Leonard Smalls

Natty Dread - U-Roy

Christmas Time (Don't let the Bell End) - The Darkness

Poker Face - Lady Gaga

Rave On! - Buddy Holly

We did a couple of live streaming gigs just after lockdown using drums I'd programmed from EZ drummer. I recorded mp3s of the track with cymbal count-ins onto my phone and played that direct into the monitoring. Worked fine, though sound was a touch muffled - duff sound engineering by me I expect! Here's a bit, just before our proggypunk widdlefest!

Not Genesis... You can see it in his eyes! 😄

It's usually a given from the names... But then you get other bands like Screaming Headless Torsos muddying the mix... So perhaps a descriptive to add to the name would be useful, so we'd get Cattle Decapitation Death Metal/Borderline Djent Band, Priest Crippler plays Black.Death Metal and The Municipal Waste Death Metal Beat Combo. And of course, The Screaming Headless Torsos Who Knows What It Is But It's Just A Bit Jazzy And Microtonal Sextet.

Good thing my band is called The Sh!t band then!

Featuring @mamayo of this parish, IIRC!

Ooh ah, just a little Tebbit - Gina G

Me too! They're barely even Fakin' The Funk!

I think you can get away with it more in blues band... You won't often see Evil Ernie's Rock Band, or Punky Joe's None-More-Punky Punk band.

I'm in love with Margaret Thatcher - The Not Sensibles

Benn - Michael Jackson

speak for yourself

I think that unless they're very lucky many musicians find that if they want to be a musician they need to be on benefits in order to eat!

But only if you pronounce it the English way!

Truss in me - jungle Book soundtrack

Fog on the Heseltine - Lindisfarne

Beer Prudence - Siouxsie and the Banshees

The band would never find someone with my dazzling array of trousers...

Too shy - Kajagoogoo

We played in Nottingham this year and we actually got a decent amount of pay supporting the Soap Girls, which was nice! Not only that but we sold merch too so all costs plus a bit towards the next album were covered. Next gig we're also getting decent pay, especially as it's only half an hour away! But it's taken us nearly 5 years to get to that stage - in the first year we rarely got more than about £30, sometimes nowt! We played once in the Valleys to the barman, the other band and a cardboard cut-out of Marc Bolan. The barman gave us £13 - which was good as the venue was empty! What was strange that nobody in the town seemed interested in coming to see bands, or at least not if they'd never heard of 'em unless it promised well-known covers - folks couldn't be bothered to go and see bands on spec like I used to when I wer nobbut a lad. We'd go and see any band just in case they might be good...

To be fair there's whole areas of law that are less well-defined than a goth in a blackout... Look at the Hunting Act 2004 frinstance. While it specifically bans the use of hunting with dogs, getting a prosecution is incredibly difficult - you virtually have to be there with a camera at the kill - so police forces that are less in the pocket of the landowners are now going for variations on Community Protection Orders; everyone knows the hunt is still hunting, most want it stopped so the only way of attempting to do that is via a seriously around-the-houses sort of way. Similarly, government are fed up with JSO protestors so they (and councils, companies etc) are taking out injunctions to stop them standing in certain areas on pain of prosecution. And they have been prosecuted, on a number of occasions! For quite some time, women in this country have had the right to have an abortion and they've been intimidated and harassed by anti-abortion activists. Therefore, in order for these women to go about their perfectly legal business without fear of harassment or even the threat of violence, government has introduced effectively protest exclusion zones. So if matey is protesting outside said clinic, despite him calling it praying, it's still a protest that's not allowed there. He's still standing there in a way that vulnerable women would see as intimidating... It's not really a thought-crime as such because he's allowed to think whatever thoughts he likes, just not to stand there making it obvious he's protesting! Meanwhile 😁

Indeed... To get going on whichever originals circuit you have to build enough interest and/or following that you get gigs that will pay well and people will buy your merch. Which means playing either for very little or nowt in order to get going. It's nowt to do with being not very entertaining or badly organised as Mr X asserts - there's no way a new originals band is going to be self-sustaining unless they've got a "name" in the band, or are already incredibly well-connected. Otherwise a reputation is built over time, and all the organising stuff learnt along the way. And a little, or lot of luck is also required! Not only that, but it helps if you're in reasonable proximity to decent venues or scene, if not it takes a lot of effort and banging your head on brick walls to get your name out there!