Amber Joy and the Holy Men, that's who. And they're off to the West to prove it. But first....

Another instalment in "The epistles from Paul the dead merchant banker now residing in 668, Hellsbottom Rd, Hades  – the Neighbour of The Beast."
Or: How I got back at Satan.

Dear Cousin Fuknuckle (he writes),

Been having trouble sleeping lately because of the horrific yelling and banging coming from the house next door, Number 666, Hellsbottom drive, Hades. Satan’s joint.
The current situation harks back some week to when I loaned my lawnmower to Satan – like any good neighbour would - and he sent it back with a bent crankshaft and buckled blade disc. Do you think I could get it repaired or any spare parts? Not a fukken chance in Hell! There was nothing for me to do but to put it out for the hard rubbish collection.
Then, lo and be-fukken-hold what do I hear In the middle of the night but some bastard rooting around in my rubbish pile and bugger me if I don’t see that turd from 666 romping off with my dead Victa.
Then, last Saturday morning, I’m lying on me banana lounge in the back yard when I hear the blasted Victa fire up as good as new next door. I sticks me head over the fence and there’s Satan, happy as you like, turning his grass into lawn with my fukked victa – now going like a sewing machine.
“I thought that was fukked,” I sez
“It was,” sez Satan. “.. but after you threw it away I fixed it.”
“How?”
“Come with me, neighbour,” sed Satan with a wicked smile.
I hopped the fence and followed the Bastard.
“Welcome to Satan’s Toolshed,” beamed the old Goat as he kicked away the death adder doormat and flung open the shed door.
I stood at the portal, transfixed. It was a gleaming, surgically clean, workshop – nay – a clinical laboratory of tools and machines. There was every tool and hardware device you could imagine. Every wall was a pegboard and every tool was neatly hung or mounted. There were gleaming cupboards, shelves, benches and drawers bristling with machines, tools and hardware stuff.
“Yes,”  Satan laughed, “There is nothing more complete than Satan’s Toolshed… my pride and joy. I have a tool to fix anything and everything in here. I could even repair Tony Abbot’s reputation in a thrice but that would be like fixing something made in China – it was never any good and will only get busted again! However… fixing your busted lawnmower was a piece of rancid piss! And now it is MINE!  MMMMWWWhaahahahahahah. Now, get your eyes off my tools and fuk off!,” Satan sed, blasting spit in my eye.
“Ahhh, shaddup,” I muttered and left, with Satan’s horrible laugh echoing in my head.  
“By the way,” he sez, "I’m going up to Hell’s Gate for the weekend; taking the mower to trim the grass around the shack, so you can have these….” and he chucked over the goats he had been using to nibble his grass.
“MMMMMMWhahahahahahahahahaha….”
Fuk ‘im and his fukken toolshed, I thought. I could get in there and wreck the joint or steal some tools but he’d know it was me. Then, I had a better idea. An idea that meant I didn’t have to do anything but simply write a note. When Satan had departed for his shack I put on some wellington boots to stomp on the toolshed’s death adder door mat, made a few scratches around the lock and hung my note then I pissed on the note causing the writing to smear.. There it is, over there…
If it doesn’t seem to make sense just wait: Satan gets home Sunday evening and goes to put the lawnmower back in the shed. He reads the note well... he tries to. I hear a mighty hellish yell: “WHAT????” I hear the shed door yanked open, I hear Satan storming up and down, back and forth inside his tools shed, I hear yelling, swearing, a slamming of doors and drawers and I’m pissing myself.
I Her: “Hey you…neighbour! Did you borrow any of my tools?”
Wrong question because I answer truthfully: Nope.
Had he asked if I had anything to do with this I might be stuck telling fibs to Satan. Anyway, the silly old Goat storms around the whole neighbourhood asking the same question and getting bewildered negative responses. Then he goes back to the shed and, for the past four days and nights he has been re-reading that note to try to discover what was borrowed and who borrowed it. And then he gets back to doing a complete Satans' Toolshed inventory to try to discover what might be ‘missing”. And every time he screams, roars or slams doors and drawers in frustration he wakes me up and I start pissing myself laughing again.
I’ll keep you posted,
Yours in Hell, you jelly-bellied cousin Paul
Here endeth the secondeth epistle of Paul, the Merchant Banker in Hades.

I suppose I should tell you about some gigs.

Turkey Ranchero will be gobbling off punters on Thursday, February 17, in the front bar of the Gov. Be there at 8.30 to see wattle be happening.

Friday night, February 18 you can catch Sweet Baby James and Rob Eyers at the Whitmore Hotel, Morphett Street, the City.  It's a double voodoo double up with the dynamic duo stomping up a storm of blues and roots. Get along for the fun.

And also on Friday the 18th of February Hoy Hoy! will be rocking at The Semaphore Workers Club. The Semaphore Workers Club is the home of Blues and Roots music in SA.

Now, about that country stuff... Rohan Powell and Amber Joy Poulton will be propped up in front of the Walking The Line Band to do a mighty big show at the Boyupbrook Country Music Festival in WA on Friday. This is the biggest festival in the western state and one onf the top five in Australia. Other shows on the weekend prograkmme will  feature Amber Joy and The Holy Men doing numerous performances of the country queen's album which has produced three chart hits last and this year.

