Acoustic Night

Andi Langford-Woods opens the evening speaking French… “Bonsoir et bien venue a La Nuit Acoustique Soizante Neuf”. Yes folks we are truly international…

Tony Rowlands
Tony started the night with some of his newly published poems. Teachers all over the room could identify with the pressures of the Inspection team which captured a dream like sequence of events poetically. He also offered us that poets’ standby… love and relationships but with humour and tenderness.

TONY ROWLANDS

Mike – the four M’s
He gave us a song and a poem from his personal experience… giving the devil the lie and baring his recently troubled mind. Well done for being brave Mike.

MIKE the 4 Ms

John Terry
John always gives us truth and this time it was the strangeness of bees. Bristol buses would seem to offer little complexity for his second poem but John gave us both well crafted wit and insight.

Mike Billing
Mike’s social relationships were described in the form of three short poems, the last one about  the after effects of a nose-job witnessed here in Halo… touching observation Mike.

Sam Lynn-Evans
Sam billed himself as a comedy act but his one liners were mixed with more serious poems.

SAM LYNN-EVANS

Phil Baber
Our acoustic night stalwart returned to give us La Nina and La Guitarra with passion, verve and skill. Good to see you again Phil.

Max Milton
Here we had songs about a dark night of drinking and a lament for Jenny. And we finally got the right knobs on the guitar twiddled and everyone was happy.

MAX MILTON

Simon
Two personal poems which reflected some of the difficulty of modern life.

Mary Spender
Taking time to come from Salisbury Mary is a performer new to us.  Mary gave us a really gutsy, polished and accomplished performance of her own songs. Captivity starts with neat finger picking and a smooth vocal delivery on the solitude of city life. Warts and Ghosts was a spooky plea for consideration of spectral feelings, well we think it was! The audience were keen to hear a third song and Mary finished with Melancholy Parade, an upbeat driving song on the contemporary global situation. Well done!

MARY SPENDER

BREAK

Martin John and James Gale
On form and welcome as usual they upped the tempo and the atmosphere. Martin starts with Astorias, an instrumental guitar piece with loads of reverb written by Isaac Albanez. Jack’s Song is a reply to a song martin sang a couple of nights ago. Another sensitive offering. James opens with Beyond, a Finnish poem turned into a song. A neat duet of guitar picking followed by You Can’t Wrap Your Arms Round A Memory – shades of glorious torchsongs from the past.

Jennifer Waters
She knows her pub snacks and these were neatly woven into an observational piece Gala Pie. High calorie words with added spice.

Caroline steps up to give us an a capella song Freedom. Soulful bluesy flowing over the room

Molly Case
Her love is like a subway sandwich tackled with passion just the same… no wonder she wanted to recall her lover’s departure in the second poem. Her second poem The Unrequited tells of watching her lover from behind glass…poignant words.

MOLLY CASE

Anne and Sean/Sean and Anne
Whether its Anne and Sean or Sean and Anne, guitar, voice and flute were mixed to good effect in their songs, the first a pensive song on death with floating flute melody followed by a slightly more sinister uptempo tune with reference to Flamenco and Led Zep… discuss.

ANNE AND SEAN

Lucas Hadley
Insomnia was closely observed and laid out to dry by Lucas with much feeling. His poem
SuperHero Daydream - “positively charged like an anode” went down well too.

LUCAS HADLEY

Julian Ramsey Wade
A cover of a Harvey Andrews song which in these times of recession reminds us that its those at the bottom of the financial heap suffer most. Matching a strong sentiment with a powerful performance.

Pearletta Hopkins
A piece by Pearletta gave us a picture of her honeymoon… she’s not submitting again to an unexpected hill climb on Lundy Island! “In these shoes Rupert?” Tomorrow was a sweet short piece we enjoyed. Welcome Pauletta! See you again soon we hope.

PAULETTA

Ros Martin
In Black History Month Ros gave us Liberating Freedom, an inspiring piece in the voice of the ancestors urging us all to greater and wider humanity.

Andi Langford-Woods.
Andi’s anger at a badly behaved man was clear, unambiguous and unforgiving. As ever she is able to craft the ebb and flow of human behavior into powerful words.

Chris Beckett had waited patiently (again) and brings the night to an end with his roots fuelled, well loved, folk style. We like him and want him to get his ass down earlier!!!

CHRIS BECKETT

It was wet and miserable outside but we had a good nite, somewhat somber at times but hell, there was a lot of soul in the room.

