The Blue Fuses

N E W S

more about the Ramsgate gig - taken from doug's myspace	Fri 27 Jun 2008 7:17am

Yesterday morning, Mrs Douglip decided to go to work and do some Saturday overtime. This gave me the perfect opportunity to get some vocal takes done for my latest work-in-progress. It's a song I recently wrote, called "Don't Feel Afraid", which is going to feature a sax part, played on my recently acquired guitar synth system. The song is very personal and cathartic, as was my last offerring on myspace "I'd Hate You (If It would Do Any Good)". Vocals are not my strongest point - I have little in the way of true tone and I'm usually happy to just get in tune. I tend not to strive for the perfect take, as I know it ain't achievable. I could always get a proper singer in - like Noel, who has a superb voice, but I want to sing my own songs and if I can get it good enough to avoid buttock clenching embarrassment when I hear it back, I'm usually pretty content, knowing that it'll be at least listenable for other people. I always feel very self conscious when hollering away at a vocal, up in my music room, knowing that Mrs Douglip downstairs can hear it and that she might be developing real concern for my sanity! I therefore do vocals when she's out and yesterday was the perfect opportunity. I got the lead and backing vocal sorted in a couple of hours and hope to do some more sax and guitar dubbing next week. With luck the song will be on myspace in a few weeks. At 3 o'clock it was time to start things moving with that night's gig in mind. Blue Fuses were playing at Ramsgate last night, which means setting off very early and getting back very VERY late. After picking up Noel (lead vocals and bass guitar) from Kingston, we were all at the venue - The Churchill Tavern - by about 6.30 and after a leisurely set up we sat down for a meal and a drink, which is a really nice chance for us to have a bit of a social. Meal over by about 8.45 and we just had time to do a quick check of the vocals on the monitors and out front (we rarely need to do a full sound check), followed by a final tune-up, before we were ready for the off at 9.15 We kicked off with Tore Down, which we hadn't played for about 5 years and it was bang on the money - tight as a gnat's chuff. Then into our bluesy, funky version of Superstition (Stevie Ray - eat yer heart out!) and then Mistreated - from Deep Purple's Burn album. This song was also making a long awaited comeback and it was stonkin'. The small but perfectly formed audience of people indifferent to the football that was keeping people away, absolutely loved it. We did a 12 song first half which also included Kill The Monkey, for the first time in at least 5 years and the recently-learned Iron Man, before finishing the set in time honoured fashion with the Floyd classic - Comfortably Numb, which never fails to go down well. After a 20 minute break we then kicked off set 2 with a new one - The Who - I Can't Explain. That went pretty well for a first time out and then we were into the Zep Medley, featuring Will's big drum solo. Unusually for me I messed up the guitar break when we came back in on Whole Lotta Love. A bit embarrassing, but I don't doubt that we notice these little things far more than the audience. Took the intensity down a few nothes for the next two - Wish You Were Here and 29 Palms, neither of which were as good as we can and usually do, perform them - a bit of rustiness there I think. Then picking up the pace again as we headed towards the end, taking in Highway To Hell, Voodoo Chile (Noel had to skip the bass solo due to cramp in his fingers!) Gimme All Your Lovin' and then the big BIG climax to the show - Whole Lotta Doggin' (a joined-at-the-hip thing where Whole Lotta Rosie turns into the Zeppelin classic, Black Dog. The latter was a real belter last night. I usually keep the guitar solo fairly short, but last night, inspired by the tone I was getting out of my new amp set-up (Cornford 30 Watt Roadhouse head into a Marshall 2 x 12 cab) I went completely beserk and pulled off a totally over the top spoo-laden widdle-fest, which went down really well. Encored with Rockin' in the Free World (featuring a snippet of My Sharona (!!!) - don't even ask...) and Everybody Hurts, featuring some slightly more tasteful spoo from yours truly. After packing all the gear away, we hit the road again at close to 2am and I finally got in at 4.50 in broad daylight! I had to have a kip and a coffee at Clacket Lane in the interests of road safety! Listened to Blackfield II and Afterswish (Ozrics) on the long journey home via Kingston. I'm now absolutely knackered and need more sleep. Anyway, thanks for reading this and letting me share a brief snap shot of my weekend's musical activity. Keep well and keep smilin' Tarra and love Doug

