January 4th:
Group rehearsal last night 'til very late! Lots of songs ready for the shows and a number of good new ideas - a couple of which we are starting work on shortly.

January 6th:
For the people who suggested we play at The Royal Oak, Ramsbottom: Ian goes to the jam night there sometimes and they were impressed enough to want us, so they were in touch late last year trying to get us to cover a cancellation, but we were already out. Ian called in to find that they have filled their diary for 2008 right up. We ARE, however, playing just down the road at The Railway, Ramsbottom on January 25th and on April 18th with further dates to be confirmed. We are pleased to tell you that it's a great looking venue. Please come and see us at The Railway!

We have also been told that it's time that we went back to Ighten Leigh Social Club in Burnley, where we have always gone down very well. We have tried to make contact with the club secretary by email and text message, to no avail. We have taken 3 return shows at The Woodlands Hotel, Blackburn. See the gigs page for details. Rehearsals continue over the next two weeks for our upcoming gigs.

January 12th - 19th:
An amount of feverish activity at the moment. We have taken some more gigs. Two we are very pleased with are at The Moses Gate, which is the most important venue in the Bolton area.

Despite us making a point of dumping all the old crap venues we don't want to go back to this year, the group diary is still doing its usual thing of getting nicely full up quickly with decent venues and we are keeping some dates back for return gigs at some new places and our favourite venues. Meanwhile, a couple of places we have recently been in touch with about gigs (after suggestions from our following, who would turn out in force to see us) are being slow in getting back to us and we can't keep on going round to gee them up, so they may miss out on getting us this year (or at all). We have tried - Go and nag them for us! If they ring us... we'll see what we can do.

January 19th:
The new line-up of the group (- Ian H, + Mike) played a show at The Hulton Arms, Bolton and the result was a very good show with such a long setlist that we had to leave a few songs out. Many thanks to Mike for learning the songs so well in double-quick time.

January 21st:
Ian has started work on a radically different cover version of a Led Zeppelin III song, 'Gallows Pole' for the next Black Cat Bone forum CD. The basic backing track of bass, two guitars and drums was completed this evening. More info when the song is completed.

January 22nd:
All of the group went to the jam night at THE CALEDONIAN in Ashton. Ian landed up playing with everyone, as he was the only bassist to appear. Great to see Hutch and play with him. Ian fulfilled an ambition of playing with the Country Gentlemen (video threatened), The Kerbcrawlers and also in the same night, The Incredibles! ... and permutations of all three!

January 23rd:
Just took a booking for later on in the year at THE CROSS AXES, Great Harwood. Nice to move into some new territory! Ian's version of the Led Zeppelin song 'Gallows Pole' is now up on his MySpace page, along with some of his own stuff - please give it a listen.

Jan 25th:
Our first show at The Railway, Ramsbottom went really well and we went down a storm. Steve and Mike played out of their skins and we are going to be taking further bookings for the later half of the year at The Railway shortly.

Jan 26:
The Pub At World's End (which we are NOT naming and shaming) and without the aid of Sat Nav, Ian circled hopelessly for quite a while trying to find it. The group played really well, but due to events that took place after the show, we have decided NOT to ever go back there. A shame that we ever found the place, really.

February 2nd:
Tonight's show was at The Abbey Lakes, Upholland. The group hopefully played an excellent show and our new guitarist Mike has now got a new feature guitar piece that he has chosen (and that you have to hear to believe) in the set. Steve also debuted his new 7-string Ibanez guitar, so it was an interesting evening. We are back there another three times this year, so if you didn't see us this time - don't worry, we'll be back! Thanks very much to RentACrowd, our great mate Howie and Mr and Mrs Hutch for coming to watch us - much appreciated.

February 3rd:
The Kerbcrawlers intend to put quite a few new songs in the set shortly. Ian's dream is to have the first set rating as rockin' as the second set.

Ian was booked to play with the tribute band Flamin' Slade at the Sladefest on Easter Sunday. As the group had put together a 40-song setlist and about 3/4 of it was in radically altered keys, Ian has asked that FS' own bass player does the whole show, as Ian just doesn't have the marginal time to devote to this as a one- off project. The Kerbcrawlers have to come first.

