3rd September 2021: The proverbial chicken.
It is the first Friday of the month, and just in case you have been living in a cave, there is no Klub Kakofanney tonight. We had hoped to have restarted gigs by now, but venue wo...
27th August 2021: A dollar and a half.
Which would you rather do? Would you prefer to write a song which is a top ten hit this year but soon forgotten, or would you rather write a song which doesn't make the top ten bu...
20th August 2021: Rewinding the tape.
MPs crowded into the House of Commons this week to discuss the dreadful Afghan situation. There was no attempt at social distancing and the cameras revealed that many of the MPs d...
13th August 2021: Giving a monkey a shower.
I was checking out an article on a news site this week. I really shouldn't read the Readers' Comments below news articles, yet I do, even though I know they'll make me grind my te...
6th August 2021: Doing the one-man conga.
Here we are again, the first Friday of another month and still no Klub Kakofanney. I really thought I'd have stopped doing these lockdown letters by now, but I was thinking the sa...
30th July 2021: Five gold rings, ooh shiny.
Halfway through the Olympic slog and the BBC is bubbling about Charlotte Dujardin who finished third in the dressage, (ballet for horses), and thus became "Great Britain's mo...
9th July 2021: Dance just one more time.
1966,... whatever happened in 1966? The best seller that year was Jim Reeves singing of distant drums, The Rolling Stones had their 19th nervous breakdown, The Beatles were trippi...
2nd July 2021: How big is your chicken?
It is the first Friday of the month, July, and we are irreversibly missing another Klub Kakofanney night. But hopefully this is the very last time I will have to use that phrase. W...
18th June 2021: Ready, here we go again.
We are not in reverse. It's irreversible. But it sure feels like we've left the handbrake off and are rolling backwards down the hill. I had thought this would be my last letter b...
11th June 2021: The fiddle it was wailing.
The sun is out, the sky is blue, and the best news I've heard this week was that there was so much demand for vaccines from the Under 30's age group that you crashed the booking sy...
28th May 2021: There's a moose loose.
Slowly the world is opening up. Hopefully, by the end of June, we'll be able to live normal lives again without restrictions, although there seems to be some reservations coming t...
21st May 2021: Nil points? Have an avocado.
Are you all on the edge of your seats waiting for the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend? No, me neither. The Italian entry sounds more rock'n'rolly than most though, although t...
14th May 2021: Like left needs right.
Legend has it that during the Napoleonic Wars with France in the 1800s, a ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool, and a monkey which had been on board escaped. It was capture...
7th May 2021: Banging on the door.
It's the first Friday of the month and it's,.... well you know the rest. It should be a Klub Kakofanney night, but the country is not quite there yet. A government-sanctioned gig ...
30th April 2021: Together we can mash potato.
If you, like me, are losing track of the hours and the days, here is a reminder: Monday is a Bank Holiday, (yippee), and Thursday is local elections day and a chance to make your o...
16th April 2021: It doesn't just warm you up.
The lockdown rules have changed recently, but as usual, the government didn't bother reminding people what is appropriate or what the rules are this week. In an exercise of trappi...
9th April 2021: When the loud gets louder.
Still all quiet on the Wheatsheaf front I am afraid, so to remind you of better times, here is a blast of the electric past from some of our Klub Kakofanney gigs. It starts loud a...
15th January 2021: Part of the solution.
I hope you are all keeping well out there in Lockdown Land, and I hope by now that at least some of you have been contacted by the NHS to arrange a date for your first innoculatio...
31st December 2020: Soak me down in whiskey.
New Year's Eve would normally be a special Klub Kaofanney event, a night when we have just local bands playing, letting their hair down, crowded, chaotic, noisy, with a whole lott...
24th December 2020: Not the Cristmas news.
I wasn't planning on sending out an email this week, this being Christmas and all, but a few days ago Phil and Sue put together a short fun Christmas message for friends and fans ...
18th December 2020: When Frosty went pop.
So here we are, the last weekend before Christmas, a time when music venues would have been rammed with rocking revellers and drunken dancers, but sadly that isn't happening this ...
27th November 2020: Hot cross bun anyone?
Great news this week. Trump has lost the election, even though he thinks coming second in a two horse race makes him the winner, a covid-busting vaccine has proved highly effectiv...
6th November 2020: Dreams of tomorrow.
It's the first Friday of the month, a night when we hoped we'd have fireworks at the Wheatsheaf, but sadly that isn't happening right now. That's been the story of the year. So w...
23rd October 2020: It will all end in tiers.
The news has made grim reading this last couple of weeks, but in the middle of it all there was some good news for the local music scene. The Bullingdon on Cowley Road is to rece...
9th October 2020: Let's twist again.
When you were at school, did you ever make one of those twisted strips of paper called a Möbius band which forms a three-dimensional object with only one surface and one edge...
2nd October 2020: Let's all do the conga.
Here we are again. It is the first Friday of the month and in normal times right now I'd be charging up cameras and sorting out signage ready for a Klub Kakofanney evening. Tonigh...
20th September 2020: The crowded boat.
How are you coping with The Rule Of Six? It doesn't present a problem for me personally, but for at least one band I can think of, Monkeyfists, with seven band members, they can't...
11th September 2020: Can you hear the drums?
While rummaging through my archives this week I came across some old footage I shot a few years ago of Duchess, a brilliant band from Wantage which took percussion to a new level....
28th August 2020: Gingham Check.
Did you know that as well as banning live music performances, Scotland has now also banned pre-recorded music in cafes and restaurants. The rationale behind this is that they were...
7th August 2020: Cracked as an August field.
Its a Friday evening in the middle of summer, so what could be better than a cold beer and some great live music? I've got the can of beer in the fridge with my name on it, but sa...
17th July 2020: Paint me with colours.
Hands up if you know what an Irish Bouzouki is. No, its not a black coffee fortified with Ouzo. No, its not a Dublin seagull related to the sooty tern. No, its not a clever tax do...
3rd July 2020: All hopped up and ready to go.
Its the first Friday of the month again and that means only one thing, its Klub Kakofanney night,.... or at least it would be if live musc wasn't a casualty of this terrible disea...
14th June 2020: Lying in the morning sun.
Stonehenge is closed, but the solstice sunrise was broadcast live on the internet. What a strange world we live in. How are you spending your longest day of the summer? We seem t...
15th May 2020: Be Alert, Britain Needs Lerts.
We seem to be in the age of government by marketing slogan. No, I don't know how you can be alert to a virus sneaking up on you, but hopefully you are all managing to dodge infect...
1st May 2020: Mayday,... Mayday.
In other years, many of you would have been out at the crack of dawn today, dashing down to town to enjoy the May-morning celebrations followed by a beer for breakfast and a Redox...
25th April 2020: Stayin In.
"This song's called Stayin In", says Glenda. "Its about stayin in". It sounds like a heavy rock anthem for these times, but it comes from 2015, and I discovere...
3rd April 2020: Klub Kakofanney Reloaded.
I hope you are all keeping well, and coping with life in lockdown. Keep strong and stay safe and we'll get through this. Its the first Friday of the month and that should have bee...