Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I got home from work on Friday, pottered about a bit then turned on the computer and pulled up Firefox.

My home page had changed.

Instead of the familiar red, black and white page which has greeted me every time I've gone online for over a decade, I was faced with multicoloured text and a message my brain couldn't process.

I read it again. And again. I looked for some handle on the joke. Then I realised there wasn't a handle because it wasn't a joke.

Then I swore. Lots.

No, I wasn't infected by a virus; my browser had not been hijacked.

The BASTARDS had closed us down.

The FUCKING BASTARDS had FUCKING closed us FUCKING down.

No FUCKING warning, nothing. Just FUCKING switched FUCKING off.

Guardian Talk, GUT, simultaneously the most interesting, stimulating, intellectual, trivial, infuriating and utterly insane website on the entire English-speaking web. No FUCKING more.

Our affair began in the same year I met my wife; millennium year. Internet access was a new thing at work and I was reading a story about the government's NHS plans on The Guardian's website when I found a link inviting me to "Talk About It Here!"

The Brave NewLabour World was young and what lay behind that simple order was a brand new soapbox where unrepentant, unreconstructed lefties like me could shout and scream to our hearts' content about and at liberals and conservatives, with and without capitals.

After lurking for a while, my first post was to answer a question about the Reynolds Girls on one of the quiz threads. "Tommy" was taken so I appended my favourite wrestling reference to create the user name I've used all over ever since. EvilWillow was the first poster to "talk" to me. One of my earliest posts was to ask what "Googling" meant (Alta Vista being the only search engine I knew).

Over the years I crossed metaphorical swords with worthy opponents (Hyuey of the ridiculous spelling; I never could remember what combination of "u"s, "y"s and "e"s to search under), utter wankers (PatLogan; an opinion on everything and knowledge of nothing), eccentric geniuses (Coshipi; who created an alternative persona which fooled everyone and then wrote a book about it - The Reminiscences of Penny Lane by Clive Semmens), thoroughly decent coves (JohnKnoxLives; churchman, Caley Thistle fan and pie aficionado), bizarre fantasists (BYFSeagulls; football casual or bored schoolboy, you decide), soulmates (uberpedant, with a gig attendance history to die for) and dozens upon dozens of good eggs (Kerebus, DirtyOrigamist, Tolstoy, BoogieBabe, Snazz, Moog & Princess, Policywatcher, Myrtletree, Jani, Culder, the late SueGeeGee and too many more to mention).

TommyDGNR8 was banned after an ill-advised comment about the reason for Sir Alex Ferguson's red nose but a "new" poster called SizeOfAnElephant mysteriously appeared and carried on discussions in his place. That is until mods' pet Rory grassed him up . A similar fate awaited CareCaseInAPaperHat, but TheScotsman (the diarist at that paper stole many of his stories from the football thread over the years) lasted until the (very) bitter end.

Our little community saw births, marriages and deaths; a genuine microcosm of the real world. The planet changed; 9/11 brought an influx of mad American republicans; the NewLabour dream turned sour; every twist, every turn was reflected in and filtered through GUT.

X-Factor was more fun when dissected online; Albion Rovers talk was as welcome if not moreso than Manchester United drivel; the regulars in the IT folder could solve just about any computer problem; there was always some trivia or nonsense to while away a dull half hour.

People suffering from depression, teetering on the edge of nervous breakdown, struggling with drink or drugs problems or coming to terms with bereavement; all were there, all were helped.

And at 5.30pm on Friday the 25th of February 2011, they turned it off.

Within hours, the Wikipedia entry for Guardian Unlimited carried a memorial;

In February 2011 The Guardian closed down their talkboards which had been online for over a decade. This was viewed as worse than a thousand Hitlers and widely regarded as being the internet equivalent of what Thatcher did to mining communities in the eighties.

It was also the view of most that The Guardian, in closing down the talkboard without warning or consultation, were a bunch of gritpypes.

That sums up the GUT spirit better than I ever could.

Within days, it had been removed, which probably says more about The Guardian.

Their paper's fucking rotten, too.

Death Is Just A Heartbeat Away

Robert William Gary Moore (4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011)

"Can you imagine having a Gary Moore poster on your wall? You might as well have a picture of a welder's bench."

It's easy to forget that the shambling wreck known as Ozzy Osbourne was, many years ago, entitled to say such things; a good looking lad in his day was young Ozzy.