Churchill Tavern - last night & next time	Sun 22 Jun 2008 1:16pm

Last night we were back at The Churchill Tavern in Ramsgate, playing to a much smaller audience than usual. Hopefully it was the football that kept people indoors. We gave it the usual max welly though and had an enjoyable night. We put in another brand new number - The Who's "I Can't Explain" which went down very well alongside the other newly introduced numbers, Iron Man (Black Sabbath) and Voodoo Chile (Jimi H). We also brought back "Kill The Monkey" (Walter Trout) and "Tore Down (just about everybody!) for the first time in about 5 years and were very pleased with the reaction. AND NOW THE IMPORTANT BIT We've had to cancel our gig at The Churchill on 11 OCTOBER 08. Fortunately however, we've just booked two more there. The extra two gigs are on: Saturday 6 SEPTEMBER 08 and Saturday 8 NOVEMBER 08 Thank you Andrea at The Churchill for being so understanding & helpful over this. Hope to see y'all somewhere soon. Love and peas Doug & chaps

Last updated Sun 22 Jun 2008 1:17pm

it must be summer	Sat 10 May 2008 11:09am

I can't remember the last time a gig was as sweaty as last night at the Wolsey. Absolutely roasting it was. We debuted a couple of new numbers last night - slightly tentatively, but we got away with it....I hope! First up was Iron Man (Black Sabbath) which is an absolute bugger. It's got about six different riffs in it, none of which are technically difficult, but it's hard at the moment to remember where they all go! Stitching them all together is tricky as well. I was pleased we got through it without having a major crash! Pete knows it far better than I do, so I kept a close eye on both him and my multi-coloured-coded-idiot-board! The other new one was Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - Hendrix - which we're doing with an appropriate degree of looseness - it's a great one to improvise on, which is what I like to do best. Sets last night: The Seeker For No-One Cinnamon Girl Take Me to the River Killing Yourself to Live Thrill Is Gone/Hey Joe Pink Tull Medley Iron Man Comfortably Numb Highway to Hell Zep Medley Wish You Were Here 29 Palms Voodoo Chile Long Train Running Superstition Gimme All Your Lovin' Whole Lotta Rosie/ Black Dog Everybody Hurts Bad Case Ace of Spades Thanks everyone for being there again - nice to see you all. As you could probably tell, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Spare a thought for poor Will - he had to get up for work at about 3.30 this morning, after getting home about 1am!

sorry it's a bit late...	Fri 4 Apr 2008 5:59pm

...my report of the Ramsgate gig that is. It seemed an age since we were last down at the Churchill, so this was a keenly anticipated gig. As always, we got there nice n early so we could have a leisurely set up and a nosh up before the gig. Our apologies to those who we displaced from the stage area - most of them took it well. Sorry. The gig was very enjoyable for us as always, although there were a lot less punters than usual - which we put down to it being the Easter weekend. We gave it 100% like always though, got a really good response and came away well satisfied. We changed things a bit set-wise - bringing back "Roadhouse Blues" after a long absence. I've been making an effort to find a place in the set for both "29 Palms" (Robert Plant) and "For No-One" (Barclay James Harvest)and both were included this time. "Hoochie Coochie Man" only gets a rare outing these days, cos we've got so much else to play, so when our friend Penny requested it, we agreed immediately! Nice one to improvise on. Sets: Beds Are Burning Roadhouse Blues Unchain my Heart 29 Palms Pink Tull medley My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama Muddy Water Blues Like A Hurricane For No-One Killing Yourself to Live Comfortably Numb Cinnamon Girl Zeppelin Medley Wish You Were Here Hoochie Coochie Man Money The Seeker Highway to Hell Sab-pigs Long Train Running Gimme All Your Lovin' Whole Lotta Rosie/Black Dog Encores Strange Kind of Woman Rockin' in the Free World Everybody Hurts See you soon All the best Doug

Last updated Fri 4 Apr 2008 6:01pm

Blimey that was fun, fun, fun	Sun 16 Mar 2008 6:48pm

Cracking gig at The Cardinal Wolsey last night - one of our best turn outs there. The response was utterly fantastic too. We were a wee bit rusty in a few places coz we hadn't played or rehearsed in six weeks. The plus side though was it added a bit of "edge". We all made a few wee howlers, but nobody minded. Towards the end the audience were louder than we were! Sets: Beds Are Burning The Seeker Unchain MyHeart Cinnamon Girl For No-one Muddy Water Blues My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama Killing Yourself to Live Comfortably Numb Pink Tull Medley Zeppelin Medley Wish You Were Here Sabbath Bloody Sabbath/War Pigs Highway To Hell Gimme All Your Lovin' Long Train Running Superstition Whole Lotta Rosie/Black Dog encores Strange Kind of Woman Rockin' in the Free World Thanks everyone who made it such a great night. See you soon.

