busy busy busy and a new residency in New Cross

The last week in November has been an eventful one for us, and (thankfully) in a good way… The previous Sunday evening we did a great gig at the Vanbrugh in Maze Hill with Ben on Double Bass, which was fun as we are always trying to play more venues.

The people there are trying to establish a live music presence on Sunday evenings and as such have a fabulous vibey environment with a very clean and dry acoustic, but not many punters know about the gig currently. The problem with any Sunday evening gig is that it’s a long haul, the manager and the band have to spend the time establishing it…We know we’ve done Cattleyas for nearly 3 years; there are only so many fans who can turn up, we have a loyal fanbase but we get different people turning up to different gigs

At the Vanbrugh we had some loyal friends turn up, so hopefully we may get a few more there – but we have to play it consistently for people to be aware that its us and established.

Ken from the White Hart Hotel 184 New Cross Road SE14 5AA had seen us at Chu and Chos and wants us to establish an acoustic sit-in on Thursday evenings starting 4 December and he knows it takes time so we will see whether New Cross Gate is ready for us, we are looking forward to it as New Cross almost has a Camden approach to live music…

On Tuesday we had to prep up Nigel/Reggie Pearce from the Tinnies (Tin Gods) for yesterdays gig at Chu and Chos as Ben wasn’t able to do this one. So armed with 8 pads he then had to guess the remaining 17 songs which he did with aplomb.

To add to the frisson, Glenn Tilbrook turned up for a birthday party so we couldn’t really not ask him to play: so for you squeezistas out there he played and sang “Labelled with love”, “Gershwin’s You cant take that away from me”, Peter Green’s “Oh Well, as well as sitting in with about six or seven of our usual numbers.”

Nigel did extremely well and it can be a bit awe inspiring for everyone when someone as capable as Mr T gets going… as he was and still is definitely the guitarist/musician of his generation, watching him play and sing with us is a privilege and if I’m really honest a bit of an education..