I've never been a huge Ozzy fan, but I did have a Gary Moore poster. It was the promotional poster (you remember those big 6ft x 3ft ones they used to stick on any available surface?) for his We Want Moore! album, part of which was recorded on a freezing cold Valentine's night at the Glasgow Apollo.

Jim Robertson had just bought the Victims of the Future album after I'd played him the flop single Hold On To Love. We tossed a coin to decide whether to see Moore or Saxon. Biff and co remain one of the few bands I've never seen.

Much of Gary's career up until that point - and, consequently, a fair bit of that gig - had passed me by. I knew his Lizzy stuff and Parisienne Walkways but I left the Apollo that night knowing I had a new back catalogue to explore.

I was considerably more au fait with Gary's solo work by the time he returned to Glasgow, but the Apollo was history. The Run For Cover tour played the Barrowland and, in stark contrast to the previous one, was probably the sweatiest, bounciest, most memorable gig I've ever been to.

He was the reason I picked up a guitar. Knowing I couldn't do it like him was the reason I put it down again.

Another couple of hard rocking albums followed before Gary grew weary of the genre and drifted off into his first love, the blues.

In his later years, he distanced himself from the frenetic fretboard gymnastics I loved him for, but I harboured the hope that he might come back to us some day.

He won't.

Gary Moore died in his sleep while on holiday with his girlfriend. It's a rock'n'roll way to go, but he did it far too young.

Clearing the Backlog

I've been sitting on a pile of half-hearted notes for weeks now.

I tried to clear my backlog at the start of the month, but my enthusiasm evaporated with the devastating news of Gary Moore's death and, for the first time in my life, I've been wrestling with writers' block ever since.

This weekend, though, this weekend I'm furious and it's helped blow off the cobwebs. Let's get you up to date.

We went to Rochdale (October 29th) to see the Jaggies at the Bar Mystique. When we got there, we found DB and the sound crew installing the PA in the pub downstairs, The Flying Horse. Turns out the staircase was too narrow to get the rig up so it was downstairs or nothing.

The pub wasn't a classic rock pub, the audience being more eight-pints-of-Stella-and-wotchoofookinlookinat? than we're accustomed to. The layout wasn't really live-act friendly, either; the guys being tucked away around a corner such that we could only actually see DB; not one we'd rush back to.







The following weekend saw us in the familiar and much more amenable surroundings of the Ashfield (November 6th); a good gig on the eve of my photoshoot with the band at Owen Towers where Alan's old workshop made an excellent setting for some new promo photos.







2010 was brought to a close with an appearance at Golcar's Junction One (December 5th), another rather-too-intimate venue which would be better suited to an acoustic set should the guys ever feel that way inclined.


Into the new year and Mark Steel (January 26th) started his 47-date "In Town" tour at the LBT. Two hours of solid laughs in which the 20 minutes or so of bespoke material more than made up for the stuff already familiar from his books. Great stuff.



A couple of decent Jaggie gigs to get the new year off to a good start, too.

Ings Lane (January 29th) is a thank-god-for-Streetview venue; I'd never have found it if I hadn't recce'd with Google's stalker-cam beforehand! Good venue, too, if a bit too keen on bingo.



The Rock Cafe (February 3rd)? Well, it's the Rock Cafe, isn't it? Drunken women. I got dragged up to dance. It wasn't by Linda. We'll say no more.

Then the Moore news came through.

(Posted 27 February)

Davey's On the Road Again - Jagged Edge Summer 2010

This, otherwise Jaggie-less, summer has been bookended by two outdoor shows.

The first, at Golcar Conservative Club (30 May) marked DB's return to the limelight (or, since it was a Sunday afternoon, daylight).

The car park of Golcar Tory club is about as un-rock'n'roll, as unglamorous a venue as you can imagine. Quite a feat given that it is (a) a car park (b) behind a Tory club in (c) Golcar; somehow, it still manages to underwhelm. They haven't even got the decency to have a picture of our new bum-faced overlord on display so I can recycle the Maggie joke which got me thrown out of the Airdrie and Coatbridge Conservative And Unionist Club in 1982*.

After 2009's no-show "barbeque summer", hopes are not high for this year's weather and we get a taste of what's to come when, about thirty seconds into Higher Place, the sun disappears behind the gathering clouds and leaves us shivering in the late spring winds.

She Don't Know Me is followed by old favourite (well it is for some people) Don't Want To Miss A Thing during which DB just about bursts. "Now I remember why we stopped doing that," he wheezes.

