Acoustic Night

Julian  Ramsay Wade

Gave us ‘too much tenderness‘a panegyric to welcome the birth of his newborn son Christopher. We all welcome him too … and lack of sleep has not eaten into his poetic power to move our hearts. Congratulations Ramsey-Wades all …

Music from Martin Hall-Kenny’s new album ‘Throat Cutting’, a soulfully melodic piece his strong voice clearly articulating the poignant words and will stay with me, “the song still remained though the singer has gone”. He followed this with an audience participation country style song. With a sci-fi chorus! We get it all at Acoustic Night …

MARTIN HALL-KENNY

Some words from Rosemary Dun at first all post coital dreamy and early dawny… and then warded off the prince of darkness in a ‘never again’ defiance. Oh how often does the new squeeze turn into the prince(ess) of darkness? Oh we know that - all of us!

ROSEMARY DUN

Next up was poet Lee Coombs who treated us to two different worlds, one, that of  prison where all the inmates were kept tight reflecting a male world  and second Tamboco and inner those inner demons.

LEE COOMBS

A musical duo who have been away a while Sean and Ann featured a song with a calling refrain  to two guitars working in harmony followed by a flute and guitar performance with a haunting sung intermezzo.

SEAN & ANNE

Once again we were entertained by Drift Snowbarger (love that name) where his life chided him and disappeared into the films of Cary Grant, Westerns, Star Wars and finally a film noir all set in ‘Brizzle’.

The we welcomed back Martin Hall-Kenny  who clearly told us  the moving story of Grace Darling but this time we heard the voice of the stricken sailors calling for help.

Then it was Special Guest Tim Clare in a sophisticated set where the poems and links slid together with ease. He knew his audience being a local lad   (Portishead) who let us know about his inner life through a powerful image of the ‘dead owl who stares through you’  The mood was lightened  with a bravura performance about Rocky films as a model for depressed men and moved into humour with a melancholic edge in ‘The girl from Donkey Kong’. What followed was a riotous evening … lads night out with Gods oversight – unexpectedly and finally a wild piece about Mrs. F**K - a wonderfully funny evocation acknowledging the sexuality of the older woman … or am I just projecting here?…

TIM CLARE

David Bosankoe took us once more into the complete world of the Jaws Harp or is it Jews Harp? Using a very tiny one and a larger deeper one to give us a variety of sound and rhythm.

Pauline Seeward offered us two poems set in the working world … one of life on a ward and the equally well observed Isabel. Here I could identify strongly with the racist experience in school having met the same - here poetically expressed while being written and read with passion.

PAULINE SEEWARD

A gift of a piece from the highly respected and accomplished Byron Vincent. A wide ranging, rhythmic recall and recheck of British culture: image after image pouring out to layer in the mind - unique.

BYRON VINCENT

Jamie Harrison a soft picking cool strumming humorous piece and after urging from the audience - another witty little piece with fun strumming. Mentioned in dispatches in the same breath as Jake Thackwray…

JAMIE HARRISON

Andi gave us two poems, the first a lovely fantasy of a South American woman whose life offered us tragedy, fire, coffee and compromise in unequal measure. Following this with a strong protestation about being a poet who needs to get out of here. !!!

ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS

Mon gave us the second half of a longer poem from a light tone to a growl a young man’s journey using a metaphore of two homing pigeons on his lifes’ journey !

MON MERTTENS

Finally Hazel Hammond read another couple of insightful tattoo poems, this must be becoming a collection by now!

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE  33

PERFORMERS  14

Andi Langford-Woods MC’d and set those assembled the task of writing a poem based on the word “Skeletal”, for that was the size of the audience. She then performed a new piece: “I’m a poet…get me out of here…out of the writer’s spaghetti-thought-block, a pasta rasta full of dread-lock…” She then introduced the Jew’s Harp stylings of David Bosankoe, who shared a new piece with the audience.

ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS

Craig Wilson returned from London with two poems (“Power to the People” and “The Devil is at Command”). Political and opinionated as ever (“I believe in the freedom of speech”), Craig also managed to inject a laugh into his poem (literally in this case).

Ben then debuted at Acoustic Night with two songs: a love song (“We lie awake”?) in a modern folk style and “a more delicate one” (“Restore all things”) with a more outward-facing outlook (“let me wash over like rain”). The strong, understated vocals meshed nicely with the guitar and the effect was very pleasant.

BEN

Malusi made a welcome return next: his style is difficult to describe but sweet to listen to. More musical than most rap, his voice is soft but his lyrics have a hard edge (“government collapse constitution of a pick and don’t mix”) and (“where were you when…sky became breathless?”). See you again soon.

MALUSI

Ken Chapman stepped out of the Sodburys for an individual set incorporating “To Ramona” (by Dylan) and a W McLean (?) song (“This Love Will Carry”). Great Stuff - we would see him again very soon!

KEN CHAPMAN

Ian Sills stepped up next with two old poems, the first of which he read out on Radio 5 Live at around 3.15am the previous Saturday. “Frankly Mr Shankly” describes the unimportance of football when compared to the loss of life which has scarred the game at several points in its recent history, specifically the Bradford fire of 1985. To raise the mood, he followed this with “Apology (to Eminem)”, the best poem by a middle-aged Bristol accountant in honour of a foul-mouthed Detroit rapper ever. Probably!

IAN SILLS

The Sodburys followed with “Pay it Forward” (based on the film of the same name) and the sad tale of “Molly”: the former is a morality tale in a modern folk style and the latter a slightly old-fashioned story of love found and lost.

THE SODBURYS
BREAK

Jake Arnott opened after the break, making his first solo appearance having performed at Halo previously with the band Barebones. “Easy Money” was a cover of a Rickie Lee Jones song, while the second was about Jack Ruby and was based on “Ruby Baby” by Donald Fagen / Steely Dan. (“Oswald is a Commie through and through / Jack knows what a Texas boy should do”). The mix of elastic (left-handed) acoustic bass and conversational vocal style worked a treat.

JAKE ARNOTT

Andi then called for the “Skeletal” poems and received diverse offerings from Craig, Ollie, Cathy Keal, Ian, Nadia, Malcolm and (in absentia) Helen.

Carmen Alfonso stepped up to perform a (non-skeletal) poem “The Tree”, which shone a little natural sunlight into the evening. Cathy Keal then performed a quick (even skeletal) set and after Malcolm’s poem he returned with the rest of The Sodburys to sing “Bless My Heart”…(“I’m gonna live life to the full / and home is where I lay my hat”) and (with Ken as songwriter and lead singer) “The New Messiah” which looked at Barack Obama’s inauguration and his effect on the world. To finish, Andi gave us “Stick Insect” before calling an early end to a quiet evening.

CARMEN ALFONSO

CATHY KEAL

NADIA

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE     31

PERFORMERS   14

VIRGINS   2