Hello again.Sorry its been so long since my last blog, but it has been manic with touring and planning a wedding.Its June 26th and The Searchers have just started 4 week holiday! In the last month we have done 17 shows. A few of those were re-scheduled ones due to John McNallys illness. More on that later. The last 2 weeks have seen us playing every night from Tuesdays to Sundays. Shortly after our last Australian tour where we crammed 31 shows in 6 weeks, due to a greedy promoter, we returned home on 14th March. All exhausted and we were soon back on the road again ploughing on giving our all. Sadly, we had all picked up illnesses due to being run down and John was hit the hardest. He was coughing and spluttering through shows, but after his wife stepped in (men hate doctors) he was diagnosed with pneumonia and instructed to rest. This meant cancelling show, something the band has not done for over 23 years. Mary, John’s wife, took over and he was ordered to his bed. His laptop, phone and tablet were confiscated and he was confined to his room with just a tv and only a few channels. We cancelled 5 shows in total and all had to be re-scheduled. Only 1 is left to do and that will be in February next year. In between all this, I was also recording with several artists, The Pocket Gods and playing live with The Pocket Gods for NUB in the pub and was house drummer for jam nights at The White Swan, Aylesbuy. The NUB in the pub gig is streamed live on the internet and features up and coming acoustic artists. For this show The Pocket Gods played 20 minutes of our own songs, then we backed John Altman (Nasty Nick from Eastenders, Chicago) With Nick singing some Rolling Stones songs and Rock n roll classics. The Pocket Gods have a new album out now, called ‘Jesus and the Mary chain’ and the single ‘perfect blue’ is also out now and can be downloaded. The album is also out on Vinyl, if like me, you still prefer that format. For the live Pocket Gods sessions, as it was an acoustic gig (ok I know we have a keyboard player) I used my Istanbul Mehmet 12’ traditional splash and 13’ El Negro hihats. For the Pocket Gods and Kyle Michael sessions it was my full rig with Istanbul Mehmet Sultan cymbals and for the jam nights I used my Sultan ride with 15” and 16” traditional crash, 14” Sultan hats. Even though The Searchers are on holiday till our next show on July 22nd, I have 1 more show on Tuesday 27th with The Pocket Gods for a NUB in the pub Summer special. We once again get to play for 20 minutes and I will be using the same set up. On July 7th I then marry the very sexy fiancée Sam and then on 9th July we fly off on our honeymoon for some very needed down time in the sun. Keep playing and keep enjoying live music! Till next time, goodbye [embed]https://youtu.be/5kHbHPSXJ2Y[/embed]

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