Dodgy roll - rocking the 'L's Liverpool and Leeds

Thank U Lomax (@LomaxLiverpool)
thank you Cockpit (@CockpitLeeds)
thank you Merseyside
thank you Yorkshire
thank you alcohol.
Well we gave it a go but it doesn't have the same effect of that shonky Alanis Morissette (@morissette) song does it?

And so the Dodgy machine rucked and cajoled past the finishing line of the first leg of our Back To Back Tour last weekend; the tour where we have set ourselves the challenge of playing not one but two albums in their entirety - the latest album Stand Upright In A Cool Place and our debut The Dodgy Album celebrating it's 20th anniversary this year.

LIVERPOOL and LEEDS what a tremendous couple of gigs you were too (the gloriousness of which we can probably slip in as an excuse for the delay in updating this post).

Such is our attention to detail that we made sure that it was these two cities, the first that really took us to their hearts back in the beginning, that we came to nearest this date in May.
Because May 24th is the actual 20th Anniversary date when our first album The Dodgy Album was released - and you know what our memories are like, there is no doubt about this because we have the original poster confirming this (see poster pic on left).

When arrived at the Lomax in Liverpool we were greeted by Frank Hedges, the manager, with open arms saying 'WELCOME HOME!!'.

Well it could only go one way. The Poste House pub opposite the Lomax is now officially Dodgy's Favourite Pub In The World - Half past three on a Thursday afternoon, rammed full of lovely, tiddly pensioners singing and dancing along to Tony and Tony - The Two Tones playing saucy old tunes. Maybe £1.40 a double had something to do with it. It could only go one way.

We had a great time and many thanks to Frank for this lovely Facebook post which says it all really

"nights like last night make it all worthwhile. The Dodgy gig was amazing. The love in the room was awesome. I have all the time in the world for those gentlemen, low maintenance and high yield."

Aw ...and reciprocated in buckets Frank our friend... and he continued

"The after madness was as good again with Nigel doing an acoustic set downstairs as well.... after a two and a half hr set.... diamond. I must thank Math for trying to impart some undoubtedly sound advice but... the road less travelled my friend......... thank you for the sentiment with which it was give."

And finally there are many unsung heroes in the Dodgy camp but he even noticed and gave good words for...

"Their tour manager Jack deserves a mention in dispatches. Adaptive, professional, understanding and low maintenance mo fo indeed."

LOL .. and how true and very well deserved and nice to have in print.

So Liverpool was magnificent but it seems like LEEDS and promoters @GehoEvents might have had Gig Of The Tour (so far) lying in wait for us at The Cockpit the following night and Dodgy were refreshed, up for it and getting in our stride.

It seemed like we'd finally got it right.

Firstly a special mention must be made to Johnkneem who supported us. The note on his Facebook page says it all "Flight Instructor career curtailed by unfortunate bout of lung cancer. Back to song-writing it is then!" - it was his first ever gig apparently and the boy did well.
We are fully aware that this tour is a tough sell. Setting the parameters of our nightly set list by playing one entire album of new material followed by a complete rendition of the least commercially successful of our three albums but the response has been great, especially to the new album songs and there are more in the wings, we are enjoying a rich vein of writing at the moment we can't wait until sooner rather than later we can record those and play them live.

The way this tour has gone (as you might glean from previous posts) we were a bit nervous about the challenge and just about getting through it but in Leeds everything seemed to flow and the audience with us, even 'As My Time Goes By' from The Dodgy Album conducted itself in a tuneful becoming way.
By the time we got to the encore in Leeds we were definitely in the moment and slipped into our version of Frank Wilsons 'Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)', the song we recorded for our limited edition northern flavoured single last year and then finally 'Good Enough' - exhausted ...but boy what a gig
- thank you Leeds and a mention for the nice review in the Yorkshire Evening Post from Duncan Seaman (@DuncanSeamanYEP) with what look like some stunning accompanying live shots from Anthony Longstaff (@_alphotography) (one pic purloined below - we'd like to see more) - we really appreciate this recognition of our new songs and the only reason there are not more 'hits' played on this tour is purely the time constraints/curfews set by playing two other albums in full.

So took us a bit of time to post this and now we are in the midst of our Scilly Isles and Cornwall adventures but will save a report from here until later.

