So, what’s the news today then ? !  Well, I’m writing this at the end of another Friday evening’s entertainment at The Barley Mow in Shepperton, where Ed Hamilton appeared, playing his unique brand of pop, rock and blues. If you haven’t seen Ed playing live yet, get yer finger out and go and see him ! ! It was also an evening which featured Rosie going round the pub with a hat, supplied by John the landlord, collecting donations for Ed. Highlight of the evening seemed to be counting up all the shrapnel at the end of the night’s entertainment !  A good night, though a little quieter than usual for a Friday night. Perhaps everyone’s on holiday.

Football : I, like everyone else, was sad to hear that Bobby Robson passed away this morning. His England team fell foul of the hand of Maradonna in the 1986 World Cup finals. Robson will be remembered, among other things, for his honesty and integrity, more than can be said for the aforementioned cheating Argy  !

Cricket : With the Ashes series on at the moment, I’m attempting to follow the series as best I can on Channel 5.   Phew !  It’s hard work.  It’s a bit like a small piece of  meat you managed to get on rations. First, you have to scrape around to find it in the first place.  Then you have to try to cut round disproportionately large amounts of fat and gristle ( adverts ) leaving just a miniscule piece of edible meat ( cricket action from the day’s play ).   Still, perhaps we should do what all the well off TV and media experts tell us we should do  – Go out and buy a whole Mammoth which we’re never going to be able to devour ( line the pockets of the greedy gits at ‘Sky’ for channels you’re rarely going to get the chance to watch – if ever )  – Somehow I think I’ll just get a new ration book when I need one !

Yes folks, M.O.T. hits the road – or put another way,  the Jam Night Band is set to gig !

The Jam Night House Band have secured a gig at The Eastcote Arms on Saturday 15th August ’09. The band will be performing under the alias ” M.O.T.”  … that stands for ‘Musicians On Tap’ … and will feature ( other commitments permitting) :  Lenny and Rob on guitars, Marco on vocals, Dave or Ted on Bass, and  Mac on Drums.

Lenny - got the gig !

We’ll be doing all our Jam Night favourites plus loads of other stuff, so a big thanks to Lenny for his efforts in getting the gig.

It’s free admission and proceedings kick off at 9.30, so don’t be late ! It would be great to see as many friendly faces from Jam Night as possible – everybody’s welcome … So, see you there !

BFN,  Rob.

Hello … I’m back from my week away in the Isle Of Wight and have to report a great holiday.

Now I’m back, it’s back to the old routine – among other things, work ( but only till the end of September ) and of course Jam Night on Thursday 9th July, where following on from the Jacko memorial, we’ll be sticking a box of rotting body parts under the noses of all you performers. Won’t that be marvellous ? !

Also, my holiday snaps are here ( click on ‘Photos & Videos’ ) … but for a limited period only.

See you at Jam Night.    BFN,    Rob.

Looming on the horizon are my holidays !  Yes, me and Rosie will soon be off again to the Isle Of Wight to enjoy the unique countryside, villages and coastal views of the island.  We’re also hoping to see our favourite IOW band, ‘Skybus’, but we’ve a nasty feeling that they may have disbanded. We’ll just have go and track ’em down, rather like the historical sights of the three IOW festivals of ’68, ’69 & ’70. Suffice it to say, I won’t be at Jam Night on Thursday 2nd July. Gavin has drafted in Martin to cover.

Holiday time has also come when there are precious few gigs to be had. I’ve got no solo gigs booked ( other than an informal strum along at my friend Richard’s party ) and Riff Raff haven’t got anything booked until November !  In the meantime, I will continue to develop the website as the year progresses.

I’m also planning to record some new backing tracks and some new tracks of my own stuff, once I’ve got to grips with ‘GarageBand’. These are slightly more long-term projects though.

So, for those of you going down to Jam Night this coming Thursday, see you there !        BFN,   Rob.

Last night saw the mighty Riff Raff back in action for their first gig since New Year’s eve. The band travelled down the M4 to Marlborough in Wiltshire, descending on ‘The Bear’ in the High Street. A cozy pub, nice carpets on the floor, photos of the famous adorning the walls and a dedicated stage area in the upstairs room or the ground floor room which is really upstairs, depending on which way you look at it. – confused ? ! Anyway, there were plenty of punters in the downstairs bar with a few loyal die-hards upstairs, who were seemingly not too ashamed to be seen in the same room as Riff Raff.

The evening’s entertainment kicked off with a 12-bar sound-check and from then on ‘The Bear’ was rockin’ !  Hopefully, all present enjoyed our offerings. Some of them left happy I’m sure, finding their way home in the pouring rain, as did all of us in the band.

