Upcoming...

As my website at www.darklordofbarnet.gb.net has been down for a while I haven't been able to post details of upcoming gigs of interest like I used to. So I've decided to try posting them up here instead. Note - I'm not necessarily going to all these gigs myself, so don't go expecting to see me there. Some are local, and most of the others will be in or around the London area. I will include some links to bands or venues, but if I don't - Google is your friend. 😉

  2026 

 JUNE 

4th: The Needful Things @ The Black Heart, Camden

13th: Bite Me + Polly Pikpocketz @ The Shacklewell Arms, Dalston

13th: Velvet Fury @ The Arkley Club

13th: Mary's Exit @ East Barnet British Legion

14th: Glitter Kick + The Speedways + X Ray Love @ Signature Brew, Haggerston

19th: Chantel McGregor @ The 100 Club

21st: King Salami & The Cumberland 3 @ The Lexington

24th: 🗲Electrics🗲 @ The Hope & Anchor, Islington

 JULY 

2nd: The Priscillas @ Nambucca

4th: 🗲Electrics🗲 @ The Spice of Life

10th: The Phobics @ Fiddlers Elbow, Camden

16th: Glitter Kick Matinee show performance of debut album @ The Spice of Life, Soho 

25th: The Empty Page @ The Hope & Anchor, Islington

31st: Mikabomb @ Signature Brew, Haggerston

31st July: Deaf Devils @ Trinity Bar, Harrow

Things can and do change or get cancelled, so do check if you can before leaving home to make sure an event is still taking place.

STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES!

Goodbye 2025

Well that was certainly a year of ups and downs. Sadly the downs were more extreme than the ups. There was a odd nice surprise along with the not so good stuff. I apparently regained then relost a friend,  which I found troubling. I enjoyed playing at the Leytonstone Festival again, and the gig highlight for me was playing on the same bill as 🗲Electrics🗲 at Signature Brew. 😎

I only got to one air display instead of around my usual three for various reasons, so not so many good days out on the bike last summer. Could have been worse I guess 🙄 - my friends on 'social' media have only posted stuff about what a bad year they've had and they're glad it's over. My good bits were fleeting, but at least I still have my health and a roof over my head. 😶

Ten years after.... Lemmy

Is it really ten years since we lost him? ♠ It's hard to believe. So much has happened since then, but his presence still feels somehow here - and his music is very much still with us. It always will be. His spirit too - I will carry a tattoo inspired by him for the rest of my life. A lot of people will be thinking about him today, and I guess I will have to put that T-shirt on if I go out tonight. There's a certain tribute band event happening, but I don't know if I can face it the way I'm feeling at the moment - I'm at a pretty low ebb headspace-wise.

If anyone is unaware of the significance of Lemmy and the amazing band he created you can read what I wrote about him ten years ago here. It was hard to write.

Lemmy used to say "Remember us when we're gone"

We still do.

We always will.

♠

Social Media

At a pretty low ebb today, for more than one reason.😟 I'm not finding Social Media very 'social'. 😞 It's always been a double edged sword, but personally much good has come from it. But also some stuff I've found very difficult to understand and deal with - stuff which has given me sleepless nights.

As I said - it's not been very 'social' recently. I try to subtly and quietly express that I am happy for someone I know regarding something nice that happened for them at Christmas - a single friendly and well intentioned click on a 'Like' button and then I am persona non grata. I didn't even say anything - I was trying to keep a low profile as things have been difficult recently, but just one click and the damage was done. 😕 I wish I could just take back that one click. It feels like 'the butterfly effect' - where even the smallest and most insignificant action can have catastrophic consequences.

Daffodils blooming in December now... WTF?

Early this year the daffodils didn't wait for spring like they used to and were flowering in North London in the first week of January. 😮

And now they are coming up before it's even Christmas! 😲

You can see the autumn leaves are still on the ground.

The Global Warming deniers seem a bit quieter these days... 

Phone tickets for gigs - how many of us are becoming Digital Outcasts?

What's that all about? 🙄 This has been really winding me up recently! 😬 Buying gig tickets online has changed quite a bit over the past few years. Once upon a time you'd only pay a booking fee of around a quid from many ticket agencies + postage. Things were pretty transparent. Then booking fees started to go up, and other fees were added on that weren't obvious until you got to the final checkout stage. Now some ticket agencies add up to 3 extra fees on top of the face value ticket price! 😮

You used to get a printed ticket with band logos or pictures which made a nice souvenir - many people collected these. Then all tickets became generic computer generated printed tickets that looked the same. 🙄 Apart from Runnin' Blue who still give you a proper printed ticket on the door when you buy online. 👍 

Then things moved over to 'Print your own ticket' at home. I actually quite like this as there is no postage fee and you get your ticket instantly to print straight away or save for later. But some ticket agencies do still take the piss and have the cheek to charge you a fee - for printing your own ticket! And saving them the costs of admin and printing it themselves - while you use your own paper/ink and printer. 😲

