Worcester Music Forum

I haven't forgotten you Hereford and I'm hoping to check in this weekend and of course at next week's Wyeside Festival. In the meantime down to my local to check out an outfit we haven't seen for a while. First up at the Marrs Bar were local Worcester Tech School of Rock graduates Regan who've just played the ATOM student music festival at Birmingham's Custard Factory - they popped into last week's show to talk about it! Tom, Mike and Marv are a classy bluesy outfit with some deft Television-ish Tom Verlaine twiddles thrown into the mix. They're also doubling-up with local up-and-comers SuperKaine - I'll let you know more about them soon as I can

Another AWWBLOT spin-off, this time featuring kit-threatening drummer Chris together with ex-B*Movie Heroes' Neil and Murph from Spunge, drawn together to form Joe Patroni - and this was their first ever gig! Probably the first of many I should think as the threesome play some mighty Nugent-ish blue collar rock with perhaps some Silver Tequila overtones

Good to see Chris of Not Just Sauce, Stu of The Donns and Pete of AWWBLOT - keeping an eye no doubt on Chris's moonlighting

Haven't seen Clifton's own Nomad 67 for a while - turns out they've been touring Ireland a lot - ahh that explains it! They've reformed with ex-Aura frontman Dave now bashing 7 shades out of the drums. A couple too many covers perhaps for my liking (excepting 'Silly Thing' of

course) but their own material has a best of Tastyhead quality - and that's a compliment guys!

I forgot to mention last week that the gig at the Gun Tavern in Worcester raised £425 for St Richard's Hospice - good work people - and there was another chance to see two of the bands at The Firefly in Lowesmoor - great!

'We like playing Worcester 'cos everyone knows our songs' said BSN[4:20]'s frontman Matt - quite right as the Stourbridge ska-punkers have got some quality bellow-along numbers in their set like 'Welcome' and 'Plant A Seed'. The Firefly's only a small venue but I'm pretty sure everyone was singing 'Why don't you get a job?' in the chorus of 'Student Life' (except me of course - I'm above that sort of thing)

Probably the best local live act you can catch in Worcester at the moment are the jumpy ska-poppers The Donns - guaranteed get-up-and-bop numbers (or tap-your-feet for the more reserved among us). They're a bit near the knuckle with some of their stuff - Mary Whitehouse probably wouldn't have approved - but they've told me they'll have an airwave-acceptable CD out soon - wahey!

Name checks for Em of Cobweb Dilemmas and Jon, Will and Paul of Skankbox

- hoping no doubt to pick up a few tips from local techno luminaries Cape Of Good Hope. I definitely caught a further move to a more mainstream sound from the synco/jazz/fusion maestros who're always worth checking out - oh and by the way they're also the loudest outfit in the two counties by decibels by far!!