Acoustic Night

Andi Langford-Woods accepted the poisoned chalice of  MCing and performed “Our Oases” – a tale of touring with the Touareg (OK they are actually Egyptians but that doesn’t work so well!)(Ian!!). She then introduced Simon Reynolds who described his style as “prose poems - don’t rhyme and a little bit weird”. “The Dead” certainly fitted the latter description with images of the dear departed “wrecking the living room” and “dancing the conga”, but his second poem “Home from Home” was a straightforward look at the families and meeting up again. A pleasure to hear from him for the first and hopefully not the last time.

Bernadette Pike also debuted at Halo with “The Yard” (“cos it’s hot”) – during which Monday evening in the back room of a café/bar/restaurant became a sunny Sunday afternoon relaxing outside. Very laid back and enjoyable. “Prayer (for a child)” was written for a 40 year-old single female character in a play and therefore had a very different feel but worked perfectly well on its own, expressing the hopes and dreams of the character (“Let me defy the clocks”).

BERNADETTE PIKE

David Sollors was our first returning performer of the night, although he had not performed for a few months. He returned with rewritten Beatitudes (not unambitious, then) with a modern twist (“Blessed are the fungi and bacteria / they shall inherit the earth”) and a downbeat view of the future (“The entrails rotting on a stone”) – nevertheless leaving the audience wanting more.

DAVID SOLLORS

The unique Hal Camplin ventured forward next to contribute two idiosyncratic songs that only he could possibly have performed. “Death” rattled along with guitar, egg shaker and thought-provoking lyrics (“no one wants to see a man fall a hundred feet to his death / but we all want to be there when it happens”) before “The Prison Problem” dealt with another issue in a similar style (and with added Stylophone) (“morbid obesity…not as morbid as modern life”). He also plugged his album launch.

HAL CAMPLIN

Andrew Milliner was next to perform and described himself as “sort of a virgin” (No, we couldn’t work that out either!) In contrast to our earlier singer, his first poem brought us rain, snow and wind, while “Exmoor holiday” provided a travelogue and the extremely useful detail that “the Exmoor beast is not a beer”. We look forward to seeing him again when he has reconciled himself to the certain loss of his virginity.

ANDREW MILLINER

Pete Gioconda played next as well as plugging his album launch (coincidentally shared with Hal). The songs, driven along by the guitar work and interspersed with harmonica breaks, were at the folky end of blues (or the bluesy end of country) (or better not to pigeonhole!). The first was faster, describing “rockets going off everywhere” and “watching the world end”; the second was more reflective (“is it me that’s looking back?”) but both acted as worthwhile tasters for the album and launch.

PETE GIOCONDA

Gary Death then took us to the break with what he calls “Death Shorts” (sort of comedy haiku of varying lengths and topics) ending with a critique of his pet hate – Tesco (“Tess goes…to Waitrose”). One of the few who can get away with shorts.

GARY DEATH

BREAK

Our special guest was Vicki Burke who was performing solo for us, having played here previously with her band. Her latest work is a song cycle which usually takes one and a half hours to perform and ties in the seasons, the cycle of birth and death and the notes of the musical scale: she was happy to play us a few excerpts while describing how the whole piece would usually be presented. She started with “Elle”- a story of how Vicki dreamed that she would play the harp the day before she acquired one (“She came into my heart / and fixed the broken strings”). She then explained the growth of human knowledge and tied it into the growth of nature through the Spring and Summer months before playing a second song - “Shine” – inspired by Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech. She then talked through the Autumn months of harvest and equated them with the Autumn of our lives as we prepare to die and are then, hopefully… some might say, reborn. “The Children of Miracles” celebrated a baby who had survived a cancer scare and the fact that “every culture has a birth under Capricorn” (“We are the children of miracles, the weavers of dreams”). Finally she brought us back to a new Spring, completing the circle and singing a thank you “To Music” (“I am the sound of the seers” “I bring you joy / I bring you tears”). Vicki packed a lot of information, opinion and art into a very short half hour: it was impressive and enjoyable and certainly whetted the appetite for hearing the whole thing someday.

VICKI BURKE

Fortunately, the performer to follow that was the erudite and knowledgeable Pete Hunter, who could have continued in similar vein but chose instead to perform three short poems from his little grey book. A wry tale of a poet’s life (“I sometimes write in bars, alone”) was followed by “a true story” of toddlers wounding his shins and a topical take on the expenses scandal (“Tabloids bring poet to account / Demand poetic justice”). Yet another unique and irreplaceable talent.

Ros Martin read a “work in progress” which will develop into a short film about Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan activist now in her seventies who has planted thirty million trees to revitalise the land (“drink your fill of rainwater”): in progress it may be but it was still a skilful portrait of a fascinating character that left one wanting to know more.

ROS MARTIN

David Glassman became the third (or fourth?) virgin of the night and read “Hunger” (about the liberation of a concentration camp by Russian soldiers) and “Santiago di Compostella” (about retreating into a church during a storm “the downpour…converted me to pilgrim”). Two more poems different from each other and covering unusual and interesting subjects.

DAVID GLASSMAN

Polly Moyer performed a list/tattoo poem which referenced Tracey Emin and the Angel of the North before acknowledging that “My next tattoo is going to be…painful”). Then “We’re getting there” described the carriage of a delayed train and the singular version of human life therein. Boy, but it is good to hear from her!

POLLY MOYER

Hazel Hammond is currently working on a book about tattooed people (hence Polly’s poem) and she performed “Negative Space” (negative space is the part of a tattoo that is neither black outline nor colour) before she read “Thank you Sandra” which covered tattoos and self-harm. Yet another taster for a bigger and more comprehensive work of art.

Finally Josie sang a couple of songs with the masterful assistance of David Bosankoe on Jew’s Harp (though thankfully not Stylophone!), the first of which discussed “the difference between getting high and getting wasted” That is Acoustic Night to a T – thought-provoking, funny, clever and entertaining. Brilliant, aren’t we?

dAVID BOSANKOE AND JOSIE

None more so than Ian for the insightfull and well wrought reviews we get. Another gem that is undervalued. And he can lift things…

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE  34

PERFORMERS 16 That’s almost 50% of the audience, what a crowd!

VIRGINS 3.5 (it was just fiveplay Victor…)