Hazel shaped the blog and Andi wrapped it up.

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS
AUDIENCE    38
PERFORMERS 22
VIRGINS 6

Racing to cram everyone in and starting early!!! MC Julian Ramsey-Wade introduced Martin John. On only his second visit, Martin is already an established favourite and here he played and sang “Don’t take the boat out”, an authentic song of a fictional fishing disaster (“Fishing was the way of life / Where North winds cut like gutting knives”). His second piece was a tribute to the late Elle Graham, who he honoured in the singing (“Elle just stands for love”).

Next, David Johnson drew attention in his poem to the life pulse of Bristol (“the uninvited Samba band” “the buskers, hustlers, market traders”) and shone a torch into the unlit corners of the city.

John and Caroline returned with a sweetly tender duet using acoustic guitar (the song, apparently, making its debut in public) and an individual take on “Mr Bojangles” which was ten times better than Robbie Williams, judging by the warm crowd reaction.

Middleman, a first time visitor and rapper, spoke (?) of his love of music (“promises of beautiful symphonies, ten thousand strong”) in some style.

MIDDLEMAN

James Revell sang a song he wrote (“about ten years ago and I’m still trying to figure it out”). “You beauty” was full of dreamlike acoustical meanderings, pitched into fragility. His second song was a Dylanesque cover of a song Dylan once covered – “You Belong To Me”.

MC Confusion was our second rapper and virgin: aggressive and to the point, his rap was rapid, topical and contrasted well with his fellow rapper.

MC CONFUSION
James Gale was again accompanied by Martin John on guitar – they combined forces on a “soppy love song” “The way you answer the phone” and then “Cavalier” a far less categorised song with a slightly epic feel to it.

JAMES GALE & MARTIN JOHN
They were followed by Simon the Magician, back behind his box of tricks after a few weeks absence and showing us new pieces of mystery and misdirection – the final knot trick was very successful in that regard.

John Terry performed two poems, the first .based on the difficulties of maintaining an imaginary friend called Derek, in comparison to marriage. “Don’t start me on marriage” was followed by “An unquiet eye” – a very different piece telling the story of “a fixer of failed alarm system … awkward as a cow with a musket”. There’s always something out of the ordinary about John’s pieces and / or his performance of them.

Martin Marsh then covered Jacques Brel’s “La Chanson de Vieux Amants” (in French) and George Formby’s “My Little Snapshot Album” (in English). He sang and played his Ukelele – as frantic as it is melancholy – another unique moment.

Polly Moyer then stepped up and introduced two members of her “Imaginary family”. Firstly she read “Other” about her imaginary brother (“Bother! Blether! B******s! Brother!” as she so alliteratively put it); then she performed “Prodigious” about a child growing away (“We kill the fatted … carrot”).

POLLY MOYER
One top quality poet to another – our special guest Thom the World Poet performed a piece in advance of his main spot in a shameless plug for Acoustic Night and its fundraising efforts. Thanks Thom!

BREAK

After the break, Julian Ramsay-Wade sang “The band played ‘Waltzing Matilda’” for Thom (but the rest of us were allowed the privilege of listening, too) before re-introducing our antipodean guest poet.

Thom the World Poet was backed by a Welsh guitarist – Antony Silvestri – in was in fully interactive mode, taking the murmuring of the crowd and feeding it back to them tenfold. His words are political but his delivery is conversational, which sweetens the message even as it is hammered home – (“every song is a petition – every invitation a conversation” and “Freedom is … what you get away with”). Finishing with “The Joy of Being” (“that joy – it shines”) very much sums up this latest but hopefully not last visit from Thom.

THOM THE WORLD POET
Dario followed that with two guitar and vocal performances. An Italian singer-songwriter with a beautiful voice, he covered John Denver’s “Annie’s Song before performing a slightly simpler piece, “Goodnight My Love” (in Italian!). So he might not be Spanish after all???

DARIO

Mike Gower returned to Acoustic Night after way too long and performed a piece rooted in nature (“Grey Sky / Waves chip and chop”) and a more thought-provoking piece – “There is no Given” (“Find your own path”). Someone who has always found his own path – let us hope it crosses ours again soon.

Dominic Rougier – appearing simply as Dom – stood up and sang and played guitar. The poet in me cannot resist the use of the rhyming adjectives jangly and gangly as Dom told the tale of an old flam and the life she led (“she fell to the floor where she found a nice place she could hide”). Lively and upbeat song.

