365 Days of Live Music: Nunhead

Showing posts with label Nunhead. Show all posts

April 19th - Day 1

On the corner of Nunhead Green in South London is the Old Nun's Head pub. And in a sunny corner of the Old Nun's Head pub were a couple of proficient young musicians playing jazzy music that managed to sound upbeat and laidback at the same time. Their audience were an attentive silver-haired beardy man and slightly further away, a handful of chatty Sunday lunchers who happened to be in the same room.

The musicians both seemed to be having a great time. One was a double bassist and the other was a guitarist who looked a bit like Frank Zappa wearing a Mike Nesmith hat. I originally thought they were improvising, but noticed that they were actually paying close attention to a music stand, and the sheet music thereon. The double bassist was concentrating particularly hard and I was impressed by the way he managed to smile and frown at the same time (not easy).

They had a break, returned to their instruments and for all I know played exactly the same set again. This time however their efforts earned deserved applause after every piece from the diners who by now didn't have to go the effort of putting down their knives and forks to show their appreciation. I wondered whether the musicians were enjoying themselves as much as they appeared to be. The easist way to find this out would have been to ask them, but I didn't. Maybe I'll go back next week and ask them then.

theoldnunshead.co.uk

2011 update - Old Nun's Head not doing jazz on a Sunday anymore, but still thriving. I haven't yet found out who the two musicians are.

2014 - five years later - pub still there, jazz still not there, folk music is there, still don't know who the musicians were.

April 22nd - Day 4

I probably need to define my set of rules. Every day I must experience a musical performance of any sort by at least one artist/performer I have not previously seen during the year. So if I see an artist one week and a month later they're on the bill of another show, that's okay as long as I see, and concentrate on, somebody else. Basically, a new performer every day. Anywhere. Any capability. Buskers. Someone at a party. School choirs. Every kind of concert, recital or festival. I can't keep going to the same place, but I've yet to decide what restriction to put on the amount of times I visit one venue. Once a month perhaps.

So this evening I broke that rule and then bent it. I was back at The Old Nun's Head, but in the room above the pub and so a completely different venue. The occasion was the weekly Easycome Acoustic night which has been running (according to Easycome Myspace) for 17 years, first at the Ivy House on the other side of Nunhead Cemetery, and for the last two or three years, here. I've been a few times before and have always been impressed with the quality on offer. The term "acoustic" may imply "folk" to some, but frankly any style goes, as long as it's good.

When I arrived, the cosy wood pannelled room was lit, as always, by tealight candles in lanterns. Two blokes were watching a five piece group called Rum Shebeen sound checking, although this wasn't completely apparent until they'd finished a nifty latino-indie number and asked whether the vocals were okay and could we hear the keyboards. We said yes.

And so I thought, well, I've had my musical experience. I could just go. But I liked what I saw so would like to save Rum Shebeen for another time. And as I dithered the MC, Andy Hankdog (sometimes Hank Dog) - that's he with the hat - came in and asked if I was staying, then he recognised me and we briefly discussed personal affairs, before I found myself handing him four pounds. I watched football downstairs for a bit and came back. The smell of insence now wafted down the staircase.

In the room the audience had swelled ten-fold. On stage, just about to be announced, were two women. One with a banjo and a sore throat (Ruth) and one with a guitar (Emily). The Lorcas. The Lorcas were rather fab. They played and sang sweet, dark folk. I expect most the songs were about people dying in pits or children falling down wells, but I didn't follow the narratives that closely and instead just drifted along with the kind of excellent music that makes one feel melancholy and cheery at the same time.

2011 update. The Easycome night is still going strong. I'm not sure the same can be said of The Lorcas - can't yet find any news beyond 2009...

2014 - 5 years on - Easycome, after returning briefly to its spiritual home The Ivy House, upon the latter's temporary closure in 2012, moved to The White Horse in Peckham, where it still is. The Lorcas remain unaccounted for.

2018 - Lorca Ruth fronting The Bara Bara Band. Easycome now at Skehans Pub.

April 27th - Day 9

"I'm not feeling very well," said Oliver on the morning of my first child-free music-hunting day since Thursday, "I don't think I should go to school."

He looked alright to me and I demanded proof, several small pieces of which he d

uely provided whilst bent over the toilet.

But all was not lost; I had already been audience to a musical performance before Oliver's unhelpful vomiting. Completely out of the blue, Daisy asked me if she could sing me a song. She sang me four in the end (Cheeky Monkeys, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Once I Caught A Fish Alive). I had intended to use The Daisy Wild Card at some point - only to be used once of course - but not this early. However, the performance's complete spontaneity and its serendipitous timing persuaded me that the card had to be played now.

