Mr. Odd,
9:00 pm £3:00 Pat, Max, Steve and Owen continue to plunder the UK on their festiff mission. Support bands tbc plus top party vibrations and hospitality. JBC GO HOME!A NIGHT AT THE RACEHORSEIt takes a couple of days for the JBC to recover from their New Year's Eve at Fawlty Towers Platinum. By Friday we are about ready to take on The Hardest Room In The World, that is to say the back room of the Racehorse in Abington Square NN1, also known as The Heart O'Darkness. We arrive to find The Man Skinner setting up the PA. Is he the new O'Higgins, we wonder with a shudder. The room itself has been beautifully decked out in drapes, with a huge multi-coloured parachute hanging over the stage. The London posse arrives and Max heads off to the local music shop to get some bits and pieces, among them a drum key for Owen. When he returns shortly he hands this to Owen, announcing that he got it for free. The Butcher is astonished: You got something from the music shop for free? That's a fucking first! "Fuck off," replies Skinner, "I work in that shop!" (Which shows how long it has been since I shopped there.) In the end we agree that being sneering, dismissive and condescending probably counts as a perk of the job. After all, think how many times a month these poor bastards get to hear Sweet Child O'Mine. After a fairly uneventful soundcheck (that's what we pay for) we retire to JBC Central, where Kathie has somehow managed to cook up dinner for everybody. Great dressing room, this - almost like being in your own living room. We arrive back at the venue at half past eight. Apart from Kathie and George, bravely manning the door, there are two people in the room! Now, it's fair to say that this show was organised pretty much at the last minute, but this is scary. Still, we get some beers in and wait, and sure enough the place soon begins to fill up. As we hit the magic "double figures" mark, somebody remarks "JBC friends and family night." The crowd is still fairly thin as the great Curtis E. Johnson takes the stage. He plays a fine set featuring a load of new songs. He has started using a Line 6 delay unit to make layers of sound with the one guitar, and it works well. Except, that is, when he essays a version of Suicide's Rocket USA only to discover that he has forgotten to switch the thing on! Still, he succeeds in mutating the tune into his own wonderful Point Blank and concludes his set on a high note. While Curtis is singing, the JBC are delighted to note the arrival of one Sonic Boom in the area. Mysteriously Pat and Steve follow him into a small cupboard by the side of the stage, from which they do not emerge for some time Not long after the emergence of the JBC Stoner Tendency, the band takes the stage. By now the room has filled up a little more. We are probably playing to about 50 people. That's Death Week for you. Of those 50 punters probably 35 are musicians themselves, including all the members of Wilson. That's intimidation for you. Well, for us, anyway.
Skinner has sorted us a good, strong sound and we get off to
a fine start with Mr. Odd and
It's only as we move on into
I then manage to bring the intro of This is followed by Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present before Owen starts up the groovy beat to Come, Friendly Spacemen. Sumo vocalist Mr. B. is in the house and keen to run up and join in, but he is frustrated by a crowd of thirsty punters for he is working behind the bar. I have to manage on my own.
After Niagara, dedicated to the hole in the bathroom ceiling
at JBC Central, we unpack
We play two encores, a version of People are very kind as we leave the stage. Sonic is particularly taken with the skills of Mr. Beirne, who wasn't with us on our last visit to NN1 in the summer. We take care not reveal Pat's telephone number: industrial confidentiality and all that. A quick check reveals that we have taken just about enough money on the door to pay everybody hurrah! Skinner is duly sorted out and the kit packed away. Then something rather wonderful happens. There is a bar in NN1, named after the celebrated radical MP Charles Bradlaugh, which now has a license to continue serving until 1:00am. I know that this might not seem too impressive to our overseas readers, but in the UK this is still something rare and precious. It is with great satisfaction that the JBC and their friends leave the gig, walk a couple of hundred yards up the street and settle down for a civilised post-concert drink. Not, it has to be said, all that civilised: those who were there just minutes before we arrived were witness to a massive barroom brawl. Still, it has all blown over by the time we make it in, so no problems there. I'm chatting to Steve from Wilson when Lynda appears and asks if they have Jaegermeister here. I am forced to say that they don't, and my mind turns to trying to come up with an equally frightening and viscous local liqueur. I settle on Drambuie. Long ago, back before Air Rage had been invented, I found myself "doing" Drambuies with a young actor on a flight back from Los Angeles. I found myself moved to tell a joke one whose punch line must of necessity be screamed out at top volume. Owing largely to the Drambuies I had failed to notice that I was delivering this punch line right in the middle of the transatlantic night, with everybody else on the plane fast asleep. A slightly panicky waitress - oh, so sorry, - Flight Attendant soon brought home to me what I had just done. I suppose if it had happened this year I would have ended up sharing a cell with celebrated joghurt-slosher Peter Buck. I haven't had a lot of Drambuie since that incident, but I remember it with affection. Heaven knows why: one mouthful and we are all agreed that it's revolting stuff! We drink until closing time, and then it's back to JBC Central for a party. Yes, we have a show tomorrow. No, we haven't forgotten. Yes, we end up getting to bed at about six in the morning. But this is NN1 and we wouldn't have it any other way.
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