That's all I have... if you have a gig... send it in...NOW!

This week the Cat's Pyjamas host a fun Thursday evening of Rock and roll and whatever at the Gaslight Tavern, Brompton, but meanwhile, here's a few words from our sponsor:

I needed to get away – I owe people money that I haven’t got yet – so I cranked up the time machine for another journey down the Time-ime-ime Tunnel-unnel-unnel (that's it on the left) until, well until something happens like the people go away or they crash into a mountain while free-basing pavlova in their Piper Commanche or something. Anyway, I jumped into the converted Leyland P76 time machine (right) and hit the Boogle-backwards button. Choosing a short regression I threw out the anchors at 1812 and grazed the smoke-belching chimneys of Britain looking for a good spot to park the wagon.  With an erratic knowledge of history as an advantage, I landed the P76 Time Machine in Cornwall and immediately started up a tin mine down on the rocky coast near Redruth.
I had dug about eighty fathoms down and a league to the left and a chain to the right right when my shovel wore out. Needing a new digging implement I hired an ex-Yorkshire miner Toby Thikshite as an assistant and, instead of wages, I made him a partner. The ‘working’ partner.
“Oi never been tin mining,” Toby sed, “… but I were up York in a copper mine. Got enough out of it to make up the whole East Riding Police Force but I quit when one of the buggers nicked me for takin’ me ‘orse in t'pub because it were raining. Weren’t t’horse what were raining, t’were t’outside what were raining. But I said that’s enough coppers so oim down ‘ere now.”
I gave him a pick and shovel, a miners hat and made him carry the blasting fuse. No sense the boss taking risks with explosives.
“ ‘Ere,” he says when we was a bushel and a peck along the new tunnel, “Oi’ve wrapped t’fuse round me tum but t’end of it keeps flapping round me knees…”
“you can stick it up your arse as far as I’m concerned. Now pick up that shovel and start shifting this overburden…”
“ ‘Ere,”  Toby said, “…what’s that you’ve turned up there?”
“It’s tin,”  I said, inspecting the lump. “It’s a tin of baked beans – in tomato sauce.”
I gave the wall of rock and other whack and it looked like we were in the tin business.

“By Gum, look at that sparkle in the lamplight,” sed Toby. “You’ve hit the fookin’ motherload! We’ll be fookin’ rich!”
It sure looked like it. “Well spotted and, er... well-noted, Toby,” I sez. “Lets take a break and celebrate.”
We hauled a bunch of tins out into the light and had a feast.
“Ahhh, that were grand," sed Toby, patting his hugely-distended stomach while rolling his buttocks to ease out a freshly bean-fuelled botty-burp.
“Yes, 'partner', I think we’ll do allright out of this tin mine; here’ roll yourself a cigarette,”  I sed, tossing him the makings.
“Ta, lad,”  he sez, “…but oi’ve got a tailor made here.”
Well, it weren’t a tailor made, were it?. It were t’end of the blasting fuse.  And once lit, it fizzed madly around him half a dozen times and before he knew what was happening the fizz had darted up his ringpiece.
You know about baked beans and flatulence? Well, consider the flatulence built up in Toby’s bat cave after a dozen tins of baked beans.  Lucky I still had on me miner’s hat because when Toby’s guts exploded his brass belt buckle whizzed through the air like a bullet and slammed into me metal hat.
Still… I was now the sole owner of a lucrative Cornish tin mine and could afford a new hat – in fact, I bought a lovely Norfolk Tweed cap to wear to pub in t’evening an’ all. The mine and I prospered and together we went on to kill many hundreds more employees through mine floodings, cave-ins and rampant pleurisy. If it wasn’t for a sad fact that, in the unforseen future at that time I lost every fukken penny on the great stock market crash of 1869, I would still be living off the proceeds and wouldn’t have to go skiving off down the Time-ime-ime Tunnell-unnel-unnel whenever the bailiffs and cranky friends come knocking.
But I’m back now and begging you to come out to some gigs so I can get a few bucks to pay for me kiddies’ private education. And their new Merc. And driver. And i-fukken-pads.

Wednesday evening at the Whitmore you can see and hear the mellifluous Mike Barnes and the Shades of Blue Band. I don’t know how many shades of blue they are or if they bleed into some of the other colours like ultramarine or ultraviolent. You'll have to see for yourself.

  Thursaday evening, February 10, The Cats’ Pyjamas will be hosting and evening of RockenRoll and other stuff at the Gaslight Tavern, Brompton.  There’s a big space in the middle of the evening for performers to grab the attention of the surging, pulsating masses (that bit reminds me of The Blob). So, if you got talent – bring it along and show it off. If you have a harmonica or a soprano sax … bring them along too – we’ve got a skip that’s going to the dump on the weekend and it needs topping up.

Friday, February 11 Blues Avenue Duo is going to the Regatta. A nice early show at the Convention Centre noshsing pit should see the lads home in bed with cocoa and a good book before the cockroaches creep out from under the fridge.

Saturday… February the 12th it’s Pan!c at the Daniel O’Connell Hotel in North Adelaide. We don’t play Jimmy Barnes and we don’t play Joe Cocker or Sting or any of that shit by them fukkers on the Numpty Radio Stations. We play… we play…. Well, we play other shit. See you there for a 9 pm blast off.