I do highly recommend WeGotTickets.com though. No fee for printing your own tickets, and their booking fee is minimal - they just add a 10% fee so if the face value of the ticket is £10 you only pay £11.00 in total - nothing else!. Then print your own ticket with a code number or barcode that gets you in on the door. Simples. I have used them countless times and never had the slightest problem - why can't all ticket sales be like this? 😊

Maybe it's time I got to the point.  In recent times 'Phone tickets' are becoming increasingly common. I don't have a problem with this - as long as this isn't the only option and there is still at least one other way of buying a ticket.  But unfortunately phone ticket only gigs are becoming increasingly common. This I do have a problem with. 😠 I have always avoided phone tickets if possible as there are too many things that can go wrong. Mobile technology and phone reception is not robust...😩

My phone is on the O2 network. A while ago I bought a phone ticket (against my will but there was no other purchase option) and arrived at the venue only to find my phone had no reception at the door to the venue. It was an O2 venue and my phone was on O2! 😲 It looked like I wasn't going to get in to the show I'd paid to see. 😒 Fortunately the security guy on the door was sympathetic and helpful (not often either of those things occurs) and managed to somehow 'piggy-back' my phone to his own so I could get reception and display my ticket. All this took a while - suppose there had been another 20 people with the same problem queuing to get in?

About 3 years I wanted to go and see Combichrist and a phone ticket via Dice was the only option - so I bit the bullet and downloaded their app. I have been forced to use Dice about 10 times since then with no problem - until October this year. Nearly a year before that I had bought a phone ticket from Dice to see Amyl & The Sniffers at Alexandra Palace. It was a big show for them and I was really looking forward to it. My phone was several years old and I had been having problems with it's memory being full of hidden data stored by apps that I couldn't find and get rid of. So I deleted a load of apps that I didn't need or use much. But a load of the hidden data was still there lurking in my phone's memory. So I had to resort to deleting even more apps that I actually used regularly - just so that I could add one or two more apps to be able to get phone tickets. I deleted the Dice app thinking I could just download it again as I had previously with no problem. Only when I tried to add it back to my phone Dice said my phone was no longer compatible with their app! 😠 Which meant I could no longer use the ticket I had paid for! 😡  Fortunately I managed to get a refund from Dice, but that still meant I couldn't go to the gig as Dice was the only source of tickets. 🙄 I had a similar problem with the Primordial Radio app which I had been happily using for years on my phone - then had to temporarily (I thought) delete it and when I tried to download it again found it no longer compatible.  Which made me question if it was still worth paying their monthly subs...😟 So do app developers bring out new versions knowing they are not backward compatible with the previous version? Or is it deliberate for some reason?

So this month there are 3 gigs I want to go to that are phone ticket only. 2 of them are on Dice which means I can't go as the latest version of their app is no longer compatible with my phone - even if I still had room to download it. The other gig is for one of my favourite bands - I haven't missed one of their London shows in over 20 years. But this time someone (in band or management I assume) has decided that tickets for the show will be available exclusively from Ticketmaster - instead of with at least 2 ticket agencies as is normal. And Ticketbastard are only offering phone tickets. And only via their own app - which I previously did have on my phone before temporarily (so I thought) deleting it because my phone memory was full. And now I still can't make room to reinstall it. 🙄

So that makes 3 gig in a row I can't go to just because my phone is several years old and I can't afford to buy a new one every couple of years. I'm sure many other people must be in the same boat. Gig going seem's to be becoming a divisive two-tier thing where the less well off are being excluded from being able to attend. There is a new type of person starting to appear - the 'Digital Outcasts'. It is rapidly getting to the stage where if you aren't tec-savvy and well heeled you won't be able to go to many gigs. I am not OK with this.

Well, most people anyway.

Well the situation from Monday seems to have resolved itself - online at least. By accident or design I don't know, and maybe I never will but I am happier today as a result. 😀 I don't like drama and tension - I get enough of that at work - office politics even though I don't work in an office!

I think someone thought I was angry at them, but I wasn't. Sad, yes. Disappointed, yes. But never angry with them.

I'd never had to deal with anyone with ADHD before and really didn't understand how it can affect people. Some people have very complex personalities - which can make it hard to understand why they act like they do. It was hard - very hard, but by the time I eventually started to understand this it was too late and the damage to our friendship was already done. 😔

I think someone has been going through a difficult time recently so I tried to send out warm positive vibes on Thursday afternoon - I hope they might have radiated through. 🌞

I wasn't angry back then, and I'm not now.

I pick my friends very carefully - quality not quantity. I am fussy about who I hang about with and keep clear of those who seem to attract drama or trouble. Keeping those people out of my life keeps drama and trouble out of my own life too - both online and in that thing called real life. So I value my friends highly, and when something like this happens and I lose one (which is very rare) it really shakes me up and I find it hard to deal with as I'm really not used to dealing with stuff like this.