Well, the Stumble gig turned out to be a cracker, we had a good turnout of our Long Eaton contingent and a good time was had by all. We got the impression that Martin, the landlord wasn't keen on having live bands on in his new pub, we think that maybe he'd had a couple of bad experiences of too loud bands driving the punters away but he relented under pressure from Singer Boy and a few of his regulars and he seemed well chuffed by the result, free drinks all round and an extra tenner, can't be bad. Before the gig I got a blood blister on my thumb after trapping it in a mic stand, by the end of the gig it had burst and I'd got blood all over my new bass. Rock and Roll, copying Sid Vicious now, I think I'll stay off the heroin though, and Wendy Verbett will be relieved to learn that I'm not planning to murder my girlfriend.
Had a bit of a result with my new amp which I got a bit cheaper cause it was an ex demo, sent it back to Marshall because of a fault and they sent me a brand new one .
The remixes of the 3 tracks we did in the studio were deemed to be acceptable by everyone, although we still think there's room for improvement, we're back there on December 6th to do some more recording. 
Next gig is our Christmas party at the Harrington in Long Eaton, we've got to relearn Gary Glitters, Another Rock and Roll Christmas for that one, just love the line, "You'll never guess what you've got from me".

We've just had an eventful weekend, in the studio all day Friday, managed to get 3 tracks down, guitar boy was knackered after doing God knows how many overdubs, we don't know how successful we've been till we get the final mix, by the way, be careful about the Burger King at the end of Meadow Lane, we saw a rat running AWAY from it.

Saturday night saw us at the Mill in Mansfield, we finished up first on with Chelsea headlining, which meant the crowd was on the thin side for the first couple of bands, it was also bad news for Ronnie, one of our Mansfield faithful, he normally gets thrown out for climbing all over the speakers during our set, but because we were first on he didn't get to see any of the other bands this time, and it was £9 to get in! Also out of 4 bands it turns out I was the only one to bring a bass amp, after Apocalypse Babies used it I decided enough was enough and took it off stage, the sound engineer asked if I was going and I said "yes" and he turned round to the guy behind him and said "We haven't got a bass amp then" amateur hour or what? It's not quite as disastrous as it sounds cause bass can go straight through the PA, not ideal though. I was going to stop long enough to see the next band till Wendy Verbett pointed out that I had said I was going and that I might be not a little inconspicuous standing on the front row with white jeans and a bright red tie on, so, in the best rock star traditions we left the building.

On to the Vic at Derby on Sunday, now we may have had worse gigs but I can't really recall one at the moment, hardly anybody turned up, we made the mistake of using the amps that were there and the sound was truly horrendous, on stage as well as off it, Drummer Boy couldn't hear his drums! the rest of us couldn't hear the vocals, Phil Spector would have been proud of the wall of noise that engulfed us, front of house was just as bad apparently with a bass drum  to take your spleen out and a sound as muddy as Morecambe Bay sands, there's not many gigs we've played when we couldn't wait for it to be over. Felt sorry for the guys from Still Dying promotions, everything was against them, King Blues at the Rescue rooms, beer festival down the road and a deaf sound engineer. A special mention in dispatches for Lee Cooper and his mate, Wendy and Janet Verbett who stuck it through to the bitter end.

Next gig at the Stumble Inn on November 20th, should be a good one we're doing the sound ourselves.

Seems a long time since my last blog but we've finally had another gig, it was at the Poet and Castle in Codnor which happens to be our "local" after practice, the omens were not good when my car refused to start in the car park after Wednesday's practice, after spending 40 minutes fiddling around, the immobilizer was still stubbornly stopping the car from starting so we ordered a cab, and guess what, yep, it suddenly burst into life, it's getting expensive running these modern cars, it's only 5 years old and I've had to replace the battery in the key fob already.
On to the gig which despite Wednesday's troubles, turned out to be a cracker, the place was punk rocking, people were actually dancing around, there was some inter band violence towards Guitar Boy when Singer Boy got carried away and smashed him in the face when he spread his arms during Jet Plane and then I hit him on the head with the end of my Bass (fortunately there was no damage to my bass) all it needed was Drummer Boy to spear him with a flying drum stick and he would have had a full house, the place was still pretty full when we played our 2nd encore, we're on a roll at the minute, that's 3 good ones on the trot it's bound to go pear shaped soon, anyway so far so good and we think we'll be back there in March sometime.
We're in the studio on Friday to start recording our 2nd album so we're all looking forward to that and then we've 2 gigs next weekend, on the minus side we've just heard the Fishpond gig has been cancelled due to the pub being refurbished, we've been promised a date when it reopens.