February 9th:
Colin's birthday.... and what was he doing? He was out gigging with us. We played our first gig at The Queen Anne, Deane, Bolton. What a great crowd! Especially the helpful chap who brought a combo amp in for Mike to use whe his super duper Marshall head failed to start at ten to nine. What a hero. You saved us. Despite a number of issues Mike had with his rig earlier that evening, he thought the gig was the best he'd done with us so far. We look forward to going back soon, as we have dates there throughout the year.

We will also be back at The Railway, Ramsbottom another 4 times this year, as we have secured further bookings there.

February 15th:
The Woodlands, Blackburn. Nice to see some people there who keep turning up to see us when we are in the area, especially Stu. Colin's voice was a bit rough on the night as he has been full of a cold, so we dropped a few of his songs. Thanks to State Of Quo for the loan of a combo amp for Mike to use at the gig.

February 16th:
WE arrived at Winston's to find Koodoo setting up. So, off home we went for an early bath. We have now confirmed all of our remaining dates there. Thanks for the landlord for sorting out our remaining dates there and apologies to anyone who came to see us - it was beyond our control.

24th February:
This last weekend saw us play two stonking gigs at two of our very favourite venues in Wigan. A shame if you missed them. First was The Boulevard and second was the Cherry Gardens, where we just about took the roof off, to a packed house. Steve and Mike both debuted new guitars (Steve's is a very top of the range Fender Strat and Mike's, a John Petrucci signature MusicMan). Both sound excellent. But where was Howie?

We have a bit of a rest coming up next weekend as sunny Spain beckons for some of us.

26th February:
Howie has been in touch with his apologies for the last weekend. I think everyone should spend the rest of the month's beer money on going to see The Incredibles at The Fleece this Wednesday. Be there or be very square indeed.

27th February:
Two shows booked at Whittles, Oldham, for later in the year! Ian has ordered a new bass cab to make his rig a bit more stupendous.

March:

March 2nd:
A quiet time at the moment, as part of the group is away on holiday. Now that Mike has done such a good job of settling in, we are looking at getting four brand new songs into the set shortly. This all depends, as usual, about us all being in agreement with what is put forward. It is often the case that one of us may not have any enthusiasm at all for any of the songs put forward, which knocks us back to square one. But we are very democratic and patient, so we keep trying to find 4 good songs that we all like.

March 6th:
Ian went to watch Hare Of The Dog at The Moses Gate (a venue we are back at later this year). They put in an excellent performance, with a number of the songs that we cover in their set (which is fair enough, seeing as we didn't write them to start with)! More reason to get some new songs together, as we do a number of songs that 'everyone' does. Ian was very impressed by them indeed.

8th March:
The Antelope, Kearsley - The landlord seemed to be quite pleased with our performance. We are back there in September, anyway. We will be rehearsing a few new songs over the next few weeks. We have a few songs that we have done some work on already, so there is scope for a good amount of change to the show. Probably about 7 new songs. Change is good for you.

13th March:
A rehearsal at Colin's country mansion. We worked on a few new ideas and tightened up one or two things that have been missing from the set for a little while. It was decided that a couple of songs that we do are dropping out of the setlist, as we have played them enough now.

14th March:
The Fleece, Ashton. probably what you would call our 'home gig' as three of the group live within spitting distance of the venue. Thanks to our supporters for turning up - great to see Mr and Mrs H, Howie and various of our favourite group The Incredibles, a Lazzy or so. What a nice big noisy crowd!

We have been trying to get more video footage together for the site but Colin's video camera doesn't like how loud we are, even when we are supposedly 'quiet'.

18th March:
The Incredibles hosted the usual Tuesday jam night at The Caledonian, Ashton. Mike got up did an acoustic set (we must convince him to do one of the tunes from that with us) and Ian got to play with The Incredibles, after they had a bass mishap of sorts. A really great jam night run by Howie's crew and Tommy. Everyone should go to it.

Easter weekend:
Mike is in Scotland, disturbing the peace of all the Haggis growing community, while running nekkid through the heather. Steve is busy teaching Wigan's guitarists to be excellent inbetween visiting pubs and emptying the pumps. Ian is doing some gardening and going to watch Justin Currie in Manchester again on Easter Sunday. Colin is preparing his defence for his upcoming Kerbcrawling trial (only joking). In between all this feverish activity, we are listening to a bunch of new songs and we reckon they will be quite good to go shortly.

The Cherry Gardens rang on Sunday, telling us that we now won't be playing there on Boxing Day as they aren't putting a band on that night. Not overly impressed, but what can you do?