Next week the Back To Back Tour resumes at Bideford in Devon at The Palladium  and then the tour winds up in the North East - Whitley Bay and Hull at the end of June (we're also playing Stockton whilst we're up there)
Looking forward to it... on a roll...

DODGY hit LIVERPOOL, LEEDS on Back To Back Tour and Dodgy Day in Scotland

OK, we have two biggies this week for Dodgy on the BAck To Back Tour, where we are playing two albums in their entirety; Stand Upright In A cool Place the latest album by Dodgy ("They've just made the record of their career by a country mile" - thank you Word Magazine) and our debut The Dodgy Album.

It's the two big 'L's - LIVERPOOL (oh, Liverpool) @LomaxLiverpool tonight (Thurs May 23rd) and then LEEDS @CockpitLeeds tomorrow.
Liverpool because it's where it all began for Dodgy, certainly our recording career as The Dodgy Album was recorded in Parr Street Studios (@parrststudios) at the tail end of 1992 and early '93 - the studio was called Amazon back then and owned by the band Genesis and Leeds because May 24th is the actual day 20 years ago that The Dodgy Album was released. Please send all cards and flowers to the dressing room please.

DODGY have just returned from the last two Back To BAck dates around Scotland,

Dodgy Day in Greenock on Saturday and then Edinburgh on Sunday and as predicted it was a merry old occasion all round, hence the delayed bloggin here.
We arrived at Word Up (@worduptxt), the venue in GREENOCK at around 4pm in the afternoon and it might be construed that certain members of the local congregation were a little pished as Dodgy Day had been in effect for a few hours - we had some catching up to do. Organiser of the event was our good friend McD and other bands he had chosen to play with us were outstanding and top gents to boot, well certainly the ones we saw - The Soviets (@TheSovietsLive), Knock-On effect (@KnockOnEffect1), The Beat Movement (@BeatMovementThe) and The Method One, who featured a face we remember from a few years ago on bass, Sheer Taft who was signed to Creation. Incredible musicians and musicians being musicians we allowed ourselves to be persuaded by McD to attend the aftershow party.

EDINBURGH was as majestic as usual even though it was grey and cold.

The venue was the Voodoo Rooms (@voodoorooms), a beautiful place above a fantastic pub called the Cafe Royal that served rare single malts - it would have been rude not to. It was great to bump into dear old friend @scottmuldoon from @TheBluetones, who's greatest claim to fame was almost certainly appearing on the sleeve of 'Summer Fayre'  the very first release by Dodgy. Scott looked on fine form and discussed the idea of The Bluetones reforming - our lips are sealed.
We continue to be humbled by the general response out there to us playing these two albums in full, again we are sure there were some tears in the room in Edinburgh and that's not just from Stu who is playing bass with us and mislaid his pint.

We are gutted to here that the venue for our Bangor date on the Back To Back Tour has fallen through and been forced to cancel but hey, this is rock and roll there are bound to be casualties.
LOVE - LIVERPOOL - LEEDS

SCOTLAND - DODGY love you

Last night we hit Glasgow on the Back To Back Tour where DODGY are playing our latest album, Stand Upright In A Cool Place and The Dodgy Album our debut in full.. and yes, Glasgow turned out to be a stupidly ace gig and a very appreciative crowd you were too. There was actually a grown man shedding tears at the front but maybe that was because his wife had left him, we're not sure. It sounded great to us at the time so are looking forward to hearing the recording.

Got to give a shout out to Ripley (@ripleymusic) our opening act last night, they set things up nicely for a great evening.
Generally, we would avoid playing the O2 venues unless there is no alternative - charging £4.50 (FOUR POUNDS LONDON PRICES FIFTY!) a pint isn't our idea of enhancing a good night out and last night the venue management excelled themselves by warning us that if we played beyond their strict NINE THIRTY curfew they would ... fine us - now we know exactly how Bruce must have felt at Hyde Park last year. Playing two albums, in full, before half past nine - referee!
As a result we had to pull a couple of songs from the set - we had no qualms about sending 'As My Time Goes By' to the naughty step as readers of previous posts will appreciate but 'Never Again' had to take one for the team as well - ouch O2, these are our children and it hurts us to leave them behind.
Thanks to those in attendance though, who didn't seem too bothered and in fact a few of you said that you would come to Greenock tonight to hear the full set - that's the spirit.
There were plenty of requests for what we played in the encore last night covering a surprising range from our back catalogue - 'Summer Fayre' and 'Every Single Day' anyone, in fact we did manage a couple of bars of that one and for the first time on this tour we trotted out 'In A Room' and from where we were it sounded immense.

