Having survived jury service, a most unpleasant ordeal I hope never to have to undergo again, time at last to catch up with things musical.

The Romford gig went well despite Daddy Amp (largest of the family Daddy Amp, Mummy Amp and Baby Amp) developing a fit of the sulks at soundcheck, leaving us having to borrow another from Last of the Waiting (thanks again, guys). The Bitter End is a cracking little venue and the guv’nor there very easy to deal with. We’ll be back, I hope.

Next up comes our West End debut on 6th April. We’re first up in a lineup of four followed by Model Railway Exhibition, De Shamonix, and Elize Kellman. It’s another bring-a-flyer-for-a-quid-off do, so cast your eyes up the page a little way and you’ll find a link to download ours from. The promoter sez that if we bring enough people we’ll get rebooked, so if you’ve been meaning to check us out and not got round to it, make this gig the one you get to, eh?

A few plugs to close with. At Romford we also shared the bill with Chelmsford’s The Library Suits, and I think it’s fair to say that if you like our stuff you’ll also like theirs. They’ve just finished recording a new album which should be well worth grabbing once it’s released. Their video for “You Don’t Have To Be A Wizard” is a hoot.

Terrorvision‘s new album “Super Delux” is their first in ten years, with a new drummer, but you’d hardly think they’d been away; it’s a triumphant return to their high points of the mid-90s such as “Regular Urban Survivors” and “How To Make Friends And Influence People”, and they score extra brownie points for making the first two lines of the first song a huge great salute to the late, great Kirsty MacColl. Too often bands which reform are a pale, washed-out shadow of their former selves. Buy this album and send Terrorvision the message that they, at least, are welcome to regroup any time they can bring something this good to the party.

Other good bands seen live recently include Run Don’t Walk and Hercules Rockafella both of whom were high points of the first Most Rated night at the Rhythm Factory last night in Whitechapel. Herc Rock are another band with a video to check out.

The Dartford gig on Saturday 20th November was an absolute blast. (Setlist, for ease of reference: The Only Fool; We Are The Struts; Rock and Roll Retard; Strange Jane; Rod Serling; Skullhead; Time Is No Cage; The Land That Taste Forgot; Johnny Don’t Care; Happy Birthday To You — this last being trad.arr.Donutsh and rocked up a la Ramones. The birthday girl seemed to appreciate it.) We greatly enjoyed being able to raid the party buffet after the gig finished, and gave out no end of ‘Donutsh’ and ‘Rock and Roll Retard’ badges. Quite did our egos good to see half the party sporting them.

But you’re waiting for me to explain the title of this post, so I shall. Towards the end of the night the end of the pub supposedly reserved for the party was invaded by another band. We never did find out the name of this punk outfit, but we very soon found out that they Don’t Like Skinheads You Know; it was hard not to find this out, since it seemed to be their sole topic of conversation. Several of them cast glances at Camrath’s crew-cut, but luckily he was about twice the size of most of them. “Skinheads are worse than Nazis!” proclaimed one to me. “I saw a skinhead in the audience at our gig, so I stopped playing ‘Rockaway Beach’ and jumped on him.”

“Ah yes, those skinheads and their nasty concentration camps,” I wanted to say, but cowardice stopped me. I’ll say it here though, as the next best thing; arseholes like this are a disgrace to punk music and to all music, and the spirit of Joey Ramone would be turning in its grave if he knew a mean-spirited little sod like this was covering his songs. The Donutsh abhor racism and bigotry, and what’s more, we promise never to stop playing in the middle of a song just to twat an audience member, no matter how much they heckle us.

We gave these mental and musical giants ‘Rock and Roll Retard’ badges to shut them up, and eventually they wandered off  sporting them proudly, with no evident idea of the irony inherent in the situation, to be swallowed up by the night — an unsavoury mouthful.