Serf Combat + Jeff Pezzatti = AWESOME

OK so the blog has now reached it’s peak of self indulgence but please indulge me if you will (check out the ignoring of my English A-Level skills of repeating the word indulgence – just did it again). But last saturday night something truly awesome happened. My band Serf Combat were opening for Chicago’s finest The Bomb.  Now The Bomb are an incredible band; mixing up that classic Chicago punk rock sound with influences ranging from Husker Du, The Buzzocks and despite my irrational disdain for 80’s indie even bands like The Smiths, Gang of Four and Wire.  They really will blow you away both on record and live, the fact that they contain members of Naked Raygun, Big Black, The Methadones, Textbook and Noise By Numbers doesn’t help at all.  Ah yes, Naked Raygun the band whom without who Serf Combat would have neither a name nor sound, we do owe rather a lot to them.  So when Jeff Pezzatti of The Bomb/Naked Raygun asked if we wanted to perform our cover version of Naked Raygun’s Vanilla Blue with him singing we jumped (albeit very very nervously) at the chance.  So here in all my smug glory is Serf Combat covering the classic anthem Vanilla Blue at the Fighting Cocks in Kingston with Mr. Pezzatti on vocals.

Here’s the audio version (recorded a bit better) if you are as nerdy as me – you can have it to keep by right clicking and saving as.

If you really need to compare, here’s the original from 1987

Click the picture below to see a slideshow of pictures from the evening (well of The Bomb, Sauna Youth & Above Them)

The Mighty Cougar @ The Fighting Cocks Kingston 05.02.10

On Friday 5th Feb 2010, we played at our regular haunt, the Fighting Cocks in Kingston Upon Thames along with our good pal Alex from the mighty mighty Wonk Unit (and formerly of those London charmers The Flying Medallions) played a solo set under his superhero guise of The Mighty Cougar at a not exactly sold out (but fun none the less) gig and here we have it for your downloading and enjoyment.  It’s a mix of Wonk Unit songs, Alex’s solo songs and his ever present poems.  The gig itself was a reminder of that ever important tour booking lesson – NEVER NEVER NEVER (!) when booking a tour book a venue and promote a gig yourself in the town you don’t live in.  The Wickets and Big Gay Following from Nottingham were both lovely people and pretty good bands but they are not exactly household names in Kingston and this is probablly why they found it hard to get a gig.  The answer is not booking a venue yourself and whacking a couple of local-ish bands on the bill (well one member out of two bands being from Kingston..!).  This will result in not many people showing up (more than I expected to be honest but barely double figures) and a weird and awkward night all round.

Alex played a rather good set as you can hear, blunted only slightly by his total exhaustion as a result of several 12 hour shift working days in a row, meaning he forgot the odd bit here and there but still the usual awesomeness, oddness and offensiveness ensured.

Right click and save as  via this link here to download the set

Set List:

SPRINGTIME

LOS ANGELES

MISTAKE

RUNNING

DIFFERENT

ST LUCIAN HOLIDAY

GRIMALDI’S DIARY (A BIT OF)

ANNA