Acoustic Night

A (LATE) Blog by Sir Paul McDarkney

Santa (played by host Ian) was seen drinking early in the night while his helpers flashed him dirty looks- very fitting for Santa was a very dirty man, indeed.

Dirty Santa started the night off with a very un-Christmas spirited poem. I think it’s time for a career change (or retirement) for Santa.

Dan Wellman was the first guest and started the musicians out on a high note with his blend of warm guitar tones and equally warm voice (both aided in warmth by his ample beard).

Craig Wilson then spit some high-octane, high-energy poetry as fast and hard as a filthy Christmas. I think I see a pattern developing for tonight.

Eddie D. calmed the savage beast with his fine clarinet (anyone playing a Thelonious Monk tune deserves my respect). His second tune was a Rhumba that made me wish I had brought my bongos. Azucar!

Eleanor, self-proclaimed grandmother of the night, told a story about a monster tree with blue apples. Some extra sound effects from the audience helped to make it real (or at least, a surround sound story - making it modern).

Having recently been spared from having to attend Oxford, Monty was primed to prove his worth. The youngster crooned the crowd into submission with a voice as confident as his stage presence; as easy to listen to as he was to watch (what do they know at Oxford anyway)!

Deadpan and dead funny: my hat goes off (well, it would have had I not taken it off when I walked in to the room) to Dan for even attempting stand up at an open mic night (shiver) scary - I know, I’ve tried it…and failed, miserably). Kudos.

Okay, James White (dude, seriously diggin’ the hat): apparently the microphone stand was well aware that it was his first Acoustic Night performance because it made every effort to remain below the level of his actual mouth (as opposed to his chest). It didn’t stop him from performing his ass off (though I was hoping he’d perform his hat off so it could mysteriously disappear into my bag).

Gina Briganti speaks like a singer and walks like a dancer. Her words moved like honey and sounded just as sweet. Probably helps that she is a sweetheart at the core.

Santa’s helpers took to the stage to end the first half as the Four Faeries of Apocalypse. Let me tell you, it was a very smart move for none would have wanted to have to follow this act.
Andi dazzled us with flash and a bit of melancholy humour, Helen surprised us, a (well-intentioned but) naughty tooth-fairy, Hazel’s sugar-plum fairy was randy for sweet music, and Kathy did it her way as the pink fairy that advised us to stuff the lot!!! A great end to a wicked first half.

Dirty Ian, I mean Santa, let us in on a dirty little secret: he once bought a Celine Dion cd. It was, of course, for someone else; but he bought one!!

Nancy, the medium, is aided by the ever-so-helpful Sandra to the front of the stage after it was announced that the next performer had ‘crossed over’. Nancy connected us to Sadie, from the Bronx, who was kind of like a switchboard operator for the ‘crossed over’ and she put us through to limbo where we heard from storyteller Jim McNeil.

Mary, a Halo virgin, shares her loving Christmas wishes and Wendy shares her warm vision of the countryside which segued beautifully into a song about a summers’ eve in Cornwall skilfully played and sung by Keith; just before he tickles us all with a tune about a Mr. Chicken (trust me, you had to be there and if you were you were giggling like a school kid).

What do you do with all those unwanted Christmas gifts? David C. Johnson (always one of my favourites) came through with some imaginative ideas.

Sally & Holly made me feel like I was back in Carolina with skilful strumming and the voice of an Appalachian sweetheart. Somewhere June Carter Cash is swelling with pride.

Richard Lawson’s Father Christmas mows ‘em down with a Solstice ballad that’s both cheeky and clever. (Mental note: must check out these metaphysical poets.)

After a romantic villanelle for the wife, Christmas dies in the poetry of Poetry Jack.

Halo stalwart, Phil Baber, then treated us to a tune inspired by the affair of Picasso and a silly maiden that played with knives and then reinvigorated a Leonard Cohen tune (maybe he should have recorded it a bit faster).

Freestyle blues and jazz from improvisational vocalist, Josie, led us straight into another one of my favourites, Peter Hunter, who gave us a proper English Santa - complete with swearing and job hating that spread germs, fought epileptic fits, and came out of the closet; all whilst preparing to squeeze down chimneys again.

Some American punk named Derrick then proceeded to stand on a soapbox for nearly five minutes with a diatribe he called Writers’ Block.

