Acoustic Night

The nights are drawing in, the Christmas gifts are in the shops and Acoustic Night number 19 settles in for the evening with the usual mix of new faces, familiar performers and old hands. Andi Langford-Woods opens with a shout out for Rosemary Dun’s Big Mouth Masterclasses (lovely to see her in better health and back on the block. Catch her here Dec 4th.) then gives us a poem about love in Autumn (did I?) and then ‘Therapy’.

Phil Baber offered us a taster for later with ‘The Steppes’, his version of a Yatkha song and then ‘About That’ a slant on not being able to express emotion. Ian Sills then delved into tales of nights at the Clyde with ‘Watching Brief’ ( hen night ‘nurses’ and more setting out on their mission) and ‘Perchance to Dream’ a barmaids plight on being locked out by her sleeping friend. Sparkles Murphy said that this was her “second open mic ever and the first sober one”, it was certainly her first Acoustic Night, her songs were original and sweetly sung - ‘Let Me In’ written on arrival in Bristol.

Rupert Hopkins performed next and in ‘The Jazzman’ read a new section of his epic “Waste Warriors”, following refuse collectors around rural Gloucestershire and by contrast delivered, with spoken word and haunting sax breaks, ‘Umbrella Stand’ about a very urban Bristol underpass. Tom Mongomery, another new face and a really good voice, gave us ‘You’ about a girl he liked who didn’t like him and how he felt that day. He followed that with a happier piece with strong guitar, ‘Life’s Journey’. Richard Lawson read a poem about Halo and and Hang Gliding (a first, I suspect!) and then a political piece about the Lebanon.

Emma Harper is a another newcomer but as bar manager at The Eldon House and a seasoned performer in her own right she took the stage by storm. threading her characterful voice and adept guitar picking through ‘The Old Road’ and a song of feminine equality. Eldon House runs Sunday night Jams and on the last Sunday of the month Open House is hosted there by Caroline Sawyer. Check the fliers… Simon Leake took us to the break with his takes on leisure time and it’s meaning then a cleverly written piece on the way myths like Eden and Gaia conflate.

After the break our special guest was the bouncy Hazel Hammond, who had taken time to work out her set well in advance and even distributed sheets with thumbnail pictures illustrating the pieces she would be performing. She performed a confident and wide-ranging set starting with ‘Some Pleasures’ which evoked memories of the textures of foods. ‘Scent in the Heat’ (a story set in Spain with a poignant ending about loneliness). ‘Silver Wolf’ and ‘Scenes from the life of a Madwoman’ were about descent into madness and the pain and pleasure therein. She then performed ‘The Label Gun’ a piece about indentity and labelling others “like a First World War Mauser rattling out the price” and ‘Sweets’ (which recalled milk bottles, sherbet and long, long licorice and associated memories). two winter poems ‘Winter Apples’ and ‘Snow’ were otherwise quite different, the former reflecting a slight feeling of fragility and the latter re-calling a pre-Bristol friend. To finish Hazel gave us “Celibacy I” and “II” a single life observation. ‘Review’ which saw her prepare food for one of her “Healthy Concerts” and ‘The Mermaid’ an evocation of that beautiful mythical creature until Hazel enquired “exactly how would one …. ( I don’t intend to go any further - suffice to say that if I ever see a mermaid that will be the first question that occurs to me) It was wondeful to see her on such top form.

Unenviably, Phil Baber was down to follow (yeah we work the guy hard don’t we? but we love him) so it was just as well he had another piece of his magic for us. ‘L’Amoureuse’ is a poem written by Paul Eluard to his wife, (she subsequently ran off with Salvador Dali, showing that beautiful lyrics can’t compete with space-cake artists and Spanish hallucinogens) Phil set it to music, the delivery and his cool French accent sliding it into the minds of many of us present. This week we tell the story!! Phil is such a good guy and he shared his time by calling up Sparkles Murphy for another song which sadly we missed the title of but no doubt we will hear it again soon. Caroline Sawyer, Open House host at the Eldon House then gave us ‘the Tale of the Reluctant Lover and the Recalcitrant Fool’ (title of the night I think!) then ‘Chameleon’ and a piece on a Biddhist saying.

Mood Indigo came next, a surprise return of Roise and Livvy with new face Hattie accompanied by the much loved Everton Hartley on guitar underpinning their sweet voices. They gave us a selection of songs including ‘Go West’, ‘Falling’, ‘Pale Blue Eyes (?), and ‘Route 66′ Just keeps gettting better! make sure to catch them Nov 20th as our Special Guests.

