A fairly exhaustive week of gigs has just passed. Starting with the first band gig of the month at The Junction Inn, Queensbury. I was very pleased with how this one went, in terms of sound and music. It's not an easy place to play and isn't as busy as it once was, but I thought we got a fair reception and it was good practice for my band of wandering musicians.

The Friday night band gig at the Travellers, Meltham was a case of 'a gig of 2 halves'. Again, not as busy overall as I'd hoped for, this pleasent pub nevertheless pulled through in the end. In the first set, concerns over noise levels blighted things a little, and this wasn't helped by the audience being able to talk comfortably over us, and not clap. I got a little more forceful with them in the 2nd set, (as well as the PA mysteriously getting louder!) and this at last generated a response and turned it into a reasonable night. I could write a thick book on bands and noise but I think it's fair to say 'you can't please everybody' just about covers it all. And with audiences that's not easy.

More exciting was Dave's journey to the gig, encountering some of the many back roads of outer Huddersfield. Email the professor for a full description.

Saturday night was an Atlanta Soul gig in Manchester centre. I'm always worried about parking at these gigs and this again proved the case as I had to resort to an NCP. Luckily it was on a cheap weekend rate of £5 which was a big relief. The wedding we played was at the Victoria & Albert hotel on Water Street. A lively crowd, and after we'd finished one lad did a very fine version of the Shamen over the PA...E's are good, I think they all agreed on that one.

Sunday afternoon at Fernandes Brewery Tap in Wakefield is enough to discourage even the toughest working musician. It's a lovely pub, but no one really wants to listen. I managed to get a reasonably early night on Saturday so was at least a bit more awake. Having dragged myself away from the Singapore night race imagine my disgust when I arrived to find they weren't even aware I was going.

Nevertheless the show went ahead without any problems and actually gained perhaps the best response in a while there. That means a few people listened and clapped. Not a bad afternoon really. One of these days there'll be a really good gig there, it's such a nice place.

Last week there was some commotion on myspace due to the latest attempt by the programmers to re-invent the wheel: a new flash music player for the band pages. Needless to say it didn't work straight away and I wasn't the only person annoyed by this. As I constantly try to attract new fans it does help if people can actually listen to the songs. Why they can't just leave things alone I'll never know. Anyway, thankfully my page seems to be just about working now, but the Paradise Street one is still not right, the counter has been re-set. They should just leave the damn thing alone, but I guess this is the downside of free sites, that and the pop-up adverts.

This week it's very busy again with solo shows on Wednesday (The Wardrobe) and Sunday night (The New Inn, Barwick-in-Elmet), and then a band show in between at the Arkle on Friday night. I'll also be there to promote that one on the Tuesday night open mic.

Come and support us, but don't complain about the noise! (and clap, it won't hurt your hands).