August 5th - Day 109

The sight of a man with a cabbage hat upon his head, espied through a window, sauntering out of the back room of the local pub, may not to many people be seen as a sure sign that live music is nearby. But fortunately I knew that this hat belonged to Hugh Metcalfe, founder and compere of The Klinker. And not surprisingly, but fortunately nonetheless, it was he who I saw under the hat. The Klinker has functioned for 27 years in various inner-city venues north and south of the river (mainly north). Currently, and maybe uniquely, four venues across town hold Klinker evenings (klinkerzoundz.com). I don't know how to describe The Klinker, so here are some words from the flyer: improvisation, film, music, contraptions, poetry, rattle, burnt toast, chandeliers. And perhaps more pertinantly, "Right strange with a twinkle".
This evening I arrived quite late and for a few minutes, as I watched Hugh and a couple of colleagues rambling around the stage plugging and unplugging instruments, it not being apparent whether they were setting-up or packing-up, I thought I may have missed the evening altogether. Eventually, however, Hugh picked up his acoustic guitar (he performs too - guitar and violin tonight) and he, a drummer and an electric guitarist became Fuck Off Batman, described in the flyer as "monosylabolic batmanic freakrock". I was thinking something like thrash-thrash, or rude-thrash-impro (when Hugh wasn't passing the time during a song repeatedly shouting out the word "Fuck", it was because he was repeatedly screaming the word "Shit"). Hugh said after the set that he "really enjoyed the bits we weren't playing - the bits between the tracks".