie Brooks) played my local pub in Flixton. They played many standards one I remenber was 'play the funky music' they were absolutly amazing imposible to describe their feel. This was 30 years ago and I have not heard a bar band get any where near what they had.

My epiphany was watching Sherman Robertson at Colne Municiple Hall years ago. He demonstrated the absolute importance of putting rhythm before content when playing guitar. I then went on to a appreciate the difference between playing guitar and producing music with a guitar or any other instrument for that matter.

Best gigging experience: Guesting on stage with a Tom Petty tribute band from Canada at a massive outdoor music venue called Buckets in Corpus Christi Texas many years ago. When I got back to our table people people kept bringing dricks over and making comments like "you rock man".

Greg Armadillos.

Highlights for us so far would be playing Maryport Blues Festival last year and every gig being ramsolid plus getting a mention on the Paul Jones blues show on the monday, and playing Colne festival twice in a row. Personal highlights has to be playing on Beale Street in Memphis and Watermelon Slim joining in the jamming, also playing BB Kings blues club on Beale with Blind Mississippi Morris has been a highlight.