WRITER’S BLOCK

…Brow furrowed, shoulders tensed, fingers cramped from tightly gripping the pen…fifteen minutes? It’s been fifteen minutes and, to my amazement, I am still staring at a blank page. Now I usually do experience some level of difficulty whenever attempting to collect and record my thoughts in a comprehensible manner, but this?!? This feels completely different. I am suddenly struck dumb by the realization that I truly don’t have anything to say. I then begin to feel the mist of depression as it threatens to crash down upon me like a wave of terror on the shores of a moon-driven tide of emotionalism. The dimly lit brood of gloom plants its seed deep within my ego, and begins to sprout questions like, “was I ever any good?’” and, “will I ever be any good?” and I find no comfort in the fact that I have absolutely no idea what it is I’m doing…well, I don’t think I ever really did. I guess my confidence never came from knowing what it was I was able to do; I was just happy to be doing anything. Hell, I’m obviously literate, and I do have the vocabulary of a high school graduate, at least. Hey, some people don’t even have enough fingers to hold a pen, much less, a hand to have fingers on; and what about those that don’t have enough money for notebooks or pens; or those would be great writers that have no place to write, as if they even had time, for the bulk of their day is spent fighting for their next meal- which would never be enough to replace the energy it took to get it in the first place…and here I am complaining when my biggest worry is how much closer will I be able to get to touching my soul today. I then begin to feel guilty for not realizing before how lucky I am to be aware, for so many have the desire but are constantly bombarded with the blinding circumstances of everyday existence. So many are taken in by the promise of shiny things if they play by the rules of illusion, and all at the risk of their existence being diminished to becoming only a shadow of life if the game is lost. Play, at the risk of being reduced to a mere mirage in a world of high-powered laser-light shows and mirror tricks; and here I am whining about a few minor frustrations when there are so many who haven’t been afforded the same opportunities that I have been able to take advantage of. I may not have a lot, but I realize that I have more than those who have very little…And at that moment I am moved to stillness. In that quiet moment of revelation I begin to feel my soul stir. My spirit begins to change frequency as I am slowly tuned in to those that are less fortunate. I am now able to hear the before unheard cries of those unable to use their spirits’ voices; those writers, those poets, singers, actors, dancers, artists…all prophets unable to share their messages of joy through sorrow, the bittersweet happiness of the blues, the love of life near death…the messages sent from creation that have been stifled by circumstances, the lack of understanding, fatigue, or just plain laryngitis. And I feel a sense of duty, of responsibility, to do my part in avenging their lost opportunities by utilizing all of mine. I will help to release their frustrations by relating them to mine. I will help them to use their voices by channeling them through mine, for I realize now, that’s what we’re meant to be; channels for the creator’s individualized experiences. We have only to live and communicate, experience and express. It is then that I notice the movement of my hand. It’s almost as if the pen has a life of its own, bobbing and weaving through barricades and blockages to tell a tale of victory. Inactivity has been defeated by inspiration for when the soul is inspired it moves, and the inspiration is always there. The songs are always there. The poems, the images, movements, and music are always there. We just have to be still long enough to feel them; quiet long enough to hear. See, as long as we can remember this we will never again have a writers’ block without a tackle.

Whew, that boy is long-winded!!!
Carla gave us a bird’s-eye-view of the joys of singing and a clever (and poignant) poem about the pig in her belly.

I’m still not quite sure who, exactly, the last performer was. He was introduced as Boydon Goodman then proceeded to tell us his name was Jason but that he was better known as Ghostboy.*** Well, whoever he was, he was definitely funny as hell!!!! He ended the night with a ‘celebrity-gone-bad’ tale of Rudolph and his formerly red nose.
‘Til next Year,

L8-rrs

B8-rrs

(don’t act like I’m the only one!)

*** Somewhere near the end of the evening we also had the pleasure of a brief hi-jack set by Nathan Filer, we can’t remember when exactly as we were all a little ‘mellow’ by then but it was really good to see him lose his Acoustic Night cherry…a great end to our first season at Halo.

The evening began with MC Helen Gregory announcing that Rosemary Dun would be the night’s special guest and would be performing her poetry after the break. Acoustic Night Accountant and Man City supporter Ian Sills could not be with us until the break as his favourite team were playing at home against Watford. Helen warmed up the audience with her poem ‘Diva’, a composition she has recorded with Lou Bell on guitar. Tonight’s question for our acts was, ‘if you were to write your own biography, what would the title be?’

