Advice for those about to perform

Absolutely anyone is welcome to sing, play, read a poem. Some contributors are super-skilled and have been playing for years, others have never played in public before but the Dog audience is open-minded and, if need be, extremely charitable.

You don't need any equipment: if you prefer to play your own guitar (or other instrument) so be it but we'll always lend you a good guitar.

We keep trying to have a 3-song rule for each performer...so don't take it personally if we ask you to pack it in.

Dan, Emily or myself will always be happy to support you on guitar, bass, harmonica or with harmonious vocals - easiest if it's a well-known song or follows a standard chord pattern.

As you'll know many performances appear on the this boltonacoustics website and/or on Youtube. If you don't want recording just say so at the time. Where I've got some contact details I send MP3s to people to check that they're happy to have them posted. If you want a good copy of your video, have a word and we might be able to tranfer to your computer with a memory stick. If you ever want anything of yours removed from the Web, I'll happily delete it.

An announcement about the song is always useful for the audience... and even more useful for me if I'm wanting to put something on the Web - I'm pretty ignorant about music post 1975 and usually have to resort to googling odd snatches of lyrics (no use if you wrote the song yourself) ...however, intros along the lines of "I'm very, very drunk" are best avoided, as is "I haven't practised this one": both usually come under the heading of stating the obvious.