Friday, April 12, 2013

The wunderbar experience of playing bass for Ed Tudor Pole (Friday) - followed by cockle-rocking beats (Saturday)



A four-way whammy of winners were on Friday night's bill for The Railway shakedown. I'd managed to grab a loose-blues jam with opening act BONE down In the bar earlier that evening, but due to a few backstage scoops missed his and J.D Smith's main stage sets.


Instead, I crept in late to catch the incredible and insane world of Thomas Truax. Who, travels minstrel style around and about the hemisphere pitching up for gigs with an orchestra of self-built percussive and musical mechanicals. The Mother Superior,The Hornicator: think Wilf Lunn goes steam punk for a David Lynch soundtrack, with each song and instrument introduced and contextualised in a Rich Hall style Texan drawl.



Like TV Smith's solo sets - Ed Tudor Pole, sand-blasts punk's energy and attitude back to raw, acoustic roots, deploying his set as almost protest-folk in the tradition of Wat Tyler meets Woody Guthrie. Still as animated and erratic as when first stepped onto a stage to audition for the Pistols, Pal Ed is Wide-eyed, excitable and engages with audience, fidgeting 'n' twitching around the stage like a battery hen liberated and let loose into a widescreen horizon



At the close of Ed's set an in-house scratch band - Dave Deville, (guitar) Dave Dulake (drums) me (bass) were summoned onstage for a few Chuck Berry numbers, a gospel cover and of course Swords of a Thousand Men. And what an absolute first class blast was had by all. A blinder, a belter and teenage dream to share a stage with a former Sex Pistol (albeit by his own admission for just two weeks) .

 

Saturday and it's along to Old Leigh way for the Woodcock Festival. A shuffle of pre-booked bands and open mic types. After Dave Woodcock kindly pitching up for Podrophenia so regularly - it was a treat to be able to join him for an outdoor jam, with a pint on the table, the estuary behind us and the Crooked Billet ahead, blasting out the Chuck Berry and Little Richard covers.



There are even whispers we may be reuniting for a repeat performance on the 28th of April at the Sarah Moore - should you be buzzing about the Broadway that evening.

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