A Steamy Night in Northampton

Steamy Skullduggery (not to mention Jiggery Pokery) in Northampton.

    Saturday 23rd November saw a Steampunk/ Gothic invasion of the Charles Bradlaugh pub in Northampton, folks came from miles around to experience the sonic delights of Gladstone, Birthrite and Blitz DJ. The doors opened at 8 to the superb sounds of DJ Alex and Dudley's finest Birthrite were on at 10, as ever these lads know how to deliver a great set, energy oozes from every verse and chorus.....great stuff!!

Birthrite.

    After a short intermission Gladstone burst onto the stage, masked and murderous, with tales of murder, madness, curses and incarceration to name but few!! Much fun and dancing around ensued with Spook, Cloud, Teacake, Shovel hands and Evil giving their all, with a final rendition of God Save the Queen and For Whom the Bell Tolls ringing in the ears the night rocked on with DJ Alex's awesome set. What a splendid success the night was, many thanks to everyone who came down to see us, I know some travelled a very long way! Also many, many thanks go to Alex Novak (Spiral Archive) for organising, promoting, DJing and photographing this event (a man of unfathomable talents).

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Gladstone.

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DRACULA IN FINEDON.

    

    Hello Sherlock's Dog here, I've been sent on many a strange investigation, but Vampires in Finedon.....surly not!! This (relatively) quiet town in Northamptonshire was the location for the first event organised by Mr Michael Sumner of Harrowden Books (http://www.harrowdenbooks.com/?gclid=CNC2stLxp7oCFc_ItAodzgsALA) and it was a superb success, the event was held at the Finedon Community Centre which is a converted Victorian Gothic chapel, a perfect place to celebrate Bram Stoker's masterpiece, on entry patrons were encouraged to sign the "guestbook", this was a full size cardboard coffin donated by a local Funeral Director!!

Biff as Mina.

    The first performance was a reading from Dracula, Harker was played by Mr Steven C. Davis, Mina was Ms Biff Raven-Hill, the Brides of Dracula were three dancers from the Duende dance troupe, the voice of Dracula was Mr Gordon (Spook) Stoker and Dracula (the menacing figure in the background) was Mr Michael Sumner. The reading was from the beginning of the book when Harker is with Dracula in the castle and is made a prisoner whilst Mina pines for her love who is in such a distant and mysterious land.......

Spook and his "Brides".

 Following on from the reading we had an amazing performance from the Duende Dance Troupe which began with a solo dance entitled "Under a Blood Moon" and was followed by all seven dancers who danced to Dead Can Dance's "The Spider's Stratagem". 

Under a Blood Moon.

    The first of the bands for the night was Dudley's finest Birthrite, no stage can hold Erazamus, he was here, there, everywhere!! They gave a blistering performance playing songs old and new including the classic "Goodbye Happiness" the theme song from the Vampire series "Blood and Bone China".

Birthrite's Erazamus Voss

    Finally my muckers Gladstone appeared on stage, it was great to have Paul "Shovel Hands" back on Bass, we missed him over the summer. They soon thundered into "Night Creatures", the set included the songs "The Madness of Tilly Matthews", "Bluey", "Newgate", "The Ballad of William Winter", "Twisted lip", "The Curse of Tutankhamun" and "Dr Dexter's Dream", Gladstone ended their set with roaring versions of Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen" and Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

    It was a great night, it is hoped this will become an annual event, we met many friends old and new, it was good to see Dave Patrick from Inverness this far south, he was an invaluable help over the weekend, the photos I've used come from the following talented people, Giles Warhurst of https://www.facebook.com/jacklyn.hyde?fref=ts, Bjarni Skullsplitter Olafson, Claira Idrilieth Hooper and Evie Collyer, many thanks to you all.

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Some more amazing photos;

 

    

Michael prays for success, and it was granted!!

Amy "Teacake" Bradford's artwork in the guestbook.

Gladstone Jouer de la Brasserie

THE BAND AT THE BRASSERIE.