28th March:
The Windmill, Westhoughton. Lots of Ian's friends popped in to watch us - thanks very much. We had a good evening, despite one of Steve's two new Strats being interfered with by the PA, which we reckon was down to the venue's electrics. The landlady was very happy with us indeed, but has filled the venue diary up 'til next year (as they only put groups on monthly at the moment),so it remains to be seen whether we will be back there or not.

29th March:
The Woodlands, Blackburn. Again, we seem to have a regular local following up there who come out to see us. Great. We appreciate it. Not a bad show, Mike had rearranged the setlist a bit for us.
Back again in early April!!!

March 31st:
A very positive evening's rehearsal - some songs have now been banished from the setlist for all eternity and we won't miss them at all. We ran through some new songs which are in various states of repair and have agreed the next 8 new songs we are working on (one of which should be in the show next week), plus we came up with a few new ideas out of the blue, which we all readily agreed on.

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April 5th:
The Railway, Bromley Cross. We turned up, to be met by a request for Ian to ring his cousin, quite urgently. Very sad news. We had set up half the gear and decided to press on with the evening. Steve managed to get his eyes flashed by the stage lights, due to someone else's stupid mistake, while we were changing a bulb, which left him feeling very uncomfortable. Mike's vocal on the 'new' song 'Paper plane' was good, we were pleased to get a new song in.

During 'I predict a riot', we stopped dead sharp-ish, mid-song, when two lads decided to race onto the stage at an alarmingly high speed and crash into Steve's mic stand and guitar and nearly knock him right over. He was far from impressed. With literally thousands of pounds worth of gear (each) on stage with us, we don't need stage invasions. As we stopped playing, it made them look foolish. They were not thrown out. We talked about this later. We have got lazy. We will go back to using a barrier, to keep idiot punters off the stage.

We would probably have stopped there, but a couple of people who see us regularly there had been shouting for the Floyd stuff and it certainly wasn't the venue's fault in any way. We left to find it deep and crisp and even and just a bit slippery. At least no-one went on their backside that night. That would have been the icing on the cake.

April 11th:
New shows booked at The Stocks, Walkden. Another song ready and some work on a few others.

April 12th:
The Woodlands again. A quiet night, but we played well. Another new song in the set and some return dates. Rossi from State Of Quo was there, as Stu, who took some photos. Thanks.

April 18 and 19:
The Railway, Ramsbottom and also The Boulevard, Wigan, where we seemed to be turning into The Who at the end of the show. Very disconcerting. Thanks to everyone who came along.

April 22:
A couple of new venues got in touch today. Good stuff. The problem is fitting them in!

Meanwhile, one of our regular venues, who we were the very first in the diary at for this year, keep ringing up every now and again to try to fiddle about with our booked dates.
Can we move a date for another band to play there?
No. We are all booked up round then. WE have the date booked. The other group will have to sort themselves out.
This is twice we have been asked this by them now. Worse still, they have already cancelled a gig we had booked there for around Christmas time. They will lose us altogether if they keep this up. We always try to act professionally and expect others we deal with to do exactly the same.

April 25th:
The Stocks, Walkden. This date replaced a cancellation from up the road at the much-missed New Inn, which was a great gig. A lot of the same faces from The New Inn turned up and it was great to see them, as they gave us a great welcome. Thanks to Ian, Chris, Chris M and our favourite reluctant superstar Howie from The Incredibles, who spent the evening at the side of the stage.

Steve was really badly unwell this evening and just about managed to get through the gig without being sick. We covered some of his songs with Ian singing, but had to drop a fair number of them. Mike and Steve both played a blinder, though. A very good night (we are going back there another three times this year), though we were very worried about Steve all the way through, especially when he sat down to play. He deservedly got the biggest cheer of the evening, when the group were introduced.

Tomorrow night at the Hulton Arms promises to be a unique evening - If Steve isn't fully fit, Hutch will manfully step into the breach and cover for him. So this could be a one-off line up, playing some old songs that you won't hear again. We'll see what happens.

Get well soon, Steve.

April 26th:
Well, it all nearly didn't happen. Steve was still very unwell and we decided to press on with Ian H with no rehearsal..... and he had never played with Mike in the band. We had also been crossed out in the venue diary and so the (yet another) brand new landlady thought we weren't coming. But we did and she was really happy with us and we put some further bookings in.

