The Hastings Bike Festival (Sunday 20th July) was small and friendly event held at the Boat Club. We played under sunny skies along with a saxophone trio, a guitar and drum duo, a solo guitarist, and a comedian. The audience were great!

As gigs go it was a goody. Thanks, Bernie.

We’re playing The Hastings Cycling Festival on the 20th July. It takes place ’somewhere near the fishing huts ….’ Scant information, I know. We’re on at 7.30 - 8.30pm, so come along and say hi!

Yep, it’s nearly spring, the daffodils are flowering and the band is busy rehearsing.

There’s a lot of news, but at the moment it’s kinda hush-hush: so I can’t say more. Even if I could I probably wouldn’t as it’s been my frequent observation that talking about a ‘thing’ often buggers it up. It might have something to do with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, dunno: I’m a bloody musician! What do you expect?

Mick and I are writing more and more, together. This is good - on the one hand, but bad on the other. Well as we know each other - I don’t think that if he was my blood brother I’d know him any better - it’s still awkward, and I’m still ’shy’ presenting new material. This is stupid, I know. But a fact.

And so life goes on.

Mick - bless his cotton socks - has bought himself a keyboard. It’s a Roland something or other with 76 shiny keys. This means I get to have my clapped out old E-15 at home again. Now I need to re-plumb my studio, and I’ll have another album of fresh material demoed … hmm … when I say fresh, it’s been rattling around inside my head for a while. So, perhaps ‘well hung’ (like venison - get your mind out of the gutter) would be more apt. *sigh*

on 26th July we’re playing Poor Boys Cafe, Queens Road, Hastings, East Sussex.

Come along, and say hello!

Nick & Mick

On Saturday the 5th of May Kamakura played at the Poor Boys Cafe in Hastings. They went on at 9.00pm. to rapturous indifference and performed a two hour set of original songs to the awe-struck man in the corner. As the gig progressed, the place filled up (a few more people came in, to see what all the fuss was about). ‘Courage’ and ‘Pink Skirts’ were the hottest songs of the night.

Andy, the venue Manager, boasted that he sold three extra halves of lager, and, as one can imagine, he was as pleased as a ‘turnip in a woodpile’. As the Police helicopters mopped up the stragglers, Kamakura wound up another Histrionic performance.

Arbut Runsley (aka Mick)

—

“Small audience?”

“Yep, ’cause we’re terrible at hyping ourselves. Writing songs and performing is not a problem, but getting people to come and see us is.”

“But it was a fun evening?”

“Absolutely! I’ve almost lost the fear of performance, and now the … whatever it is you suffer when you’re shit scared of going on stage seems to help  instead … And Mick’s always fantastically supportive, even though he suffers stage fright too.”

“What covers do you play?”

“Covers? We don’t play covers. We play our own songs.”

“So what next?”

“We need a manager, or an agent to get us gigs.”

Nick

I like rehearsing, I enjoy rehearsing, but if we don’t start gigging more often I’m gonna … well, explode. We need an agent. Now, if not yesterday.
Nick, the antsy.

Thursday 5th April saw us playing at the Poor Boys Cafe in Hastings. It was packed, which was great, the only slight downside is that you can’t get more than forty people in the place. It was an intimate gig.
A very dear friend who we hadn’t seen in years, showed up, and a good evening was had by all.

We’re playing there again on the 5th May.

Feeling like death warmed up (strep throat - penicillin etc ) we turned up, set up, and played two 45 minute sets. We went down really well, have been re-booked, and got another venue wanting us too.

The best thing was watching a total stranger singing along with the chorus to ‘Love Song’

We’ve put spam protection in place. Now if you want to comment, there’s a simple maths problem, and you type the solution in a box! Neat. huh? It should deal with other computers, but not those wicked folk who earn a living, cutting and pasting reams of dubious pron sites, to whom I say: get a life!

Cough and throat marginally better, too.

Edited to say - I’ve changed the spam protection. It was a maths problem, then I found a version of the ‘graphically rendered word you have to type into the box’ thing. Who knows where it’ll end. I’m getting to know enough php to be really dangerous. Heh.

oh, and now my throat is bad again. Je suis unhappi, en franglais, pour vous. Zoot allors! And no, it’s not a pin stripped zoot.