Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody
Thames Delta Blues for the Bankrupt Generation – the official home of all things Cusack & Son of Buff
SHANGRI-LA SPECIAL FRIDAY 18TH MAY
Upstairs at the Railway – Shangri-la proudly presents …
PETER BRUNTNELL & JAMES WALBOURNE
Plus a supporting cast of thousands, namely…
THE LUCKY STRIKES
CUSACK
& TOM BURGESS
Not sure what the door tax is…but no more than a fiver I reckon…
Arrive early!
Forthcoming Cusack & Son of Buff Shows…
Thurs 22nd March 2012 – Son Of Buff
In the main bar at the Railway Hotel, Southend with Red Marshall’s outfit ‘Three Mothers’. This is a low key week-night-warm up for the 30th March with Monkey Island – see below.
http://www.railwayhotelsos.co.uk/contact.htm
Kick off @ 9pm
Admission: Free
Thurs 29th March 2012 – Cusack (solo)
Upstairs at the Railway Hotel for a Shangri-la Soup session.
These are fairly well established now by Tom Burgess and Dave Dawson.
These are totally unplugged sessions recorded and filmed for Novalujon Radio and streamed online.
Obviously being totally acoustic these are very quiet affairs – be warned!
This one is me playing two sets but I believe there will be other guests on the night.
http://www.railwayhotelsos.co.uk/contact.htm
Kick off @ 9pm
Admission: Free
Friday 30th March 2012 – Son Of Buff
First of the return of Gerry Ranson’s Mulefreedom nights.
This time at the Birkbeck Tavern home of What’s Cookin’.
For his opening show Gerry has London’s (and our) favourite Garagistas Monkey Island plus support from Son Of Buff.
http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/34/3403/Birkbeck_Tavern/Leyton
Kick Off at 8pm
Admission Free with a whip-round.
Wed 4th April – Cusack (full band)
Cusack return to What’s Cookin’ at the Birkbeck Tavern this time we’re playing alongside our pal Bob Collum and his band of desperadoes for a night of muscular country rockin’
Plus a late addition to the bill our man Tom Burgess!
http://www.whatscookin.co.uk/wchome.html
Kick Off at 8pm
Admission Free with a whip-round.
Saturday 7th April – Son Of Buff
This is a Pier-Festival (11th & 12th August) fund raiser – many bands taking part….
Details tbc… http://www.railwayhotelsos.co.uk/contact.htm
Friday 20th April – Cusack (full band
Bob Collum & band, Cusack and Simon Onions at the Birdcage Stoke Newington. What a great line up…venue is new to me…let’s hope we can add it to the list of regulars!
http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/74/7491/Birdcage/Bethnal_Green
Kick Off at 8pm
Admission Free with a whip-round.
Thursday 3rd May – Son of Buff
Playing with the Seasiders at their regular Camden showcase at Camden Eye
http://www.thecamdeneye.co.uk/
Details tbc
Saturday 5th May – Cusack (full band)
In the main bar at the Railway – other acts tbc
http://www.railwayhotelsos.co.uk/contact.htm
Kick off @ 9pm
Admission: Free
Cusack ‘n’ Onions
Yes folks it’s that new mystery flavour that Walkers have been bangin’ on about…
Saturday 3rd March in the bar at the Railway Hotel.
Full band set from the new Cusack line-up of me, Andrew Moore and Ben ‘Classic Rock’ Rudge….plus the one-man psych-folk-genius that is Simon James Onions of olde London Towne.
Kicks off around 9pm…don’t be late this will be a blinder.
I’ve known Simon from various London gigs for some years now and I swear he gets better every time I see him and he blew me away at the first gig!!!
If you like the acoustic Led Zep stuff or Jackson C Frank or Bert Jansch you’ll dig this.
Cusack are currently in rocking guise Big Star/Replacements/Neil Young vein…not an acoustic guitar in sight whilst we’re on…
See y’all there
Here’s a bit of Mr Onions for ye…
CUSACK @ SUNDOWN SUN 26TH FEB 2012
Yes indeedy folks.
I’m venturing out for a once-commonplace-now-rare-as-hens-teeth solo spot.
Back in Shangrila days I always meant to get along and play Sundown but never managed it for some reason- but hey – better late than never…
I saw that beardy-boy-Boulter had played recently and it sparked me into action…so cheers Matt you ol’ publicity shlaag!
Come on down – you know it’ll be great – it’s Sundown – and besides it’s bleedin’ well Sunday!
Starts around 8pm – get in for £3.00
I’m on about 9.30pm…
**************
Come join Sundown Arts upstairs at The Alex for the first, delicious event of 2012!
Featuring:
Comedy from Paul Sweeney!
Spoken word from Liz Bentley and the Sundown Poets!
Music from Cusack!
All this, plus a nice excuse to DO something on a Sunday night (other than watch Dancing on Ice, come on, it’s no Strictly), hang out with your cultured friends, drink flavoured ciders in a wing back armchair… for THREE ENGLISH POUNDS.
