If you write about your local music scene for long enough the same things tend to crop up again and again.
After all, even though it is the Kiwi habit, not all bands split up after recording their first album. Some of them just keep going. I remember an editor I worked with at a completely different paper around fifteen years ago telling me: 'No more Hard To Handle stories – I've heard enough about those guys.”
And, in all honesty, I felt much the same. Little did I think that I'd still be writing about them well into this new millennium.
I guess it would be like writing for a paper in a small town where, say, the Rolling Stones came from. For the first couple of years it would be fun to record their adventures. After a decade you'd be lost for a new angle unless Mick Jagger got naked and set fire to his lips on stage. After the first thirty years you're praying that someone has another relapse (you've only written the 'Stone Goes To Rehab” article a dozen or so times) and wondering if a touch of rheumatism in Charlie Watt's left leg constitutes a new story.

But Hard To Handle do have a new album out. Well pretty much. It's the live album they recorded last year and is – as far as I can tell – probably in shops. It is, if you like good solid pub blues rock playing with intensity and excitement, really damn good. And they're launching it at a gig at The Colosseum next Friday (December 5).
And, let me say, I'm actually pretty happy to be writing about it. After all, it hasn't been the most productive year for local albums. It has, instead, been rather quiet. I just got hold of a copy of the new debut album from local metal-heads Metal Tower (which is anything but quiet), which we'll review very soon, but other than Kokomo's In The Well CD and left-field offerings from Dave Roy and the Tangible Titans there's been a bit of a drought in the Bay.
So bit of nostalgia isn't a bad thing.
And that's what it is I guess. When Hard To Handle recorded their live album, a year and a half ago now, it was a wild night down at The Colosseum. The place was packed, mainly with people who remembered the band from their few years together in the late eighties. To hear them still sounding so fresh and good was a buzz that most who heard them won't forget in a hurry.
Brilleaux also played that night and recorded their live album at the same show, which is kinda remarkable – two live albums from one concert.
But whereas Brilleaux released their CD in record time – a staggering five days from the night it was recorded – Hard To Handle moved at the usual Hard To Handle pace and, eighteen months after that reunion gig, they are finally ready for another reunion.
And things promise to be much the same as they were back in March 2007. Once again Brilleaux will be playing and, once again, the night will feature a roster of special guests, including Grant Haua's new band Moss, various members of Kokomo and the esteemed Ritchie Picket jamming the night away.
Tickets, so word has it, are selling fast from Mayers Music (at the Mount), The Colosseum, and Bay City Music. They cost $20. The live album will, naturally, be available for sale on the night.
Moving right along, I wanted to give you a heads up about another blues rock release next week. Auckland's Darcy Perry Band have been hard at it in Montage Studios over the past few months and the result is their new CD Phoenix. This marks some what of a departure from Heavy Rain and previous albums as four band members are now writing and sharing lead vocal duties.
I'll be having a more in-depth look at it in the next couple of weeks but, in the meantime, the band are celebrating its launch by offering it as a free download on amplifier.co.nz. It's yours for gratis from December 1 for two weeks.