Acoustic Night

Andi Langford – Woods welcomed everyone and then introduced:

Steve Graham – a veteran from the Croft days who always went on first and did so here.  He performed two old songs – a springtime story “teasing life into many things” “losing nothing – now’s the time to free your soul” and a slower softer song (for and ex-lover? “I’m hoping you’ll find the love that you need”. Great to hear from him again.

John Terry said his second piece was rather weird so his first was something nice. It was. It was about two people making one perfect jigsaw box picture. “The art of falling” (about the Clifton Bridge but no relation to “32 feet per second per second”) had “squad cars disgorging a buzz of wasps…the laws of nature reject me”. This second piece gave Andi vertigo.

John and Alix – dual voice plus guitar – performed a John Prine song (“Souvenirs?) which talked of “broken hearts and dirty windows” and then “the first song we ever sang together” (Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s “helplessly hoping” we think).

JOHN AND ALIX

Simon Leake who writes good words but is really bad at self-promotion performed “Wilting Stone” (“within two hands I hold opposite scenarios”); and then read the lyrics to “Out of Time” by Blur (“Because I’m spending way too much time on the internet”).

SIMON LEAKE

Everton brought along another protégée (Sam) and borrowed Steve Graham’s guitar for versions of Son of a Preacher Man and Get Happy two different covers performed with distinction & understated guitar.

SAM AND EVERTON

Lucas Hadley from the Bath posse gave us “Boy Can Rhyme” in which he examined his own performance style: Anna Freeman then told a story of “my superhero” – a friend on the streets of San Francisco wasted by a fifteen year old with a BB gun. More quality writing and performing from the posse and not the last of the evening either.

Sean Saye played two songs with adept guitar accompaniment – “I don’t wanna fall in love” and “I believe in you”. Romantic, itinerant fool! (Who may be a special guest before long.)

SEAN SAYE

Helen Gregory – poet and co-organiser of Acoustic Night – surfaced all too rarely with a touching poem for her brother (saying that other girls might say they loved him like a brother but she was there first) and a new piece (inspired by a friend who had written forty poems about fish) which was one poem about forty fish (and about eighty sometimes painful puns). You’ve gotta laugh or you’ll groan!

BREAK

Following the break, our guests from The Studio Upstairs took the stage and took over for a while. Hazel, Steve, Carmen and Brian (together with contributions in absentia from Alison and Sarah) performed poems about Turkish Delight and perfume bottles, bikes and blossom and boxes. The performance was particularly effective when two or three successive pieces shared a title but varied considerably in style. It seems churlish to mention one piece ahead of another, especially since the whole performance was even greater than the sum of its talented parts.

STEVE

CARMEN

BRIAN

Pete Lloyd – on his last week in Bristol – played two pieces of sensitive and emotive Spanish guitar music. Bon Voyage Pete and good luck in the future.

Two more Bath poets came up next – James Davey performed “Death Is” (about death, surprisingly) and Molly Case performed an acutely observed poem about misguided but urgent teenage passion and first night nerves (and Matthew Kelly).

MOLLY CASE

Charlie Ansell – a strident soul in a red bandanna and t-shirt – sang and played “Barbara Allen” – a traditional folk song reworked as if by The Levellers. He then sang of a highwayman called “Alan Tyne” – rewritten as an anti-capitalist thief.

Agatha and Jake Tuckman represented the Bath posse next. She performed “Tribal Song” (“I roll into my female skin with ease…Our twisting guts remember chains”) and he followed with “the ginger gene” about the trials and tribulations of being ginger (and wasn’t very nice about Manchester).  Another neat pairing of very different poems.

Phil Baber (the biscuit-taking neighbour (c AL-W)) played Cantos Nuevas and then, with assistance from David Bosankoe’s Jew’s Harp playing, Dance Me Till I Die. See him next time as our special guest.

David Johnson “avoiding poems about death” gave us “A fairytale for our time” by the Brothers Grime and a tale of a visit to his therapist “a Valkyrie of rages “ which did not go to plan.

Pete E read “Invisible learners (“Ride poet ride and confide in your words”) and his poem in honour of Ginsburg, “Still howling, Alan.”

Kimberley – who never arrives early enough to get on the list but this time claimed to have been “doing an essay all day” performed “On the toilet” (“cos that’s where I wrote it”) and a piece about lovers who “lie restful in ambiguous memory”.

Rene performed powerful and personal pieces: “Fire Come No More” and a second piece which drew attention to negative images of black people in the media - slightly uncomfortable listening for some of the mostly white audience and probably quite right too!

RENE

David Bosankoe gave us two more short pieces of Jew’s Harp.

Ian Sills stepped up to read “Lost Weekend” (as today is his Dad’s seventieth birthday (Hello Dad!)) and (left until second) “Procrastinate”.

Dave ? performed a strong poem about addiction and lifestyle.

DAVE?

Pete E returned with a new piece “The Struggle” and the struggle was ended.

Thanks to Ian Sills for the blog.

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE         43
PERFORMERS    30
VIRGINS            6