    Sorry about the delay in writing this snippet of Gladstone news but this puppy has been busy wearing his paws down on the hard streets of London, being Sherlock's Dog ain't as easy as you may think!! Aannnyyy way back on 14th August the chaps and chapette found themselves heading back to London, in particular to that superb French restaurant Brasserie Toulous Lautrec on Newington Butts, Kennington. We were a little concerned as the music Gladstone play isn't exactly Eidith Piaf!! However, as we entered we were immediately surrounded by friends, some old mates, mostly new and all fantastic. So, to the wonderful piano playing of David we slowly got our stuff in and set up, with a short sound check we were ready to go at around 9.15.

    Unusually our set was to be in two halves, with a room fit to burst we started....Night Creatures soon blew any cobwebs (and Eidith Piaf fans) away, every now and then we play a song that concerns the area we're playing in and this night it was The Madness of Tilly Matthews, the Bedlam hospital he was an inmate of was situated just around the corner, it's now the Imperial War Museum, the perfect place to have a war museum! Moving on we then played Newgate, Dr Dexter's Dream, Purple Reefer and ended this first half with the Sex Pistols God Save the Queen, much bouncing around......

    After a half hour interlude it was time for Spook to get up and do his *ahem* turn, he stood up and did the Victorian rhyme "The Drunkard and the Pig", a temperance rhyme....from him!! This was followed by the amusing song "So Was I" and everyone in the audience joined in with the chorus, which was fantastic, next Spook was joined by Mr Dave Evil for the cautionary tale Jack Hall, then with the addition of Cloud, Joe and Amy we were back to the faster stuff. Twisted Lip followed then Bluey, Ballad of William Winter, TMTWNBBFN's Boilerplate Dan, Hall of the Mountain King, Curse of Tutankhamun and Metallica's For Whom the Bell Tolls, after many shouts for more and the audience in dancing mode we gave them God Save the Queen again before we had to call it a night, what an amazing night it was, we all felt great after and we were sorry to say goodbye to such an crackin' place.

    Many thanks to Pat Griffin for creating this wonderful night and for some of the photos, thanks also to Jules Gosling for the other photos, you guys rock. the Brasserie Toulous Lautrec link is here; http://www.brasserietoulouselautrec.co.uk/index.php

See you all at Raising Steam 21st-22nd September in Reading...........

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Hammer House of Hedonism, Gladstone returns.....

A lively time at the Electrowexz.

 

Darren Demondaz

Gladstone were very excited to return to play at Electrowexz/Slimelight on 3rd August, the Hammer House of Hedonism event was created by Living on Video and kicked off in grand fashion with a very humorous lecture on Vampires and their shifting sexualities in popular fiction and film by that dastardly dandy Mr Darren Demondaz, a very entertaining and informative talk indeed.

Nigel Osner

    Following Mr Demondaz was the excellent cabaret entertainer Nigel Osner who gave us a showcase from his "Men, Women and Vampires" show, a very talented man and it was great to see him again.

    Close on his heels came the incredible and very theatrical Alter Red with a fantastic set, a totally black clad singer (literally head to toe, see photo!) and automaton dancers gave us a very entertaining gig, we would love to see them again soon, highly recommended.

Alter Red

    Then it was our turn and with Amy's chimes Gladstone entered the stage complete with much corpse paint and masks, Night Creatures thundered out to a very lively audience as did The Madness of Tilly Matthews with Joe thumping out the opening bass line, we had an amazing time, it is always such a pleasure to play the Elecrowerxz. Bluey, William Winter, Twisted Lip, Newgate, Dr Dexter's Dream, Hall of the Mountain King and Curse of Tutankhamun all followed to an enthusiastic reception, we ended the set with the customary God Save the Queen (which had folks bouncing all over the place) and For Whom the Bell Tolls which ended up with a member of the audience joining Cloud on vocals, excellent stuff! All too soon it was over for us and we left the stage to the final act.

Mr McBuggerballs V

Gladstone, Night Creatures...

    The Mysterious Freakshow put on an amazing act, excited....you bet, they are a great and lively band and I look forward to meeting them again soon, after the bands it was over to the DJ's Mr Scott Mcmahon and Mr Simon Landmine for the best sounds in Steampunk, post punk and Goth, a fantastic night which for Sherlock's Dog ended at 6.30am, well past this puppy's bed time......until next time gutenacht and stay safe my friends.

The Mysterious Freakshow.

    The photos I've used come from the superb https://www.facebook.com/HyderImages and the very talented http://omnisppot.smugmug.com/, thanks Simon.