More than one voice inquires, "because you can't sing it?"

Ouch.

It's very much a feet-finding gig for Dave and the sun finally comes out for him again late in the afternoon; not soon enough to stop us freezing half to death, though.

My "Dann sounds even better outdoors" theory, though? Definitely holds up.

And so to the August Bank Holiday (28 August); "Outdoorfest" (how long did it take them to come up with that name? Ten seconds? Less? Did it sound catchy after 13 pints of Yorkshire Blonde?) at the Wills O'Nats. Guess what?

It's fucking freezing.

Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to hold a gig on the moors over Meltham? Even if the sun had been out and we were mid-drought, this was always going to be more windswept than interesting. The Wills O'Nats was specifically built to offer shelter to poor souls trying to cross the Hills. You wouldn't organise a barbeque at a bothy half-way up Ben Nevis, would you? Actually, whoever had this brainwave probably would.

We arrive in time to catch the last few songs from Sheffield's Top Gun. Singer Paul is marvellous and guitarist Mark is pretty damn good too. However, where the former looks like a rock star, the latter looks like an economics teacher (albeit an economics teacher with a Flying V). Musical highlight is an outstanding version of Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle, which is just the thing to get feet moving and hands clapping to ward off the cold. Sadly, the rest of their choices are a bit unimaginitive. They help me decide once and for all, though, that it's not the Jaggies' fault, it's just that Bed of Roses is an excruciatingly dull song. I'm shivering.

Good to have a word with Bob Wider who's come along to watch, but - doctor's orders or no - DB's back in front of his band.

He's found the Running Man jacket he last wore three or four years ago. It still looks camp.

Higher Place opens - DB's voice is better than he's sounded in a loooooong time.

By half-way through, my spine has started to contract in the cold.

No Miss A Thing mistake this time; we get...

At bloody last.

If DB had listened to me 5 years ago, Who's Crying Now? would, by now, have been a well-established highlight of the band's set. As it is, I doubt there's a better version of the song on the circuit; absolutely top-notch arrangement; excellent three-way vocals, note-perfect, faithful recital from Dann followed by an extended, improvised solo. It's a work of art, quite frankly, but hasn't Journey-fatigue set in in club land?

By now, my knees are starting to ache.

Thunder, then Dann excels as usual on Blue Collar Man. Big Dave blasts out Separate Ways.

The cold wins. We head for the car.

See you somewhere warm sometime soon, guys.





*Me(pointing to picture of the Wicked Witch of the West hanging behind the bar): I see you've found the right place for Maggie
Steward: How d'ye mean?
Me: Nailed to the fucking wall










Finally, the sun comes out on DB;

Jason Manford - LBT, May 2010

Laughter's the best medicine.


If you've been paying attention (you have been paying attention, haven't you?) you'll know I was a bit low, but sometimes things just fall nicely.

We were away on holiday the last time Jason Manford appeared in Huddersfield and I feared we'd missed the last chance we were going to get to see him in the LBT - his star was in the ascendant; he was heading for bigger (and better?) things. Consequently, I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice this warm-up for his Edinburgh Fringe show until it was well on the way to being a sell-out. Our seats are therefore what was left rather than our first choice, but we're facing the stage, even if we're ~ahem~ slightly more elevated than we'd like.

It's a surprisingly long way down from the second tier; Victorian Methodists clearly didn't suffer from vertigo.

Actually, the first pleasant surprise of the evening comes even before we've reached our seats; Jason reckons a £5-per-ticket refund (on the already bargain £14 face value) is in order because the show isn't polished yet. Jessica spends several minutes studying the notes we've been handed, checking for signs of forgery; they're real.

Jason quickly establishes an easy rapport with the audience; there's no fear from the floor, no worry that he's going to humiliate anyone - he's just a mate who wants to chat. A postman on the front row gives Jason a chance to slate "modernisation", a couple of forensic science students from the Uni let him have a gentle dig at Polyversities ("Where did you want to go?") and - courtesy of their absent friend - students in general.

Armed with nothing more than a few reminder notes, he takes us through growing up; touches on politics, football, school, religion; nothing too challenging or threatening but all beautifully observed.

We're invited to offer up our favourite misunderstandings during the interval and this provides the kindling for a very interactive second half. A request for tellings-off from famous people encourages the ginger girl from the Jimmy Carr show...

