Mayhem Merchants

Thursday train to Bruce's (90 minutes from London to Leicester - aren't trains great) and it's a quiet night in watching Blackball about the bad boy of bowling (English greens, not American 10 pin) causing mayhem in the conservative world of bowls. Predictable, funny, true. Mostly. Then it's onto the serious business of jamming along to my first song and Bruce's bands latest composition. After blowing smoke in the grumpy neighbours face (I didn't see him in the dark) we have a lovely chat about carp (they live 8 years in a garden bath tub) and speeding motorists (bastards). I think it's only Bruce he doesn't like.

As ever Bruce has stocked up for my visit (the chocolate is Shirleys)

Friday morning we drive into the countryside for a walk around Rutland Water and it's nature reserve. Being the bad boys of naturalists (note not naturists) we sneak into the permit only area and are glowered at by a few grumpy twitchers (not twitterers) in a hide. We lunch in an off track swampy area with a dead tree in front of us with a cormorant hanging on it by it's neck blowing gently in the breeze. We seem set up for a horror movie but back on track we visit the osprey hide and a friendly warden lets us look through her telescopes at the birds and tells us how the pair migrate to Africa separately and hook back up when back at this lake. They don't do a lot whilst we're watching them. After our country trip we pick up Shirley and mosey on down to Grace Road to see Leicester take on Northamptonshire in the newly exciting T20 "Blast". We have a great view (it's not packed and it's a small ground - a long way from the Oval) sort of diagonally across from the stumps and an even better view of an interesting Northants character practicing his defensive strokes wearing an old school floppy white hat. His mates call him Spunky. Unfortunately Spunky Crook takes off his hat when he goes out to bat and also leaves his defensive strokes behind seemingly taking a leaf out of my beach cricket slogging technique which to be fair he does connect with a few before getting out. At half time we wander over to sit square of the pitch near the rowdiness of the Leicestershire Bench Boys (they sit on benches, or used to). Spunky, our cricketing equivalent of the bowling bad boy causes a small amount of mayhem near us when he misfields on the boundary and it goes for a Leicestershire four prompting a fair amount of sledging from the Bench Boys and in his white hat (back on for fielding) he's an easy guy to pick out. If only they knew his nickname. Afterwards we find out he plays in a band so his bad boy look is probably justified. Maybe. The match is evenly poised as rain stops play and Leic lose by a point on the Duckworth Lewis calculation. If only they'd gone for one more four! So back to Bruce's to try to find mutually acceptable music on youtube (difficult).

Weirdness at Jutland Waters

Leicester strike - note colour of the clouds... and weird red hair Foxes head gear

Saturday is just Bruce and me and after a wander round the second hand and guitar shops of Leicester, and Rich Three in the Cathedral, we're back home to watch the penultimate le Tour stage where Froomey clinches a 4th yellow jersey. An hour later having spent most of the time explaining to Bruce why no one will take yellow off Frome in the final stage in Paris we venture out into the rain and head for Frenckly to the Mayhem @ Mick's Cowshed Punk Rock Festival. In the driving rain we drive around country lanes trying to find the friendliest little festival, apparently, with Bruce's male satnav arguing with my google maps female wayfinder about whether to go left or right at the 3rd junction ahead. Eventually Bruce spots a small handwritten Gig sign and we go up a gravel drive past a bungalow and spot leather jacketed skulking punks and the legendary Cow Shed. Which thankfully is roofed. Just in time to see the first band...

We missed the mighty Scara's much to Ramsay's disdain

  

Sharpest dressed dude in the Punky Cowshed - and we were not camping...

Eastfield are a straight up shouty GBH school of punk band who look the part, i.e. ageing punx, and get us and the rest of the crowd in the mood for a night of non stop mindless punkiness.

Eastfield deliver what it says on the tin. Note grey or lack of hair.

Next up are Drongos for Europe who I probably saw back in the day back in Birmingham. They are good and are a move on from bog standard punk shouting indeed most of the crowd know all the words and I think there's a West Midlands contingent here rather than East Midlands. Drongos are pretty good musicians which I guess they should be after all this time and a step up from oi oi oi. And they go down very well. The crowd is mainly older punks the blokes with small mohawks where they do have hair in different colours and with the regulation longish shorts and boots. Various colours of hair sported by the punkettes so all in all an interesting looking crowd who all seem to know each other. Probably there's only a couple of hundred at the most in here and most will be camping in the field next door. Bruce and I are in matching jeans and Harringtons looking like the acceptable face of punk (not necessarily a good thing) and daytrippers. Probably looked fairly suspicious as between bands we sneaked back to Bruce's car to avoid sound checks over early punk and pub rock classics from the DJ.

Drongos for Europe - as it says on the hoodie.

Next up are Brassick who Bruce thinks may be part of a brass based collective. We wish. They are very shouty screamy vocals from a mucky mouthed woman with a pretty good backing band especially the lead guitarist who could play a lick or two. Trouble is the vocalist starts telling us all to dance from the start and shouts repeatedly that if we don't she'll search us out and shit on our faces. Nice. She looked such a sweet girl too in her Bad Brains hoodie. But just effin play and if you're good enough and we feel energetic we'll dance. Needless to say she'd have had an awful lot of crapping to do to carry out her threat. There's a bit of moshing going on, old blokes can't help dancing to younger women on stage it seems, but most aren't and Bruce and I decline. My body's still bruised from DK@Pilton. There's a bit of crowd surfing too. Well, it's less surfing and more 6 people holding one person up in the air and stumbling round the dance floor with them aloft before dropping them. Couple of accidents there including a young trustifarian type, sorry, that's very judgemental, a young guy with dreads who went down head first on the concrete floor. Hopefully the dreads cushioned the blow and he did jump up pretty quickly. All in all the band would've been more entertaining without the threats and swearing. Heavy riffing drifting into heavy metal thrashing, if drift you can into that genre, and I guess she has a stage presence.

Brassick threatening

Mick O'Toole from the west country are up next playing a lusty fast banjo based folky Irishy punk which goes down very well including with a younger contingent who I assume were either punk offspring or bored locals. They were pretty good musicians especially the banjo player and the singer on the small guitar (what is it?). But they lacked a certain something, not sure they gelled too well into the band they should've been. And they slaughtered Dirty Old Time. The main guy also talked a load of crap and kept on going about how we were all beautiful bastards.

Mick O'Toole good in parts but not quite getting it together to my mind

The Blue Carpet Band are a breath of fresh air and boy do they click. Excellent dirty sound like the Cramps or the Damned. The singer reminds me of Dave Vanian prowling about the stage and into the crowd. Sleazy hard hitting rock n roll which got a lot of folk dancing and without having to tell or even ask them too. Thoroughly entertaining and worth the drive itself, although Bruce did the driving. And worth checking out.

Prowling Blue Carpets...

Last up are the remnants of Stiff Little Fingers trading under the moniker of XSLF who play a lot of old favourites which go down extremely well and also a few new ones which sound pretty good too. It was like SLF with a metal edge but with a great noise from the threesome including pretty hot solo guitaring. They predictably go down very well. On the finish Bruce and I Gotta Gettaway in the still driving rain. On reaching Leicester we youtube the bands especially the Blue Carpets.

XSLF

XSLF

Sunday we're up early for my 11am train and Bruce is playing cricket dependent on rain check. Thoroughly great weekend Bruce. Same time same Cow Shed next year? And Rams, soz we went on the wrong day to not catch the Scaras.