Imagine an empty room, underlit, with a door at the far end under which light creeps from the world outside. There is a PC there, and the screen is full of words. You move a little closer to read what it is trying to tell you.
(In the dark days to come, men (oh, and women of course. Yes, probably women. Almost certainly women too) will gather together and quaff fermented alcohol products, and speak in hushed tones of those who came before, of the bards and poets who wrought their words with fine distinction and weaved their subtle moods upon the very air itself…)
Or, alternatively, they might take a swig from a glass of flat cola and talk about the last time the FaB Club showed up at the Orsett Cock, on a sweltering afternoon in the middle of June. Yeah, that seems more likely.
So let’s do it.
Several Guitars and a Poem or Two –
FaB Club ‘Mini-Special’
Reviewer’s Note - It has taken a while to sort this review out, and to work up to something which does the occasion any sort of justice – the last time that FaB convened at the junction of the A13 and the A128 before pushing off for pastures new. Now that we seem to have a new home, somewhere in the floodlands of deepest Grays, it’s time to look back on the Day It All Changed…
So here we are again, FaB Club in the Purple Room at the Orsett Cock for the last time, before the imminent sale and likely refurbishment of the building render it unsuitable, and we have to take our esteemed custom (and significant alcohol consumption) somewhere else.
I’d half expected the place to be packed out, but of course it doesn’t help that we’ve clashed with Father’s Day, which has rather thinned out the numbers a bit – never mind, those of us that have shown up are more than ready to make this a memorable last stand.
Claudine advises everyone to watch their email boxes for news of where we wind up next. It’s way, way too hot for comfort but the only available fan drowns everything else out and has to be shut down within a sentence or two of the opening announcements.
The stage area is already full, lots of guitars stacked up like an armoury, a couple of amps lurking under the shelf waiting to be deployed (subtly of course), and now Barbara moves the place into action, welcoming everyone to the last session before the summer break and introducing…
Len, who opens a very mixed afternoon of music (or is that an afternoon of very mixed music?) with Hurt – a song which started off with Nine Inch Nails via Johnny Cash – well there’s an interesting pedigree. Len mentions that he was looking for a song for this afternoon and this one was suggested by his daughter.
I notice that even the pub cat has come out for a look around at this strange assemblage – hello puss! - but promptly disappears when the applause kicks in.
I’m sure I remember Smallville using this at the end of a particularly catastrophic episode – a dark song with a Dylanesque strum. Really, we might have been better to end on this one – surrounded by empty tables and a stage full of chairs (but maybe I’m thinking far too cinematically today). You’ll not be surprised to hear that it’s a dark and despairing, angry song with a plaintive vocal - “If I can start again/many miles away” – now THAT’s appropriate too…
Anyway, and by way of contrast, Len then moves to For No One - one of the comparatively lesser known Beatles tunes (IS there such a thing as a lesser known Beatles tune?) – which is lighter and more melodic and he delivers it well.
Next witness – Mike – who opens up with the FaB Club Birthday Song – a definite house favourite. He asks us to cast our minds back to February – all the food deployed around the room, including Claudine’s favourite – sausage rolls (don’t ask). It was FaB’s first birthday and this song was sung with great gusto by all those present. This time around it gets another rousing performance, with a slight update to “I can’t believe that it has been a year (and a half)”! Sort of a Very Merry Unbirthday, I guess. Is there no end to the weird and wonderful references I can come up with this afternoon? Well, we hope so.
MCG – no, it’s not the Melbourne Cricket Ground (whose folk pedigree might be a little difficult to justify) but the next act is combination of Mike, Claudine (and me!) to back up and support each other’s songs. In this case, it’s Vote for Me - a song of Mike’s inspired by an evening watching the Eurovision Song Contest. It lifts the mood but Claudine manages to break a string again – not the first time she says – and features a quick interpolation and impression of one Gina G (ah, that’s the Australian connection again).
Well THAT’s driven up the chaos count.