Seriously. We’re far too good to you. But, basically, it’s because we fancy you.
SON OF BUFF @ FOREST GAP – FRI 17TH FEB 2012
This Friday Son Of Buff are playing at Forest Gap
Bumped into the folks who run this when we played What’s Cookin’ in January…it’s about a tube stop on from Leyton – Wanstead Park. Forest Gap is run along similar lines –
Free admission with a whip-round for the bands…should be fun…come on down!
Forest Gap is at The Lord Rookwood pub, 314 Cann Hall Road
London
E11 3NW
MONKEY ISLAND & SON OF BUFF @ THE RAILWAY HOTEL SAT 4TH FEB 2012
Pic: Monkey Island’s Pete Bennett laying down on the job…
Yes indeed…
Saturday 4th Feb in the main bar at the Railway Hotel Southend – SON OF BUFF are chuffed to be playing alongside the mighty mighty MONKEY ISLAND
Promoting their beautiful 10″ vinyl record release (a double header with the Island’s mainman Pete Bennett’s The Dublo‘), Monkey Island are fab – a heady mix of The Fall, The Clash, Sabbath – I always hear some Swell Maps in there too – very British, uncompromising and clever garage rock.
You’ll love ’em!
Come on down.
Admission: FREE
Starts 9pm
SON OF BUFF @ WHAT’S COOKIN’ SAT 14TH JAN 2012
Yes indeedy – it’s two What’s Cookin’ gigs in one week for me – a better start to a year of gigs simply could not be had!
So, Cusack play on Wednesday…
…and Saturday night is SON OF BUFF
with smashing Colchester rock ‘n’ rollers MOLLY’S DAGGERS
Should be a barnstormer – come on down and shake some action, babies!!!
Doors Open 8.30
Admission FREE (with whip-round for the bands)
Cusack @ What’s Cookin’ Wednesday 11th January 2012
Yup…next Wednesday Cusack are playing our second gig with the new Crazy-Horse-esque line-up of Andrew Moore and Ben Rudge – out of town this time at the simply marvellous What’s Cookin in Leytonstone.
We’re supporting Galley Beggar who ‘bring the intensity of a rock band to electric folk and include plenty of instrument changes as they move from music found within the collections of Cecil Sharp and Francis Child through to electrified psychedelic freakouts’
cool.
Whats Cookin‘ is a great gig those of you who don’t already know it well. I stumbled across it when it was at The Plough Inn in Walthamstow about 6/7 years back courtesy of the great
Redlands Palomino Co. who graciously threw me an acoustic guitar and let me holler a coupla tunes.
W.C. has moved about a bit since then and has come to reside at the Birkbeck Taven near Leyton tube station.
They run the whole pub now and it’s great, a difficult place to leave at the end of an evening for sure..
So come on down folks – kick-off is 8.30pm
Admission is free with a whip-round for the bands
Hello world!
Howdy Folks!
For 2012 I thought I’d start a blog.
Either that or I got bored after 5 days at home.
I called the blog ‘Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Nobody’ – a name I stole partly from the excellent Mark Radcliffe book of the same name.
It seemed appropriate in these days of vacuous celebrity.
I am a singer songwriter from Essex (the UK- based one) which I’m sure conjures up all manner of turgid cliches some of which apply, some that I kick against others that I witheringly accept.
I perform/write and record under the ‘nom-de-rock’ of Cusack, though that is also the name of my band. Cusack sits somewhere between Neil Young, The Byrds, Evan Dando, Billy Bragg, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, Silver Jews, Smog, The Rolling Stones kind of alt-country-country-rock- singer-songwriter-with-a-sense-of-humour-and-a-dollop-of-grunge-y-rock ‘n’ roll best summed up by the music featured on following wondrous pages (take a breath here):
I released my debut album ‘Mildsensations‘ in 2010 to some acclaim – I’ll post some reviews over time. You can buy the CD exclusively form our own little online record shop Zingg Records. Currently I’m in the throes of recording the follow-up album partly with Ted Davis at Maple 2 studios in Southend and partly with Marcel Van Limbeek at Alchemea in Islington. I’m hoping to finish that off over the next month or two and that thousands will eagerly clutch it to their hearts…more of that later.
Not Only But Also…
As well as Cusack I also am one half of the two-man-power-trio that is Son Of Buff. We play varied (but always loud) garage-y rock that would put one in mind of The Black Keys, Black Sabbath, At the Drive-in, Queens of the Stoneage, Nirvana, PJ Harvey. We are angsty, dirty, loud and proud. You want melody? – check out Cusack. We are currently finishng off an album of Son Of Buff material at Maple 2 studios in Southend with Ted Davis. Should be ready for ear-consumption at the end of January. You have been warned.
This page will I hope act as a home for all the useful bits of information regarding the activities of those two musical ventures – gig dates, release dates, gossip and a few insights into the world of the D.I.Y.-only-partially-through-choice-musician.
I hope that it opens some ears and raises a smile.
Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody 