Hello
Groovers,
Sorry about the delay in posting stuff on the web site news page - I've been struggling with a slight bout of '
Glaston -
beri beri' - (paddling about in water/mud and Somerset monsoon style weather for close on 5 days was bound to get me in the end) - since our return. So, after plying myself with
Beechams Powders / Hot Lemon drinks and Brandy for the last few days - the sneezing and runny nose is finally abating.
Anyway - there's been plenty happening - the dates leading up to Glastonbury etc, and then the festival itself. Thought I'd better get around to updating a few things on the
GOJO' MUSIC web site - some pages on the site will be altering slightly over the next few weeks.
First of all I'd like to thank
Ecka / Dave Tucker and
Nicci Hewett for their total support over the last few weeks - it's been tough going. Glastonbury was bloody hard work, but with the right attitude and frame of mind on board we had a cracking laugh and good time - despite the weather.
Me and
Ecka played a scaled down acoustic set at Tom Martin's venue The Tower of Song in Kings Norton - Birmingham on Sunday 17
th June (the weekend before Glastonbury). It was a very good workout prior to the festival dates and a good response from the audience. Thanks to all that came along (special mention to Malcolm Kendall - who travelled from
Lichfield and his support and lovely comments on purchasing
CDs from us). Best of luck to Tom with the venue.
Our next port of call was The Porter Cellar Bar in Bath on Wed 20
th June - our last stop before we arrived at Glastonbury. We set off in the van accompanied by 'Web Site Dave Tucker' - a most welcome accomplice. The journey down was basked in lovely sunshine. I was stating that it was going to be sunny after all - no way could Glastonbury put us through the same weather conditions that it did back in 1998 when I last played there...how this was going to haunt me over the weekend!
We had a cracking night in Bath - lovely response from the crowd and again their additional support in purchasing
CDs was greatly appreciated. Must give a special mention to '
Henrico' the Madagascan percussion player who joined us on stage using an empty plastic jug as percussion and was bloody excellent. Great vibe in the place and friendly locals - will have to get back there soon.
We stayed over in Bath after the gig in a lovely B&B...the back of
Coxy's Sherpa van parked on a car park in City centre Bath! Continually
harassed by Police patrol car search lights on the car park - obviously locals where reporting the earth shaking
tremors they were feeling owing to
Coxy's continued snoring!!!...we finally left at day break to travel to the lovely town of Wells...to stock up on bacon / sausages / lager / cider / spices and loo paper...
Ecka was planning some culinary cooking delights for us during the festival!!!
Got to the festival site at 7am on Thursday morning - to be told by the security that they couldn't let us on site until 8pm! Finally get into festival site, collect our performers passes and make our way through the festival - which really is something to see - just the size of it is awesome now. Finally get to the Green Futures area of the Green Fields section of the festival - where we are to both perform and set up camp.
Start off loading stuff out of the van and guess what...it starts to sodding rain...and doesn't stop until we've spent a couple of hours battling with a tent the size of an aircraft hangar (not that I'm complaining by the way - Camp Cox was a life saver once the Glastonbury monsoon really took hold). After we'd set up camp - complete with waterproof suits donned - the sun came back out and baked the backs off us! I collapsed in my own tent and went to sleep - much to the annoyance of
Coxy who wanted to have a walk around and see what was happening - he was fresh as a daisy having had a half decent nights sleep - while me and Dave and the rest of Bath had to put up with the earth shaking
tremors he calls SNORING!!!
Thursday evening we played our first spot at the intimate Mandela Acoustic stage. Slight delay owing to the PA and lights breaking down - we finally started about 40
mins behind schedule still in the dark other than one red light and green light and a candle on the stage - at which we kept 'hooting' like two owls - but it was a good vibe and people where taking it in their stride. Good turnout in the Green Fields area of the festival on the Thursday night because none of the main industry stages had begun yet - so this is where the only live music can be found. We also stepped in for a very late spot at The Tadpole Cafe about 11:30pm - only managed to do about 20
mins though because as all the stages in the Green Fields area are solar powered there wasn't much power left in the system - again the lights were non-existent on stage but we got through even though there was the odd 'jazz' chord that I managed to discover in the dark (ha ha)!
At around 2:30am in the early hours of Friday 22
nd June - Big Chief Thundercloud turned up at Glastonbury and proceeded to piss down with rain on all 177,000 of us frequently for the remainder of the festival.
On Friday lunch time
Nicci turned up to join us in the Green Futures area and to help the Glastonbury organisers with their distribution of Cider To The People.
Nicci is to be officially honoured by the Cider Bus Company in the New Years Honours list for her 'actions beyond the call of duty' in consumption of cider! There was a brief worry for a few seconds that there was going to be a surplus of Cider remaining after the festival - but
Nicci - little soldier to the cause that she is - rolled her sleeves up...and her jeans above her wellies and waded right into the pool of Cider and gave it her all. She was so kind as well - also distributing portions to the people working on a '
nic-
nacs' (pardon the pun) stall!!!!! Bless her X.
