Cell Block 9 - Vintage R&B and Blues
I have been asked; so I did a google search to find out what 'BLOG' means. So, just
in case there really is anyone out there with such a boring life that
they feel they need to read this kind of stuff, here it is:-
No 16 - Medway Bridge Marina - 08.08.08
This is the second time the band have played at the marina. Of
course the lineup has changed to the extent that I am the only one who
played last time.
It pissed down with rain, the gear got wet, my
guitar packed in, we couldn’t see anything till someone got some lights sorted,
my pedal filled up with water and made my sound awful, the hog roast man got greedy and
they cancelled him. Apart from that we
had a great time.
Plenty of grub, the rain after all, was warm. Most people
stayed all night and it stopped raining a bit before we finished.
The band was raw but well received, my playing was certainly not
the best and that is strange as I had just been on holiday and played
guitar every day for at least 2 hours. The rest of the band
however were great. Everybody loves Emmit and it's wonderful to
be able to ask the crowd do they want to hear him and just stop playing
and listen. The first set was a bit wobbly as all those songs
were the ones we had not played live with this line up. Set 2
was a different thing and at the end when we had actually run out
of songs Slick 50 suggested we did 'Baby Jump' and it became the best
song of the evening. Pretty good going considering Slick and I
were the only ones who had ever played it and we hadn't done it for
years. Not only that, it is a very hard song for the drummer to
come in on, and Emmit is one of only two drummers who have ever manged
to come in on the correct beat first time [some never managed it even
after exhaustive rehearsals causing us to develop the ability to
instantly change rhythm to accommodate the error].
The audience were fantastic, they danced in the rain. Later,
after the band finished we had an acoustic blues jam for ages, and then
about three a.m. Barbara started cooking burghers and sausages.
My van was off the road because it had run out of mot. Now,
that does not normally stop me from driving it as it is my habit to
leave it for a few weeks before renewing it but this time the climate
change protesters were in Hoo to attack the power station and the old
bill went right over the top, talk about a knee jerk reaction.
1500 protesters and 1400 police! They stopped everybody,
they had camera vans, they took over the island and tried to block our
access with their toilets. They wanted to know everything.
I felt it would be silly to drive the van until it had it's
ticket. So we had to use two other vehicles, and get drunk people
home. It was hilarious. Stuff got put in one motor and then
taken out again when we found other gear would not fit. I drove
motors up and down and kept parking the wrong way round as I was stoned
off my nut thanks to my friend Steve. Mitch the fairy got in the
back of Johns pajero which he kindly lent us and the seat she was on
had somehow become free floating on its runners, every time I braked
she shot forward and collided with the back of my seat and then flew
back again when I accelerated. It was light by the time we got
back to the marina.
Thanks go to John Reynolds for putting on a great party and inviting us
to play again, to Barbara for cooking above and beyond the call of
duty, to the audience for putting up with the band and the rain, to
Linda for robustly promoting the event and the band, to Mitch the Fairy
for singing and to Paul for being the cement that holds together all
that we do.
We are now looking forward to our forthcoming Cornwall Tour starting on the 13th of September.
Cheers, Tobe.
No15 - Beer & Steam - 05.07.2008
What a day! Brilliant. We organize the bands for the Saturday of
this wonderful 2 day event. This year we had - The Crawlers -
Cell Block 9 - One way Street - Gator & Co and the amazing Running
on Empty. Two bands dropped out along the way and that is how we
managed to persuade Crow & the boys to come and perform.
Since he got together with Manny Leeman they have made Running on
Empty one of the most Charismatic bands I have seen since the Chili
Peppers. To fill the space left by the other bunch of idle
no-shows we cooked up a kind of CBL9 tribute with 4 old members and
myself. On stage at one time were: - Mr C. Deville - Guitar.
Mr Keith Webb - Bass. The famous, and unflappable Steve Nye
- Drums. John [I sing in the 3rd fuckin' octave] Monday - lead
vocs and harp, and the only surviving founder member of the CBL9 of
today: me. It was very good fun and nice to see Spider having
a good time and being the wonderful happy man I have missed for a
short while. All the bands were good and the high point for me
was to come when my friend Guy rang me after the event to say he had
just seen my band on Meridian TV. Wicked! One way Street
had a good set and Rodger was in fine form, Steve also sang very well
and I love his new guitar, it really needs a few scratches and dents
before it can attain the level of street cred that mine has risen to
and we did volunteer to bring it on a bit but Steve just thought we
were joking.
