Welcome to Toby Nuttall of London band, The Beast

A ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP welcome to Toby Nuttall, frontman with London blues-rock band, The Beast. I have known Toby for a while now, and seen The Beast a few times. They rock hard - like a cross between AC/DC and Led Zep. They've even played a RTYD showcase or two - remember those! Watch this space for details of their next show.

The Beast playing 'Holy Child' live at the Hope and Anchor, London

FATKAT & The Beast at ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP 4 Denmark Street.

Peter Parker has taken off across the rooftops of the West End in search of a new home for his Rock 'n' Roll Club. The is a shame because I liked how ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP at Peter Parker's Rock 'n' Roll Club sounded. And I liked the guy. I hope we can co-brand events further down the road.

However, the good news is the new manager Isabelle is lovely and ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP will continue to put on events there on the first Saturday night of the month between 8-10pm.

The inaugural gig there on Saturday night went very well. Both bands made an event of the evening. The Lone Groover, Matt Russell of the Outbursts, Dove Jones and Liam Barnes of Kryptic Klu all turned out, too.

Liam's created a RTYD backdrop which was projected on the stage and looked great, and he took some film of the bands, which you can check out at ustream.tv/channel/gigvert.



FATKAT were super-professional and you can see why they are getting the supports to the likes of Eddie & the Hotrods and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. They, like The Beast (above) before them, have been going on and off since the 80s. They also have all their hair - more than their fair share in fact. So, as well as feeling inspired, I have to confess I also felt a tiny bit envious.

I videoed my bands rehearsal last night and had to sit through extended coverage of the back of my head, which I did not enjoy. I wouldn't mind losing my hair if I had a nice shaped head. And good teeth.

Note to self: Keep hat on at ALL times. And keep my mouth shut.

Back to school

This weekend is the first gig of the autumn term for RTYD. FATKAT take on The Beast at Peter Parker's Rock n Roll Club. I think these two bands are pretty well matched. Both hard and loud blues-rock, as opposed to wafty soft-blues rock - I can't stand that stuff.

And this will also be RTYD's maiden gig at this Denmark Street basement bar underneath what was formerly Regent Sounds Studio, where the Rolling Stones recorded their first album, the Kinks recorded 'You Really Got Me', Black Sabbath recorded 'Paranoid' and the Sex Pistols used to rehearse.

From 2nd October, when The Great Outdoor Experience play there, the plan is to put on monthly Saturday night 2-band gigs with performances between 8pm and 10pm. This means all those who want a reasonably night can have one. Those that don't, can stay on for the club or hit the West End.

The Beast & Probing Cranks at The Libertine

I'm always disappointed by my favourite bands when they allow their songs to be used in TV adverts. To be fair, maybe they don't even have a say in the matter these days. On Saturday afternoon then, while watching The Railway Children for the umpteenth time with my seven year old daughter and daydreaming that my name was David and after a walking trip with my friend on the Yorkshire Moors, in which we are both attacked by a wild animal, I had been woken in my hospital bed by a nightmare only to see Jenny Agutter rushing to my bedside..... where was I?.....Oh, yeah, so on Saturday afternoon More Heroes by The Stranglers, albeit without a vocal, is advertising, of all things, bread; baked for you by Hovis. No more heroes? Too right.

No more heroes, apart from Probing Cranks, of course, who, judging by those gathered at The Libertine to support them on Saturday night, are treated as such on their own little scene in SE-Whatever-it-is. They however, will never get the chance to 'sell out'. They will never be faced with the moral dilemma over whether to licence their music to advertise margarine or marmalade or muesli. This is both good and bad; good because I don't want to associate Probing Cranks with my breakfast, or vice-versa; and bad because Probing Cranks deserve the commercial success that might face them with such dilemmas. I get the sense though, that they are beyond giving a damn about commercial success.

When spooning the aural casserole that boils on the Probing Cranks' hob, one is reminded of quirk-mongering bands such as The Pixies, The Fall and The Wedding Present. Of songs like Love Buzz by Nirvana. Skip Steps 1 & 3, by Superchunk. It's music produced by Steve Albini. It's the sound of a band supporting Jesus Lizard or Sebadoh. Probing Cranks also remind me a lot of the band I was in in the early 90s, called 67. Heavy, quirky, intense and edgy. So that's nice, for me, anyway.

The Beast may be penniless, but what they don't have in their pockets, they make up for in noise, passion and classic-rock riffola.

Toby Nuttall's voice rises and squeezes Brian Johnson-style between the down-beating AC/DC guitar riffs. John Grant on drums and Beanz on bass provide the Led Zep-style backbone.

Having lent my amp to my namesake for the night, I had the pleasure of his company during a lift to the gig. It was a chance to hear another version of the Carol Street squat story - one I love. About Camden in the late-70s. I do wish I had been there. Even earlier. '68 would have been good, in time to see the Doors at the Roundhouse. But '76 would have been just fine; in time to see The Ramones there, and The Stranglers, for a couple of quid.