Next comes Alan Neville – who had the unenviable task last time of making his first appearance (and singing a memorable song about Prince Kevin and Princess Sharon) while the entire audience were tucking into Claudine’s birthday cake.
We are far more attentive this time and the songs are well worth the attention – well played and with clever wordplay which holds the conceit of the songs together. Alan complains that he’s arrived just as we are leaving – don’t worry, we’ll leave a forwarding address!
His first song, Waltz and All, features careful playing behind a strong and evocative voice. The music of the middle eight sounds a little like Ralph McTell but is none the worse for that.
His second song, For The Want of Trying, has the capo migrating up from third fret to fifth fret as we migrate to warmer climes (are there any warmer climes than Orsett today? – it doesn’t feel like it!!). He introduces it as an old West Indian song that he wrote 4 weeks ago (“as you do”) – and we are into a calypso rhythm, hearing about Keith Richard up in the coconut tree (and Ozzy Osbourne on the quad bike). “Old rockers never die/but it isn’t for the want of trying” – similarly, I suppose, old guitarists never die they simply fret away (argh).
Call the next act – and it’s Margaret Lady Formby, fresh back from
She opens with a request - Leaning On A Lamp Post – because someone has claimed she doesn’t play it enough. We are driven along by that jokey and jaunty banjo ukelele sound again. Hello, ghost chorus again. Hang about - how does she fit in all the words at that speed? No doubt that she doesn’t do this one enough – book it now, someone!
Another request - Carina Carina - and we’re keeping the mood up in the jovial again. Margaret’s style is not easy to describe as she has a deeper singing voice than you might expect but it’s none the less ideal to carry a singalong – always confident and upbeat – and it’s certainly doing the job here.
Brian – comes on to supplement Margaret’s tropical moment with a couple of pieces but he immediately decides to give us two songs of which the second song comes first and the first then fills the space – and while we are working THAT one out we wind up about as far from Trinidad as you can get – yes, it’s whippet racing in Northumberland. What’s going on? No, we’re even further away than that. Blue Wing is a sad song about – a dispossessed Eskimo. The guitar work involves up tempo picking with a dead thumb, carrying a gentle wandering song, with people locked away and wanting to escape and fly to something better. It gets a bit macabre when the decedent starts talking back during the funeral service, but maybe it’s just that sort of day!
Racing Whippets – ah, back to the whippets – a very light and unaccompanied song involving various amorous adventures with local ladies while their respective husbands/partners are “away racing whippets/with the lads from down the street”. And it’s all because of a faulty latch – never mind, try again next week!
A Short Break arrives. No, this is not another act (interesting name for a band, though!) just a way of highlighting the interval. The bar does good business, as does the other place, with much stumbling over those who are tuning up in the alcove outside. Everyone else has decanted to the garden to get some air.
Then it’s all back inside for the Steve O’Kane (& Fiona McBain) Mini Special
Steve starts out by commenting that we are a bit short handed – but as mentioned it IS Fathers Day, so don’t take it personally! – and that he has a ½ hr set to fill, so explains that he will be talking a little about where some of the songs came from instead of cramming in as many songs as possible – so it will be a unique experience!
Station Café – Steve explains that back in the 60s he used to write poetry and wait for a connection at Upminster Station – and that was a cold place to wait – although not necessarily at the same time. This is the first poem that he subsequently turned into a song. He delivers it with a vaguely velvety voice – and a carpeted fingerstyle backing with occasional breaks in a very minor mode, with lots of Am and G. Fiona has a delicate in line ghosting backing vocals while Steve has an eye for detail, evoking the cold and damp of the waiting room, with the shadow of a relationship in the background.
Suitcase of Dreams – We learn that the CD is the first official release and is intended to track the ‘so far’ material – the next one will be new stuff, and this special is full of stuff from the CD. This song comes from his late 30s, when he took his first flight (and on the way back, first night flight) to visit his brother in the States. Incidentally, this would have been the title track before the eventual title blagged its way in! It’s sung with a lilting tone, guitar chords turning around with a walking bass line, and features a similar ghosted backing from Fiona, embroidering her way carefully around the piece. It’s very peaceful and dreamy but thrown off a little by a strong smell of burning from outside – quick someone close the door.