The railway said that they had a record number through the stile, well
over 700 I understand which is nearly as many as they had over the full
2 days last year, brilliant. I'm sure we can make it at least as
good next year and we at CBL9 Control will be working on it.
Thanks must go to Paul for doing so much to help me and to Mitch for
being brave enough to get up and sing 'The House is a Rockin' for us.
Is there no end to her talents? [dancer, trapeze performer,
painter, painter of boats, dress maker, flag maker, singer,
choreographer, photographer, agony aunt and roadie]. I must also
thank the performers:-
Pete Phillips - Keith Webb - Steve Nye - Pete, from jumbo Gumbo -
Maxine - Henry - Steve Baldock - Slick 50 - Dix - Emitt - Pete Lewis -
Rodger - Crow - Manny - Guy Colins - Robbie Wright - Geoff Strange and
John Monday.
Thanks to all the people who came to give support and made it such a
great day. Thanks to all those who danced and clapped.
Special thanks to the railway for inviting us and for providing
me with all that bread pudding. I salute you all.
This was the first gig with the new line up and a great opportunity to
show off the latest member of the band, Emitt, our seventh drummer.
Cheers, Tobe.
No14 - High Turnover - 02.07.2008
We had another amazing gig with Emitt bashin' the skins last Saturday.
Totally in contrast to the fairly lacklustre performance we put
on at the Four Fathoms the night before. As a direct result of that we
now have Emitt on the drums in place of Steve. Emitt is a truly
amazing performer, he managed to capture the audience and they went mad
when he got into a solo. The hard and fast fans were bowing down
to him and chanting "we want Emitt" and similar. The atmosphere
was great and I knew that we had to have him in the band. We
talked about it afterwards and as soon as I could speak to Dix [who was
yacht racing down at the Isle of Wight] it was all arranged. I
must apologize to Steve for messing him about but that's rock &
roll and at least he has the record for the shortest period as a member
of CBL9, one week, one rehearsal, one gig.
This band has now had 18 members over 9 years, out of which: one has
been in the band twice and another three times. Emitt is a
showman and we already have plans for some extraordinary performances.
Look out Kent.
Tobe.
No 13 - Unlucky for some - 26.06.2008
I would like to welcome Steve into the band as our drummer.
Thankfully, auditions are now officially over, I hate them.
Steve played a gig with Dix last Saturday, just a scratch band
and Dix described him as 'awesome' At the same time we played a
gig with Manny on guitar and Emitt on drums [Emitt came in at the last
minute as Fred and I made a cockup and at 3.00 pm I found we had no
drummer] and we had a brilliant gig also. Our conversation the
next day went something like this:
Dix "how was the gig last night old chap?"
Tobe "absolutely brilliant, best gig I've ever played"
Dix "suppose that means I'm sacked then does it?
Tobe "yep, and how was your gig at the barbeque then?"
Dix "fantastic, Steve was awesome, great gig, didn't want to stop"
Tobe "suppose that means I'm sacked as well then eh?
Dix "yep"
Christ, this means we now have 2 Steves in the band and sod it, I'm still the oldest member.
Enough silliness. Steve is fortunately able to play the gig with
us tomorrow night and he can do the Beer and Steam. We are now
looking forward to some stability in the band and the opportunity to
get some serious rehearsals in and smack together some of the new
covers I have on my list and get some originals in the set. Look
out Kent.
Cheers, Tobe.
No 12 - The next stage - 13.06.2008
Fred [the first Buddhist in the band] has decided he must leave, mainly
because he's sick of looking out and seeing my arse. Seriously,
he just lives too far away so we are now about to launch into yet
another bout of auditions. We have a few drummers to check out
and a couple of them seem like the right kind of characters. It
is important with this band to have the right kind of person which
means that playing ability is not the only factor to consider when
looking for a new member. Slick 50 has come back to the band to
replace Mr Spider and we had our first get together, Dixon, Slick and
myself last night down on the boat. It was awesome. No
drums and although we started of with a drum machine we couldn't get
the right beat for the first song so we didn't bother after that and it
was so good being able to hear everything we sang that we have now
decided to look for a dwarf drummer with a little tiny kit and very
short drumsticks.
Cheers, Tobe.
