This evening was billed as "The Bard The Beat and The Blues night" and it was a very cool night indeed to see PAT FISH (or The Jazz Butcher if you prefer) doing his first gig of 2011 back down in a proper Folk basement about 100 yards or so down the Regents Canal from where Rimbaud and Verlaine once lived.
The Constitution was also one of Davey Grahams hangouts so it has its own little history of Cool.
I had a little reminsce with Pat about the first basement I saw him in back in Paris in 1989 with the hope that this show would be as good as those four memorable shows were.
Co-headliner JOE WOOLEY had gone round the beer garden drumming up business for his first set as they had decided to play two alternating sets each. The venue itself was a decent sounding small cellar with some cool folk music artwork on the walls and both Joe and Pat played totally acoustically: no mics or amps and achieved almost impresive pindrop silence throughout except for newcomers coming down the stairs.
I myself interrupted in between one of Wooley's first songs and soon sat down to hear what one of Circulus' guitar playing singers would come up with solo.
Well as expected it was mainly very well chosen covers of the likes of Mississippi Fred MacDowell and Robert Johnson played with great care and bags of feeling that made it seem immaterial that Joe is a white guy from London in the 21st century and not a share-cropping blues man of the 1920's. He also had an easy rapport with the growing packed cellar which was just as well as there were more than 20 of us stuffed in down there.
After they swapped seats it was Pat's turn and he made quite an entrance looking very dapper in waistcoat shirt and tie. He opened with two songs about the same woman courtesy of Beautiful Mind and Mercy and it sounded like they had a hell of a relationship as we rode the emotional rollercoaster all the way to the terminus with Pat.
He then introduced the Weedsmokers Dream as being about his hobby, no Pat really is it!??!! This being a Folk cellar it was as much about the tradtional songs as your own so Pat had a lighthearted run through Play It All Night Long and after introducing that the next song was a Slapp Happy cover. I can't think who would have called out for Everyone's Slimming!
Pat then rather more sensibly sang his version of the Mazzy Star hit Blue Flower: a song that always sounds beautiful no matter who is singing it.
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Animals, the next song, was introduced by Pat telling us which versions of it he liked. When I heard it was the song Alex Chilton recorded as If You's a Viper on his Loose Shoes Tight Pussy CD I was in heaven as I love the song, another great song about getting stoned of course. Yes Pat, I was wrong about which band backed Alex on the tune as it was Ron Easley and Richard Dworkin. Mea Culpa.
His first set then finished with one of his own hits Shirley Maclaine. It all went down very well indeed and there were soon vipers all over the beer garden.
Having bought the pub's last bottle of Westons Cider I sat down for the second round. During Joe Wooley's set he made a few jokes about being thrown out of Circulus while I tried to figure out if I had Cousin Joe doing the old blues tune he was now playing or not. He also played a couple of his own tunes that sounded as careworn as the old standards did.
Eventually The Jazz Butcher re-appeared dragging himself away from the footie on the screens upstairs to open his second set by playing two new tunes that he said had been inspired by Max Eider and so it was no surprise they were a touch downbeat. I can't wait to hear proper versions of both Last Of The Gentleman Adventurers and the very dark Black Raoul which was certainly good enough to bring a bunch of teenagers down into the cellar with us to hear Holiday and the most upbeat song of the night, Quality People: a song that sounds as good stripped and solo as it does with the full band.
He Finished with Angles, no not the Blobby Williams song, stupid. It was a strong finish to a very cool night and went down very well indeed as the publican rushed to get us all out and I hurried up St Pancras Way to catch the last train home.
In between rounds, Pat told me he is hoping to be singing a tune or two on the new version of Die Groschen Opera (Threepenny Opera) that the Alabama Three guys are currently working on. Here's hoping it all comes to fruition along with the other guest singers.
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