Hero In Retreat- at this point Steve comments that he and Fiona played a 4 hour gig in the sun in
It struck me that this is the nearest one of these songs comes to anger as opposed to a degree of resignation. Fiona contributes percussion to a darker song which still has a degree of defiance - “This is not surrender or defeat/just another hero in retreat”. It even has a harmonica break – the trouble with harmonicas being that you can wind up looking vaguely as if you’re being force-fed with the thing. Anyway, it’s a driving song that gets feet tapping.
Down By The River – so we need something a bit gentler. This one comes out of Steve’s childhood on a Council estate in
Talking To The Moon – time to escape from the harmonica for the last song, and indeed the most up to date (as well as being the title song of the CD). It’s a multi-level song which takes in a lot more questions than answers – but it’s in some ways a love song as well. It has an Am and G riff and a dark backing with a hammer on to keep the rhythm moving. It reflects how dark it can be ‘spiritually’ as well as literally in the early hours. Things get quicker and more reflective in the last verse but the mood doesn’t lighten. Is there a light at the end of this song? Play another one – much demand from all corners of the room!
Sunflowers – on request and by popular acclaim – goes back a way but is sadly still topical. It’s a very visual song with a grim juxtaposition of the horrors of the Ethiopian famine set against the world of high finance and the auctioning of the eponymous painting. Best described as gentle but dark, the song moves forward with Fiona descanting this time. “If I had a TV/I’d have seen you buying sunflowers”. The implied question of course is how much good could £20 million do in another context. Like the rest of the set, the whole is very well received.
Another Break – same comments apply to the last Break, except that it is followed by a
Raffle
What can one say about a raffle – especially the curious and eclectic range of prizes which we seem to accumulate here. Well we get a curious and eclectic range of music so I guess that makes sense.
Immediately after this, Barbara calls us back to order while thanks and flowers are given to Terri amid great ceremony. You will already know that our enforced move is as a result of Terri selling the place, but we have to forgive her because we have had an excellent 18 months since she took us in as a fledgling folk club, and FaB has flourished in the Purple Room for all that time. Thanks Terri!
And then we need a poet so it’s a good thing we’ve got Liz, whose first piece is called The Workshop. Liz explains that this is about her grandfather who was a clockmaker/watchmaker (horologist?) who used to wind clocks in big homes, work on municipal clocks, make customised parts – a skill which is now pretty much lost to the modern world. All of the clocks in his workshop were set at different times to avoid a cataclysm on the hour – and the workshop was a very different and magical place for a child to enter.
Liz has a habit of building refrains into her poetry, which chime carefully and punctuate the moods and conceits. In this case, “no digital time passes here”, marks the transitions and acts as a spell to keep the march of current technology out of the workshop by force of will.
The mood shudders a little as we get blasted by a passing siren, but Liz holds her line and takes us into Seasons. Described as ‘an old poem’ (8 months?) we are back into a poetic ramble through the countryside – with a view of Lewes Prison! It is very pastoral, deploying strong images to conjure up the reality of the open countryside on a scorching day on the edge of the city. “Over the fence we climb” – and who knows what’s waiting on the other side?
Another well controlled performance from Liz which grips the attention flawlessly.
And then there is me (Gordon)! I do take the time to point out that I have refrained from performing for a while to let the attendance build up again, (it hasn’t worked!) and wind up going back to Starstruck, a ‘standard’ part of my set (which Mike has also covered a couple of times here) and which is about a lot of things, but mainly the good old standby of (a) not always getting what you want and (b) not really knowing someone as well as you thought you did.
I then get to hang around for another appearance of MCG – very tidy this, you’d almost think we’d rehearsed (?!) – and we deliver another Starcruiser track, this time Midnite Masquerade. It’s a reflection by someone who has ‘made it’ but then stayed on too long, and winds up living on (or through) their memories. I always like playing Starcruiser tracks because no-one’s ever bought the blasted CDs they’ve come from (so there’s no point of comparison), but in this case Mike and I reprise our instrumental roles while Claudine sings a striking cover.