Claudio made the long trip from Chile (well, the short trip from next door really) to perform two poems, ‘A Better Happiness’ about always seeking to improve and ‘Walking an old black dog’ who apparently never wags his tail. Claudio usually sings and plays guitar but it was great to hear his poetry and good to see him again.

Wilf Merttens quoted Pilate and then performed companion pieces: one urban and one rural in which each showed the worth of the other.

Emma Harper came back to perform ‘Feed Yourself’ and what she claimed was her only other love song!

Guy Herbert popped up with ‘Jack and Jill and bread’, ‘Barber Alibi’ (using the haircut process to prove absence), ‘Suicidal Snowman’ and ‘Devil’s Poem’ Brief, acute and to the point as ever.

Rounding up the night Derrick hit us with ‘Retrograde’ transfixed by the boob tube, ‘Reaper’ in three voices and ‘I Hate Rappers’ saying “stink ass rappers make me sick”. (at which a certain person tried hiding under the table)

Andi finished off, contrary as ever, with ‘Lovin’ which she described as ” a kind of rap I wrote fourteen years ago”

Great night again.

Photos to follow.

Thanks to Ian for review

Andi Langford-Woods kicks off the night with ” Good evening, good evening , good evening!” making all feel welcome. Then quite literally she hits the road with ‘Travelling Poem’ that takes us from A to B to Z through high octane shit-burgers, jukeboxes and a truckload of tarmac to the start of the show. Introducing Craig wilson, who, as if he knew, opened up with a piece called ‘Phasing at a distance.’ Then proceeded to try to buy and sell some stolen goods - but I think he was only joking?

Hal Camplin was introduced as Hell Camping. Sleeping bag and tent all burnt away, sitting on the charred ground he says ” Where I work people used to be called “retards”. Now they’re just called “people.” And then he did two songs about people called Sylvia and Peter repectively, a poet’s dead wife and a fare-jumper who wrote all over the bus driver’s face. very funny - I think!!)

Heidi Rabenau had bats filling her mind, with sounds beyond sound, inside out and outside in. Two lyrical visual pieces from her recently published book Where the Whole World Stops. A leather-clad Phil Baber did a French song. he told us who it was by, and the title, but I couldn’t understand him ‘cos it was in French. However, Daddy G clearly did as he was singing along. (L’Amoreuse) There are some surprisingly cultured people in this place. Then Phil did a new song he had just finished writing, left me thinking ‘this is what it’s all about. People pushing the envelope, stepping out of their comfort zone with new performances and doing their best to nail it.’ A beautiful idea for a song, a tale of immigrant workers based on a little girl whose first words didn’t come until she was seven, and they were “Linda’s gone to Australia.”

Roisin followed with an acapella song of teenage motherhood to the tune of ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ and then a timeless poem about ‘the Green Man’ keeping her company in bed. Good to see that moms get support from their kids as well as the moms giving it always. More of that please!! families that play together stay together.

Roisin

After that a wry smiling Derrick did a poem referring to the Halo wall lights saying they reminded him of nipple-less tits. Some dark Oedipus stuff goin’ on there dude? Then he tore it up with his sweet American style and a kick-ass poem with a halitosis kiss-off line.

Taking advantage of an unusually quite night Andi slipped in the poems ‘Butterfly’ and ‘Celebrity’ about her experiences with precocious nubiles who didn’t know enough to know they should know better.

Disappearing pound coins, magic lace and a balloon were the tools of the apparently bumbling Simon the Magician. I found myself wondering “‘does he do it on purpose? And is the balloon the sanest thing in the room?’ But the audience likes him and he must like us as he keeps coming back!!

Simon the Magician
We were then treated to some improv singing by Joicey, another Acoustic Night virgin. Just at the point where I was turning to Simon’s unburst balloon for consolation I realised that Joicey’s performance was surprisingly uplifting and that she had the whole room tapping and singing along. At one point Hal turned to me and said ” she still singing? Let’s have tea round at hers” I’m sure we would all be welcome if we arrived chanting her voodoo swamp-funk loopy-doo. Aha!! the balloon is the sanest thing in the room!

The break gave me time to reflect on the fact that there was plenty of room for more people here this evening. ( where were you? you missed out!) However, forty or so people seems enough to make a room the size of Halo feel full, and justifiably so.