Hutch and Mike both played a blinder and we did two very good enjoyable sets with a number of old songs with only the odd tiny glitch and we went down really well. Result. Thanks very much to Ian H for helping us out - it is always a real pleasure to play with him. Hoping Steve is feeling much better soon.

May 4th:
The group has been in various states of illness for the last week or so. Only our man Mike remains totally upright on his feet and is not not staggering round in a state of total befuddlement and medicated confusion. Band rehearsals were cancelled last week as Steve was still not well. Colin has had chest problems and Ian is suffering with the hated hay fever and some interesting headaches (fortunately, he's not had a bad migraine for ages).

This weekend we have played at The Queen Anne, Deane, Bolton and also various of us caught The Spidermonkeys (regarded by some as our competition in Wigan - whatever that means in the grand scheme of things, we ignore crap like that and don't see that there's any competition). They are enjoyable enough and they managed to ignore a basically pissed, disinterested and hostile audience at the venue we saw them at and from what we saw, they are ok and delivered a fairly good set.

Tonight we played at The Woodlands Hotel in Blackburn, with the show starting at 8pm. The show went very well and we had a lot more of a crowd in than usual and they were quite appreciative. We had a few requests, some for songs we have never heard of, but we did our best to please - 'Cocaine' got a full outing; we usually just soundcheck with it and we never play it in full. That went ok, though Colin had to find the lyrics for it!

A few more shows, then we take a well-deserved break for various people's holidays, polishing guitars, etc. Time for a good lie down, interrupted only by a few get togethers to work on a couple of songs, watching some other groups and having a few beers.

We are working on something good for New Year's Eve. More news later.........

May 8th:
Two new shows added at The Boulevard, Wigan.

May 10th:
A great night at The Cherry Gardens, with a five song encore. I don't think we plugged and bigged up The Incredibles quite enough, but by God, we tried. Thanks to everyone who came!

May 11th:
Steve went to the guitar show and got a much-treasured new baby. A lovely black 1981 Gibson Les Paul Custom.

May 16th:
The Antelope in Kearsley e-mailed Ian to cancel our September show there. Also, as Ian was loading the truck with his basses, tonight's venue rang to cancel, as the Police (the boys in blue, not Sting and his chums) had just closed the pub. Oooops. Frantic text messages were sent to the usual suspects. Apologies to anyone who turned up to find the venue closed. It was beyond our control.

May 18th:
Steve has booked in a reunion show with his old group, HUNTER at The Boulevard, Wigan on JULY 19th. They are re-uniting for a private wedding gig and it seemed a shame for them not to do another gig that other people can attend, bearing in mind how much rehearsal time has been put in.

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June 1st:
Steve did his wedding show with his old band HUNTER. Here's a photo.

June 4th:
Last night was the jam night at The Caledonian. Ian E got up with Tommy and Ian H to do a few things and a fast version of 'I saw her standing there' was forthcoming. The Incredibles were visibly (ie: they left the sheets of paper with the lyrics and chords out where they could be seen) hatching plots to cover more Del Amitri songs in the same stylee as their extraordinary version of 'Always the last to know'. You have to love them for their good taste. Today, Ian happened across a guitar shop in Bury.....

June 10th:
The group is still not all in the same country and so we haven't all seen each other since our last gig. It will be fun when we do our next gig and we find that we can't remember any of the songs!!

Off to The Caledonian again. It's nice to keep the fingers working by getting up at the jam night. Ian got up with Ian H and did some old songs that The Kerbcrawlers don't do anymore, such as 'I knew the bride'. The Incredibles (for it is they) played a nice long set with guests and tried their hand at a few new things. Good fun.

June 14th:
The group have been offered another couple of gigs for this weekend, but Colin will be on his way back from America and we go out as 'all 4 of us' or not at all these days.

June 20th:
The Stocks, Walkden - Three weeks off and it didn't really show. Thanks to our mates Nobby and Jane for coming to watch us - always a pleasure to see you. We have taken a booking at Whittle's Oldham on Sunday July 13th.

June 21st:
An excellent return to Winston's in Wigan. A very good turn out of people who had come to see us especially. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us.

June 24th:
After some looking at the group diary for the rest of the year, we have boxed off some more weekends as the group not being available, so that we can actually do other things than continually gigging.

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