Hobgoblin and Montague Arms Music

A busy week in the ongoing adventure that is Brockley Ukulele Group. Last Saturday we played at The Hobgoblin (below), a challenge making ourselves heard with our small instruments and a big garden full of people drinking in the sun. Still some people were singing along with our version of Half Man Half Biscuit's Light at the End of the Tunnel.


As we were paid in beer my recollection of the other people playing is a bit hazy. I know that Vikki G has a good voice and did a Prince song, and Adam Ashton played some casio accompanied self-styled 'hardcore homo' tunage. Then its a blur.

Fortunately when we played at the Montague Arms on Tuesday (the first of Kelvin B's Girls in Bikinis nights), we were supporting two other bands from Saturday and I was able to give them the attention they deserve. The Faction is the latest manifestation of some time 'crusty' dubsters RDF (Radical Dance Faction), a band who I saw many times in the 1990s at South London squat parties and festivals including the Deptford Urban Free Festival in Fordham Park. Chris Bowsher's deadpan anarcho-dread poetics still sound very striking. I would never have imagined that I would end up on the same bill with a ukulele - watch out for that uke-dub soundclash!

Next up on this very eclectic night was the Cordelia Fellowes Experience. They were outstanding, Cordelia herself with a good jazzy/blues voice that reminded me of Madeline Peyroux but a lot more energetic. Check them out if you get the chance, they will be back at the Montague Arms on Tuesday 28th October - as will Brockley Ukulele Group.

To play on the stage at the Monty is a great honour - the 'best pub in the country' (it's official), the place where Nick Cave, Mark E Smith and Shane MacGowan once drank together, and where I saw the Gang of Four (with Phil Jupitus standing behind me). All this and a stuffed zebra.