No 11 - The end of an era - 24.05.2008
Mr Spider, our steadfast and lovable bass player, dry humourist and
culinary magician has made the decision to leave the band. Keith
has been a part of CBL9 for four years now, he has done the Cornwall
Bash twice, played around 150 gigs and put up with me all of that time,
without [as far as I know] pchyciatric treatment or an attempt at
suicide. An award is required. I would like to thank Keith
for his time and effort, his friendship, and all the camaraderie he has
injected into proceedings. I have learned a lot from Keith about
music, life, and pasta. I wish him well in all he does. I
would also like to say thank you to Maddy for supporting Keith and the
band through the years; it has always been a pleasure to see her at a
gig.
He is so funny, on the 2006 Cornwall tour Linda was interviewing us and
she asked him "tell me Mr Webb, why do they call you Spider?" he
kept a straight face and said "I think it's because I'm thin and
spindly". When we did our drag act at the 2007 Xmas Bash he got
so into it and kept us laughing by acting very camp while we were
dressed in womens clothes.
Thanks Keith.
Tobe.
No 10 - 27.04.2008 - Dave Hodder saves the day
Ello, fans, played the Rochester Queen last night. We had
a great gig and I'd like to thank all of you for turning up and supporting the
band. During the set Freds bass drum pedal lost a screw and started
misbehaving. We couldn't find the screw and Dave Hodder nicely provided us with
two small jubilee clips which sorted the problem. Cheers Dave. Anyway, a good
time was had and thanks also go to Anita [my countrywoman] who had a birthday
and gave me a lovely note thanking me for making her evening. Thanks to all the
wonderfully silly people who blew 'happy birthday' on the kazzoos and I'd like
to apologize to Carol [one of the Glimmer Twins] as I inadvertently gave her an
out of tune kazzoo. Cheers to all the dancers esp. Mitch the Fairy. And many
thanks to Paul for his work and keeping me in order.
This music game is entirely strange and you never know what is going to be
waiting round the corner and 'gawd blimey' we are called CBL9 again.
Back on track, so the only way up is straight down, now.
Cheers, Tobe
No9
Spoke to Pete. We are now officially Cell Block 9 again, so calm
down Carol. We have lots of ideas and realise that with Dennis
and Fred in the band we have the potential to cover songs previously
off the list. However, we first need to really get to grips with
the arrangements of the songs we already have. So here goes.
Tobe.
No8
Played the Four Fathoms at Herne Bay. Bit of a test, this one.
They seemed to like the new lineup, it's still a bit raw but we
now have the basis for a cracking band. Some fans are still not
happy with the name change and I have been pressed to talk to Peter
regarding the possibility of retaining Cell Block 9, so I shall.
I will let you all know the outcome.
Tobe.
No7
Played the Beauty of Bath last night with Manny Leeman on guitar.
Dennis couldn't be there as he's on honeymoon. Most
inconsiderate. Manny played guitar in my band 'The Thieves' for
several years during the nineties and we have occasionally played
together since. It was great, Manny was fairly awesome and made
me look like what I am, the apprentice. All four of us were
singing.
Tobe.
No6
To keep you up to date with legal happenings we have now received a
cheque from Wheelers Bar for £181 regarding the fee for the
gig we didn't play cause they denied booking it, minus what we got in
the hat at the other pub and plus our costs. We have spent about
£60 getting this result and so 'MAGIC' [our local charity] will
be in receipt of £120. I have posted a copy of the order
with the cheque stuck to it below. Contrary to what I often feel
there is some justice after all.
Moral is: don't tell lies 'cause they always come back and bite you.
Tobe.
No5
Late breaking news - I asked Bob Hoy if he could play guitar for us next Saturday but he chickened out. Shame........could have been a hoot.
Gig 1 - 29.03.08 - British Pilot - Allhallows
Well, well, you just never know what may happen in this game. We
were all very apprehensive about the gig on the way there. We had
a band that had one rehearsal under it's belt during which we cooked up
several songs that some of the members were not at all familiar with [I
learned the guitar breaks and the vocals for Sweet Home Chicago that
afternoon] With the late edition of Dennis on keyboards much of
the work Spider and myself had done to try to get up to speed as a
three piece outfit was out of the window. Some songs from our old
set which we had rejected in the run up, we hastily resurrected as
Dennis knew them, but there was no time for any proper arrangements.
Dennis and Fred had never played a gig together, Dennis had
played with Spider and myself once and Fred had played one gig with
CBL9. We were nervous.
The Pilot is not the kind of place to put on a crap show and although
CBL9 had in the past gone down fairly well the crowd always made it
obvious if they thought a number was shite.
