Love Your Neighbour in Walsall

I’m playing a gig in a couple of weeks in Walsall Town Centre. It’s only a short appearance on a stage I’m happy to share with a whole host of local performers, speakers and dignitaries. Love Your Neighbour is an initiative started in Birmingham and spreading across the country.

It would be great to see a whole crowd of people supporting their local community.

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On the road again with Dischord

Just a quick post to highlight Dischord’s next gig.

We’re on the Arboretum Bandstand in Walsall in a couple of weeks’ time, and looking for collaborators who fancy sitting in for a few numbers. Last year it was good fun, and very relaxed. This year, we cancelled our first Arboretum date due to bad weather. Here’s hoping we’ll be able to make this one.

 

Loitering within Tent

Today I had the most tremendous fun playing Blues with Dischord, at the Whittington Country Fair.

We delivered three sets across the afternoon and were lucky enough to see a few friends in the crowds of visitors enjoying the late Summer sun with this “traditional” country fair.

The ferret wrangler was most amusing, and the classic cars glinted in the afternoon sun when the cloud briefly dispersed. There was food, beer, craft, local interest groups, and even a miniature steam traction engine.

Many thanks to John for inviting us, and to Nigel who joined us on sax for the occasion.

Open Dischord

I love playing live music, and Dischord has been a great way to enjoy this vice with little time commitment. The entire premise of the band is that we simply roll up on the day and improvise. We’re comfortable enough to mess about and we “win” by making beautiful music.

Dischord’s next gig is this coming Sunday 20th July in the Bandstand at Walsall Arboretum, and we’re throwing the doors wide open. Do you play an instrument well enough to jam in public? Pop down and give it a throw. We won’t judge you, (although the audience might!) and you might find it’s something you enjoy. There’s a Facebook event page and everything.

Even if you don’t want to play, please do come down and have a listen. We’ll be playing laid back music from 2 til 4(ish) for anyone who walks past.

Independence Day for Books in Walsall

How many independent book retailers are there in Walsall?  Not many I can think of, although I’m certain there are some somewhere. That’s the trouble if I’m honest about this. I don’t have the time to go looking for shops unless I know they’re there, and I usually just look up a book on Amazon if I want it. I’m not given to browsing through shelves of books. It’s a dying art when my phone can tell me everything about the book (well, the bits that make it to Wikipedia, anyway).

Great news for people like me who are bookish but not bookshoppish. A NEW ONE IS COMING!

The Sow and Pigs. It’s not unusual.

Dischord are playing a gig tomorrow night, at the Sow and Pigs in West Bromwich.

More details can be found on the Facebook Event page or you could just come along at half eight, get yourself a beer, sit back and enjoy yourselves.

It would be great to see folks there. We have even found a drummer for the occasion. It should be great fun, and entirely devoid of septuagenarian Welsh singing legends on swivel chairs comparing our singing to long-dead and/or eccentric people he worked with a long time ago. Sorry, Tom, but we play by our rules.

Rule One: Make it up.

Rule Two: Make it good.

Back on the road

This week sees a return to form. On Thursday, Andy Arnold and I are playing as Dischord in Lichfield.

2013 retrospective – a Ronseal post

I love writing about myself, else I wouldn’t have so many posts on this blog, but it’s the end of the year and I’m given to introspection, retrospection, and blowing my own trumpet.

We’re getting the band back together.

I’m in a band again. It’s not the usual, in fact far from it. There’s two of us, and the first thing we did as a band was to split up. Now we’re putting the band back together and going on the road.