Cattle and Cane support show

On Wednesday the 5th of October I will be supporting Cattle and Cane at The Yardbird. Here's the band's bio,

Cattle & Cane are a real family affair, with several members of the prodigious Hammill brood at the helm...Their local success was compounded by a storming appearance at Scotland's biggest music festival, T In The Park, performing on the BBC Introducing Stage which is nationally renowned as the music industry's forefront of exposing the best emerging music from all four corners of the United Kingdom...their music is indelibly marked by a sepia-tinted, timeless quality - that could just as easily have emerged from pre-war America as post-millenium Teesside

You can see videos of them performing at T in the Park on this BBC website

Here's the excellent promo video for Sold My Soul

As if playing along side such a great band wasn't enough, I'll also have chance to catch up with my old friend Simon Davies when he plays as part of the wonderful Chris Tye Band and Matty Pinfield is doing a DJ set.

The show is free entry and starts at about 7pm. Why not add yourself to guestlist of this Facebook event

Robert Johnson

This May was the centenary of the birth of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. Despite recording just 29 songs before dying at the age of 27 he became one of the most influential musicians in popular music. Many of those songs became blues standards including Love In Vain, Sweet Home Chicago, Cross Road Blues, and I Believe I'll Dust My Broom.

Due to his influence on the musicians who came after him it is easy to see the role he played in the creation of Rock and Roll and later Hard Rock. Giants of music who wear his influence on their sleeves include Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and Jimi Hendrix.

As well as his remarkable compositions, vocal delivery and untouchable guitar skills Johnson has the ultimate enigmatic personal story to make him a legend. Very little is known about him and fact and myth appear to have become so ingrained that no one can tell which is which.

The popular legend has it that Johnson transformed from a bad guitar player to something super human after selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads. However he developed his skills the few recordings he made demonstrate an incredible ability. No one can play like him, although many have tried over the past 70 odd years. Most mere mortals can only get any where near by cheating and having two guitarists to recreate what Robert did on his own (whilst singing!)

Like many musicians of his era he was a travelling man moving from town to town, playing on street corners and in bars. From Wikipedia; "Johnson supposedly asked homely young women living in the country with their families whether he could go home with them, and in most cases the answer was 'yes'...until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move on."

It seems likely that Johnson's reputation with ladies led to his early death. The popular story is that he was poisoned buy the jealous husband or boyfriend of a flirtatious audience member.

(This years Tenby Blues Festival is dedicated to Robert Johnson, and I've been asked to prepare some sort of tribute to him. I often play Love in Vain at gigs and at the moment I'm thinking about adding something extra for this event. It was whilst re-listening to his catalog that I decided a blog post about him was in order.)

The Yardbird, Birmingham's wonderful Jazz Club, is becoming something of a home from home. I'm playing pretty often on the Sunday evening event, Free Love Club, hosted by the rather lovely David Timothy. On the 14th of August I performed solo in an early evening slot which was good fun due to a nice crowd, including a family of tourists soaking up a bit of Brummie Culture. It was following this gig that I took a look at the recently damaged shops in New Street.

The following week, the 21st, David invited The Robert Lane Band to play a later slot. I was joined by Mick Jeynes on Bass, Matty Pinfield on Drums and for a couple of songs the Violin of Lucy Phillips. We went on around 9.30pm and were thrilled to play to a large and enthusiastic crowd. It was particularly exciting to play all the tunes from the upcoming EP, the first time some of them had been performed at a gig. There is always a great ambience at the Yardbird and this gig seemed to have a particularly good feel. It was a busy night and I met a few cool people before and after our set. Genuine music fans and great characters.

In the coming weeks I will be back at the Yardbird both solo and with the band. I'm also playing a Wednesday night gig in October supporting the excellent Cattle and Cane. There will be more details about these gigs on the blog soon.

Been a busy and pretty crazy couple of weeks. I started and finished recording three new tracks with Matty Pinfield producing then went off to France for a week to hang out with my old lady (ha ha) brother, sister in law and niece.

I can confidently say that these tracks, along with what we'd already completed for the new record a few months ago, are the best things put down by this musician ever and I'm very proud of them. I should thank Matty, Mick Jeynes and Lucy Phillips for their hard work but to be honest I don't think it was hard at all, just good fun.

Having lived with the rough mixes of the tracks for a week or so they have now been tweeked and mastered, and we are heading towards getting a new record out. You should hear some cheeky previews pretty soon.

Returning from France was a bit odd as we appeared to be flying into a slightly different country from the one we'd left. Hearing about the riots from the front page of a French newspaper was pretty crazy. We arrived home on the Wednesday after the Tuesday night trouble in Birmingham, West Bromwich and Wolvehrampton. Made the mistake of watching news 24 for too long, looked at some pictures in an Express and Star that showed Riot Police running past my girlfriend's place of work. All of this produced a very strange feeling. Something I guess we were sharing with everyone.

On Sunday I played a gig at The Yardbird in Birmingham city centre. Afterwards I took a walk down New Street to the Bull Ring and was rather shocked by the amount of windows boarded up. I got talking to a couple of Police who were part of the increased presence in that part of town. I was interested to know if any Police Officers had been hurt in the West Midlands during all that madness. The Constables I talked to said they hadn't heard of any serious injuries. They also told me that not all the boarded up windows were the result of damage but that some owners had put boards up to stop their shops being attacked if it went on. I was grateful to them for answering my questions, but then I guess that they were there to reassure the public as much as deter criminals.

All very odd, I don't know what to think. I'm one of those people who think that sometimes the police make situations worse by their heavy handed approach to public order stuff. I'm thinking of things like the G8 protests. I also get very upset when a protest turns violent. In this case I think the police acted correctly, indeed some would say too softly at first. I have no sympathy for people who turn to violence and looting, and I don't believe for a minute that the majority of those people were acting as part of a cause, more like simple greed. It's truly horrific that people have died protecting their communities and been beaten when putting out fires. It's unthinkable that homes have been lost and lives ruined. A lot of what has been said by various sides in the analysis since has troubled me very much.

At times like this though we do see both the negative and POSITIVE in people and in the country. Felt proud to see the clean up volunteers, and the donations made to the newly homeless. A few thousand selfish people won't bring us all down, don't you think?

Camden Cancelled

I'm very to sorry to say that my performance in Camden on Friday has been cancelled. Hopefully a new date can be arranged.