The trouble with blog posts is that one never knows quite how to begin them, I find… So let’s just forget the niceties and cut to the chase: next Donutsh gig is Monday 23rd July, once more at the Water Rats in Kings Cross. Half a dozen bands on the bill; it’s £8 on the door, which makes it all the more important for you to tell us you’re coming in advance (sign up at http://www.facebook.com/events/262518140519376/) because that way you get in for a mere £4. Cos we can do that. We’re just that awesome, and that generous. There’s a couple of new songs that will be making their public debut, into the bargain, so you don’t want to miss this one, do you? Besides, it’s the last gig we shall be playing before the huge squawking vulture that is the Olympics descends on London and rips the guts out of the city’s finances, transport and social life. Unlike the Olympics we promise not to paint special lanes on the roads or have Boris Johnson blethering endlessly on telly about how good we are (although if Mr Johnson wants to do that he’s more than welcome, on reflection. We’re not proud, we’ll accept anyone as our fanboy).

We’ve also been working on a redesign for the website — watch this space for further developments, very shortly…

How do I get to Carnegie Hall? How do I get to Carnegie Hall?

Thanks again to all those at Thursday’s gig at the 229, both those who came along to see us, and those who came early for the other bands and cheered us on while waiting for them. A receptive and responsive audience is the number one spur that prods bands into giving it all they’ve got. New songs “When I Woke Up” and “The Other Ronald True” saw their debut at a public gig and both went down extremely well. Two more keepers! A tip of the plectrum also to the promoter, venue and sound guy, without whom &c &c.

Some of the audience feedback deserves to be set down for posterity. As we came offstage, the burly figure of the singer from post-punk maniacs We Buy Gold loomed up. “Great songs! So f***ing cynical!” he boomed. “That’s the way we write them,” was Klepsie’s reply (thankfully I just managed to avoid saying “That’s the way we roll in the Donutsh,” which would have sounded like a bad joke).

Meantime another audience member was remarking to Camrath’s girlfriend “They sound like Johnny Cash biting off Johnny Rotten’s head”, a quote which she gleefully relayed to us after our set and which it was instantly agreed by all of us summed us up to perfection. Shazomei was despatched upstairs to the land of mobile phone reception and ordered to put it on Twitter without delay, and it’s going on this website too next time we revise it. (Unless, dear reader, you can think of a better and pithier quote?)

Small wonder, then, that we wended our way home in the best of moods — in my case, with the sublime Sparks album LI’L BEETHOVEN blaring in the car. Next gig, please!

Practice, man, practice! Practice, man, practice! … I practiced! I practiced!

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.