Last night's gig at The Riverside	Sat 2 Feb 2008 10:10am

another good one last night, this time at the Riverside Club in Staines. Great reaction - freezing night so pleased with the turnout. We deliberately made things quite different from last time here. Sets were: The Seeker Rockin' in the Free World Thrill Is Gone - into Hey Joe Like a Hurricane Take Me To The River Unchain my Heart My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (our Frank Zappa moment) 29 Palms Comfortably Numb (Pink Tull Medley chopped out for time reasons) Zeppelin Medley Wish You Were Here Killing Yourself to Live Highway to Hell Superstition You Really Got Me Bad Case of Lovin' You Whole Lotta Rosie - into Black Dog Gimme All Your Lovin' encore: Everybody Hurts (with an added portion of spoo from yours truly) We hope to get another gig there soon. Hope so, coz it's a very nice club.

Last updated Sat 2 Feb 2008 10:12am

last night	Sun 27 Jan 2008 10:03am

Another great night at the Wolsey last night. Exceptionally nice, friendly crowd down there. It really is a huge pleasure to play for such nice people. Sets last night: Rockin' in the Free World (with a tiny bit of Smoke on The Water thrown in for a laugh) The Seeker Muddy Water Blues Like a Hurricane Take Me to the River Sab-pigs Long Train Running 29 Palms Comfortably Numb Pink Tull medley Zeppelin Medley Wish You Were Here Cinnamon Girl Strange Kind of Woman Killing Yourself to Live Whole Lotta Rosie/ Black Dog Bad Case of Lovin' You (Doctor Doctor) Gimme All Your Lovin' Highway To Hell Ace of Spades See y'all next time. Tarra for now Doug

* STOP PRESS * gig *giggig**	Thu 27 Dec 2007 10:41pm

We are pleased to announce an extra gig for the festive season - this is a late steppin' in sorta gig - on SUNDAY 30TH DECEMBER - we'll be playing at The Cardinal Wolsey, Hampton Court - 9pm kick off -- see you there if you can make it.

Gig Hunting.....	Sat 15 Dec 2007 10:12am

....is the least enjoyable part of being in a band. I've ranted endlessly this week to my bandmates about how certain publicans won't return calls, listen to the demo cd, deny receiving it after I actually drove 20 miles and put it in their hand, etc etc. I've made a big effort recently to find us a few more venues and I've followed up various leads that we've been given all to no avail. I know that the problem is most likely that pub managers are just too busy half the time (aren't we all!) but it does get very frustrating. There's one particular landlord who really pissed me off this week. We played at his pub last August for the first time. We had a really good gig there and he and his punters loved us. The place wasn't all that busy, but then the landlord had done nothing to publicise the gig, except putting up a couple of our posters, which he had severely edited, so that they gave almost no information about what or who we were. After the gig he was pretty pleased though and promised us another booking in 2008 - he'd already booked up to the end of the year. He did however ask me to ring him in September to book it - he'd have a 2008 diary by then. Ever since, every time I phoned, he asked me to ring again the following week until on Wednesday, he said "ring me tomorrow afternoon". Which I did, only to be told then that he was now being more selective and couldn't book us right now. He told me he's losing money with music most weeks. The question is then, why did this idiot fcuk me around for about 4 months like that? Was it incompetence, lack of organisation, thoughtlessness, stupidity or just plain nastiness? I can't say I'm terribly suprised to hear that his pub struggles to make money out of live music. As always, please do let us know of any venues - I do follow these up. Cheers Doug

Last updated Sat 15 Dec 2007 10:14am

Another good one	Sun 9 Dec 2007 10:03am

Last night's gig at the Cardinal Wolsey, our last of 2007 was a real blast. Ten minutes before showtime the place was very sparsely populated but that all changed bang on cue. We changed things around again, more on the first set - there's stuff in the second half that we just can't leave out! Sets last night: Beds Are Burning Thrill Is Gone/Hey Joe Sabbath Bloody Sabbath/War Pigs The Pink Tull Medley 29 Palms Unchain My Heart Take Me To The River Killing Yourself to Live Comfortably Numb The Seeker Zep medley Wish You Were Here Highway to Hell Bad Case of Lovin' You Long Train Runnin' Gimme All Your Lovin' Whole Lotta Doggin' Superstition Strange Kind of Woman Rockin in the Free World Ace of Spades There was a really nice vibe last night, as there always is at the Wolsey. Thanks everybody for being there and to everyone who knows us, have a great Xmas and a Happy New Year. Cheers Doug