This week’s special guest is Stanley Forbes, a true talent, as I know he is about prove. After a quick ‘ok thank you’ we are straight into the music and I’m thinking ‘who is the tall guy on sax?’ Stanley answers my thoughts by introducing Jake Manuel. By the way, Stanley is eccentric too, but very endearing - I think you have to see and hear him to fully understand. During one song in his lavish set he did a competition to see who could hold a note for longer than him. It went on for ages thought I’m sure he was only singing at the start and the end of the note. Sneaky git. ( and his girlfriend won!!!)I found lyrics such as ‘I don’t need your blazing thighs anymore’ thoroughly amusing. And more amusing is the fact that people know these songs. I mean they were really singing along. all the while Stanley’s guitar gives out a pleasantly musical beat to Jake’s sweet sax. It’s kooky. As was his song ‘Ann Robinson’ - a short ditty, a love song I think, but I don’t think Anne would like it. Then came a fairy-tale with a gentle Acker Bilk-worthy sax line about an evil mosquito-killing man. ” sick you lot are, why d’you clap that?’ says Stanley mid- song. Then there was the ‘Ooooooh’ song about a boy who smells called Pungent David. I actually heard melody ( and harmony from the audience) and tuning while playing! neat!!
I shan’t do ‘Blame the Yamkees’ says Stanley ‘I shall have to do “blame Tony Blair”‘.
And I think Tony would have liked his song better than Mrs Robinson would have liked hers.

Stanley Forbes & Jake Manuel on sax

Where have all the musicians gone? ( see next review for the answer) Acoustic Night’s magic has always been a blend of both and Phil Baber didn’t mind as he was invited back up to do some more. He gave us La Guitarra in Spanish! Yet again yo no entiende, (thanks Andi) but was thoroughly entertained.

Phil Baber

Phil was followed by Victoria Brughal. “I only wrote this a few days ago and I haven’t worked out whether it’s crap or not. I’m sure you will let me know” she says. And once again I find myself pleasantly surprised. Far from the ‘I wrote this on the bus coming down here’ quality of poem I had expected, it is clear to see that the craft and quality of work matters to her. She did a poem about redheads. Victoria is what you might call ‘a little older than the majority here’ but she is up there doing it in fine style and a delight to have with us.

Then i had a go. I can’t remember what I did - I was too busy performing to write it down, but I was clearly brilliant…

( yes dear, you were very good..)

Then Guy Herbert stepped up and did FIVE POEMS!!! One of which was a Valentine poem, four verses around a verse his friend had written - a truly interesting piece. But then at this point I stopped listening, out of principal as much as anything else, and wrote this.

The deal is ten minutes or TWO pieces whichever is the shorter. Although we do sometimes let performers with really short pieces slip in a sneaky third but this is down to the MCs judgement and you have been noted. Sort it out Guy! you are good but the space you perform in exists for all and IF time permits you will get more ok? inch - mile - stop! but we do like you…
Rupert Hopkins was clearly in reflective mood following the death of his father so, far from morbid, he was sharing tit-bits of his life with us (that’s Rupert’s life story) including breaking Police lines in the Vietnam protests (and this guy has really been places besides Central London) and then he gave us a couple of nicely linked Haiku. One of which I like so much I wrote it down. And here it is…

Tearful emptiness
Celestial waterfall
Moss reflects sunlight

And finally. Wilf Merttens, a rather dynamic recent arrival in Bristol, talked about David Ike and lizards saying something like “it sounds great if you smoke an ounce and then check it out.” And the line ‘ the sky looks beautiful on fire’ was a great way to finish the show, well it sure was the way Wilf said it any how. Word…

Julian.

Well time marches on and we have all been busy so this has taken a while to get the photos together courtesy of Julian Ramsey-Wade. The night was a fantastic event with some old familiar faces and some new ones too. It was great to see a posse from the Welsh 3 Nations Slam team and their supporters in the (full) house, as well as Jasper Tarot Hardhat, one of the earliest co-ordinators of Acoustic Night some 11 years ago. Ali Wade held down the MC’s chair and steered us through the kaleidoscope of talent. By the end of the night we had lost count of the exact number of poems performed but somewhere in the region of 35 poets performed with Steve Tasane from London taking the Special Guest spot. Gina Briganti and Everton Hartley gave us a smooth musical interlude of laid-back jazz standards and at around 1am we staggered out of Halo with our Instant Anthologies tucked under our arms. I seem to remember going to bed around 3.30 saying “stick the keys thru’ the door when you leave”. What a night!! If you want to add your memories of the night you can do so on our forum.

THE GALLERY

Ali Wade Steve Tasane Ian Sills
Gina & Everton Annie McGann
Bertel Martin Paying attention
Claire Williamson Compiling Anthologies
Derek Pete E Wilf Merttens
GDaddy CathyKeal Haikutec

Hazel & Rupert HALO ANGELS

Yes there are more incriminating pics on our files that will make it into a 2006 album
but right now we must get on with other things than massaging egos in less than 400 pixels and I’m still learning about this uploading bizniss. Gimme collage, cut and stick it down anyday…ah well, NEXT!!! Andi