Fab Club Review 29th October 2006

The White Hart, Grays

 

Liz Montgomery

 

A Halloween Special this week – and we are greeted with bowls of orange and black chewy sweets.  The White Hart is gradually getting used to the arrival of a bevy of guitars and sundry other musical instruments on Sunday afternoon.  The new venue definitely has much good acoustics.  This week we have a really strong line up of traditional and modern performances – and more first timers join in the spirit of the Fab Club.

 

Our comperes are MickaNora, who kick off with a club favourite (well one of mine, anyway) – Mick’s own “Colwell Bay” based on happy childhood memories from holidays on the Isle of White.  This is followed by that great traditional “Matty Groves” – they promise they have cut it down from 42 to 38 verses.  But it’s a feisty version arrangement with Mick and Nora on fine vocal and instrumental form.

 

Simon Oliver wants to know what sort of Slash Your Wrist Song we would like to hear, and kicks off with “Lady Julian” accompanied on the 12 string.  I have not heard him sing this before – and it really suits his style.  Second up is “She Moved Through the Fair” which Simon declares is to “unpick the ruination” of the same song by the Leopards (just a little rearrangement surely?!)  He always makes these songs, whether traditional or self-penned, look and sound so effortless – but watch those fingers go.

 

 

A fab club virgin -  SKI (aka Louise) - provides us with more traditional songs about love and deceit.  Ski has a beautiful sweet rippling voice and delicate guitar style. “Siuil, a Ruin” is her confident opening number for us, with its poignant English and Gaelic words.  She then performs a song which is new to her, and apologises for the use of crib notes (not that I noticed her using them at all) – “The Blacksmith”.

 

 

Mike Parrott has finally arrived – having found his car taking him on autopilot to our old venue.  Clearly Mike is secretly the alter ego of the Knight Rider. Mike moves us into jollier territory.   “The Old Nickelodeon Sound” gets us all singing along to the chorus.  Mike then makes us all laugh with “Let’s Spend Christmas in The Office” – another favourite of mine.  As he reminds us that there are only 8 ½ weeks to go and it will all be over.

 

 

I’m on next.  I completely fluff the opening of “Seasons” – a poem I wrote almost exactly a year ago, inspired by the scents and sensations of Autumn, which always fills me with nostalgia for my childhood in Sussex.  Never mind, I take the opportunity to give one of my new poems, “Oh my- Haven’t they changed” another airing.  This poem was triggered by attending far too many reunions recently – and being struck by the characters I was meeting.

 

Mitch and Di are on next – more Fab Club virgins.  They are too modest to mention it but Simon tells us that they are part of Moveable Feast – winners of the Rochester Folk Festival best band this year.  Mitch sings and plays guitar, while Di provides versatile harmony and accompaniment on the fiddle.  Their first number is “A Blanket of Stars” inspired by getting lost after performing at The Fountains Head near Sidmouth.  It has a wonderful refrain.  Then a traditional miners song called “Old King Coal” – probably originating from the late 18th or early 19th century. They apologise for it being work in progress – but it sounded pretty fine to me.

 

 

Be afraid, be very afraid -  it’s Tone Deaf Leopard on next.  As usual they leave us in complete heaps of laughter with their unusual syncopated arrangements and faux fur accessories – but don’t be deceived; Trevor has a great voice, and their pastiches and rewrites are the best. Having said that today they go for the traditional as well.    “King Orpheo”, a traditional, probably 19th century piece, is performed in a West Indian stylee, and has an incomprehensible chorus allegedly in Old Norse.  Unfortunately we have no Vikings available to help us understand what it means and even the amazing Internet casts no more light on its origin.   Then “Our Good man” – a (genuine) Elizabethan version of Seven Drunken Nights – that good old Cuckold song - Gadzoons!

 

 

Sue Leopard specifically asked me to put on record that Mick smiled during their performance!

 

Bill is the only one of us to really enter into Halloween mood, replete with witches (warlocks?) hat, matted wig with spiders, and –er – Monty Python t shirt.  He has penned a special for Claudine for the day – “Headless Horseman”. This is very funny; ending with the horseman asking  “I don’t suppose you’d let me have a floorspot please”.  Next Bill turns traditional too – first with “The Song of the Dengie”, a local Essex legend.  This is the story of Mistress Hart, a member of a famous local family of witches.  She stole the church bells, but came to grief when crossing the river Crouch. It is said the bells can still be heard on some nights tolling from under the river.  The song is really about where legends come from though.  He then performs “The Ballad of Sarah Polgrain” – another suitably spooky song this time from Cornwall, with the ghost of Sarah holding her errant lover, Yorkshire Jack, to keep his promise to marry her at midnight after she has been hung for the murder of her husband.

 

 

The Cheeky Gulls have now sufficiently recovered from rushing back down the motorway from Liverpool to give us a couple of rousing songs which we can all join in with.  “The Answer is Blowing in the Wind” and a reggae style “Lord of the Dance”.  They share some of their Liverpudlian experiences with us meanwhile.

 

The last half hour or so some of us get the chance to perform another number.

 

Simon gives us the song he co-wrote with Steve O’Kane – “Dreaming of Liverpool”.  We are all in good cheer and lots of chorus work is provided.

 

Mike performs the very clever  “It’s a Girl I’m Searching for” – which needs us all, for no particular reason, to sing “have a banana” as part of the refrain.

 

Nora has specially asked me to do “Shoes” – which always makes the crowd laugh, and is also the very very embarrassingly true story of a girl and her shoes.

 

We are all delighted that Mitch and Di are going to do two more songs for us (and they have brought some albums to buy as well). And they are performing in Rochester on 16th Nov and also shortly at Hastings. Both songs are their very own – a great bluegrass style number called “Thank you kindly, Mr Blair” – very anti-George Bush and very entertaining, and the recently recorded “I guess you call it a moveable feast”.  The latter reminds me in part of Billy Bragg or Ian Dury – funny, clever very English words about our patchwork heritage and a great tune featuring plucked fiddlework from Di.

 

Claudine performs the haunting “The White Hare is Calling”  a song written by Seth Lakeman – must look out for his albums.

 

The Leopards regale us with a tremendous number very much written from the heart for all organisers of folk events - “The Floor Singer” (it’s really irritating me that I can’t remember the name of the original tune though!).  The song  was written after a friend of theirs went to a singaround; he left for a couple of pints of Guinness at a pub down the road, then found the same singer was STILL performing the same song on returning to the venue.  The audience are building up to the finale, accompanying the Leopards on a variety of real and improvised percussion

 

And finally MickaNora are joined by Simon on guitar and Di on fiddle with a rousing, rowdy, riotous version of “Freight Train”.   We all go out into the dark evening smiling and happy.

 

 

Another fab afternoon at the Fab Club; thanks to all our new and old artistes.

 

Liz Montgomery