Due to popular demand..

...I thought it was about time to give you a quick update on the happenings in The Dave Howes Band house.

Well, Fingers came back from his cruise all relaxed and tanned. He'd had a great time, as not only did he win the cruise as a prize on a phone-in radio show, he managed to sit in with the on-board band after their guitarist, who was making his debut on this cruise, discovered that he suffered from violent sea-sickness, and proceeded to decorate the stage in what's now popularly known in these parts as the Rockmother apres Motorhead style.

Fingers found himself playing all the usual cruise type cabaret style songs for a couple of hours each night, and much to his surprise he quite enjoyed himself! I guess the fact that he was paid for doing it, and getting free drinks into the bargain may have helped!

But now he's back, and we thought that we should get a shift on and booked a gig to celebrate his return at The Epileptic Juggler in Penge.

On arrival at the gig, Bassman got chatting to the support act, “Mesmerising Maurice, Hilarious Hypnotist”. They shared a couple of drinks and unbeknownst to Bassman and us, Maurice put him into a trance, which meant that anytime somebody said “testing, testing, one two, one two…” he would curl up into the foetal position and moan softly to himself.

Mesmerising Maurice

As you can imagine, our sound check proved to be a surprising one to say the least. (Actually, we were I suppose quite lucky to have got as far as the sound check, our run of luck has not been good lately). Maurice was nowhere to be found. We later discovered that he’d run off with a groupie to a nearby hotel (I don’t know how he does it, he’s an ugly bastard).

Nothing we tried could get Bassman out of his trance and we had no choice but to carry poor old Otto in his foetal position, chuck him into the back of the van and make our apologies and leave.

P.S. The following day, old Mesmerising Mo turned up on the doorstep of TDHB house, brought Bassman out of his trance, made his apologies and left… which was nice.

P.P.S. We spent the remainder of the day saying “one two, one two, testing, testing” at Bassman, just in case.

Well it's all go here folks...

...as we've just posted some new songs here!
They're not all originals however, two of them are covers of our favourite Australian eco-warriors Midnight Oil, and have been done as a sign of our respect for them. Sell my soul is a song from the album Diesel and Dust, and is the favourite of Sticks (no relation), as he only has to use his right foot on that one. No Reacion is off the album Head Injuries originally, but ours is a copy of a live version which differs slightly, because there's less words to sing, ha ha!
Thanks are due to our old mate istvanski for the loan of his beautiful Fender banjo (other makes of banjo are available folks), we hope we didn't hang onto it for too long! We used it on "Where We Belong". The source of inspiration for that song (yes, unbelievably there was one folks!), shall remain unrevealed, ha ha!
"What do you know" is another in the series that has become known as "music for Sir Paul's barbecues", and is sure to be available on K-Tel records some time soon, probably.
Hope you enjoy 'em
Love and Hugs,
The Dave Howes Band

The mother of all updates...

A potted version of events in The Dave Howes Band house.

No.1. We were so frigging excited here in TDHB house, ‘cos we had a gig to play!

We arrived at the gig, only for Fingers to inform us that somehow, Sticks Flashman (no relation) had been struck down with a case of temporary Tourette’s Syndrome. According to Fingers, when the pair of them had arrived earlier and the venue manager had greeted them warmly, Sticks had spewed forth a stream of appalling profanities and insults that would have shocked a docker. In spite of Finger’s reassurances that this was “well out of character,” and that “he didn’t mean to say that about his mother,” the venue manager was far from impressed. He did however allow them to wait until the rest of us arrived so we could make our apologies and leave.

In hindsight, it was perhaps a mistake to allow Sticks, in his current condition, to be the one to apologise as it turned out that his Tourette’s type apology was less than polite.

No.2. Fantastic excitement in TDHB house, we had another gig arranged!

We arrived at the gig, only to find that there was no sign of Sticks. We waited for a while…

…then made our apologies and left.

The next day, Sticks arrived at the gig only to discover that the rest of us had been there the day before...

...he made his apologies and left.

No.3. Great news and even greater excitement this last week. We had a new manager on board for a trial period and a gig booked!

Unfortunately we had to cancel the gig, as Fingers won a competition on a phone-in radio show. As a result of this he now has “a cruise to go on”. This was such a long trip, that we have had to cancel the next 4 shows as well.

Sad news.

Our newly appointed “on trial” manager was not impressed with Finger’s competition winning grasp of general knowledge. He was heard to say: “Well if he’s more interested in seeing the world than playing with the band, then I can’t be bothered”.

He made his apologies and left.

So there we have it folks, things keep rolling along same as ever, sometimes it's hard not to get downhearted, but what the hell eh? We're all still alive, and Fingers is having a lovely time.

Not so bad.

Love and hugs,

TDHB