We played a cool chilled out spot at The Small World Cafe stage about 7pm on the Friday night - people were just lounging around (appreciative of a dry floor free of mud and water). I'd asked the folks if they were up for singing 'Happy Birthday' to my wife (Debs) who was back at home if I could get her on my mobile phone, but I couldn't get a bloody signal - still as I've told her it's the thought that counts. You can see some live clips from here that I've posted on our
MySpace page and also You Tube pages - hit the links
http://www.youtube.com/user/GOJOMUSIC or
www.myspace.com/garygojomusic - these are the clips of songs My Sweet Rita and Distant Friend. I'm in my Cultural Attache' Robe (i.e. - me
Tipton Town football top...
c'mon you black n' white stripes) - whilst
Ecka decided to try and get closer to nature by going barefoot (Sandy Shaw style)...owing to the fact that his boots and socks were caked in mud and soaked. I also pointed out to him that we were in the Green Futures area and that his feet were not what I'd describe as '
environmentally friendly'!!! He told me to
bollox!!!
On Saturday we were back at The Mandela stage -
Coxy resplendent this time in
dayglow waterproofs. There's a clip of us doing Big City Blue from here also on our
MySpace and
YouTube pages - just re-visit the above links. You can hear Dave Tucker heckling me at the end about the length of the song - he bet me that I couldn't get it under 5
mins...I explained that 'like a good wine the longer you leave it the better it gets' (ha ha). I must also thank Mr Tucker for attending all our gigs - even though he stated before everyone at Glastonbury after the Thursday evening appearance that he wasn't going to turn up because he'd seen us loads recently and wanted to catch as many other acts at the festival as he could...only to as we were about to start our sets - appear at the stage with a tear in his eye saying 'I just couldn't do it lads - I couldn't stand and watch someone else while you were in the trenches delivering the groove.' Bless him X!
Regarding other acts - well I've got to mention Iggy Pop who was brilliant...Billy Bragg who was inspirational (his spot at the small Avalon stage - brilliant), The Marley Brothers Exodus Tribute - one love in the true sense of the word, Neville Staples Specials - great, but also the beauty of Glastonbury is catching acts you've not come across before such as
Dubblehead in The Croissant
Neuf (a place I'd played back in 1998 - it was a small (approx 250 capacity) circus tent with a stage in then - it's now a massive place and holds around 700 at least) on the Thursday night. The place was packed because of the main stages not starting until the Friday. Again at the same venue on the Friday night were an excellent band called
Mankala (African rhythms) who only had a crowd of about 20 people watching them - but they were awesome - brilliant band.
I've got to say that The Who were great on the Pyramid Stage to close the festival - but I do prefer the smaller venues and acts.
Anyway - all in all - and even though the conditions where atrocious - we had a great time...can only imagine how good the vibe would have been if it had been dry. Still lets hope we can get back again next year...I've got to do one with fine weather before I hang up the guitar...if that day ever comes!
It took us 4 hours to break camp and get everything in the van to leave the Green Futures area on the Monday morning - the weather was a
total pisser again. We started at 10am and left the Green Futures area at 2pm...we finally got off site at 3:30pm and got back to The Peoples Republic of
Tipton about 7pm on the evening...KNACKERED / MUDDY and SMELLY...Rock n' Roll people - ha ha!!!
As a closing bit of info to this Blog - I've decided to re-issue my two previous CD releases that were originally
released via the
AnewMusic label that was based in Birmingham. The CD/album 'Love Hounds & Fortune Cookies' (1999) and the CD/
EP '
Sittin' On Your Fence (2000) which features Steve Gibbons /
PJ Wright and Gary
Lammin amongst others - via
GOJO' MUSIC. I've incorporated some songs from these past releases into the recent live sets and the response to them and also having them on sale alongside the current
GOJO' MUSIC
EP 'Twenty Years of Love and Pain' has been a great asset.
I'll make them available via the merchandise page of this site a.s.ap (i.e. - when Dave has time to do it - bless him). For now - those of you unfamiliar with these releases can hit these links to the old Anew Music web site which has a sample track from each CD plus review quotes from the time of there release. For info on the 'Love Hounds & Fortune Cookies' CD/Album visit
http://www.zakala.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/anewmusic/CDs/lovehnd.htmlFor info on the '
Sittin' On Your Fence'
EP/CD please visit
http://www.zakala.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/anewmusic/CDs/sitting.htmlCan I just mention / slag off etc - the Express & Star newspaper report published in the paper on Friday 22
nd whilst I was in Glastonbury. Why they
fuckin' used a 10 year old picture of me and waffled on about me promoting some gigs at St
Paul's Community Centre in
Tipton 10 years ago is beyond me! I'd sent them a press release and a recent live pic of me plus a picture of the
GOJO' MUSIC
EP cover about two weeks before with the hope that they'd put something in the paper highlighting the fact that we were doing Tom Martins place in
Brum prior to doing Glastonbury. The only thing they got right was that yes I was doing Glastonbury - but not solo - and the got the web site
address right - the rest was totally
irrelevant - far more use a chip paper the next day - the tossers!
So to finish this posting...Can I once again take this opportunity to thank
Ecka / Dave and
Nicci whole
heartedly for their support. Also, to those of you that take the time and effort to get along and see me / us - and buy the
Cds/t-shirts etc, please understand that your support is crucial and greatly appreciated. Otherwise the only thing we have left is 'covers bands / tribute bands' and music to mutate and fester to.
Thanks again...and to borrow the title of the Joe
Strummer documentary (which is brilliant by the way and you should all go and see - or at least purchase on DVD when it gets released in September this year)...
The Future Is Unwritten!Gaza
