VOLCANO MADNESS AND GIGS FOR POLITICS

ANYTHING can happen in the streets of Camden. We’ve had Madness on a double-decker bus, Reverend and the Makers’ Jon McClure playing outside Morrisons and now it’s the turn of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

To appease fans waiting outside the Electric Ballroom last week – their gig began late due to volcano-induced equipment delays – frontman Robert Levon Been came out and played a medley before returning inside and carrying on with borrowed equipment.

Resourceful musicians elsewhere have also been finding ways to occupy themselves while stranded.
Dub Pistols had to cancel their Budapest gig, but good news for London fans, they play a special DJ set at InSpiral lounge in Camden Town on Friday (April 23), free before 11pm.
Nas and Damian Marley’s Electric Ballroom gig on Wednesday was also cancelled.
Ronnie Scott’s has been deluged with calls from musicians with too much free time on their hands, hoping to replace vacant spaces where others have cancelled. In place of US trumpeter Wallace Roney, who couldn’t travel to the UK, two-time Grammy winner Dee Dee Bridgewater, stuck here since performing at the Barbican on Friday, was drafted in to perform in his place.

- If you can get hold of tickets for Instigate Debate at Islington’s Union Chapel (April 26) – this is one pre-election event not to miss. Instigate Debate is a counterculture project formed by a collective of musicians including Carl Barat and Jon McClure, plus journalist Mark Donne and John O’Sullivan. The likes of Vivienne Westwood and Peter Tatchell will be debating “Is the Party Over?”, with performances from The Magic Numbers and Rose Elinor. The audience member who writes the best 100-word argument on the topic wins a free gig in their own home from a surprise line-up of exciting musicians.

ACCIDENT PRONE DUB PISTOLS' BARRY ASHWORTH BARES HIS BUM FOR THE STUDENTS AND STEERS CLEAR OF BLUE SMARTIES

WHEREVER Dub Pistols' founder Barry Ashworth is, natural – and less natural - disasters seem to follow.
He played the World Trade Centre the day before the Twin towers were blown up, he was Djing at the Lock Tavern the night Camden Market went up in flames and he's recovering from breaking his foot after tripping on a giant concrete toad.


But the most embarrassing of his performing tales came when the band played for 1,600 students at a foam party in Inverness.
Barry said: “I jumped down off the stage into the crowd to sort of fire it up a bit. I slipped on the foam and knocked myself out cold under the suds. The security guy tried to grab me, threw me back on stage but they had hold of my trousers which fell down. I ended up laying there on hands and knees out cold with my bum sticking in the
air in front of the students.”
A story like this is nothing to Barry, who talks at 100 miles an hour and seems to relish the stories his life creates.
He said: “Natural disasters tend to follow me everywhere I go. I was in the Lock Tavern when Camden Market burned down. I was DJing, not quite believing what's going on, standing there thinking you're in the WWII blitz. It looked like the Great Fire of London. Standing on the top there, it was a pretty impressive sight.”
The band are mid-tour, Barry's about to board a plane back from Switzerland and he's weary of travelling.
He said: “Flying's the easy part, but I hate going to the airports and standing in a queue for hours because that's boring. Specially when you're doing places like America, one way to each city and you get searched so many times and so much grief. That's the worst part of the whole job - specially being in a band - they're always looking for drugs and it's always a worry that you never know what you've got where.”
The Dub Pistols play Koko with Nightmares on Wax and Trojan Soundsystem on Easter Sunday (April 4) and are promoting their fourth album Rum and Coke, named after their heady experiences recording in Barbados.


Barry said: “We've been headlining a festival out there for the last two years. Because of the cheap rum and coke we got ourselves in a lot of trouble so it's why the album's named after it. The rum and coke and sun just send you absolutely bonkers, some of the band had to be locked up in the house and not allowed out.
That's where the (Happy) Mondays fell apart - they sent them over to record the last album and that's where it all fell apart.”
They've recently released single Ganja, so named so as to avoid radio play – apparently.
Barry said: “People are saying why did you put out a song called Ganja? It was so we didn't have to put a soft pop song. Most of our recent stuff has been radio friendly songs and we knew a song called Ganja wasn't going to be radio friendly. We wanted to do a more viral thing. We've always been an underground band. We just wanted to take
it back underground for a bit.”
Ever the rule-breakers, he said the Pistols are not averse to a bit of backstage mischief: “On the NME nights, we'd break in backstage when a band's performing and steal all their riders, we'd take everything, clear the whole fridge out - Jack Daniels, vodka, champagne, wine.”
As for their own rider? “We ask for as much as we can possibly get away with, JD, vodka, Bacardi, Guinness, 48 beers, that'd be our standard rider. We don't ask for blue Smarties.”