...STOP PRESS...

I never wrote that up, did I? OK, very briefly then...

JIMMY CARR "RAPIER WIT" - Huddersfield Town Hall, 19 March 2010

Jimmy's Rapier Wit tour started about a week after his Joke Technician tour ended.

We saw him at the Town Hall and he was every bit as good as he was last time.

There was a ginger girl heckler who really didn't know when to shut up, no matter how many times Jimmy told her.

He didn't tell the amputee soldier/paralympic team joke.

But he should have.

Right, where was I? Oh yeah, a request for tellings-off from famous people encourages the ginger girl from the Jimmy Carr show to volunteer her bollocking. This has the effect of getting her heckled by someone else who remembered her. Jimmy Carr is trumped by Brian Clough, which is fair enough.

Jason regales us with his Royal Variety Show experiences then personal hygiene (or rather, lack of it) forms an unlikely subject for a bit. Jason is, in turn, impressed by Huddersfield's Christmas lights being switched on by Patrick Stewart then somewhat taken aback by our blasé dismissal of Jean Luc's "celebrity".

Finally free of the Peter Kay comparisons, Jason has carved himself a potential niche as a new century family entertainer; there's enough "bad language" to give him a little edge, but not so much that you'd hide the DVD from granny or all but the youngest children. Would it be unfair to call him a slightly-less-middle-class Michael McIntyre? Probably, not least because his age means that Jason is younger than the bulk of his audience.

Jason's tour proper is selling out multiple nights at three and four thousand seater venues and each and every person who pays their £20 will leave believing they've had value for money. Tonight, we got over two hours of stage time, with pretty much all-new, extremely funny material for nine quid. That's a bargain in anybody's books.

Dio è morto – God is Dead

My hero is dead.

In 1983 my life changed. Up until then, I’d been quite a chart follower; a fairly conventional teenager – the bulk of my record collection was made up of stuff which had been top 20 – Duran Duran back to The Specials back to The Jam, back to Blondie back to the Four Seasons (December 1963 being the first record I ever went into a shop to buy).

I’d quite enjoyed my music but it had never really defined me; I’d liked some punk without being a punk, some ska without being a rude boy, some electropop without being a new romantic, some rock without being a rocker. That changed on an evening in late summer 1983. Tom Russell’s rock show on Radio Clyde – “Lie back, relax, enjoy yourself and stay awake!” - was my falling-asleep-sound of choice back then; I usually lasted half an hour or so but, when Tom opened the show with a song called Holy Diver and promised more later, I knew this wasn’t going to be a normal night.

An hour or so later Evil Eyes and Don’t Talk To Strangers had sealed the deal; I was a Dio fan. On Saturday morning I was in old Mr Jameson’s record shop; of course he knew Dio, didn’t I? The album wasn’t out yet, but the 12” single got played and played and played until it was. I rounded up the troops and organised the trip to the Apollo to see this wonderful new band live. It was, and remains, the best gig I ever went to. The Apollo was the greatest venue in the world and Ronnie knew it.

I wore my tour t-shirt for all my Highers in 1984. Of course I passed them all. Its “lucky” status thus established, I wore it for every exam through college, so my degree, my career and most of my life-defining decisions owe rather a lot to Ronnie James Dio.

In time, I explored the back catalogue – Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Elf, all the way back to his rockabilly-doo-wop-whatever-you-call-that-fifties-sound origins with Ronnie and The Prophets (well worth a listen, metalheads - you might learn something) – and saw them again and again (the infamous Dio vs Denzil fight, and his apology from the Edinburgh stage for not playing “somewhere else” included.  That was with Brian from college - running for the train afterwards is probably the last time I managed more than 200 metres without collapsing in a spluttering, breathless heap.)

Ronald James “Dio” Padavona passed away peacefully after a long illness on Sunday 16 May 2010, aged 67. The world is a worse place for his leaving.

Jagged Edge - Ashfield - May 2010

Two for the price of one...

At Dann’s suggestion, I’m having a listen to the new (well, the latest) Dream Theater album while I’m writing this, so you’ll be getting two reviews in one.

Anticlimax. It’s a very odd feeling and one I’ve only experienced on a handful of occasions. Scotland going out of Argentina ’78 despite that performance against Holland; the second Spandau Ballet album on which they went from synthesiser innovators to crap soul/funk in the space of half-an-hour; Albion Rovers missing out on promotion 10 minutes after everyone else’s season ended because the East Fife game had been delayed for crowd congestion (yes, really) and they scored in the 90th minute; Evita, the film I waited for for two whole decades (I’d braced myself for Madge, but Banderas’ mediocrity took me by surprise); and now the 2010 election.

