Big thanks to Thatchers and Pirroni for a bubbly bank hols!

Dear Scratchers, we just wanted to give you a little update of what happened last bank holiday!

First and excitingly! Big thanks to Jordan of recharged radio who during his Friday evening radio show played guest monthly host Marco Pirroni of Adam and the Ants, Siouxsie and the Banshees and now Wolfmen fame, our track Teen idol (B-side of You want the world and track on the new album), which Marco said rocked! Jordan has subsequently made the track his single of the week! What a start to the hols!

Which continued on Saturday with a visit to the West Country, to the village of Atworth to be more exact, just down the road from ‘Baronsville’, to play a gig at the White Hart pub.

What a great night and equally great hangovers to boot! That Harvest Gold sure is frickin strong!

So why Atworth? – Well, every year it seems the Baron’s surrounding villages seem to put on gigs on 45 foot trailers?!? and this year it was the turn of Atworth, this however was a little different in that we’d been asked to play an unprecedented 2x45 minute sets, (the kinda thing covers bands do every week) and probably amounts to about 14 songs, (we took the challenge on the promise of free beer/cider and board, but with The Scratch not being a band with an array of 5 minute tracks, we found ourselves with a huge 28 song line up including 2 or 3 songs we hadn't played live for years!)

As we strode out onto the decidedly chilly stage, we couldn’t have expected such a great evening. The crowd though not the biggest, on account of said freezing summer weather, was perfectly formed and well up for The Scratch history lesson!

Some excellent sound (thanks James) made for a thoroughly exciting performance, as the goose pimples out numbered the chattering teeth 10 to 1! In a set that as previously stated that spanned most the bands life, there were always going be a few hiccups, ‘Filthy’s’ lack of a stage monitor meant a slightly more subdued performance from the self styled ‘jack in a box’ during the first set but apart from that old faves like ‘Rotten Soul’ and ‘Alcohol's a depressant’ made triumphant returns to the fold!

Buoyed by the warmth of the crowd reaction, the second set was stacked with all the current hits! Including the aforementioned ‘Teen idol’ (the song everyone is talking about) plus closing album track ‘Too busy thinking bout me’ and ‘Beach Boysesque slowie’ ‘Freaks of the daylight all got welcome airings as the crowd enthusiastically danced the cold away dizzy on a mix of rock’n’roll and apple rocket fuel! (ask the Baron) who slipped into a cider psychosis during ‘Critical Mass’ after downing a pint in one at the half time break! From which he never truly recovered… (Is that the trees a rustling or the hinges on the gate? Or John an Grim’s room key in the Baron’s jacket pocket?!)

With the job now well done, after what was definitely our best and most enjoyable foray to the South West so far!!, it was time for the rest of the band to get on the Thatchers and trash that bar tab!!!

Big thanks goes to everyone who made it such a great and welcoming gig/night especially Katie and Nathan for booking us! Filthy’s dads amazing salesman friend who turned water to wine after and managed to empty the bulging ‘merch bag’ in 10 minutes flat! And finally, we can't go without mentioning the human beatbox rap experience that the two guys put on in the car park, truly mind blowing! If only we’d had a Ponyland contract on us, we’d have made a signing there and then. If we find out who they are we'll let u know... all we know is the ‘beatbox’ was in a band called Bedmonster… Watch this space!

xxx