TONIGHT (Saturday 17th May) WORD UP (@worduptxt) GREENOCK
Today, in the lead up to tonight's gig, has been designated DODGY DAY in Greenock, a special place for us, it's not too late, pack your bag and Be there - Back To Back just gets Better and Better

DODGY from Cannock to Dodgy Day in Greenock (remembering '96)

Oh Cannock, Cannock... Cannock (did we slur that last one, sorry). Yes, Cannock on a Friday night and Dodgy rolled into town last Friday with the Back To Back Tour, playing two albums in their entirety; our latest STand Upright In A Cool Place and the debut The Dodgy Album which we delivered to the world 20 years ago - hard to believe eh?

Each new tour is a journey .. of course it is, a silly thing to say, it IS literally a journey but it's also ... a journey, especially when you take on a particular challenge which we have set ourselves on this particular excursion.
Each new gig you learn something new about the songs and yourselves and in Cannock we discovered that even at this point in the proceedings it is sometimes difficult to tame one's exuberance. A big thank you to the promoters for looking after us, this was one of their first gigs and well handled and we wish them all the best with future events.

This coming weekend 17-19th May DODGY say loudly "HELLO SCOTLAND"
Three gigs over three nights Friday (May 17th) in GLASGOW @O2ABC , Saturday (May 18th) (designated Dodgy Day) in GREENOCK @worduptxt and then on Sunday (May 19th) in Edinburgh @voodoorooms
Normally when approaching Scotland we might make sure that we play either Glasgow or Edinburgh and then if it's Glasgow everyone in Edinburgh says "Why didn't you come to Edinburgh?" and if it's Edinburgh the opposite happens - so for the BAck To BAck tour we have thrown caution to the wind and are doing both. Sandwiched between, on Saturday we return to one of our favourite towns on these isles Greenock where we have great memories of bringing our Big Top Tour to Battery Park.

Our Big Top Trip was one of the first of it's kind at the time - previously Ronnie Lane from The Faces had tried touring in a circus tent but it was considered a folly and our promoter was very sceptical but as was typical with Dodgy we wouldn't be told and once we pulled it bands like Radiohead and Primal Scream followed suit.
Each Big Top gig was special in it's own way and we have great memories of each one but there was something that carved Greenock with some special memories. It seems that the same goes for the people of Greenock, so much so that our return on Saturday has been designated Dodgy Day - honoured we are. We are also extremely pleased that we will be catching up with our old friend McD - he was responsible for bringing our original Big Top to Greenock and now the return and has had some enormous recent challenges but he will be there, which brings big smiles and MDV to all of us.
COME ON SCOTLAND - LET'S AV IT! - Who's coming to all three?

An inspiraled gig with Dodgy in Bury - BAck To BAck

So BURY @themet was the second of the BACK TO BACK Tour dates with DODGY and what a night - we are getting to grips with playing all the songs from both our most recent album Stand Upright In A Cool Place and The Dodgy Album and even  'As My Time Goes By' our personal bugbear remains on the set list, stubborn little fella that it is.

Once again Dodgy were quite humbled by the audience reaction, which is proving to make this seem not the mammoth task it appeared when we began. Although we have been painstakingly clear what the Back To Back Tour is all about and how beyond focusing on those two albums we simply don't have the time to play many more songs, we might expect to hear at least one heckle of dissent, a jarring "Grassman!" yelped from the back but as yet the crowds have been lovely, so thank you.

Last night's special guest was Tom Hingley (@tomhingleymusic), a proper gentleman he was too and a great pleasure to have play with us. Tom played an impressive set of his own songs before our first set and then jumped back on and played a few Inspirals hits before our second set of The Dodgy Album songs. Listening to you lot sing along to Tom performing This Is How It Feels To Be Lonely was a special moment - thank you Tom.

After the two albums there was enough time and feedback from the audience for us to play Good Enough and Nige wanted to play If You're Thinking Of Me which we did and an inspired choice as it went down a storm. Song of the night had to be 'Only A Heartbeat' from Stand Upright In A Cool Place though. For those that didn't manage to catch the video for this song when it was released as a single check it out below.