Thanks to Pete and Janet for their pre-gig hospitality, which included a live broadcast by Gordon Brown – lovely ! ! ! 

Until next time …   BFN,   Rob.

If you flick back to my ‘blog’ on the home page, of October 18th 2008, entitled ‘Fan Mail’,  you will see that I was accosted by one of the local women ! !  Well, fast forward to Friday 1st May 2009 , I was back at The Barley Mow enjoying Vinnie & Co., a very entertaining duo with Vinnie on keyboards and his drummer – both very good.

The drummer is appearing in his band at The Dog & Partridge, Staines tomorrow tonight ( Saturday ) and Vinnie will be there on Bank Holiday Monday from 4 to 8 pm. Both will be well worth going to see !

Anyway, the point is, the accosting woman was there again and dinking about in a drunken stupour, though not quite as far gone as my previous encounter. As luck would have it she didn’t come within molesting distance, so I can now breathe a sigh of relief, having got out unscathed.

But seemingly, there’s never a dull moment when you’re in that neck of the woods. Me and Rosie just got back to the car when two loud mouthed yobs on bikes directed “Get yer ‘air cut mate” in my direction.  Well I was a bit agrieved, as I had spent some considerable hours this week cutting it to near perfection. OK, it’s not quite there yet as I’ll still need to devote a bit more time to ‘fine tuning’ it.  The bike chaps sped away down the road shouting neanderthal phrases at the tops of their voices for the whole neighbourhood to enjoy … at 11.30 pm … great for parents of young children at that time of night !  I couldn’t help thinking that, far from worrying about my hair length, they should really be contemplating the purchase of a new brain cell or two, which may have been of more value given that neither of them had any lights on their bikes.  Still, the folk of downtown Shepperton are surely capable of sorting these sorts of issues out for themselves … just hope, contrary to what I’ve been told, that not too many of them are inbreeds !

Oh well, can’t stay up all night worrying about that. I’m off to bed now.

So, BFN,          Rob.

 As I’ve been struck down with a chest infection, due to a nasty bug invading my bodily particles, I’ve been confined to quarters for most of the week, enjoying the delights of penicillin. So, I’ve taken the opportunity to delve into my photo & video archives and found bunches of stuff. This includes footage of Riff Raff from 17th March 2007 at The Cross in Maple Cross and some Jam Night footage from 28th June 2007 at The Star in South Harrow. So I set about editing, and now for your viewing and listening pleasure, they can now be viewed and enjoyed by all and sundry – just click on Photos & Videos and you’ll see them there, ready and waiting, along with all the other stuff loaded previously.

And there’s more in the pipeline !                                  BFN,       Rob.

So here we are again on a Monday, the start of a brand new week, the sun’s out on a beautiful spring day and I’m struck down with a brand new bug of the common cold variety. With so much to look forward to (we hope ), all my week’s plans are immediately on hold. For a start, no work for today, at least ! No bad thing that really, under the present circumstances. But then I have to miss 5-a-side football from 6 to 7pm  and cricket practice at 8pm. Yes, the season is almost upon us.  OK, to be fair, I’ve got a bruised hip from my Friday footie, so football tonight was a non starter . Maybe I could have got through the cricket practice though.

Anyway, you’ll notice I hope,  that there have been a few more recent changes and additions on the site at which you are now looking !  I’ve done a bit of a revamp to the Jam Night page and of course the collection of photos and videos continues to increase following the recent launch of the new look website. I hope everyone that visits the site is suitably entertained.

You’ll notice from the Gigs page that there’s not a lot about at the moment. Sadly, The Oaks in West Hyde, a popular haunt, has now changed hands and is to become a Restaurant, so not much chance of any music there in future as far as I know.

Well, that’s all for now !  Time to go and find where I left my packet of Lem-Sips. (Ooops – that’s not advertising is it ! ? ! ) That’s if I’ve got any left. I seem to have slurped my way through a few as the day has progressed.

Oh well, hope to see you soon,

BFN,     Rob.

Well, you should because the website has got a new look, as should be pretty obvious if you’ve been familiar with the old one.  There are still ‘works in progress’ so thanks to Joel for his continued efforts on the up-grade.

A quick re-cap of my weekend highlights : I’ve spent the last three evenings in the company of Ed in his various musical guises : Friday at The Oaks, West Hyde with Bookham & Riskit, Saturday at The Prince Albert, Twickenham with Fast Buck and Sunday, Ed solo at The Prince Of Wales, Oatlands. So an enjoyable weekend’s entertainment !

Well, got to go – it’s getting late !

BFN,  Rob.

Hopefully that headline caught your attention !

Photos and videos ( well one video, at least ) are back.  Click on ‘Photos & Videos’ and have a look !  The collection will be expanding in the fullness of time.

BFN,  Rob.