May 3rd - Day 15

"Been past it many times, but never been inside," is a remark I recently overheard. The man was responding to a friend's glowing report of The Plough in Walthamstow and the live music therein. I have been neither past nor inside The Plough. Could I go inside without going past? Probably not unless I went inside every single time I went past...or didn't go past.

Anyway, a pub that I have been past many times, and never been inside, is The Pyrotechnists Arms on Nunhead Green ("The Pyro"). A poster on their window advertised "Theresa Rodgers and Wild Flowers" performing at 6.30 this evening. I got there at seven and walked out of Nunhead and into Donegal.

Theresa Rodgers, it turned out, is an Irish country music performer, and I think songwriter, of some reknown. The Mayo News reported thus on her performance in front of 2,000 people at last May's emotional closing night of The Galtymore Ballroom in Cricklewood, "Singers of the calibre of Theresa Rodgers from Arranmore island off the Donegal coast are rare, and the now London-based entertainer, along with her brother John, delivered a lovely set for the early arrivals. She is a superb singer and a charming lady as well."

The Galtymore opened in 1952 at a time of high Irish emigration to Britain and became a main, perhaps the main social headquarters for Irish Londoners. Not all the events there were necessarily for an Irish audience. I went there once, two years ago, to see The Fall. And I would have liked to have gone there again. Oh well.

Today Theresa played keyboard and sang. She was accompanied by John on guitar. And on the tight patch of wooden floor in front of them people danced.

Not because they were drunk, but because they liked dancing. At the end of the first song I heard, Theresa said, "Thank you for dancing", which I took to be indication that this was the first song featuring dancers, but it turned out she says that after every song. Though probably not when no-one dances - that would be rude and sarcastic. This evening, however, there were dancers for every song. Lots of them, teens through to seventies. Couples smiling, twirling and interchanging. By the time I left about an hour later, I'd had to retreat several yards from my original vantage point to avoid being swept along by the dancing hoards.

2015 update - latest gig news of Theresa and John on the net I can find was January 2014 at a pub in Ealing. The Pyro still gong strong with live music to the fore.

May 8th - Day 20

Three days ago Oliver brought home his script for this morning's assembly - a short play about Vikings.

There were some lines highlighted in green - I think they were Oliver's - but more crucially at the bottom of page one were the words "SONG Viking Warriors" and on page two "SONG Viking Boats".

"Hey," I said, "There's songs."

"I'm the Chief Viking," said Oliver.

"And there's songs," I said.

"No," he said.

"It says songs."

"No, we're not doing the songs."

"Why not?"

"Because we didn't want to do them."

I suggested to Oliver that he and his classmates may like to re-consider this decision. When he proved unwilling to heed my suggestion, I demanded to know who was in charge and he told me it was his teacher.

And so the assembly has passed off without music and what with Daisy's toddler group also, yet again, failing to deliver, I now need to pick Oliver up from his choir practice ten minutes early...

Choir did good - soaring version of Bill Withers' "Lovely Day"

May 18th - Day 30

I went to Nunhead Library this morning to return an overdue dvd. My disgruntlement at being told that I owed Southwark Council three pounds was tempered by the realisation that a toddlers' group was in full swing in the children part of the library. I'd been to this group in the past (with my daughter), recalled that songs were a feature and spotted an opportunity to avoid a trip uptown this afternoon and with it give myself an extra couple of hours to write in the blog. As I waited, not wishing to appear sinister, I flicked through a book about London social history. Before long I heard the happy sound of a maraca. And then a tamberine and various other instruments to bash, shake or blow. "He's trying to escape," said a mum as she caught up with one little fellow who, in mid-flee, had bumped his head on the electronic swing gate. Perhaps he'd been given the tuba. The songs were a mixture of old and new - Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Here We Go Round the Mulbury Bush, Ring a Ring a Roses. Three hundred and fifty years of song history (if one believes the Ring a Roses plague connection) peformed inside ten frantic musical minutes.

May 31st - Day 43

June 4th - Day 47

The bloke over the road who has been practicing saxophone in the top room of his house every day since 1946. Finally his moment has arrived..............

June 17th - Day 60

This man is Tim. Tim is The Boycott Coca-Cola Experience . The drummer is Dido. She is also The Boycott Coca-Cola Experience. But only Tim is called Boycott. The Boycott Coca-Cola Experience alone are worth the entry fee to Nunhead. (myspace.com/bcce)

June 27th - Day 70

Oliver and Mehdi's James Brown wig out. Followed by a session standing around the old laptop googling lyrics and singing Michael Jackson, Black Eyed Peas and WWE entrance themes.
What started as a tentative effort to shoehorn any kind of live music into the day, turned into a bon-fide improvised fifteen minute performance. The knowledge that, at a time when I'm finding it quite hard to justify continuing with the project, it was the project that instigated the music, enriched the moment with extra feelgood.

