I broke one of my hard, fast rules of life on Friday. My band, The False Dots had a gig at The 100 Club for the London International Ska Festival. The show was sold out and was absolutely brilliant. I don't know if you are a musician, but when you play to a packed hall and smash it, there really is no feeling in the world like it. When I woke up on Friday morning, I felt absolutely awful. I had that feeling when a cold is coming. I felt hot, clammy and shakey. Given that this is perhaps the biggest and most important gig the band have played for decades, this was not good. I had planned to go to the noon service at The Sacred Heart for Good Friday and then to Hadley FC, before trekking down to the 100 Club. I decided to stay in bed and try and get myself in shape for the gig. I have a form of faith, so I prayed for the strength to get through the day. My Catholic guilt was telling me that if I was going to do anything, it should be attending Church. But I also have a faith that God put me here for a reason. I believe that reason is to make music and make people happy. So off I went to The 100 Club. Even though it's a day of fasting absitinence, something I always follow, I had a few beers. I felt the good Lord had given me a pass.
It was an amazing night. The band has really come a long way in the past five years. I've always loved what we do, but we are in a very sweet place at the moment. I've learned that you never know how long such moments last and to embrace them. A large group of my friends bought tickets to support us, but more pleasing was the hundreds of strangers, dancing, nodding and smiling and the dozens who told us after the show that they loved it. Here is a short clip of Trumpet Tom singing the Prince Buster classic "Free Love", with guitar legend Boz Boorer guesting on lead guitar.
Something to believe in? I got at around midnight and I was absolutely shattered. I got home and it all caught up with me. I slept like a log. At around 8.30am my wife woke me with a cup of tea. We had another Ska fest gig to attend at 1pm and we had friends to meet first, dogs to walk, etc. But when she woke me up, I was in the middle of a vivid dream. One of those gigs that you sometimes have that make you think. That I will remember until the day that I die. In my dream, I entered a dark room with a large table, a big spread with candles. Holding fort was my cousing Tessie. Tessie was my age, but died of covid during the pandemic. She was born with Downs syndrome and suffered from dementia in her last few years. I got on with her. She always told me I was her favourite cousin, but then again she probably told all her cousins that. We got on well. She was feisty, cheeky and naughty. When I was little, I was actually jealous as she had a free pass to do what she liked and everyone just said "That's just Tessie".
Anyway, in my dream I entered, sat at the table and Tessie said "My favourite cousin". I was overjoyed to see her again. I asked how are you. She replied "Oh, it's great here. I don't have to pretend to be stupid anymore". This answer surprised me so I asked what she meant. "God sent me and I was weak and vulnerable, so he could see who the arseholes really are". When she said this all her friends burst out laughing. It all became clear to me. The life we live here is a completely different realm. Wherever we go on the next phase, we see through all of the bullshit and we are not encumbered with the baggage of human existence. I realised that Tessie had just as much of a purpose as I have with my music, that everyone has, but often don't see. Tessie's job was to give us the chance to be the best version of ourselves around her. But now, she could just enjoy herself and be the witty, naughty, fun loving person she always was but we stuggled to see. No one was judging her anymore. She was in a wonderful place, having fun with friends.
When Clare woke me up, I was actually cross. I'd not had the chance to really to ask the questions I wanted. I was back. All I could think was "Who will be at the table with me when I get there, will I understand my purpose?". Of course, all you cynics out there will say "It's just a dream, it means nothing". Maybe, maybe not. For a moment though, perhaps the second time in a day, I was blissfully happy and I actually realised it was all going to be alright. I thought I'd share it with you. Do with this gift as you will, but please, try and be happy and make other people happy. I've failed in that mission too many times.
The False Dots Rambo, Fil Ross, Rog T, Trumpet Tom Our new album coming soon
I'm a musician, I have been all of my adult life. My band, The False Dots have been going for 47years and we've done a fair few gigs in that time. Music venues are my lifeblood. In 2015, I started a campaign to save them in London. We made a list of all of the grassroots venues in London and encouraged people to support them. As for me, some are special as both a punter and a musician. Sadly, I've not played all of the ones I've dreamed of playing, but I've managed a few.
