Another dep drummer arrives - welcome to Martyn Mayger

31st March 2008 - Anyone who has seen us in the last few months will know what sterling work Chris Sharley has been doing in the deps drum stool, for which we are very grateful and enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately his heavy commitments with The Chrissy Mathews Band et al means that it is getting hard to find dates that we are all available for. To this end we have been fortunate indeed to enlist the services of Martyn Mayger, drumming since 1974 and currently rocking the house with rock & roll band BackBeat56. Between his schedule and Chris' we hope to keep things moving untill we can find somebody who is crazy enough to want to do it full time.

Drummer Update

27th December 2007 - Response to our drummer wanted ad have been very good, see here for how things are progressing.

Drummer Required

5th October 2007 - Jobs in Travelling Shoes don't come up very often (Chris had to wait 20 years) so golden opportunity for any drummers out there as Mick prepares to emmigrate.

Return to the Nags Head

5th October 2007 - Travelling Shoes return to the Nags Head, High Wycombe (as if you didn't know...) since it reopened on Friday 19th Ocotber 2007. This will be in the downstairs bar, which will be voyage home for us and more intimate than doing the upstairs which is currently being soundproofed. Tom is trying hard with the Nags so lets show him what it used to be like.

First gig in Windsor for over 16 years!

19th August 2007 - The Slough/Windsor area used to be "home turf" for Travelling Shoes with residencies at venues like the Wheatsheaf and the Christopher but the current incarnation has yet to put in an appearance there - untill now. The 3 Elms, Clarence Road (on the left on the Deadworth Road) has been booked for the 15th September for a kind of come back special. We worked out that it has probably been over 16 years since we played in that area (memories are shakey but consensus of opinion seems to be the Windsor Arts Centre?) so we want to make it a good 'un. So far the Wycombe fans have done us proud but now it's the turn of the Slough mob. You kept asking us when we were going to do it and now we are - come along and tell all your friends. See you there! Back there again on 3rd November.

Nigel Foster gets in touch

25th May 2007 - Nigel Foster, who played harmonica with Travelling Shoes Mk2, has been in touch having spotted the website. He is alive and well and living in the Isle of Wight. In his email Nigel recollects "I have some fond memories of the band, like hurtling up the A40 from Putney to play at the Nag's Head...........for a tenner!! Now that's dedication...or insanity!". Nigel also sent a copy of the original artwork for the cassette version of one of the Travelling Shoes Mk2 live recordings.

Nigel is still playing and is currently playing harmonica and singing in Isle of White outfit the Contrabluesband.

New gigs for May

16th April 2007 - After a short holiday from gigging Travelling Shoes are off playing again, see gigs for where and when, hopefuly more to follow

Nags Head re opens

March 2007 - Biggest news of the year has to be the re opening of the Nags Head, including the Blues Loft - "Lets bring back the old times..." says the hand written poster out side. We went for a look, you won't recognise the downstairs bar but the upstairs is pretty much the same. They seem to be trying to appeal to 3 different audiences from what we saw, the old live music crowd with bands ranging from blues to punk tribute upstairs, the student crowd with a disco till 2am and a few of the more recent cross dressing regulars....you can't please all of the people all of the time so somethings gotta give. Also when we went the had NO BITTER (you have been warned) and the upstairs bar wasn't open. The landlord says he was working on both of these problems.

UPDATE - Blues Factory played there last saturday (14/4/07) and because of complaints from the neighbours about noise were having to play at the bar end of the room - I would have thought this would have just directed the sound staright at them but what do I know. Noise complaints from the neighbours was one of the reasons the Nags closed in the first place, along with limited parking and it was predictable that it wouldn't be any better this time around. Landlord Tom has got his work cut out for him to make a go of it but I for one wish him the best of luck! (and yes, we have been asked to play but I think we will see how it goes for a while).

Another gig at the Belle Vue

4th February 2007 - A new date for your diary, Travelling Shoes are playing the Belle Vue, High Wycombe on Saturday 24th February 2007. The last gig at the Belle Vue was packed and the band played up a storm, this should be no exception so come early! Travelling Shoes are unlikely to be gigging in March so your last chance to see them for a wee while.

Belle Vue Photos

1st February 2007 - Photos of the gig at the Belle Vue, High Wycombe, on the 9th December 2006 by Rupe and Richard Stevens are now available on the Live Pix page.

70 Shilling T Shirt

27th January 2007 - No, not the new (and very tasteful) Travelling Shoes T shirt (see below), but the original 1980s shirt. The origins of the phrase and a picture of an original T shirt are now on the Odds & Sods page.

New gigs for the New Year

27th December 2006 - Mick is out trawling for gigs for the new year, early reports suggests the Plough and Harrow somewhere near Bracknell on the 6th January as the first. Sorry that's a bit vague but I wanted to get it up before I went away for new year - more details when I get them on the Gigs page.

Pheasant gig pix

27th December 2006 - Once again Rupe has done us proud (and put me to shame as I haven't even got the Belle Vue photos up never mind the Pheasant) with a series of great photos of the gig at the Pheasant, High Wycombe on the 23rd.

T Shirts now available

20th December 2006 - A batch of very tasteful Travelling Shoes T shirts have been printed and should be available at the gig at the Pheasant on the 23rd December and subsequent gigs. They feature yellow printing on a dark red quality shirt and are available in a variety of sizes - price £10.

Wycombe Midweek

20th December 2006 - Did you see the wee featurette on Travelling Shoes in todays Midweek? Some kind words and a nice picture of the band taken by Rupe (of rupes gig guide) at the gig at the Belle Vue (see below for more on Rupes Belle Vue photos)

Belle Vue gig photos

18th December 2006 - Rupes gig guide featured some 30 photos he took at the Belle Vue on the 9th December.Rupe has kindly given us permission to reproduce some of them on this site, which I hope to get done over the Crimbo period (now done) along with pictures taken by Richard Stevens and any others people would care to send in.

Live pictures added

10th December 2006 - A few snaps of the gig at the Gate 2/12/06, hopefuly more to follow of later gigs

Another date for December

22nd November 2006 - Another date for your diary, Saturday 23rd December at the Pheasant, High Wycombe. Promises to be a cracker!

Travelling Shoes - Back on the road!

19th November 2006 Biggest Shoes news of the year has to be the return to gigging, after several years, of Travelling Shoes! Once again the pubs and venues of South Bucks and beyond will rock to that distinctive blues and harmony guitar sound of classic Travelling Shoes.

Largely the classic line up of Julian Furniss, Dave Hall and Mick Smiles plus new boy Chris Wright taking on the the onerous duties of rhythm and harmony guitar (see the biography for more details on the line up and how Chris came onto the scene). A few gigs have been booked at some familair venues (see gigs) so why not come along and support the boys and have a damn good night out into the bargain. Live music in this area has been starting to pick up again recently and now it's time to really get the ball rolling - see you there!

Demo recording

5th November 2006 Travelling Shoes sighted doing a spot of demo recording to try out a few new harmony guitar pieces and check the equipment and some of the back catalogue. It's sounding good, damn good.....

Jules spotted at Red Lion

October 2006 - A rare sighting of the the lesser spotted Jules at the Red Lion jam night.

Jules got up to play three numbers (obligatory fag in mouth) with among others Bob the Valve (valve amp wizard extrodinaire - see links) and Matt .

Could this be a first sign of returning to regular gigging? Watch this space...

Photo kindly provided (and copyright) by Rupert of Rupes Gig Guide - see link below for details of South Bucks/Berks gigs and a few more phots of Jules in action