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".

August 6th - Day 110

Today was one of those happy days that gifted me my music experience completely out of the blue. A school holiday trip to the park was delayed by news that there was a children's show about to start in the local library. The show turned out to be a music jamming session led by the Rock and Roll Pirates - Andi on Yamaha organ and Didntcatchhisname on vocals and drums. A vast array of child-friendly percussive and wind instruments were laid on the floor in front of them for their young audience to choose from. As the Pirates grooved through their Booker T/Chas and Dave-esque set (I particularly enjoyed their pub rock version of "Ten little pirates jumping on the bed - oi!!"), seven or eight children and a couple of adults bashed, shook and blew in accompaniment. By the time our hour with the personable duo was up, the kids had karaoked, taken part in a dance competition and had drumming lessons from Didntcatchhisname. It came as no surprise to learn that these two very accomplished musicians had rather more on their CVs than providing musical fun for the under twelves. Andi (also a composer), for instance, has played and/or recorded with Jeff Beck, Judie Tzuke, Toyah and David Bowie amongst many others. I didn't find out much about the other chap, who I shall now call Didntcatchhisnameanddidntfindoutmuchabouthim.

More about Andi (Clark) at myspace.com/467282281

Update - Through my involvement with The Ivy House, aka the Newlands Tavern, I discovered that Andi played there back in the 1970s with the band Upp. One of their album sleeves now adorns the musical wall of honour!

August 30th - Day 134

I went down to The Boho Bar this evening and was miffed to discover that tonight's music was provided by Lisa Lore, not because she's no good - she's great, a "neo-blues tripfunk wordsmith" (lisalore.com) - but because she was performing the last time I went here too. I decided to check out an open-mic night in Greenwich, but, going past the local (The Ivy House), I heard live music and suddenly a trip to Greenwich seemed a bit of an effort. The band, a rocky outfit called Siberia performing their own riff-heavy stuff alongside covers of Whitesnake, Pulp, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Golden Earing, were the entertainment at a buzzing multi-aged school reunion.

August 31st - Day 135

Today was one of those days where I had to bring the music to me, so here's Maurice performing "Whisky in the Jar" (Thank you Maurice!). We agreed that he doesn't really look like he's singing in the photo. I can assure you that he was. It was a powerful, full-blooded performance that I have no doubt had residents of Nunhead reaching under their beds to produce their pistols and their rapiers.

September 19th - Day 154

To Nunhead Green today to enjoy the annual urban fete, known as Green Day, blessed for the third year running with sublime weather. My intention had been to check out the music on the Dynamo Cabaret stage, where the musicians' amps are powered by fifteen bikes riden by audience members (not the same ones all afternoon) - no pedalling = no music. When I arrived, however, clutching my camera, my bag and my sleeping three-year-old, this amiable bunch of lunatics (the moniker in particular applies to the three men in the top picture) were in full swing outside the Old Nun's Head pub. They were called "This Happy Band" and their task for the day was to crawl from pub to pub playing music (plus a bit of poetry), fortifide only by beer and food. Amongst their number, as well as musicians, poets and pirates, were a pantomime horse, a laughing bear, a slightly sinister chap dressed head to foot in camouflage gear and a human percussion instrument. In the front garden of The Pyrotechnists Arms it was announced that today was National Pirates Day and some blokes drinking lager were encouraged to join in the "Arrrggggghhhh!!" part of the subsequent song. The drinkers said, "argh" and pulled their pints close.

November 22nd - Day 218

After last Sunday's disappointment, I decided to give The Man Of Kent another go this evening. The chalk board outside proclaimed live music - "Offaly Spice at 6pm". Offaly Spice? Could have been anyone or anything. According to a subsequent google search Offaly Spice is a greyhound (whelp date 6th September 1999...total prize money 190 Euros). Not the same Offaly Spice it turned out. This isn't surprising, because it lives in Ireland and it's a dog. Anyway...erm... what I also didn't know, because I am ignorant, and this may have given me a more reliable clue, is that Offaly is a county in Ireland. And this Offaly Spice was a cheerful Irish woman in a black dress belting out songs by people like Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline and Robert Palmer ("Doctor, Doctor, give me the news, I've got a bad case of swine flu!!").

The pub was busier and a lot more enthusiastic about Offaly Spice's dynamic singing than the photo below suggests. And...is it just me or does the angle make it look like she's a very, very small woman perched on the rail of a barstool serenading the man at the bar?

December 10th - Day 236

The grown-ups at the back are the Nunhead Community Choir. The only two male members, first and third from the right are...well, they're the only two male members. Al (grey t-shirt) suggested that once my 365 days are over I might like to make it three.

365 Days of Live Music