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The Automata Wars Book Launch.

The Front Line; The Automata Wars book launch,

at the ORT Cafe, Birmingham

    We kicked off our summer mini tour in grand style on 27th July with the momentous launch of L.M Cooke's The Automata Wars volume 2, the ORT Cafe is an old factory that now houses various art projects, the room the event was being held in was a long hall lined with stalls selling all manor of Steampunk accessories, clothes and of course books from The Last Line. First band on was Crimson Clocks fronted by the multi-talented L.M Cooke, they played an amazing set including a fantastic version of Hawkwind's Masters of the Universe with Ms Cooke sporting a natty robot/borg costume! Next on was Dr Agamemnon When, known usually for his skills as Master of Ceremonies tried his hand at stand up comedy, and a fine job he did too with laughs and groans in equal measure.

    Then it was time for the official launch, reading extracts from the novel were L.M Cooke, Steven C. Davis (DJ with Reading4u) and Dr When, the readings came with echoing gunfire and a haunting accompaniment on violin from Jo of Crimson Clocks.

   Then it was time for more music this time from Birthrite, they gave an inspired performance with Erazamus bouncing all over the place, he even sang whilst lying on the ground!! They gave an excellent show that went down very well.

    Finally it was Gladstone on stage, with Amy's bell signalling the beginning, Spook and Dave Evil appeared both of them masked and lantern in hand.....the performance went very well, with a head banging Cloud giving Spook a well deserved waft of cool air now and again and our stand in bassist Joe "Sticky Fingers" Foley doing a sterling job we rocked into the night ending on a ripping version of Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen".

It was an incredible night and we wish Linzi the greatest success with her new novel, if you haven't read The Automata Wars yet then please do so, it's fantastic!! http://thelastline.yolasite.com/

Many thanks to Angus Poiselamppe for the photos, our next appearance will be at The Electrowexz at Slimelight, Islington, London, on 3rd August.....see you there.

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Celebrating the Solstice at Matlock Bath.

Steampunk Summer Solstice in Derbyshire, round 2.

    28th June saw the Gladstone posse heading north again to that beautiful town Matlock Bath, this time to a different venue, this time to.....The Pavillion, oh yes!

A Victorian view of the Pavillion.

    We were appearing on the Friday night of a full weekend of musical entertainment brought to you by the likes of BB Blackdog, Lord Montague Jacques Fromage, Birthrite, Metropolis, Crimson Clocks, Whiskey Bob Shaker and Sarah Knight and the Bluestones to name a few (well, most actually). Friday nights entertainment began with the superb Sarah Knight and the Bluestones who played a wonderful set comprising of some great covers by the likes of Deep Purple and The Doors.

 

Soon it was our turn and we played a full set, we were honoured by a guest appearance on Bass from BB Blackdog's Mike Bower who played a blinding set, many thanks to him. We played our usual set which went down very well, Dave looked particularly Evil in his new mask especially when he was lurking around the audience (Twisted Lip & Jack Hall), Cloud was (as usual) the epitome of cool, Amy Teacake looked fantastic in her Squaw costume and Spook was...just Spook! After a most enjoyable set we ended on God Save the Queen and For Whom the Bell Tolls, many thanks to all our friends who made it up to see us, you are all very much appreciated.

Dave Evil.

    Next on stage was that Steampunk funkster Lord Montague Jacques Fromage, he is a master of satire and a fantastic compere, he then introduced the awesome BB Blackdog with Mike doing his double shift playing another set for BB, I bet he slept well that night! BB Blackdog played a storming set, even Montague joined them on a song, it was superbly entertaining.

 

Biscuits from the Tattooed Cake Company

Just to make the night even better each member of Gladstone was presented with a biscuit made by the very talented Janet Norton of The Tattooed Cake Company https://www.facebook.com/TheTattooedCakeCompany?fref=ts and they were absolutely delicious, many thanks to the photographers, I'm not sure who exactly took what but those I do know of Mr Giles Warhurst of Jacklyn Hyde https://www.facebook.com/jacklyn.hyde?fref=ts and Mr David Broadbent http://www.davidbroadbent.com/.

    See you all again soon.....next time Birmingham and The Front Line book launch 27th July.

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More photos.......