October 9th - Day 174

"I thought I was asleep dreaming about music, then I realised I was awake thinking about it," so said Barney, lead vocalist of one of this evening's acts, Ro-Sham-Bo. I know how he feels. Barney's anxious visions, however, were not as a result of music overkill, but the opposite. Tonight was Ro-Sham-Bo's first gig in two years.

They're a three-piece. Barney on guitar and vocals, Dave on bass and Drummerplayingfirstgigwithroshambo on drums. They were the fifth act on of six in the basement of The Troubadour, a revered cafe-bar in Earls Court that I'd never heard of before, but has apparently been at the forefront of the live music scene in London since opening as a coffee house in 1954 - former performers include Jimi Hendrix, Sammy Davis Jnr, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin (who'd jam here after Earls Court concerts)! I hang my head in shame.

I usually don't hang around for the fifth act of six, but I'd come to see Ro-Sham-Bo because they know some friends of mine. And I'd paid seven quid to get in. It's always a relief when a friend of a friend's band are fantastic, much in the same way that it's always a relief when a friend of a friend's new girlfriend is fantastic...actually I don't think that is in the same way...anyway, I digress. The Ro-Sham-Bo sound...funky bass-driven, indie, rocky...Barney was a belting singer and, despite his pre-gig anxiety, a confident (and witty) front man who, in true rock-speak, owned his little part of the stage (about two-foot square). Drawing on the Troubadour sixties connections, if I may, I thought he had a touch of Small Faces' Steve Marriott about him...or Ronnie Lane. The Small Faces anyway. Photo below shows Barney with no face at all.

The other highlight of the evening for me was an act called Erin K Music, which is in fact singer-songwriter Erin Kleh and four others, one of them called Tash, who is actually quite important too, because Erin's Myspace site is called Erin K and Tash. Well, they were all important. And utterly fantastic...funny, dark, weird, watchable, upbeat....I need to write more really, about the horse's head and the catchy Violent Femmes-esque rythyms and Erin's wonderful strange and witty lyrics, but I need to go back to the dentist now, because when I went yesterday (it's now 15th) I didn't bring the silver cap I needed re-sticking with me.
Photo below of Erin Kleh and friends taken in sepia mode...Erin's the one whose face has fallen off her head.