So all in all a great gig in Bury and thanks to Jane Lavender (@janelavvieBN) @TheBoltonNews for the Twitterpic of last nights gig above and this smashing hot off the press REVIEW:
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/leisure/boltonmusic/music_reviews

Tonight (Fri 10th May) we expect even bigger things from Cannock and there's a rumour that  Jon Brookes from @thecharlatans might be popping down, who's new documentary #MountainPicnicBlues about the making of Telling Stories we are looking forward to seeing very much.
This just gets better and better - hope to see you at one of these shows soon

Dodgy Back To Back Tour underway

SO, the Back To Back Tour is underway, with Dodgy playing latest album Stand Upright In A Cool Place in it's entirety along with our debut The Dodgy Album.

AT this very moment knocking this out as we are about to do a live session for @BBCLancashire and then on to BURY @themet for tonight's gig. Here we are soundchecking at the BBC

It was a great tour opener last night in Wales at Theatr @Brycheiniog in Brecon, a few nerves beforehand as the enormity of our self-inflicted epic adventure was realised. We still hadn't quite decided which set of songs to begin with but in the end opted for Stand Upright In A Cool Place and never have those songs sounded so sweet all together and appreciated by you out there in the audience.

We had a couple of rehearsals revisiting the songs on The Dodgy Album but launching into playing them live brought the memories flooding back, not simply because we are playing songs that we haven't played for 20 years but also because an important member of our team at that time Damage, turned up, he used to handle all the merchandising for Dodgy and much much more. Playing these songs is wonderful, fun and only occasionally a bit of  "what were we thinking there?" - If you can be blown away by one of your own tunes then 'Satisfied' gets it from all of us and by the looks and response from the audience, you are going to think so to.
We do have a problem child though and that is the little one we called 'As My Time Goes By'  he's naughty bad and generally wrong - some corporal punishment might be required in the coming nights or might even consider grounding - we will let you know.
We are doing a bit of audience consultation on the Back To Back Tour and last night managed to squeeze in two extra songs 'Good Enough' and 'Staying Out For The Summer' which is enjoying a bit of chart action in this week's @NME at No.72 - NUMBER SEVENTY TWO! in their 100 Greatest Britpop Songs which is ... interesting.

Tom Hingley @tomhingleymusic is joining us tonight in Bury  - should be a stormer
OK back to that radio session - listening 'll
Back To Back - we'll keep you updated x

DODGY play THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL

Hello, it's Math here, I'm reminding myself that I play the drums in a band called Dodgy and tomorrow night we take a step to the left, from promoting our latest album Stand Upright In A Cool Place, because (coughs) Dodgy are playing @RoyalAlbertHall
- yes, that's The Royal Albert Hall in London.
Though one day we would be happy to accept an invite from Roger*, Noel** or Russell*** to play a @TeenageCancer Trust event there, or headline ourselves if the demand arises - our appearance tomorrow has come through a rather different route but this doesn't make the anticipation any less exciting.

The life of a professional musician today requires quite a bit of manoeuvring and multi-tasking but I feel luckier than some as I am occasionally gainfully employed by Dorset Music Services, travelling around the countryside a couple of days a week, delivering drum lessons to kids in tiny villages and remote schools. It's a bit like All Creatures Great and Small, but with drums. And without the need for me to put my hand up a cow's bottom.
Every year Dorset Music Services try to put on a big show where the kids can perform for their families, something to aim towards, only this year the 'big' show is at the Royal Albert Hall, it really doesn't get much bigger or more prestigious. When we first heard about it we, like perhaps a few of you thought 
"crikey, that's a bit ambitious"
knowing a little bit about how putting on these events work, but all credit to the small yet incredibly hard working team at DMS who have made their aspiration a reality.