When we started, our ambition was just to do a gig. No one wanted to give us one, so we booked the Harwood Hall in Mill Hill from the local vicar. We paid him a tenner, charged a £1 to get in, got two bands to play with us, paying them £20 each. A hundred and twenty people came. After paying the bands. I made £50 and thought, this is the life. When we were done, I took the band and all of our mates to The Mill Hill Tandoori, when it stayed open until 1am and spent most of it. I thought we'd made it. The gig night was preserved for posterity by The Vektors, a local band from Edgware, who played with us. This is their rendition of Sound of The Suburbs!
No one really had video camera's then, so this is a real gem
For us, the Harwood Hall was the pinnacle of our career in 1980. In 1981, we decided that we needed to do more. In April, we made it out of Mill Hill to Hendon! We played at The Midland Arms (now the Claddagh Ring) supporting Way of The West, who had a Radio One single of the week, with their hot tune "Don't say it's just for white boys". It was actually a big gig, the Midland was a decent venue. In the Autumn, I moved to Stockholm. I managed to blag the band a tour in January 1982. The keynote gig was at The Underground Club in Stockholm. A large venue, popular with Swedish Hipsters. It had a capacity of around 400, we pulled 250. For a band that had played no futher than Kenton previously, it was amazing.
Our ambition had always been to play The Moonlight Club in West Hampstead. We'd seen the Damned, and bands like Joy DIvision there. It advertised in the NME. We thought if we played there, we'd have made it. We achieved that in March 1982. We got a mini residency there and played several more times.
In 1984, we hot the pinnacle of our first iteration. We played Dingwalls in February. The venue was sold out and we absolutely blasted it. Offers of record deals and management followed. Nothing materialised. We signed up with a manager, who promised gigs and did nothing. We did a string of local gigs until we knocked it on the head in 1990.
Then we got back together in 2002. We mostly played local charity gigs, In 2010, Connie Abbe joined the band and we started doing Camden again. We started at The Fiddlers Elbow, one of the best Camden gigs for up and coming artists. From there, we did the much missed Purple Turtle. That was a great venue (sadly gone). We also played at The Water Rats, another London legend, But it didn't last.
We did the launch of the Save London Music Campaign at The Fiddlers Elbow in 2015, but largely were back to local venues when Allen Ashley was singing.
In 2022, after Allen left, we were invited back to Camden, to the Dublin Castle. A residency followed. It is our spiritual home! We love playing the Dublin Castle. I've always been of the opinion that you should be loyal to promotors, so Tony at the Dublin Castle is our Camden go to. However tonight, I tick off one of the real legendary venues! We are playing at the 100 Club on Oxford Street. All of the punk bands I love have played there. Most of the Ska and London Reggae bands. I've seen such iconic legends as The Boys, 999, Menace, Jah Wobble, The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra there. I didn't see the Sex Pistols, but it is part of the legend of London music. When we started, there were four venues I really wanted to play. The Moonlight Club, The Marquee on Wardour Street, The 100 Club and The Roundhouse. Although I'd do it and it would be amazing, venues like Wembley Stadium and The Millenium Dome etc are massive but not my really thing. Sadly, the Marquee is gone, so that is a pipedream. The Roundhouse? My name is on the wall, and maybe one day one of my mates in a big band will do me a favour! But tonight it is The 100 club. At the age of 63, I am realising a dream I've harboured for nearly 50 years!
It is sold out, so you can't get a ticket. If you have one, see you there.
My view is that all world leaders should acquaint themselves with history. Understanding the lessons of the past can only help leaders to make better decisions. I watched a fascinating documentary yesterday about WW2 and Great Britain for the period 1939 to the Nazi invasion of the USSR. For much of this period, the UK stood alone, our allies were vanquished. After Dunkirk, Hitler and his generals (not his Navy interestingly) believed that Great Britain was defeated. They believed that Churchill would sue for peace, or even better for Hitler, his ragime would topple and a new government and a new monarch, sympathetic to Germany would emerge. When Churchill made it clear that Britian would fight on alone, defying just about every rationale of warfare, Hitler ordered the preparataion of "Operation Sealion", a seaborn invasion of the UK.