Just returned from a better than expected weekend at Lumb Farm playing at the Blyth Power Ashes, didn't bump into any Australians fortunately, or is that unfortunately after England's victory in the real Ashes? Overdid it a bit on Friday night, the Abbots was slipping down a bit to well, after being a bit poorly  I was freezing cold in the tent and decided to stumble down to the car to get warm, woke up 2 hours later with the engine still running, still I was nice and warm, got back to the tent at 3.30 where Wendy Verbett, imagining I was lying face down in some ditch was about to call out mountain rescue.
On to the gig, we had a Saturday Lunch time slot again, I think we've resigned ourselves to the fact we aren't going to get a prime Friday or Saturday night slot, they seem to be taken by the same bands every year. In spite of that it went very well, unlike last year, I had sobered up enough to remember the bass line to the opening song and the room was pretty full to start with and more importantly at the end of the set as well, and we had some very nice comments from people who hadn't seen us before. After the gig we were having a drink on the site, when the strains of OCD wafted through air, someone was playing a Kick in the Verbals, glory glory.
Next years Ashes are in Norfolk, so we're all looking forward to that, next gig is the Poet and Castle in Codnor, rock on

Got 2 gigs talk about this time, first one was the Birthday Party of the son of someone who works at Guitar Boys place, it was in normal pub near Ripley, family party's are always a bit tricky because of the wide variety of people there, and to be honest we thought we were going down like Billy Bragg at a National Front rally, the pub was L shaped and we seemed to be playing to ourselves, as opposed to with ourselves, then we finished the last song and all these people appeared from round the corner shouting for more, so we finished up doing an unexpected encore and to top it all we got a booking for a scooter rally next year, so a worthwhile exercise as it happens.
On to the Air Hostess gig and we weren't sure what to expect, a 70's pub in the middle of a housing estate in Tollerton on a Sunday tea time, strange eh? But it turned into one of the best gigs we've done in a long time, not a very big room and the Verbal Warning barmy army turned out in force, that's when it started to occur to us, there's not a lot to do on a Sunday tea time is there? First half was ok then it looked like we were doing our normal trick of emptying the place when it suddenly started filling up, by the end the pub was packed, loads of applause and 2 encores and we've been booked again for February 7th next year.
and I forgot to put my smiley at the end of the last blog so have another one

Just got back from our Rock and Blues weekend, which we survived intact. Bought a new amp because my old one was still playing up, and it sounded awesome, really clear and powerful, the only trouble is everybody can hear my mistakes now, every silver lining has a cloud, huh .

On to the gigs, we got moved to 6pm on Friday which we thought was an improvement, but the gig was real hard work, very little feedback from the crowd so we were a bit down at the end but everybody said we went down well, the guy running the PA promised to get us gigs and everybody enjoyed the set, just to cool to clap I guess.
Exhibit A were next on but not till 10.30, and what a difference, can't argue with the decision to put them on last, they're better than us, play all covers and a wider variety as well, but a pissed up crowd went wild and they were playing some of the stuff we do, I couldn't help thinking we'd have done just as well at that time of night .

The second gig of the weekend was a strange one, it turned out we were playing to the  Outlaws in there inner sanctum which was separated from the rest of the site by fences and guards, a little bit intimidating, they too were to cool to applaud much, but I enjoyed the gig, we played well and sounded good and I got the chance to listen to Verbal Warning from the crowd, when Neil the PA guy, who got us the gig, asked if him and his bass player from another band, could play Teenage Kicks with Guitar and Singer Boy, so me and Drummer Boy retired to the audience and very good it sounded to, I'm hoping it wasn't anything to do with the fact I wasn't playing. (note from drummer boy, you..re ok - it was coz I wasn..t playing )

The worst thing about the weekend apart from having a freezing night under canvas on Saturday night was the bar, what a very poor effort, cans only and on top of that they stopped anybody taking their own booze on site, Alfreton's Wetherspoons was an irresistible draw on a couple of occasions.