When it was mentioned that there would be a choir of 1,200 kids and full orchestra, at THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, Dodgy selflessly and magnanimously offered our services for a couple of numbers. Yes, it's all GIVE with us, just thinking of the kids.
"What a great idea" was their response "the only problem is, that the night is called Dorset's Movie Mash Up music from the movies and you would have to do two film related songs."
"No problem; our song 'Good Enough' by Dodgy is in the @GwynethPaltrow movie Sliding Doors" we reminded ourselves and even vaguely remember attending the premiere
".. and well, we can do 'Live Or Let Die' or something".
OK, sometimes in these situations it might be better to think before opening our mouths, as DMS gave a resounding "YES, that would be magnificent" at the same time we are thinking "but we've never played Live And Let Die" and here's us casually saying we'll play it with a choir of 1,200 in front of a packed Royal Albert Hall, as if we were making a cheese sandwich!

Well, roll on a few months and here we are , on the eve of the big day. We've rehearsed Live and Let Die (our respect for @PaulMcCartney goes even higher - we did get a nice reply from him once when we asked him to pop down and join us onstage for one of our higher billings at Glastonbury Festival ) and the orchestra and choir has rehearsed, check out the video evidence on the link below...... it's bringing an emotional tear to our eye before we've even got there

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151556880995095&set=vb.27035293811&type=2&theater

We have to acknowledge how impressed we are with the talent on display with these musicians and singers, as people in a band who are pretty much self taught, it makes us wish that we might have had a career in music. Oh hang on...
Next week Dodgy begin our own headlining Back To Back Tour where we will be playing two of our albums (most recent and debut) live in their entirety (check www.dodgyology.com for details) - a challenging task in it's own right but in the meantime .... OK it's not entirely under our own steam/backdrop but let's say it again
Tomorrow ( May 3rd ) DODGY ARE PLAYING THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL!!


* Roger Daltry
** Noel Gallagher
*** Russell Brand

What Are The Rules For A Band Playing Classic Albums Live? - Discuss with Dodgy

DODGY have already announced that in May and June we are going to be doing a series of gigs - the Back To Back Tour, where we will be playing our latest album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' in its entirety along with our debut The Dodgy Album which we can hardly believe celebrates the 20th anniversary of it's release this year. Check out the full list of Back2Back dates @ www.dodgyology.com

Having decided to play both Stand Upright In A Cool Place and The Dodgy Album in their entirety we have had some preliminary discussions about what the ground rules for this might be - and if there's any give and take in 'entirety'? The fact that both albums clock in between 45-50 mins each at least makes the timing of an evening make some sense but there won't be much room for the 'hilarious' between song dialogue for which we are known.... but that might be a good thing ;-)

What about the set list?
When you play an album in it's entirety are we expected to follow the track listing exactly as it is on the album, or is there some freedom to swap things about a bit? The Charlatans have done this a few times haven't they? Perhaps we should ask @Tim_Burgess and the gang.

Of course, when you reach the 20th anniversary of something you might be expected to have picked up a bit of experience and of course we have.. of course we have! Back then though, when we first signed to a major record company after releasing the early singles on our own Bostin label, we might have been a bit naive, artists can be easily 'influenced' by record companies, especially at that time when record companies were more free and easy with their hospitality. For instance, a bit of coercion might come into play when a band like ourselves is deciding on a track-listing for an album and record company bosses aren't subtle about disturbing the obvious natural order of things - a label tends towardswanting to position singles and potential singles towards the front of an album running order even if it doesn't offer the most artistically flowing journey.  So when we come back to look at The Dodgy Album, we discover that the three singles 'Water Under The Bridge', 'Lovebirds' and 'I Need Another' are tracks 1,2 & 3 on the album - we were supposed to have creative license/control - got well and truly hoodwinked there.
So for the live experience, yes, we might like to kick things into action with 'Water Under The Bridge' but then get into the meat of the album and play 'Stand By Yourself' or 'Grand Old English Oak Tree' before returning to the other singles later. Is this breaking the rules though? Are any of you (or worse still, people not reading this) going to get upset that the songs aren't in the expected order even if, reviewing the order we might have structured the album differently in the first place - and then there's another issue of is it OK to hold certain tracks back altogether to play in a possible encore? We'll come back to that one.

Now, how true to the recorded versions are we expected to stay? Of course we can't help ourselves interpreting these songs as we are now but, for instance, could we do a totally acoustic version of 'As My Time Goes By' and/or do we play what was the 'campfire version' of Never Again - rather than the album version of the song. We've heard a story, that there are people who write to the BBC complaining that the same car and numberplate have appeared in different dramas, saying something like "surely a villain in Sherlock shouldn't be driving Dennis Waterman's car from New Tricks - do we have to be wary of trainspotter Dodgy fans, with no disrespect at all but will there be complaints if Dodgy 'interpret' our own songs?