I empathise with Toby. Not just cos we share the same first name, which incidentally causes some confusion during the evening. No, he, like me had a band on the verge of 'something'. And it came to nothing. Tonight, I feel the release he gets from unleashing The Beast. You sense his regression to the twenty (something) year old version of the same person. One with fewer worries. The untouchable one. The one with nothing more money-wise, but all that a young musician needs, that is: a bunch of hippy-punk friends, a squat scene, some booze, hash and acid, a 1960s Stratocaster and an AC-30.

Squats and drugs and rock and roll.

Blues-Rock-Til-You-Drop at the Fiddlers

I have to confess I was dreading the soundcheck for the Blues-Rock-Til-You-Drop gig last night; 4 bands, 18 musicians. 1.5 hours. Guitarists plus-plus, Keyboard players times-two. It would have been a total nightmare, if Creak and Dove Jones hadn't boldly forfeited their soundchecks, the former due to the late arrival of their drummer, and the the latter because they are so used to a 'plug and play' approach to gigging.

Thanks to them then, the evening kicked off on time with Bang To Rights' whose take on the blues, included a great rock cover of You Keep Me Hanging On by Diana Ross, before it edged towards that less-well known sub-genre, disco-blues. And why not?

This got Creak thinking that now they were in, and once they were on, their version of the blues could follow this liberal view. Fairly well oiled, as a result of hanging around for about three hours to set foot on stage, they proceeded to romp through a set of blues-rock classics, throwing in the odd T-Rex number - in this case 20th Century Boy - and ending with their customary set-closer Creakin' All Over.

It is always a pleasure to watch my friend Dove Jones performing, and last night he was on fire as usual, offering up a set of blues-covers and throwing in an original at the end for good measure, appropriately entitled I Got The Blues. Imagine Mick Jagger fronting the Stones while playing keyboards and sweating like Joe Cocker at Woodstock, and you get an idea of the energy and passion of Jones's semi-sedentary performance.

It's 11 o'clock before the final act of the night take to the stage. Unfortunately, the room empties by half. It's not personal. It's just bed-time for many of those here, including The Beast. But those who exit don't know what they are about to miss. The Beast come on stage after a twenty year break and play the loudest, ballsiest, filthiest rock set I've heard in a while, crossing the vocals and drums of Led Zep with the dirty blues riffola of early AC/DC.

With 22 paying customers, 18 musicians, 10 or so non-paying barfly regulars, one of which tells me "at last we got some decent music in 'ere", and a few WAGs who blag their way in, there were enough people at the gig that the place wasn't rattling; a handful were even dancing at points during the evening, which was great.

So it was not a great night door-takings-wise. Bar-takings-wise, maybe? But I'm not out of pocket, which is good, and the whole night is worth it simply because it is both a musicians' social-networking opportunity and a chance to hear some great music and see some great musicians play. It was a chance too for some of those who know each other on-line to meet in the real world.

Patrick Begley of the Dipsticks comes down to support his former band-mates, Toby and John from The Beast, and in the process ran into a former brother-in-law, who is drumming for Bang To Rights. Small world. I put two and two together and realise that Maggie Brown for whom Mark McKendrick of the Dipsticks plays bass occasionally, is the backing singer in Dove Jones' band. Small world, again. Stephen Denholm and John from local blues band The Mighty Caretakers are also in attendance. You'll be seeing more of these two in the new year.

It's my party and I'll play if I want to

In my last blog entry I neglected to mention my own appearance at Sunday's acoustic afternoon at The Libertine simply because I wasn't in the mood to talk about myself at the time of writing. Now I am, so please allow to me fill you in. It won't take long.

It's been a while since I sat down and performed acoustically in public. It was the impromptu solo performance at the disastrous Guildford gig earlier this year that inspired me to get back in to it. It's taken until now to make it happen, for whatever reason.

On Sunday, I had moral support on stage from Pocket Rocket guitarist 'Lex' Luther Taylor, who played electric guitar to accompany me, and did a fine job after just two rehearsals, and only being familiar with three of the seven songs I asked him to learn. I thought the decent thing would be to open the event and take the 'warm-up' slot, which I did. By song three of seven I was beginning to relax, and by song five I was leaning back on my chair. The sound was good and clear, and though there was some chatter from the floor, those assembled were largely attentive. Colin Gillman, Istvanski and Kenski had public transport problems and missed my set, so requested that I make a special appearance at the end, which I was happy to do. Colin got his acoustic versions of Give The Boy A Chance and (The) Happiness (You Deserve) as well as a reprise of Magic Bicycle.

It was a pleasure to host, and listen to, performances by all those that played after me. It was lovely too because so many RTYD members came along. All those playing were members, and as well as Ista, Colin and Kenny, Mark McKendrick was also there supporting his buddy, Woody.

John Grant, whose band The Beast are playing for RTYD on Wednesday 9th December at the Blues-Rock-Til-You-Drop gig at the Fiddlers Elbow in Chalk Farm, wrote a lovely thing in an internal message to me that I'm sure he won't mind me imparting to you; he wrote: "I think you've created something wonderful with this RTYD affair - it reminds me of a time when you could just breeze into your local and encounter the likes of Juice on the Loose, Kilburn and the Highroads, The Realists, Ducks Deluxe et al".

That's the general idea. And how cool is that?