DOMINIC ROUGIER
Tim Burroughs then followed with a poem for Robert Johnson “Bending Strings” (“An interaction of hands, nails and steel”) and a song not performed before “Dance on the embers” As downbeat as Dom was upbeat, but we love a contrast.

TIM BURROUGHS
Charlie Ansell sang two more adapted folk songs in his Levellers meets Matchbox by way of the Clash style (that is a whole lot better than I make it sound.). Hanging on the old barbed wire” was a commentary on the Generals versus Privates anomaly (“Top brass survive, privates die”) while “Two Butchers” was topically about knife crime.

CHARLIE ANSELL
Andi Langford-Woods then stepped out from behind the amps to read the perceptive“Nerve Ends” (“We have become insulated from the electricity of meetings”).

ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS
David Bosankoe also emerged from Techie Corner to play some more top quality Jew’s Harp.

And just when we thought it was all over, Mike Billing read a piece on storytelling itself (“I’d tell of a life of wait and see”) before Chris Beckett finished off the night with some upbeat guitar playing and raucous singing (“Goodbye my England, farewell my queen”) A top night was had by all.

CHRIS BECKETT
Thanks to Ian Sills and Dom Rougier for the blog.

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE - 58

PERFORMERS - 24

A N VIRGINS - 5

LANGUAGES USED - 3

Woe unto ye who were not present on the evening of the 22^nd September in the year of Our Ford, one hundred and five at Halo in the port town of Brightstowe (now commuted to Bristol by the local tongue), said place of public comfort to be found on the road that runs toward the town of Gloucester; I say woe, for ye missed a feast of the human soul out-speaking its inmost thoughts in an atmosphere of conviviality and warmth for a mere tossing of two Maggies into a flagon you tight bastards.

Sarah Class played a stringed instrument called a guitar, and sang in a sweet good voice “Baby I’ll know you”, a touch of Joni, a song of burgeoning love, “When you sing me the words that your heart hides away”.

SARAH CLASS

Jack, a Halo virgin, was next. First he apologised for being a virgin, then apologised for apologising, the beginning of an infinite regress.

“I’ve travelled far and wide – living – waiting in a dream-wish I could fly away – tell me where the door is in the sky”.

Jack’s second piece was exploring the no-man’s-land between defensagressive (neologism © rlawson 2008) rap-rhetoric and poetry. “You might not like what I have to say – no need for poems to shout – can’t hear if you dissect – generation question without a direction – instead of kisses and hugs we are given drugs.”

I like his word “B’dunk”.

Enter David, another ‘virgin’, and his guitar. Wow! and Wow again, even unto a third wow. First thing I heard was a touch of Lonnie Johnson, but then off and away in a rhythmic melodic sub-creation of such virtuosity that I had to check with him afterwards that it was all done on a guitar or if he had a backing speaker with drums on it. No worries. All guitar, a guitar that doubled as a 100-piece orchestra, a guitar with husky-dusky sexy sound, blue smoky jazz with finger-dancing bibbly bits, no self consciousness, just flight, right through that door in the sky. He followed it with “Summertime” to make up for the crap summer we have all just been through (courtesy of GW Bush and his CO2 emitting paymasters).  David Brandon has a club on Sundays at Plantation Lakes near Kingston Seymour. (That’s near Yatton which is on the A370 going south, for ye who know not the Summer-set wherein ye dwell and from whence comes your food.)

Grace Palmer in a Damien Hirsh skirt covered a lifetime from the Bunsen-burner at school to the Buns-are-burned-now demon-infested kitchen of the child-burdened mother. “he’s been gone two years…failure to get things right…it’s those slams.” Yeah, that’s right, blame the poets. We can take it. Or was it the slamming of doors?

Andy’s guitar started with a plaint, then overtones of JS Bach, then a strong exploration of the 6 strings that led to Julian Bream flowing into Van  Morrison (peace be upon him) his Brown eyed girl, and we all sang “Sha-la-la”.   Yeah.

Mary Crowder announced October 18-19 Clifton Wood Art Trail, her own art at 2 Goldney Avenue, and also Lansdown Poets’ new book. She read one of Charles Thompson’s sweet depictions of feather-flicking flight, and then her own, an image of the beach that she had noticed in a post card seen upside down “sea scattered wisps/walking through days gone by”.

Martin (what’s this? Does nobody have a surname any more?), his ukulele made a slow start, infested by a tinnitic feedback that owed more to the sound-person (Andi – was that you?)(nope… Andi) than Hendrix. Very much the drowsy dancing flea, (the best sort because you can catch ‘em). Sad going on maudlin. His second, by George Formby, put us to rights again because it was about swimmin with the wimmin.

