It is with a heavy heart and a weeping eye (although this may be due to conjunctivitis), that I write to tell you that The High Barnets have mutually and amicably decided to put the band on ice after the end of this year.
However, we will of course, be playing all of the gigs we already have booked. These forthcoming dates will also serve as the band’s swansong and we can promise that they will be right up there as some of the best ones we have ever played. Watch this space for future dates!

For ten rockingly-rollicking years, the mighty Barnets have spanned the globe and delivered their brand of trouser-browning noise to quite literally, hundreds of people.
From the very first ever gig for the Tonbridge Wells branch of the Julie Garland Appreciation Society (as a favour for Toni), via the countless pubs and clubs that have put up with our racket, we have loved every bloody minute.

Being in The High Barnets has bought me my fair share of fame and fortune. As I look out from 12 berth sunseeker yacht moored off the glittering coastline of Monte Carlo, I reflect on some of the fantastic gigs what we have done. There was the EA Games’ Christmas party in Madrid; two annual Pharmaceutical Advertising awards bashes at Park Lane’s Grosvenor Hotel; the Hersham Beer Festivals. We have played countless fantastic weddings. There has also been the odd birthday party (and I mean odd). Yet whatever the venue and occasion, we have always given it 100%.

So what next for The Barnets? Well, we all have other projects and hobbies we want to pursue. I have signed up with a lookalikes agency called ‘Oy! Wellah!’ as a Peter Beardsley-alike. If you hire myself and Kenny as Gene Hunt off Ashes to Ashes, or as Homer Simpson’s dad, you get one of us half price.
Stormy is taking the opportunity to really take his smoking seriously. He has never been the same since the smoking ban in pubs, but he remains one of the greatest sticksmen in Hersham.
Ever the romantic, Mark is moving onto a houseboat which he plans to gently float up and down the canals of France as a David Essex, Romany type, nursing injured swans, grebes and moorhens back to rude health.
As for Toni, he has taken up acting. A lifelong passion of his, he is appearing in his first stage role this Christmas. He will be found treading the boards at the Tonbridge Wells Palladium with Christopher Biggins, “He’s behind you!”

Seriously though, I can honestly say that these past 10 years with The Barnets have personally given me some of the best times of my life. Not only have I had the chance to play some of the greatest music ever written, (not by us, obviously!) but it has been with four of the funniest, most talented blaggers I have ever known. Sometimes, this quartet of musical morons would have me laughing so hard, the tears would be rolling down my face and piss down my trouser leg.
The High Barnets were not only the best band; they are my best friends.

As for the future? It’s all very amicable so who knows? One balmy summer evening you may find yourself strolling past some seedy, rundown social club. You may hear a muffled racket from within and enter to investigate. Maybe, just maybe, the five figures fannying about on stage and having the time of their lives may look a little familiar… Never say never!

Before I start crying like a little schoolgirl, I would like to take this opportunity to give thanks to everyone who has ever followed us and supported us and even paid us for the privilege. There are too many of you to mention, but you know who you are!
So if you can, come and grab us at one of our last gigs for the foreseeable so that we can say goodbye in style!

I can’t believe a year has gone by since our last entry on www.highbarnets.co.uk!
Much has happened since we last spoke. Put the kettle on, crack open the hobnobs and pull up a chair while I tell you all about it. Milk and nine sugars please!

Following an unusually slow end of 2009, The Barnets are ecstatic to report that some prestige gigs are slowly rolling into sight. Keep ‘em peeled for details.

The first of these super gigs took place at the newly re-furbished Watermans Arms in Hersham. A capacity crowd dribbled and danced their little trotters off late into the night and we are sure that we will be back there again soon.

Thanks, once again to Neil and all at the The PM Society for having us play at the annual awards ceremony for the second time. The Grosvenor House Hotel was throbbing to the sound of 1500 guests in all their finery, getting down and dirty to the Barnets. A fantastic afternoon.

In a complex and groundbreaking operation, Kenny has had to octopuses (octopi?) grafted onto his wrists. Instead of the usual pound of King Edwards that used to poke out of his shirt cuffs, he now has two nimble octopi so he can fly about the fret board like Usain Bolt with the shits.

Finally, it is with a heavy heart that I have to report a tragic loss from Camp Barnet.
After a long and illustrious career with The High Barnets, Toni’s religion revealing, checked slacks are now officially too tight for him.

Everybody’s favourite one-handed keyboard botherer first noticed a problem 3 months ago when, following a particularly complex tambourine manoeuvre, the button popped open, revealing the top of his red mowgli pants. Closer inspection showed an angry, button-shaped imprint on his gut, a sure sign of trouser stress fatigue.
For three long months, Toni soldiered on with the slacks, resorting to just doing the zipper up and pulling his t-shirt over the exposed pubic area, but after a long, brave fight, Toni conceded. It was all over.

However, the trouser’s memory lives on. In a moving ceremony, Toni handed the prized pantaloons down to his partner’s son and part-time roadie, Ashley.
“It’s very sad and I think I was in denial for a long time.” sniffed Toni as he reminisced over his loss “I just had to face the fact that we had grown apart.” whispered the deceptively skinny, fat ivory stroker.

TONI’S TROUSERS – R.I.P. 2007 – 2010