18th December
Live session of the FaB Club on Link FM 101.4 with our resident DJ Mike Parrott...
Review by Tim Almond
Fab Club on the air…
2005 was to conclude for the Fab Club in very much the same manner it has progressed throughout the year (was it really only February 6 we first gathered in the purple room?) ... with something different!
Yes, many of the regular performers were there, we had a nominated compere and a reviewer… but where was the audience? More to the point – at least according to some folk traditions – where was the bar? Is folk music possible without the preferred brand of ale on tap?
Well.. a resounding yes to that last question, though maybe some of the performers might have been more comfortable with the customary inmates of the Orsett Cock, both human and liquid, than with a quartet of unsmiling microphones… for we were in the studios of Link FM, broadcasting live to Havering via the airwaves and the world via the Internet.
If the microphones were unsmiling, our compere was not – Mike Parrott assumed calm control from behind the desk, chatted amiably with each of the artists (until we ran out of time, with our last act threatening to be drowned by the
A hastily assembled running order masterminded by Fiona (so should that be mistressminded?) saw Rocking Bob step to the microphone after Mike’s opening to give us Lucky April shower followed by a love song – I’m confessing. Of course, one thing the radio listeners were denied was the swaying – Bob always puts movement into his songs!
Next were Mick and Nora and, today, Mick took lead vocals on Nancy Spey and his own Angry Man, this last being the title track of his CD (and it was noticeable how many just or just about to be produced CDs were revealed this afternoon… are we all shameless publicists?) Nora harmonised and drummed the bodhran… there was the beginning of an attempt to join in by others… but maybe it was a little too early and we weren’t quite sure if that was allowed!
Dennis was followed by another mesmerisingly melodic guitarist –
Joe Migdal. He sang Natures Wonderland, followed by the second seasonal offering, Boxing Day Blues. Joe always phrases his playing very sensitively and gets a beautiful sound from the small Martin guitar… it’s an arrangement from which nothing is missing, yet you want to join in! I noted one line – ‘Rudolph’s turned to drinking’ – just as I was being plied with hot brandy – was this another bribe for a good review?!
Variety lives… and Liz stepped up to the microphone to read two poems: Christmas Day at Coalhouse Fort, followed by one which she told us had been the spark to re-igniter her own writing – Angels. Long may the spark burn Liz! In an age too full of information processors and technical authors, the world needs poets…
Then it was time for me to down the pencil and pick up the mandolin for Either of Us, with two songs punctuated by the
We were now well and truly into the second half (without a raffle ticket or pink beret in sight!) and Gordon stepped up to sing. I wondered if his first offering – Starstruck – was at all influenced by the setting and continual CD plugging. Song number two was the other side of the coin, as it told of why he doesn’t like performing, as though out front before an audience, whether seen or unseen, was the one place he didn’t want to be… Mmmm… we are not convinced Gordon! We think you enjoy singing… which is why we enjoy listening!
Next up was Steve O’Kane, with the information that he knew of at least one listener in
Sara chose to sit rather than stand… but her voice still comes out with the ease of a swallow in spring (though not with sparrow’s wings!) She began with the second Christina Rossetti lyrics of the afternoon – a lovely song called Sleep at sea. Her scond offering, self-penned in the guise of a traditional folksong, soon revealed a series of twists in the tail (or tale?)… the heroine not being prepared to wait for her lover to return from war... instead sets out to enjoy a life of independence and revenge.. all encapsulated in The Tarnished Silver Ring.
Someone was really paying attention at the Antony John Clarke Fab Club gig! Jem, to be precise, who sang one of AJC’s songs, An Acquaintance of Mine. It’s a great song, and suited his warm, resonant voice well. A note I made at the time, while listening, commented on how Jem ‘connected with the subtext’… and I’m not sure I can explain it any better than that! Jem followed this with White House Blues, again a song well suited to his voice and backed by impressive guitar playing that sounded effortless (so clearly wasn’t!)
I thought the next artist – Mark Reed – was bringing a sound we hadn’t heard before during the show – and don’t often hear at the Fab Club, as he came to the microphone with a 12 string. As my first ever guitar was a 12 string (and don’t ask how many years ago that was) I was interested to hear how this fine guitarist coped with the double stringed version… however, he admitted there were only eleven strings… Maybe that was deliberate, as there was something nicely subversive about Mark’s set: his first song was called Goodbye then the second, whilst I didn’t catch the title, was about ghosts yet challenged the normal narrative route of doom and gloom…
And, to really make sure we left doom and gloom well and truly behind, our Margaret stepped up, with one eye on a clock speeding towards five, to finish us off in style… and finally voices around the studio were released into joining in, first Fanlight Fanny then, very fittingly, Lonnie Donnigan’s Putting on the style. Clearly, there are some parts of the Fab Club audience that only Margaret and her streamer-laden ukelele can reach…
So… out into the afternoon… Link FM being more insistent on a
Tim Almond