Claudine – then delivers a series of updates and changes, (many of which are now out of date, and the rest can be found on the general housekeeping part of this site (or its sibling)) so we won’t worry about them here. Pressure of time (and another gig?) means that Simon has to leave us but there are a few minutes left and more good music to come.
The first ‘repeat’ comes from Brian, who finds another song by Tom Russell called St Olafs Gate. It’s a very countrified song, with a well drawn saloon bar ethos and ambience where “the buskers all play the same tune”. There are definite traces of Kenny Rogers – alright I won’t mention that.
Next up is Alan – who after a little thought has a third song ready to run – and it seems that waiting in or around stations seems to be a popular pastime today.
Waiting Anyway has a gentle and haunting backing, and tells the story of someone who is waiting for a lover or partner who isn’t going to show up – and knows it. This should be an album track – it builds carefully and falls somewhere between despair and acceptance/resignation. Like a lot of the material here, very evocative
Fiona makes an initially solo appearance to deliver 2 songs not previously done here.
The first is Trouble In Mind, which she delivers unaccompanied - a blues which finds a softer and huskier midrange she doesn’t usually acknowledge. There is a whole sub strata of music which is described as ‘white blues’ and this may well qualify, but it builds up to a soulful pitch by the end and fully justifies its inclusion.
Amazing Grace is the second piece, accompanied by Steve on guitar – and delivered in a smooth and powerful manner which is fortunately far more reminiscent of Judy Collins than a blast of shrieking bagpipes (!!). It has a gentle guitar background which flows around and complements the vocal, which is carefully enunciated. Fiona has a startling range on which she draws for the last verse and finishes in style.
So one more time it’s MCG - the final appearance this afternoon from the trio to deliver Song to My Boss, Claudine’s paean to a (former) manager of hers, whose smoking seems to have been the least of her sins (and the less said the better!)
Claudine
And then a final song from Claudine herself, which is not unreasonable in the circumstances – and who is more entitled to close the show? Mike adds in solid bass to a French folk song (and former sea shanty?) called Santiano which takes us comfortably into D minor on an offbeat strum and then into the end of the session.
So it’s just left to Barbara to assume the compere’s hat one more time, to say the requisite and appropriate thanks to everyone, and to Close The Show.
And that’s about it! After 30 sessions, 7 specials, a radio show, not to mention a couple of folk festivals (and more singers/guitarists/poets/recitations/multi-instrumentalists/dancers (and combinations of same) than I could reasonably count) along the way, it is more or less time for FaB to pack up its collected guitars (and other assorted hardware) and move on.
It’s glib to say that the strength of the Club is in its membership, and too easy to suggest that it’s been coloured (purple?) by its surroundings. Orsett had its disadvantages – the occasional racket from the main bar, and a suicidal right turn across the traffic to get into the Car Park – but I for one will remember it very positively. Not only that, we’ve just rendered several songs and poems all about the place entirely obsolete (or at least in need of a significant rewrite…)
In the following weeks, the best of the Club’s talent reconvened at the Leigh Folk Festival and it was interesting to hear the songs given an airing in a different venue – and to a different audience – but hey, enough, that’s poaching on someone else’s review. Meanwhile, it’s off to Grays for 3rd September for the first session Down By The Waterline – which might have made a good title for a song if Dire Straits hadn’t got to it first…
Goodbye Orsett, Hello Grays. Here we go again…
(…and yea the legends shall be many and various, and the range and diversity of the performances equally so. In another room, in another time, they shall awaken and access the sleeping wisdom of the Intranet, and the voices shall echo again…)
Nah, it’s still not working. Give it up. Keep this going much longer it’ll be September already…
SFX: Footsteps. Door opens. Door closes. The lights go out.
Gordon Shears
July 2006