To Hitlers surprise, his top Admiral Doenitz was less enthusiastic than the army generals. He pointed out that without complete air superiority and the destruction of the Royal Navy, his army may be sunk crossing the channel. Hitler turned to his airforce chief Herman Goering, who declared that he would "sweep the RAF from the skies in six weeks". Goering produced intelligence assessments showing that the RAF had been massively weakened during the Battle of France and short air campaign would destroy airfields, factories, and planes. The assessment was that they could shoot down Spitfires and Hurricanes far quicker than Britain could build them and the RAF would run out of trained pilots. There was also an assumption that the British people were weak and decadent and would kick Churchill out when the bombs started dropping.
So Germany launched the Battle of Britain. The problem was that the German assessments of the RAF and the production capacity of Great Britain was wrong. Pilots made their way from all over the world to fight fascism. Lord Beaverbrook reformed production. Britain was producing more fighters than Germany, The British public were not cowed, in fact they were spurred to loathe the Nazi's even more.
I am no historian, but the one thing that Britain showed was that the only way you can win is to hang in and not give up. As the documentary went on, the parallels and differences with the current Trump war on Iran became clear. Both the Battle of Britain and the Iran war are air wars. The instigators are given to making bold claims about how the enemy is defeated, failing to realise that no one on the enemy side is listening. Just as Goering told Hitler that the RAF was running out of planes, Trump boasts that Irans military has been destroyed. In both cases, this is demonstrably untrue. If it was true, then the Straits of Hormuz would be open. There can be no doubt that the Iranian people are suffering, it must be hellish. I doubt any readers of this blog would like to live in a country run by a strict Islamic Revolutionary Guard. But whilst the Mullahs have been gravely damaged, their government and the structures are still functioning. It is clear that they still can fire rockets and drones at whoever they want.
The Iranian strategy is not too dissimilar to that of Churchill. Hang on in there and wait for the wind toc change. The Iranians suffered a long, bloody war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, with the US supporting Saddam Hussein. They know that in eight years time they will have seen two US elections. Although Trump looms large, the US constitution means he will not be President for ever. He is also an elderly man. Iran must be calculating that sooner or later, they will have a different leader to deal with. From their persepective, all they need to do is hang on in there.
And when the wind changes in the USA, for whatever reason, should the Iranian regime survive, they will be stronger not weaker. Now of course, this analysis takes no account of Israel, who will no doubt continue to assassinate every Iranian leader they can find, until they decide there is one they can deal with.
But take a step back. Who was the biggest beneficiary of the period 1939-41. Ultimately it was the USA, who weren't involved. Their economy boomed. Prior to the war, they'd seen Britain as a competetor globally, albiet a friendly benign one, with the British Empire fuelling the nations wealth. By 1941, the UK was bankrupt. I look to the east and see China as the big beneficiary. As the USA tears up alliances, the Chinese look to many nations to be a stable and trustworthy partner. They need do nothing. I started this blog eighteen years ago. If someone had told me how the post 2008 period would pan out, I'd have thought them mad. This is just the latest chapter in a story of global self abuse by the human race. It is thorughly depressing.
The best stories are journeys. So hopefully this installment will be a good one! It is the journey of what inspired me to put pen to paper and write the songs that The False Dots perform. I've touched on this several times but never properly charted the journey. So take yourself back to early 1978 if you can remember it, and if you can't, let your imagination do the work. The False Dots, as a band were still a year away from our first formation. I was a snotty nosed 15 year old at Finchley Catholic High School. I had discovered Punk rock the previous year and was lapping it up. I had a mate at School, Pete Conway, who was like minded and we decided that we needed to form a band. We couldn't play, we had no instruments and we had no idea where to start. At the time, our big influence was The Clash and their first album. We had some vague idea that we should play Garageland as we wanted to be a Garage band. The aim was to sound a bit like The Clash. Pete came up with a brilliant idea. Rather than try and copy songs, we'd write our own. As we were both completely lacking in any clue as to how music is put together, this was not the best way to 'learn the ropes'. I had a book by Bert Weedon called Play in a day, which my brother, a decent guitarist, bequeathed to me. It had songs like "When the Saints go marching in" and "The Old Folks at Home" in. Pete observed that we just had to jumble the chords up and play them quicker. It seemed like a plan. To my horror, playing the guitar was much harder than I thought and I had no aptitude for it at first.