Another real conundrum (and perhaps you could help here) is which album should we play first - Stand Upright In A Cool Place or The Dodgy Album?
From our point of view, just the fact that we can't/haven't come to a decision yet, is testament to the quality and different dynamics of both albums - we will probably change the order of which of them we play first and see what works best - we'll take any comments on board though for the first of the Back To Back gigs.
This also brings us back to the sticky subject of encores - could we be really cheeky though and save one song from each album to put into the encore? Come on, surely we could? But would that then be technically not playing each album in it's entirety? How do you define 'entirety'? - becoming a bit philosophical now. It's a relevant point - if you went out for a meal and had a spectacularly delicious main course, no matter how good it was, it would be a bit weird to save a tenth of it until after you had finished your desert, just because it was SO tasty, wouldn't it? Hmmmm....

We are seriously thinking about what other songs might appear in encores as well. The format for the Back To Back gigs will be to play the two albums, with perhaps a short interval between and then if the response is good (wouldn't like to assume we would get an encore of course) if we DO get an encore we might be looking at an opportunity to play three more songs if we are lucky.
Spoiler - now look away anyone that thinks when an artist comes back for an encore it is spontaneous but hey, these things are often thought through beforehand and planned, so for this tour we'll do a bit of Penn And Teller and let you backstage into what we might be thinking.

As those of you who have caught any of this year's acoustic gigs with Dodgy, we are also well underway into putting together a bunch of quality NEW songs that so far have been very well received - we'll probably take the liberty of teasing you with one of these but maybe featured in the middle of an (encore) sandwich as it were. For the other two songs the bread (and butter) of the sandwich, we will be choosing two songs from Homegrown, Free Peace Sweet and other singles etc. and then there is 'Big Brown Moon', a song which never made it onto the first album but nearly did and though it was a b-side was always part of our set from The Dodgy Album onwards.
Again, we are prepared to get Vox Pops out early on this. Once you have bought your Back To Back ticket, let us know what song from the Dodgy cannon you would also like to hear in the encore, let us know which gig you are going to and comment here, on Facebook send an email to backtoback@dodgyology.com , or Tweet us @Dodgyuk using hashtag #bandsplayalbums , the more public banter there is, perhaps the better.

And what if there is the chance we could get a couple of special guests along - the Liverpool guest list is already looking stupid so we might think of getting at least one of them to sing for their supper as it were. It comes back to that question of how purest is that 'entirety' concept supposed to be? A special guest joining us for a vocal or instrumental - is that spoiling the experience or enhancing it? What do you think?
There are probably other issues we haven't even thought of yet but at least we are beginning to address things - one thing is sure, these are going to be BIG nights.

Next week is UK Budget week when there be lots of discussion on the pros and cons of Keynesian economics so to coincide we will be having a Dodgy Keynesian weekender, with a short residency on Friday (22nd March) and Saturday (23rd) in Milton Keynes @ The Watershed ( @WatershedMK )- it's a lovely intimate venue, great people and Friday is already Sold Out with only a few tickets for Saturday remaining. Should be good.

First full band electric show of 2013 for Dodgy, Primal Scream and anniversary of The Dodgy Album

Well there are signs of spring, friends of Dodgy, glimmers of sunshine and our activity is certainly budding into life. In fact, you might have noticed we have been busy bees already in 2013 and have immensely enjoyed meeting many new friends with intimate acoustic shows where we have been road testing new songs and refamiliarising with a few established ones.

We'll be focusing on the upcoming Back To Back tour* with Dodgy in a later post but yes, can you believe it? (we can't) 2013 is the 20th anniversary of the release of our debut album The Dodgy Album.
'2013' is also the title of a new single by Primal Scream, a band that have featured heavily in what you might call the story of Dodgy - we concur totally with the recent open letter to Primal Scream by @johnrobb77 ( you can read it HERE ) on one of our favourite websites Louder Than War.
2013 is an epic soundtrack for our times and we expect nothing less from The Scream - there are echoes of Hawkwind but that's no bad thing in itself and The Scream have form in this area, covering Hawkwind's 'Urban Guerrilla' some time back.
A particular memory (and a memory from those times is, dear readers, a fairly subjective thing) that we have is from a cold November night in 1992 when most of the mixing from The Dodgy Album was complete. We had been holed up in Parr Street Studios in Liverpool creating this colossus but decided to take a night off and venture down through snake pass to Sheffield where Primal Scream were headlining a benefit for striking miners with The Orb in support - we took a virtually complete and sequenced version of what was to be the album and saved the listening for the journey home.

