More gigs.

Exciting news of another gig at the end of August this year, and two more for next year - one 60th birthday in April, and a wedding, but date uncertain.

We must be doing something right.

The Summer Tour, part 2

Finally, the secret can be revealed. Many months ago, we all had to solemnly place our right hands on our most treasured possession (in my case, my huge organ), and swear to keep the details of the second gig on the 'No Passports Requited' Tour secret. Now it's over, we can at last tell.
In an idyllic wooded Hampshire glade, up a bumpy track, the 'Livestock' festival took place last weekend. Many bands took part, many people came (nearly all in Woodstock-inspired fancy dress), and much fun was had. Two tents for bands, catering tents, beer tent...VIP tent/bonkfest tent, and all held over twelve hours, starting in the most gorgeous and much-missed June sunshine, and ending during the small hours of a warm and misty English summer night.

Special mention to the organisers/hosts, who made it such a success, not least because of the funds raised for assorted charities.





It was nice to have Jesse back with us 'for one night only', as they say. Fantastic to hear his minimalist fills during 'Walking the Dog' again. I think you know things are going well when you run out of encores, and when poor Ian the drummer leaves the stage at the end complaining of cramp in his legs and lower back.

Other highlights included some wild-west style fighting in the crowd (and there was me thinking that Woodstock was all about love and peace), the Hunnisett boys dealing with the fighting, and the surprise announcement - during the encores - that we would now play 'A Hard Days' night'. Not sure if we'd ever rehearsed that one. I think we got away with it - I picked up two more bookings, anyway.

A fantastic evening - be aware that the next one will be somewhat different in style, at least.

The Unsung hero

He sits somewhere near the back, far from the bar, far from the dancing, far from the copulating couple canoodling under the counterpane in the VIP tent....he gets shouted at by everyone from the lead singer to the third guitarist and the roving saxophonist....all he has for company up on his raised platform is the glare of his lamp and the massed ranks of knobs and dials. But where would we be without him? Where would we be without his acute auditory skills? In the vacant depths of acoustic darkness, that's where. Let's hear it for Simon the Sound Man.

The Summer Tour Starts

Well, the 'No Passports Required' Tour finally kicked off last night, in a lovely old barn on a lovely old farm not more than a mile from Shed 3b.



There were times when it seemed that the Tour wouldn't actually start - at ten o'clock, when the first musical act of three was supposed to be taking to the stage, dinner in the big tent was just only just starting. By eleven, Rufus, our host, took the brave decision to get the music going, even though the meal was far from finished - even braver when you consider that he was part of the first act.

So Rufus and his pals took to the stage for an eclectic mix of Blondie, Magazine, Martha and the Muffins and another couple I'd never heard of. Not even the smoke machine doing a Spinal Tap 'set to 11' moment could dampen his enthusiasm.






Next up was 'Grace and Bass' - a girl and a guitar, accompanied by a lad with a double bass, providing a genuine 'hair stand up on the back of the neck' moment, blowing the assembled crowd away with her talent. Rufus is something in Investment in the City - one hopes he's invested a bob or two in her success.

By then, it was well past midnight, and Grace kindly curtailed her set so we could finally get on - or so we thought. In fact, our Host's wife, the lovely Ali, popped up on stage for a surpise song. She did it so well, the crowd quite rightly insisted she do it again.

And then, once everyone else had done their bit, it was TLOGtime. After a swift switch of instruments, and Tod and Dan giving the PeeVee a good kicking, we finally got going.

We only had time to do half the set, but it went very well - Ian doing fantastically on his first time out 'in anger' with the TLOGS. The floor filled and danced, we had to do two encores, and then we all settled down to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at 2.30 in the morning, while munching Organic chocolates and tiny meringues.

And life don't get much better than that.

Where are they now?

I am often asked "What happened to Smooth Charlie - you know, the excellent drummer who replaced Mick the Sticks, and then was replaced by As Yet Unnamed Ian?"

Actually, I'm not asked that very often - if at all, but I have found pictorial evidence of what dragged him away from hard blues'n'booze in Shed 3b, and the high-octane, world-encompassing rock'n'roll summer with the TLOGS.

He's playing the lion in the Cheriton Players' production of Alice:





Rock'n'roarl.

Another rehearsal

We had another gathering on Monday. Numbers were down again - Dave was stuck in his lorry again, and reserve bassist wouldn't be prised away from his R&P GCSE revision (just what is the matter with today's young people?)and John was away in Oregon. We had another visit from the mystery guest, who grabbed a beer and slumped, looking exhausted, on the comfy sofa. And then, after a brief technical discussion on the merits of different PA systems, and a swift round of "My organ's bigger than your organ", he vanished into the night.

It was nice to have proof that we are very suitably named the 'Old Gits' when a long debate about the joys of the 'Antique Roadshow' started. We sounded like a right bunch of old biddies as we ooed and aahed at the discovery of 17th century quill-holders. Hell yeah, rock and roll!!!

Dan tried to claim that he never really joins in with the 'Antique Roadshow Guess the Value' game, and only shouts "A tenner!" at everything in a sarcastic way. But we don't believe him.

We also all said "Yarp!" a lot.

Nice to see a forthcoming gig being publicised in the mighty 'Church and Village - news from the benefice of Upper Itchen'.

Monday's rehearsal

It was an action-packed evening - even if you exclude the nasty outbreak of Sudden Dropping Pianist Syndrome (you can stop laughing now....no, really, you can.)

It was a full-house, and it started reasonably quietly, and then got too loud again - a problem that needs addressing.

We had not one but two sets of bookers dropping in for a listen - one already confirmed for her wedding but just checking anyway, the other from a well-known local hostelry who run a beer festival in late summer. "Can't hear the drums" was the latter's verdict. Mind you, by then we'd all descended into the agonising mush of ubernoise that means no-one can hear anything anyway. We'll wait and see if we 'passed' the audition.

We were a bit sloppy technically, which isn't a disaster at this stage - it tends to result in a mass pulling up of socks. Then again, the barrel of Gribble's Old Pant Stainer that needed finishing off might have been a contributory factor.

Apart from the collapsing stools (sounds slightly medical), we had Tess back (also a non-recipient of a postcard from Ian), then news that John is off to Oregon on 'business' and so will miss next week's rehearsal.

Finally, quite a shock to hear that one band member is due to be on the Jeremy Kyle daytime show in an episode called 'Snogging the bar staff - was that wise?'

A little physics

Time allowed for this question: ten minutes. Calculators are allowed. Show all working.

1. A pianist (mass 109 kg) was sitting on his stool (height 55 cm) when it inexplicably gave way. How fast was he travelling when he hit the ground?
2. He had drunk 3.5 pints of Ringwoods Old Gut-throbbers ale (SG 1.05). By how much is the answer to question 1 changed?
3. The pianist was leaning back against one of shed 3b's tasteful curtains at the time. The contact area of 0.33 sq.m., the horizontal force exerted by the huge pianist was 18N and the coefficient of friction between expensive Barbour shirt and aforementioned curtain was 0.12. (Assume horizontal force remains constant, and use Coulomb's Law)
a. How fast was the pianist travelling this time when he hit the ground?
b. How long did he take to hit the ground?
4. What percentage of the rest of the Thomas Lord Old Gits stopped at once and offered their sincere sympathy to the pianist, who was by now doing beached whale impression on the floor of Shed 3b?
5. What percentage of the rest of the Thomas Lord Old Gits had to go and change their underwear, having wet themselves laughing?

Last Monday's rehearsal.

This went very well until my ears started to bleed. I don't know how it went after that.