In May, Pete took a radical deicision. He quit school and got a job at Dewhursts as a butcher. This would pay for a bass and a bass amp. When I was sixteen, I was coming into a bit of cash from my child modelling career. To my mums horror, I bought a Hofner Galaxy and a Selmer guitar amp. By January 1979, we were making a right old racket in my bedroom every night. We'd written a bunch of songs, more or less randomly picking chords out and hollering slogans over the top. By this time, the Pete and I had discovered Crass. It is fair to say they were a massive influence. They were far less musical than The Clash and far more political. There was one thing though, that they bequeathed that was a massive positive. Crass were amazing at coming up with catchy slogans "fight war, not wars", "Do they owe us a living, of course they do" were just a couple of examples. Our best song of this era was definitely "Wrong" which we are reprising on our new album. It is 45 seconds of sheer punkyness.
By September 1979, my obsession with Crass and the first iteration of the False Dots was done. I had discovered The Specials, Two Tone and Ska. This was what I wanted to do, but we didn't know any brass players. It was also more tuneful and required a much better drummer than we had access to. Pete wrote a Reggae song called "Kingston Rock", which in truth was not very good. He was more into Dub reggae. It was neither.
We did however get a brilliant drummer in 1980. Mr Dav Davies. Sadly, he came in to a set full of punky songs. The time was febrile, huge amounts of musical energby flowed through London. We experimented. We tried our luck with electronic music, influenced by Gary Numan and also started to lean sound wise towards the more tuneful end of The Velvet Underground catalogue. Pete was keen that we be shocking and cover subjects that sane bands of the day would avoid like the plague. I loved the way The Velvet Underground put sugary melody on bitter lyrics. Songs like Not all She Seems from our last album date from then, deals with the issue of the social exclusion of gender fluid sex workers. Not all of these numbers have aged as well.
When Pete left in September 1980, I found myself writing songs on my own. I also had freedom to arrange songs as I saw fit. Craig Withecombe, an excellent guitarist joined and we started gigging. With competent musicians, the songs sounded pretty good and I was inspired to write more, but I struggled to be inspired in the way Crass had originally inspired us. I made the biggest mistake that a songwriter can make. I thought if I made the songs complicated, they would be better, they weren't. Oddly, I wrote a couple of great songs by accident. The best, also on our last album, was Action Shock. This was inspired by the protest songs of Country Joe McDonald. It was my attempt to recreate a punk version of the classic anti war song "I feel like I'm Fixing to Die" around the Falklands War. It worked because it was simple. Dav departed and Mark Barnett joined. He was less capable technically, but he kept the show on the road. We experimented with a reggae song, christened "FalseDub" by a Rasta mate.
By 1985, I realised I needed to up my game. I enrolled in a songwriting course. I believe if I'd done this in 1978, we'd have had hits! It was brilliant, I learned how to structure music properly, but also the importance of what you put together being functional. I also came to understand that song lyrics work better with trigger words and reinforcement of concepts, so that the lyrics can be layered over the music to paint patterns. I also realised the power of what Crass had taught us. Strong lyrics that you remember.
I had long been a fan of Ian Dury, but it never occurred to me that The False Dots could borrow from him lyrically or from the Blockheads muscially. By the late 1980's I had gotten more into groovy and funky vibes. I loved the Run DMC Walk this Way cover. It seemed to me to be the way to go. When Tony Robotham, a very talented singer joined the band, I thought we could nail it, but the industry had changed and it was almost impossible for us to even get gigs, with the feel we had. It was a real shame.
Dispirited I stopped playing. In around 2000, I decided to get a band together to record a few of the old numbers, now I had a recording studio, purely for my own pleasure. I found I enjoyed playing, but did not consider writing any new material. Out of nowehere in 2006, I got the urge to write again. The inspiration was quite odd. I was watching the classic TV cop series "Life on Mars" when a few sentences spoken by a character triggered me. I wrote a song called "I'm the man" AKA "Pusherman". I just wanted to write a sort Stooges style punk song, written from the viewpoint of a psychopathic drug dealer. I hasten to add I am not one, but I enjoy constructing storyboards for songs and videos in my head when I am inspired. It worked. In some ways it was a bit of an evolutionary blind alley. In 2009. Connie Abbe joned the band. Connie is a brilliant Sudanese singer and rapper.