Our first musician tonight was Phil Baber singing and playing his guitar. His biography title would be, ‘It wasn’t me!’ This Acoustic Night regular entertained us with The Pogues tune ‘I am a man I don’t meet everyday.’ Phil Baber would be reappearing on stage later.

John Terry’s biography title would be ‘Things I should’ve done’, his poem ‘Feet in the clouds’ has a hopping, croaking, fishy type feel about it followed by another funny poem titled ‘Songs of Levity’ which involved a delicatessen getting stolen due to problems with increased shop lifting!

Just before 9pm Dan Weltman, a gifted songwriter who was preparing for his gig at Café Delight the following Friday, played two folk songs. His biography title would be ‘My life was bollocks!’. His performance was not…

Gary Death, an established performance poet from Edinburgh, but who has recently moved to the South West, made his debut appearance at Acoustic Night. An extrovert performer who entertained us with a cracking and very funny poem called ‘Ego Testicles.’ Gary then followed up by reading a poem titled ‘Give’. An excellent performance and no doubt we will be seeing more of him in the near future.

Singer and songwriter, Andy Skellern, who is also doing the Café Delight gig with Dan Weltman, gave us a moody and atmospheric performance on his guitar. So finger picking good I missed the titles.

Poet, writer, publisher and open mic regular, Simon Leake read two poems this evening, the first of which, ‘Armchair Anarchist’, talks about saying much but not doing enough. His second poem would prove to be dark and paranoid. It was called ‘Oubliettes’. Simon also publishes Deficit magazine.

Phil Baber returns to the stage but not before downing his pint! Can’t argue with that but then proceeded to sing in two languages! What great talent we have here!

Poetry Jack made a welcome return to the Acoustic Night stage. With the biography title ‘I did it!’ Poetry Jack went on to perform two poems called ‘You’ and ‘Ballad of Suzy Grey’, the latter poem about marriage.

At quarter to ten Helen announced the break, during which time Ian Sills returned having revealed that Manchester City enjoyed a goalless draw against the mighty Watford!

Andi Langford-Woods is our MC for the second half and promptly introduced poet Rosemary Dun as the special guest. With flowers in her hair, Rosemary went on to ask ‘Where has my Mojo gone?’ Rosemary’s second poem was of an experimental nature titled ‘Music Box.’ Will Lloyd our engineer had some fun getting the music track going, but soon all was well and Rosemary went on to perform a fine poem. A Rosemary Dunn favourite was performed next called ‘Spectacles’. This poem was also performed at Ashton Court festival in 2006. Rosemary’s last poem was for a late friend titled ‘Sunday Best’, an upbeat poem for her friend Maggie.

It was past half ten when Wilf Mertens (also known as Stan on MySpace) got on stage to perform two poems, the first of which was called ‘My Friend’ and the second about happiness, anger and life. Wilf has been with us for about eight months and continues to impress by reading and performing good, solid poems.

‘I’m only a fucking housewife’ would be Cathy Keal’s biog title but she reminded us that she also reads very funny poems. Her second poem, Cathy reveals, was only written the night before and she surprised us all by singing too. I think that might have been a first!

Phil Baber made his final appearance of the evening with his guitar. His first song is an excellent tune by The Stranglers called ‘Strange little girl’ whilst the second song is one of his adaptions of a Jacques Brel piece ‘Amsterdam.’ (A favourite place for Acoustic Night regulars!). Phil did an excellent job for us on an evening that was light on musicians but jammed full with quality poets.

Derrick, the poet from Carolina U.S.A. He also goes by the MySpace name Sir Paul McDarkney, and a few others. Derek opened with a fast paced poem titled ‘Transistor Blues’ and then follows up with a poem about hating rappers even though he is one! Overall a very well received performance.

Poetry Jack returns for the second time to the Acoustic Night stage. She entertains us with ‘One in a million’, a poem about winning the lottery. Poetry Jack’s second poem would be a rant against the colour pink. Poetry Jack does not like the colour pink!

It has now gone past eleven but the poets are still churning out their words to a hardcore audience. Peter Hunter who was the MC for Acoustic Night between 1998 and 2002 got onto the stage. Reading two pieces from the page and both very funny.

Our next poet is Boydon Goodman, who used to regularly perform at the King Charles, making a welcome return by performing his best known poem about dodgy advertisements on lonely hearts columns!