We had a fantastic gig.
Dennis made the night, the keyboards really filled it out and although
some of the starts were a little vague the rhythm section was wicked
and just what I needed behind me to get busy on the guitar. The
audience were with us all the way, lots of dancing, lots of congrats
and we had enough material. I think the old CBL9 fans enjoyed it;
the only moan I got was about the new name.
Thanks to the faithful for turning up and special thanks to Carol, Paul, and Mitch the fairy.
Tobe.
No4
24.03.08
This is the blog from the Cell Block 9 site. I thought it important to bung it here as well.
Ello, ello, Tobe here. Thought I might not be doing this again but here
I am. Don't get worried though, the band are not getting back together;
although we are going to have a little bash in the summer at the Beer
& Steam at Kemsley Mill. It's just too good to miss.
No, this
one is to let you know that we won our case against Wheelers Bar in the
small claims court. Last summer during our annual 'who ate all the
pasties tour' we arrived at Wheelers Bar in Torpoint for the appointed
gig and were told in no uncertain terms that there was no gig and they
had not booked us. Linda went in and asked for the manageress by name
and she [very nervously] told her she had not booked the band and that
was that. After this they totally ignored us and went about their
business as if we were not there, the chap I tried to talk to just
looked right through me. It was obvious that they were lying but there
was nothing much we could do there so we re-grouped in the high street
and Linda the great controller of all things human shot into a pub
while I called various friends and relatives to try to stop them
wasting a journey. Some people were already in the town. I was gutted,
and angry. Linda came out of this pub and said "come on get your gear
in, you're playing here tonight"
What a fantastic manager. I'm so
proud of her. We played for nothing in the Standard. We had a great gig
and the landlady was such a darling, we all fell in love with her. She
treated us like royalty and at the end she asked me if we knew 'Need
your love so bad'....we did it and we did it well [the only blinkin'
time] it was fantastic. The hat was thrown around and we got a bit of
dosh, about a tenner each.
When we got back we decided that this
time we would not let it go and sent a bill to Wheelers Bar for the
fee. They refused and sent a lot of trite stuff in return to our
letters. We went to the small claims court and after they tried to lie
their way out of it [they even faked a dairy but made it too obvious]
the court found in our favour. Now they have to pay us the fee minus
what we got in the hat plus our costs and expenses. They also had a
solicitor so we reckon it cost them about a grand and all we wanted was
the £170 we were owed in the first place. When we get the money it is
going to 'MAGIC' our local charity.
I must say here that if it
wasn't for Linda and her amazing tenacity we would not have got this
result. I would have given up ages ago and I feel we have made a stand
for all the bands that get treated in this way. I'm sure that Wheelers
Bar will think twice before trying a trick like that again.
All the best,
Tobe.
No3
23.03.08
Ello all you people with nothing better to do than read this dribble. Played at
the Rochester Queen last night with Dennis & Co, it was his wedding bash.
Awesome. He got several of his musician mates up to perform and they were good!
Mr Spider excelled himself playing stuff he didn't know. I faked it when I
didn't know it. Mark the guitarist was fantastic and not an egomaniac either. We
started off with some swing stuff with a really great singer but he had to leave
early, shame. As the night progressed it warmed up and we got a bit more up
tempo. Mark and I managed to get a bit of guitar exchange in which was good fun.
The big drummer/singer whose name I can't remember made the night singing loads
of stuff and making sarcastic comment. The atmosphere was great. This woman got
up to sing 'Songbird' unaccompanied, it was spine tingling and of course the
hard disc recorder decided to run out of disc space just after she started and I
only managed to get it recording again just before the end. We recorded the
whole thing, took loads of fotos and got some video footage. I asked Dennis if
he fancied playing with us next Saturday and he readily agreed, rehearsal next
Thursday!
All in all everyone had a great night and Spider and myself would
like to thank Dennis and Verity for inviting us to their fantastic evening.
Cheers for now, Tobe
No2
07.03.08
Well fans, had the first official Salami rehearsal last night and it's obvious
that I need to do a lot of work to bring my guitar playing up to scratch. I have
fronted a three piece band before but that was a long time ago and a very
different type of music. Only time will tell now. On the positive side we have
got a few songs on the 'sorted' list already and I am able to spend a lot of
time learning licks so hopefully things will look a lot different in a couple of
weeks time.
I shall let you know.
Cheers, Tobe
No1
Didn't bother with a number 1