All of a sudden, I had the band I wanted. We could rock, skank, rap and groove. To get my head around what Connie wanted, I immersed myself in Rap music and found it really inspiring. We wrote tracks like "Put me in the Spotlight" which I think was a masterpiece and is the most listened to False Dots track ever. It was used for the Goal of the Month show on the Man City website and had over 47 million plays! Sadly we got almost nothing, but it was a kick.
Sadly Connie went to pastures new. As part of the Library campaign I was involved in, The False Dots got asked to play at Friern Barnet Library, to celebrate the saving of the library. I got the 1985 line up of the band together, with Poet Allen Ashley on vocals. It seemed fitting as Allen is a poet and author. As often happens when you collaborate, your influences are suppressed. I enjoyed the line up, Allen is a great lyricist, but it wasn't particularly the direction I wanted to go in.
When the band emerged from Covid, Allen was not available. I am mates with Lee Thompson of Madness and wrote a song called "Longshot didn't die" with the idea of him performing it with us. I played a rough version to Lee. He said "It sounds great, why not sing it yourself". It was the kick I needed. In short, it worked. I had worked on the song with Allen, with him contributing lyrics, but it was very much the start of the new Dots era. I realised that I'd spent 40 years skirting around the fact that what I really wanted to do was a mash up of The Specials and Ian Dury. I love Dury's narrative style and I love everything about The Specials, but not least the fact that their views align with me.
So I started writing songs for me, to be sung by me and in an manner that is both witty and to the point. Then Tom Hammond joined in trumpet. The missing piece of the jigsaw. Now we were able to bring the ideas to life. Tom can also sing, so it has given us the option to do material that would simply not work with me singing. I revisted a couple of old songs. As mentioned earlier, we reprised Wrong as a nod to our roots. Another highlight is Electric Ballroom, as song originally called Reality Ballroom. I completely rewrote the lyrics when Pete Conway left the band. We now give it a semi psyche rock makeover. It sounds great. And then there is the silliness. Songs like Big Hairy Spider, our recent single. Musically, it is somewhere between The Clash and The Specials. Lyrically, it is actually inspired by horror comics of the 1960's. It has been a long journey, but there are elements of every stage on our forthcoming album.
What I've learned is that you don't need to search for inspiration, open your eyes and ears and it will hit you over the head. Keep it as simple as you can put put twists and turns on the road in your songs. Big Hairy Spider has a middle 8 that is pure Benny Hill. I like it. Have a listen, and we hope to see you at The 100 Club on Good Friday.
The Barnet Eye has learned of plans by Barnet Council to change the speed limit of all local roads in the Borough (ie not A or B roads) as well as all roads outside local schools to a 10mph limit. Speaking exclusively to The Barnet Eye, a council source stated "When cars are travelling at 10mph, the incidents of fatalities and serious injury is almost completely eradicated. The council is embarking on an ambitious policy, to eradicate death through road traffic accidents in the Borough of Barnet. There is absolutely no need for cars to travel faster than 10mph on local roads."
The Barnet Eye has also contacted local political parties for comment. Thus far, only the transport spokesman for ReformUK in Barnet, Mr Richard Maximus has responded "We believe this is another example of Labour gone mad in Barnet. This is the Nanny state at its most extreme. We see no justification for making the lives of motorists in Barnet intolerable. We should be raising speed limits, not lowering them and if Reform is elected in Barnet, we will put the rights of motorists first".
My band, The False Dots released a video celebrating "Boy Racer" culture in the Borough of Barnet in 2024. You will be pleased to know I have not been kicked in the head by a horse, so I will not be endorsing ReformUK or their policies.
(as I am sure you guessed, this is the Barnet Eye April Fool blog for 2026 - however, odd though it seems, if it comes to pass it won't be the first time!)