John Terry issued a solemn poetic warming about the effects aforementioned GW Bush and cronies are having on our home. Words, ancient species of words like the word for woolly mammoth, frozen for millennia, were thawing out from their protective ancient polar ice, were stretching their limbs, ready to eat again. Throwbacks, in ice crystals, the monstrous bear, all shadowing our nightmares, eternal ice melting, released from tight lock agents of unease we thought were dead”.

That’s what I picked up anyway. Need to read it again. And again. I Googled “John Terry” to try to find the original. All I found was this:

There was a lady called Kerry
Who loved a man called Gladberry
She gave him a kiss
He gave it a miss
So she went out with John Terry
By Shannon

But that was probably another John Terry.

Richard Lawson read a section of his epic “Ogrin and the boy”. Ogrin is the hermit who acted to reconcile Tristan and Yseult with King Mark, back in 7^th century Cornwall. It was the bit when Tristan and Yseult visit him. Mary Crowder in her notes thought Ogrin loved Yseult. (I never thought of that – maybe he did – RL) You can read it all here.

RICHARD LAWSON

Sutura, harpist and singer with nice voice. “This moment – my intention – beautiful in every way – a living déjà vu – prayer tattooed on my heart”. Precision of fingers, a celebration of Love. Next, an air - “travelling too long, this time we won’t get it wrong. Love is like a hurricane, I’ll be falling forever into your arms”.

Then a song of reconciliation and peace between warring neighbours; “Take a drop of coffee with me and your pain will dissolve like sugar”. (Amen to that).

Then a song of forgiving. (Amen again. This is what the world needs. These were songs in the key of peace) Then a strong song to an autistic boy, calling to him.

SUTURA

Ali Wade “Hey it’s a brand new day”. Straight from the heart.

ALI WADE

Hazel revealed her inmost soul, her feelings for her nonagenarian mother, the role reversals that age brings. “I will miss you”.

Loop Withers “Single, double, losing it, I’m lonely without you”. Nice tight guitar. Luke has been writing songs since the age of seven. Told us how he comes down to the kitchen in that flush of relief we all get when we have just given birth to a song or poem, but in spades because he is seven, remember. “Mum, I’ve written a song!” “That’s lovely dear, I’m frying”.  They ought to write that on their rejection slips instead of the vacuous crap they write about “we are receiving 700 Manuscripts a day, but keep trying”.  “That’s lovely dear, I’m frying” on the rejection slips would say so much more.

LOOP WITHERS

[RL went home at this point, over to Ian]

So Mireille (Mathlener) backed by her partner Richard (Craine) opened with a tight almost funky piece whose name we missed followed by ‘Robin Hood’ – “kinda about the benefit of the doubt…”. You’ll see them both on the Open Mic circuit again somewhere soon.

MIREILLE & RICHARD

Ian Sills reprised ‘Re-freshing’ a celebration of Freshers Week from an ‘older’ perspective followed by ‘So I’m Told’ – written for a Mod band but containing too many words for them to handle! (lightweights….)

Richard Craine slipped back up for a sprightly solo number “we go walking thru’ the woodland, we’ve got joy in every stride”. Nice one Richard.

Next up is David Bosankoe our WebMeister and all round top man on the laptop. We’re down to one piece each as time is flying by and still more to perform. David sends the primeval beat of the Jews harp buzzing round the room. We almost expect Rolf Harris to burst in with his wobble board.

Tim Burroughs got up, pretending to be Norman (and also becoming known as‘Surfer Dude’) and shared a slow-paced conversational style piece ‘Try harder’ ending with “maybe all I need js a warm bath and a bar of chocolate”.

TIM BURROUGHS

Our penultimate virgin of the night, Martin John, gave us ‘New Orleans’ a song written after the Katrina fiasco and include on the Katrina disaster benefit CD. We were all in on the chorus.

Mike Billing closed the poetry side of things with an understated slant on
Domestos-icity. One could almost say he cleaned up…

MIKE BILLING

And finally. James Gale stepped up to the mic, joined by Martin John to bring down the curtain with a Dylan cover. Ably and deftly played by both of these seasoned artists who are performing at Barrs Festival this week.

JAMES GALE & MARTIN JOHN

Thanks to Richard Lawson for the review

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE           56
PERFORMERS       23
VIRGINS                6