Headbang - Friday the 13th

There must be something about Friday the 13th - our last headbang in February was also held on this date. We had a full attendance from the headbangers section - plus our youngest ever new recruit - Jeb's son, whose name is, appropriately, Dylan. It's always the youngsters who flag first at our headbangs - Dylan was spotted dozing off on his Dad's shoulder pretty early on in the evening - although he just managed to prise his eyelids open in time for this shot:


As usual, we started with our obituary section - and there has been a total of 12 relatively significant artistes who had passed away since our last gathering - one of whom, Ellie Greenwich, was a writer rather than a performer, but her place in the pantheon of rock and roll history is so assured that we had to include a couple of clips of her famous songs - from the Ronettes and the Crystals.

After playing all 12 clips, we each voted on who would be the most and the least missed amongst them. The clear winner was Les Paul, and the top 6 finished up this way:

1. Les Paul - 74
2. Koko Taylor - 69
3. Michael Jackson - 65
4. Willy de Ville - 64
5. Ellie Greenwich & Mary Travers - 54 each

Stephen Gateley barely mustered the minimum number of votes - although, despite issuing detailed voting instructions earlier in the day, our host seemed to struggle with the concept of ranking the artistes from 1-12!

Next up was a brief celebration of the 40th anniversaries of 3 significant events that occurred in 1969:

• The release of the Beatles final recording - Abbey Road
• The Stones in the Park gig - their first with Mick Taylor, just a few days after the death of Brian Jones.
• Woodstock

The first and last named were clearly the most significant and the voting was almost evenly split, with Colin, Gary and I opting for the Beatles, but we were out-numbered by the rest who voted for Woodstock.

The main theme of the evening was old favourites - and Andy and Colin had taken the lead here by pre-selecting their favourite clips from my archive of over 1,000 individual music video files.

Andy had selected 17 clips, which were voted for on a scale of 1-10. There was a tie at the top between Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry and Squeeze's Up the Junction - both with 74 points out of a possible maximum of 80. Seasick Steve's Doghouse Blues came in a close 3rd with 72.

Colin's favourites were more extensive - 36 in all, which meant the taxi back to Drumoak and Culter arrived before we got through all the video clips, forcing Jeb, Dylan and Malcolm to miss the last 7 of CK's selections - and Gary also took the opportunity to slope off at this time.

The hard core of Colin, Andy and I stayed on at Dave's, playing more of the videos, and we asked Malcolm and Jeb to order a taxi to come out and pick us up. We were a little surprised that it was the same taxi who came to pick us up an hour later - especially when we discovered that it was a Davro 6 seater, which could have taken us all at the same time!

The team photo was therefore a bit short in numbers:

Nonetheless, we managed to garner sufficient votes to declare a result on Colin's favourites. The clear winner here was the Who's Won't Get Fooled Again with an amazing 69 out of a possible 70 maximum (Dylan didn't vote as he was asleep during most of it!). The rest of the top 10 scored pretty well with Cream, Dylan, Animals, Stones, Blockheads, Dr. Feelgood, Fleetwood Mac, Hendrix and the Faces trailing in behind the Who.

Another great night - bring on the next one!

Maximum Rhythm 'n' Blues

It was billed as a Night at the Flamingo, featuring the Alan Price Set and guests. Our host and droll raconteur was first to feature:





He then gave the spotlight to Zoot Money, whose Big Roll Band (alternating with Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames) used to be one of the house bands at the Flamingo in the 60's:





For many of us, the star of the show, and one of the main reasons we came along, was to see Maggie Bell in full flow again:

Chris Farlowe, complete with strange, rotund upper body shape was next to feature:

Of course, some of the Animals music was featured - Alan Price opened with I'm Crying - but next up was Bobby Tench (check him out on Wikipedia) with Black Magic Woman:

Then Chris Farlowe and Maggie Bell duetted on William Bell and Judy Clay's Private Number:

After the break, Chris Farlowe did T-Bone Walker's Stormy Monday Blues, with Bobby Tench wailing away on lead guitar:

Hibs v Aberdeen 31 Oct 09

Our second footy trip this season took us down to Easter Road, where Dave wanted to do some box-ticking, never having been there before.

