The last time I went to a Scaledown night they were still in the teenage numbers, it's been far too long since I last went to this now long running night, of Scaled Down performances run by Mark Braby and the Orchestra Pit in the upstairs bar of the wonderful King & Queens pub on Foley Street, that was the venue a young Bob Dylan played one of his earliest London shows back in the early 60's.
In keeping with the club's ethos these will be scaled down reviews, I arrived in time to hear Jeremy E Toulon's last two songs of very sparse acoustic guitar strummed almost whispered songs, Idiot Love was for anyone whose made a fool of themselves romantically, followed by The Beast that was not an Only Ones cover or a description of the film, but a bit of a heartbreaking tale.
As soon as he was set up on the carpet, in front of the out of service bar, Jimmy Andrex turned before our very eyes into Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams as he fired up his ancient synths and drum machine loops to give us Directions To The Sunlit Uplands a very John Cooper Clarke style sardonic take on the last few years.
Inspiration Poem had stark minimal beats as Johnny tried to inspire us all to do our own thing. Then he encouraged his own Discolette to interpret White Cliff for us and he did so in breakbeat funky freestyle manner, as the words tumbled over us. He then finished with his tribute to Alec Clegg the visionary educator who was involved with as well as memorialized in the Yorkshire Sculpture park this was great fun.
After the break before the next act came on Mark Braby insisted I show everyone my original membership card, as no one needs them anymore, even though it was the Fab Girlfriends one.
Lucinda Sieger then brought on a paper frame as part of her intro for JF Whitney, AKA Mongo Joe Whitney from The Urban Voodoo Machine, who is in the Emerald 20 art exhibition at St Pancras Hospital until 29/9/23. Joe then played The Magic Hatchet a dark tale accented by his violin. Esmerelda featured some delicate brushwork on a bucket, well until the bucket fell off the chair! He then finished with a very English Folk song style version of Never Let Your Braces Dangle, the old Harry Champion classic, played on the violin first, with the vocals acapella afterwards, it was very funny with a touching introduction.
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Bonesetter Rhys was next playing solo Anti-folk that began with the furious Cross that is a full-on rage testament, followed by Captain Slob a man who's so deranged he's slashed his own veins before he closed with a bile laden The Country Has Gone To The Dogs aimed at the idiots that led us to where we are now.
After another short break it was time for The High Span the Soul pop trio from Rochester, Kent Who've Got Our Dreams that included a microphone that works properly among them. Anyway they cut it, this was chilled out laid back and better than sitting in an enclosure at British Summer Time. The cool questioning about Ambrosine led them to tell us about My Memorial Thank You a dark take on getting in on your own epitaph with nice harmonies. As they were in an old pub they had to have a drinking song so Woods 100 celebrated getting legless on rum. They closed with a cover of the soul pop standard Dreaming Of Me originally by Depeche Mode a very cool way to end a good night of minimal music.
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