Tom Robinson, Roddy Frame and beer. -

Sunday was a drinking day. We started off early, grabbing a breakfast at the Brixton Lounge before heading off to the Battersea Arts Centre for Tom Robinson’s annual private party/charity shindig.

In case you’ve not heard of the fella, Tom Robinson led new wave legends the Tom Robinson Band in the 70s and 80s. The band were reknown for their strong political ideals and were heavily involved in gay rights and Rock Against Racism.

Tom now does a nightly show on BBC Radio 6 and – I’m delighted to say – he’ll also be DJing at the next Offline night in Brixton on the 27th January! Woohoo!

We got to the gig at just gone 2pm and Tom was already way into his first set – a storming collection of tunes old and new. In fact, one of his new tunes – an angry, embittered, vitriolic attack on the morality of the Iraq war – was vintage TRB.

Original punkster TV Smith from The Adverts put in a lively acoustic set, with original performances from the “Mancunican near-do-well” Lee Griffiths and a witty collection of rap tunes from QBoy, ‘the UK’s Hottest Gay Rapper’. Kudos to him for cheekily naming his first release, ‘Even the Women Like Him’.

We got quietly drunk at the afternoon wore on, but the biggest treat was an acoustic set from Roddy Frame (ex-Aztec Camera) which was absolutely stunning. Roddy’s been one of my heroes since I was a kid and he didn’t disappoint – and he even played Oblivious from the magical High Land, Hard Rain album. (I just love this line: “I see you crying and I want to kill your friends.”).

By the time Tom Robinson had finished the second half of the set we were already well pissed – so foolishly decided to carry on drinking!

We stumbled into the Prince of Wales, Clapham, a mad old pub with bits of metal, dinner plates, signs and other sundry items dangling from the ceiling.

A few beers later we crawled into the Albert, drank some more beer and then it all became a bit of a blur.

But my head sure hurts today and make no mistake!