At the gig after 'Little Fluffy Clouds' subsided there was a lull before The Scream took the stage to the familiar guitar chords from 'Moving On Up' - our merchandiser at the time ( he is now a notable physicist would you believe) was called Damage and Dodgy and gang used to love singing along with Bobby something like "Damage, we've got Damage, we've got Damage, he looks like a gnu" with their song 'Damaged'. That night The Scream encored with a monstrous version of Joy Divisions' 'Atmosphere' - possibly Peter Hook joined them onstage but none of us are going to put our names/memories to that one.

The journey heading back to Liverpool proved to be perilous, it being a harsh winter night with blizzards and freezing temperatures. Nigel at that time had a big heap of frizzy hair and some how our travelling van which had leopard skin sofas (don't ask) became a travelling pub and Nigel doubled as the pub's dog and barman. We listened to our work on The Dodgy Album on the van's excellent Hi-Fi system - excellent Hi-Fi system / shit heating system as we recall - not sure we've ever been so cold but were enormously proud of our achievement and a fitting statement to lay out Dodgy's stall as it were and just one of the reasons we are looking forward to playing all of those songs on the Back To Back tour.

This upcoming Friday (March 8th) though we have the first full band electric show from Dodgy in 2013, it's in Essex at the Braintree Arts Theatre, hopefully a few of you from Colchester and Chelmsford will be able to make the trip as well. We remember fondly some mad gigs with Dodgy at the Army And Navy/ Y Club in Chelmsford and a great night at Colchester Arts Centre - don't think there's a decent venue in Chelmsford anymore which is a shame - anybody knows different let us know.
Not quite sure who is behind our Dodgy sensible gigging policy but the night after we head out to Essex we go on a short jaunt um... to the West Country to Newton Abbott in Devon where we play at The Jolly Farmer... never say we are not willing to travel to delight you.

If we don't see you at the weekend - make it soon
all the best

Dodgy posse x

* DODGY BACK TO BACK TOUR 2013
Where DODGY will be playing with full electric set up, our debut THE DODGY ALBUM and most recent album STAND UPRIGHT IN A COOL PLACE in their entirety.

All venue and ticket details can be found at www.dodgyology.com/gigs/


If you haven't already, you can add value to your ticket PLUS get your name on the artwork to the LIVE album from this tour by signing up to the Back to Back mailing list here backtoback@dodgyology.com


x

Back to Back Tour Campaign

Back to Back Campaign 2013

Love, the first successful step into life

 Dodgy are back out on the road in May to celebrate 20 years since the release of their debut album, THE DODGY ALBUM, and to continue spreading the love from last year's critically acclaimed album STAND UPRIGHT IN A COOL PLACE, they will be playing both albums in their entirety, back to back.

The tour will be called, aptly, the BACK to BACK Tour 2013. The dates are being finalised as we speak.

Not happy with simply playing the dates, DODGY want to add even more value to the price of your ticket so plans are being made to involve you all as much as possible, to give you exclusive access to radio sessions, rehearsals, warm-up shows, special one-off gigs and lots of other treats such as a chance to meet the band, upgrade your ticket to attend the sound-check and take home the set list.

All you have to do is simply leave your name now at backtoback@dodgyology.com

What's EVEN BETTER is that DODGY intend to release a LIVE album from the tour and EVERYONE who signs up will be added to the BACK TO BACK TOUR LIVE ALBUM HALL OF FAME...which means your name will appear on the album's artwork. Oh yeah.

Help us spread the word. The campaign is on:

TWITTER:@dodgyuk #dodgybacktoback2013

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/dodgyuk.  

WEB: www.dodgyology.com

Disclaimer: You can sign up and join the Back to Back campaign and get your name on the live album EVEN if you can't make any of the dates! Though your sanity and the potential for unbridled joy in May would be seriously brought into question!