And finally Ian Sills takes to the stage with a poem he performed for the first time at the Shakespeare slam recently. His second poem titled ‘Nicky does numbering’ is a faced paced number which was a great closure to a top night.

Andi finishes the night by letting us know that the next show will be the last for 2006 on the 18^th December. An end of season mayhem night.

Thanks to Craig Wilson for the review

The 22nd Acoustic Night was brought to us by Andi, back from the road and at the Halo bar to MC for us. She got us off to a bestial start with ‘Nerve Ends’. Following that sublime offering was Wilf, the newest Acoustic Night stalwart with two of his freshest poems. (both acute and profound pieces… ed.)

Dan Poulton took the mantle of our first ‘Acoustic Night Virgin’ crooning a Bob Dylan cover and his original song ‘I Will Wait for You There’.

DAN POULTON
Rosemary Dun, Bristol poetry legend (who after a short debate was agreed to be rusty haired) read for us an intense and un-characteristically serious piece. “I read the news today oh boy, they are killing kids tonight”. The news hits poets hard, being of a sensitive bent, but if Rosemary’s performance was anything to go by then they should all keep watching CNN, if only to write poetry of this quality… Rosemary is our Guest Artist Dec 4.
The Kindly One’s followed. Three young ‘Virgins’, one on guitar, one on flute/vocals and a vocalist. They played for us some transcendental tunes complimented by intelligent lyrics.
There is a concentration of magic at Acoustic Night, but only one artist who actually calls himself a Magician. Simon showed us exactly how long a piece of string is, practiced some bewildering origami and then managed to self harm with-out leaving any scars. A useful trick if you know how to do it.

A duo then headed to the stage, Nikki (another ‘Virgin’ !!) with Derry, an old favourite. Although these things are always special, Nikki’s deflowering was especially beautiful. She took us away with some solo poems including ‘Time Flies’. We were not through considering the truth of that when Derry captivated us with his guitar, the gentle notes colouring the words of a poem vocalizing the experience of breast cancer.

This was Mark Walton’s last acoustic night. He created for us an absorbing collage of one night amphetamine love sessions, gay geezers, London town and lovers not yet met “A glorious sparkling seedy creature”. He’ll be back…

This consummate performance was followed by Tom Montgomery, a singer/songwriter with plenty of ‘front’. “I’ll be inside the maze, cold with-out your gaze”

The 2^nd half started with our featured performers ‘Mood Indigo’. Four voices serenaded the assembly, three human and one guitar. Many evocative original numbers including ‘The Wild Night is Calling’ and a re-imagining of a Bill Withers tune ‘Just the Two of Us’. They ended with a song dedicated to Kate, a friend off to travel the wide roads of the world ‘Route 66’.

MOOD INDIGO
Gina Brigante continued the proceedings with two worthy pieces. The first a personal poem about a crazy mother and then an acapella song ‘The Lies of Love’.

Acoustic Night mainstay musician Phil Baber furthered his linguistic reach with a song in Polish and his daughters favorite Leonard Cohen tune ‘Tower of Song’. Phil gave it a new twist by playing it much faster and it became a real punk anthem. cool!

“Perform the poem or give up trying” said Craig Wilson. Perform the poem Craig and cut back

the on-stage marketing!

Next we were blessed again with Stanley Forbes and Jake Manuel on vocals/guitar and saxophone respectively. Stanley ended a period of writers block with some way above par political satire.

Poet David Sollors changed the mood of the night with some thoughtful poems and we were taken straight back into music by Shane “Tear it up and start again, the systems not working anymore we can’t flog this old dead horse no more.” Too right Shane.

Rosanna Hamilton, our penultimate poet, chased that offering “We have been lingering by the breaking of the waves”. Hope we hear more soon!

Acoustic Night was rounded off by Simon Leake. Simon gives many Bristol poets a chance to vent their ideas through the collective ‘Deficit Magazine’. Much quality work surfaces every fortnight at Acoustic Night but Simon’s poetry still managed to stand out as rich, thoughtful and funny. “The girl on the table stimulates sex with a mate.” We’ve all been there Si…” he finished with a poem about woman’s detrimental effect on man, referencing both Samson and Delilah and Superman “with his slippers on”.

Happiness is the only thing that cuts through the guff, and knowledge is your protection from all the lies of the world. For an injection of both head down to Halo on the 4^th December.

Thanks to Stan for the last two reviews