Got a gig next Friday but it's a private birthday party, but apparently it's just at a pub, "the Railway" on Peashill Rd, Ripley, so you VW fans can pop along and see us if you're in the area, it's free! Otherwise you will have to wait till the Air Hostess gig on August 16th to get your next Verbal Warning fix as we can't do the Fightback gig next Saturday as they moved it to Friday and forgot to tell us!

Sorry about the weeks wait for my wonderful blog report on our last gig fans, or is that fan? but I've been on holiday. First things first, looks like we've found a studio to record our long long long awaited 2nd CD in, hopefully we'll make a start in September a full 3 years after our debut recording, a disgraceful effort really.
Bought another bass off ebay, a Tokai P bass, why do us guitarist always think the instrument we haven't got will sound better than the one we have? decided to give it a try at the Derby Beer Festival gig, a mistake as it turned out. Problems with the sound made it an iffy first half, first of all my amp packed up during the sound check, but they had a spare at the venue which they kindly lent me, but the direct input line didn't work in that one so they finished up micing it up instead, all this meant we couldn't do a proper sound check as the hall was filling up, after a quick poll among the faithful at the break and me changing back to my Stingray bass we got the sound a lot better for the second half and it all went rather well, the sound guy must have been impressed because he offered us a 2nd slot at rock and blues next week on the new 3rd stage.
Got back from holiday plugged my amp in and it worked perfectly wondering now whether it was the dodgy DI lead that was causing the trouble, the new bass will be back on ebay shortly.
New blog next week after the Rock and Blues gigs, if we've survived a festival attended by 15000 bikers, it might be prudent to take the Jams Modern World out of the set, don't think they'll be too many Mods there.

Saturday's gig in Mansfield could have gone 2 ways, with us headlining everybody could have gone home by the time we were on or everybody would be pissed up, fortunately it was the latter so it all went rather well Drummer and Guitar boy were a little concerned about the sound  we got but everybody confirmed it was fine, best sounding band of the night, which is the way it should be for the headline act, nice big stage to move around on which did mean even more bum notes than usual, but hey, who wants to see a band of statues, might as well put a CD on.
First the good news or is the bad news? we've actually started doing something about recording our second CD, we'd arranged to go and look at a recording studio in Nottingham last Saturday morning, the bad news, or is it the good news? the guy who runs it called it off at the last minute, the Gods are against us, still we'll try again.
No gigs in June, holidays and all that, then a big July, Derby Beer Festival and then the Rock and Blues Festival, here's hoping for a decent slot.

Got 2 gigs to tell you about since the last blog, first off we were main support to TV Smith at the Mill in Mansfield after some German Band pulled out, perhaps they were going to annexe Poland instead. Only about 50 there but it went well, sold 4 CD's and got some positive comments afterwards. Trying to get a proper pint in Mansfield is a nightmare, after finding 3 pubs with only creamflow crap Wendy Verbett asked a bouncer and he pointed us in the direction of the White Hart, what a result, good beer at £1.51 a pint, after a few telephone conversations there was about 10 of us in there. About the only thing that went wrong was not finding out till the end of the evening there was some free cans for the bands, it was only lager but it was free, so we had to force it down pretty quick.
On to the Malt Shovel a week later where we in competition with a Motorhead tribute band at the Greyhound and, as anticipated the place was full to start with and still quite full at about 11 o Clock then completely emptied apart from the VW faithful, didn't even do an encore, I was surprised when I was told we sounded better than ever because we all made mistakes, In defence of Guitar Boy he did suffer the dual concentration breaking experience of breaking a string then the strap coming adrift on his spare guitar, oh yes, then noticing Drummer boy taking his photo  during the beginning of My Way. I had no such excuses for my performance during Mrs Robinson, after practicing it about 4 times during the day I still cocked it up. On the positive side we all did very well to keep it together as one of the barman took about 3 minutes to get a packet of fags out of the machine which is situated next to where we play, he got the biggest cheer of the evening when he eventually managed to extract the required goods.
Only one gig this month at the Intake Club in Mansfield again, where the wonderful Verbal Warning are headlining an all dayer, but it does look increasingly likely that we'll be on the at the Rock and Blues festival during July, fingers crossed.