We caught an early morning train down from Stonehaven, which gave us a chance to relax, read the papers and still get to Edinburgh in time for a Costa Coffee stop (no buffet service on the train!):



We then headed down Broughton St to CK's favourite pub - the Cask & Barrel, where we watched the Arsenal - Spurs match:



With Ken (a Hibee) with us, and me supporting the Reds, we had to sit in the relatively neutral ground of the main stand, but just before we got there, CK posed in front of the Famous 5 stand:



Now - without Googling - can you name the members of the Famous 5? I managed it OK, but the rest of the crew failed with one of the names.

This is a view of the Hibs end at the foot of the famous Easter Road slope, taken from our seats at the far end of the main stand:



The Dons fans had turned out in good numbers - many of them in fancy dress, as we were to discover later on the journey home:


Hibs finally beat 9 man Aberdeen with two late, late goals. Ken stayed down in Edinburgh with family and the rest of us headed back on the train. Fortunately, we caught a slightly later one than most of the Dons fans, but we were delayed a couple of hours outside Kirkcaldy by what was described by the guard, in increasingly hysterical language, as a major riot on the train in front of us. It transpired to be no such thing, although it did have fairly serious repercussions for one or two individuals involved in what was probably initially a prank involving fireworks and a fan in sheep's clothing - check http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8336485.stm

Dundee v PTFC 10th October, 2009

Gary Grant and Steve Paterson joined CK and I on our first trip this season to see Thistle, who had just gone to the top of the table, against the money bags of Dundee, most people's pre-season favourites to return to the SPL.

Steve joined us for the first time on one of these trips because of a family connection - his wife's grandfather used to play for Dundee (and Scotland) - and he had never been to Dens Park.

We stopped off for lunch at the Fisherman's in Broughty Ferry - the only pub in Scotland to have appeared in every edition of the Good Beer Guide since its inception over 30 years ago. It's a great little pub, but we caught them on the hop a bit yesterday - the first few pints poured were a bit warm and cloudy - a product of being the first pourings of the day. It put poor Gary off and he made a point of ordering Pieroni for his second beer of the day:


Here we all are, lined up in the bar just after lunch:



We headed off to the match and parked the car, but the Sat Nav took us to the wrong end of Dens Road, and we faced a longish walk uphill in the relatively warm weather and we were all a bit hot and sweaty by the time we made it in to the Jags end of the ground:

The teams came out in warm sunshine - the Dundee fans were mostly in the opposite end in the Bobby Cox stand:
On previous trips to Dens Park, we sat in the main stand, but it's one of the most curious stands I've ever seen - it doesn't run parallel to the pitch - it's v-shaped, which means that the closer you try to sit to the centre line, the further you are from the pitch:

Anyway, the atmosphere was much better in the Thistle end and we all thoroughly enjoyed the match. Ian McCall's team, in particular, play a very attractive brand of passing football and I think our guests were very pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the football on show in the First Division - much better than anything we've seen at Pittodrie in recent years. Unfortunately, however, it was Dundee who supplied the punch with two well taken goals, albeit against the run of play.

After the match, we walked down Tannadice St past Dundee's SPL neighbours and another 2 stands named after legends of that club:

(Click on photos to enlarge).

Next trip is on Saturday 31st October down to Easter Road to watch the Dons in the SPL - hope the entertainment is as good as yesterday.

Dave's 850th

This rather dull photo was taken at the golf club last night as we celebrated Dave's 850th match:

The Beautiful Game/St James' Park

From the Times - Saturday 26th September, 2009 (click to enlarge):


Two cruddy shots from the train of St James' Park, Exeter:

Stag, Banchory or Linda's Bar, Algarve?

The McWhinnies and the Kilgours were out in the Algarve - at Linda's bar - and this rather grainy photo was sent tonight to witness the scene:

Meanwhile, some of the Friday night regulars plus a few of those we don't see so often were down in the Stag in Banchory tonight:

It's Ramadam and our man from Dubai was going native - Diet Cokes all round - apparently in an effort to get the alleged 36" waist back down to a more manageable size. There were a few "mmmm's" all round - but Nigel is determined to finish his alcohol free month - three quarters of the way there already - we all suspect it's an elaborate con game and he's determined to win the golf outing at Boat of Garten this weekend, by hook or by crook: