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
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