Black Clouds and Silver Linings opens with A Nightmare to Remember; a cheerful story about a car crash. Good musically, a bit "meh!" lyrically and downright embarrassing vocally, especially when they do the grunt-y stuff at the end.

I’ve been an advocate of proportional representation ever since John The Mon taught us the ins and outs of the single transferrable vote in 3^rd year modern history, but I never really thought I’d see it in force for a British parliamentary election. Despite my generally laid-back, cheerful disposition, I am quite a glass-half-empty cynic when it comes to the stuff that really matters; I tend to assume that the bastards won’t do the right thing, that way I’m rarely disappointed. Just for once, though, I dared to hope – almost believe – that things really were about to get better but, when it came to the moment of actually putting your marks on papers, you all bottled it and let your tribal hearts overrule your rebellious heads once again.

Well, most of you did. Enough to give us a bum-faced overlord for the next few years, anyway. Sometimes I hate you all.

It's just occurred to me that the last Dream Theater album I actually listened to all the way through was 1994's Awake, so it seems I managed to get through 13 years of NewLabour without our paths crossing. A quick check reveals that I've missed six studio and four live albums in that time. Really? Four live albums? Does anyone need four live albums? With rare exceptions, they're shite. Anyway, A Rite of Passage is an upbeat little ditty, maybe as close as Dream Theater will ever get to recording a pop song and certainly the closest the Masons will ever get to being in one.

In need of cheering up, we head for Barnsley, There. I said it. You’ll never hear or read that sentence ever again. I like the Ashfield, but it really could do with some form of carpark; it just feels wrong leaving the car on the main road like that. My t-shirt - last gig's "New Singer..." design - gets a few smiles (and a few scowls from those who think it's some sort of Tory propaganda); satire hasn't reached South Yorkshire, clearly.

Ooh! I take back the pop song comment! Wither could quite easily be a Styx song. The vocals are starting to annoy me a bit now; if DT had someone who could actually sing, they could be something really special.

Regular readers (there are a few of you) will have gathered that Linda and I have exceptionally unfashionable - make that uncool - listening and viewing habits so it'll come as no surprise to you to learn that Glee is on our weekly schedule. I have a theory, however, that we may not be the only Jaggie regulars with an interest in the show. It can't just be coincidence that the show has featured REO Speedwagon, Van Halen, Journey and now Motley Crue, can it? Is big Dave moonlighting on the production team? If he turns up in a cheerleader's outfit you heard it here first.

Uh oh. More grunting (or is it growling?) The Shattered Fortress has the feel of one of Rush's multi-parters, but it's a close-but-no-cigar effort; more Natural Science than 2112. There's a rather dodgy, heavily processed spoken part half-way through which doesn't do it for me. On the subject of Rush, the next track, The Best of Times, follows a similar vibe to its predecessor but does it much better; very Spirit of Radio. My favourite so far.

Anyway, there aren't any surprises in tonight's (pretty much unchanged) set, so it's nice to just sit back and enjoy a well performed show by a bunch of guys who are coming together really well. Dann is fluid and looking more into it than he has in ages; Big Dave and Alan are in the groove; Dave keys is dancing! Bob? Bob is finding his feet very nicely; a couple of gigs down the road he looks more comfortable with his new bandmates and it shows in his vocal, too; much more relaxed; my previous criticism about his harmonies dealt with and forgotten.

Final track The Count of Tuscany clocks in at an incredible 20 minutes; I'm fairly sure I own albums which barely last that long. It's another song which is really engaging from a musical perspective but is left wanting lyrically and vocally, so let's hear it for the Special Edition! Black Clouds and Silver Linings comes with a couple of bonuses; a compilation of cover versions (and why not? Everyone else seems to be doing it), and an instrumental version of the entire album; all the good stuff without the weaknesses. I wonder if The Brothers fancy recording some vocal tracks?

With excellent sound throughout, highlights are Feels Like the First Time, Blue Collar Man, Comfortably Numb and Dann's solo (complete with improvised finale as the rest of the band have forgotten to come back) but that isn't an easy choice from such a well executed set. As I've said before, some nights are just better than others. This was one of them.