Steampunks in the snow, Steampunks at the seaside.

Steampunks in the snow, Steampunks at the seaside.

Another day in the life of Sherlock's Dog.

 

Friday night arrived in a swirl of snowflakes, it was all very pretty....miserable!! It was 22nd March and we were off to the Charles Bradlaugh, Northampton, we were playing with some awesome bands that night but because of the white menace Birthrite had to cancel. So it was up to the other three bands to put on a good show, first up was LHASA Calling a Northampton post-punk band on their first outing and they pulled it off magnificently, next was

Gladstone with a masked Spook wandering around lantern in hand to Amy's tolling bells. We went through the usual set only leaving out a couple because of time restraints and ending on Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen", in all a good gig, it made a change playing in front of a local audience and we really enjoyed ourselves. Headlining was the superbly dark Venus Fly Trap who had just completed a European tour, it's always a pleasure to see these guys play, they did tracks from their latest album "Nemisis" and a superb cover of The Cramps "Human Fly".

Venus Fly Trap

  It was great to see some of our friends turning up and braving the inclement weather, many thanks to you all, soon it was time to load up and it was like a blizzard!! This worried us because in just a few hours time we were driving 180 miles down to Camber Sands and.............. Steampunk at the Seaside.....

    We left a very snowy Northampton at 10am Saturday 23rd and drove carefully out towards the motorway....which was clear so there was no problem, we were off!! Arriving safely we booked into our caravans and explored, we bumped into many friends and familiar faces, always smiling, always friendly. At 5 it was time to sound check, the headline band for the weekend had arrived......The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing!! They sound checked first and played two new songs (we were the first to hear 'em), then we did ours, doors opened at 7pm, Gladstone were on at 8.30.

    "It's an odd feeling singing a song about the place your standing on!" said Spook later, but that's what Night Creatures is all about, smuggling on Romney Marsh, as usual it was performed with mask in place, Cloud looked every inch the mad axeman with his sheep skull (it's called Alan) around his neck and a devilish gleam in his eye! and with a thundering bass from Paul "shovel hands" we went into The Madness of Tilly Matthews, Bluey, The Ballad of William Winter,

Mr Evil, Jack Hall.

Twisted Lip, Newgate, Dr Dexter's Dream, zombie Dave Evil entered the crowd and played his snare drum for Jack Hall, then Purple Reefer, Hall of the Mountain King and The Curse of Tutankhamun. At this point something we will remember for a long time happened, usually in our set at this point we play Boilerplate Dan but TMTWNBBFN were here and looking at us, haha!! we had their permission so we played it anyway, it went down a treat, it was a weird and exciting experience!! We ended on God Save The Queen and For Whom The Bell Tolls which had the audience bouncing around, at the end they shouted for more...oh dear...more..err, ok, so we gave them Twisted Lip again then ran for it!!

    To top the night TMTWNBBFN played an AWESOME set, they are without doubt one of the best SteamPUNK bands in Europe, they played all the classics you would expect from both albums plus the two new tracks Gin and (please forgive me if I get it wrong) Necropolis, we were singing "Jesus was a f**king Cockney" for the rest of the night! All too soon it was over, Marc and Andrew DJ'd for a few hours while we drifted further and further into a befuddled state thanks to several pints at the bar.

    Next morning it was big breakfast and even bigger mugs of tea...uurrgg.....we arrived back in snowy Northampton with some great memories, it was fantastic, thanks to Thadeus Tinker, Lady Elsie and the VSS for having us, the Steampunks for being sooo friendly and TMTWNBBFN for just being good mates, cheers.

    The photos used here were taken by Giles Warhurst, Lucas Fairbrother and Michelle Cooper, many thanks.

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Tales of a Shed and a Library

Tales of a Shed and Library.

    Good day to you Ladies and Gentlemen, Sherlock's Dog here again with some more band news. First off  a short trip to Leicester and our re-scheduled audition for the Glastonbudget festival (the first was cancelled due to very snowy conditions...frozen paws, not nice!), this took place on 1st March at that amazing venue The Shed. We did a 30 minute set which included our faster songs like Night Creatures, The Madness of Tilly Matthews, Bluey, Twisted Lip, Dr Dexter's Dream, Hall of the Mountain King and finishing with The Curse of Tutankhamun. The gig went down very well and I must thank our fans for turning up and giving us some incredible support, the good news is we got through and we will be playing the Glastonbudget festival along side (so far) BB Blackdog, Birthrite and Metropolis in May, the times and running order has yet to be finalised but you can keep up to date with developments here; http://www.glastonbudget.org/.

    So what's this about a library I hear you ask....well, on the 9th March off we went on our travels again this time to the furthest north we have ever played, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. This was a bit of a homecoming for our singer Spook as he hails from Morpeth, just a little further north! The Anachronism was a celebration of all things Steampunk/Cyberpunk and was held at Gateshead central library, in the Caedmon Hall was a large stage and lots of great stalls selling all sorts of wonderful goodies. Through the day there were craft workshops, talks, Tea Duelling, 99th Garrison the Star Wars Sith cosplayers looked incredible and local rapper B Type entertained us before the first band took to the stage, this was the awesome Birthrite!

    Birthrite played a fantastic set (as usual), Erazamus Voss bouncing all over the place and dancing with....anyone really! They played for about an hour and then it was our turn, now, there is something I have to confess, for the first time in the bands history we changed the line-up! What happened was......

Gladstone with Paul on guitar and Joe on bass.

due to personal reasons our beloved guitarist Cloud could not play this gig, it all happened at the last minute so we moved Paul "Shovel Hands" onto guitar and stole a bassist!! So introducing our new stand in bassist Mr Joe "Sticky Fingers" Foley, we have played with Joe's band Tape (http://www.facebook.com/tapethetape) several times before (Sept 2011 Brixworth, May 2012 The Bantam, Northampton), Paul and Joe had three days to learn and practice the set, with Cloud's help they worked a miracle.

    The gig went very well, we started with Night Creatures, Tilly Matthews (during which we had the privilege of having Erazamus Voss and Mark Thinsliced of Birthrite on backing vocals), Bluey (during which Dave split his bass drum skin!), a very different version of The Ballad of William Winter (which sounded great!), Twisted Lip, a guitarless Newgate and Dr Dexter's Dream, Jack Hall, Purple Reefer, Mountain King, Curse of Tutankhamun and ending on a rip-roaring version of TMTWNBBFN's Boilerplate Dan. It had been a great day, but it was not over yet, after the gig we travelled north to Morpeth where we had a great feast at Spook's parents house and then drove into a cold snowy night to visit William Winter's Gibbet.....

    Next time...Cloud returns for a big Northampton gig and Steampunk at the sea side, stay tuned, be safe TTFN Gladstonians.

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