Beercart Arms, Canterbury, 30th March 2003:
Second week; slightly larger crowd. Phil “Mr P.A.” Davis was displeased at Beercart Arms management’s lack of support and apparent desire to strangle the open stage in the crib. However, I encountered a GENIUS (well, sort of): a man named Alex Abraham whom I’d seen busking around Canterbury. He played songs with titles like “I’m A Sensitive Artist”, “Eat Fat American People” and the coup de grace, “The Sandwich That Survived A Fatal Bus Crash And Got A Guilt Complex”. We must do a gig together…
Quotes:
Punter 1: “I like your strumming, I’d hate to see the state of your guitar.”
Punter 2: “I’d hate to see the state of his knob.”
The Old Neptune, Whitstable; Woody’s Bar, UKC and Beercart Arms, Canterbury, 23rd March 2003:
Yes indeed, a marathon THREE open stages in one night! A mad whirl it was too. The afternoon at the Neptune saw the first nice weather of the year and therefore the somewhat bamboozling situation of Sunday afternoon being BUSY. There were one or two goons present, but hey, I’m a professional, I rise above it. Took my new MAGIC GUITAR, the Baldwin Virginian and strummed like a Fanta-drinking baboon, as usual. The response was favourable and the in-house PA a welcome development.
Woody’s Bar at UKC was a sheer blag (thanks, Kevin Appadoo!). I think the organisers clocked me as a non-student interloper almost immediately, but if they were bothered they didn’t show it. I experienced the bizarre déjà vu situation of a student bar complete with cheapo fart-inducing beer — oh the nostalgia! Being expected to fend for oneself in the mixing department was an added novelty — the balance was somewhat unbalanced (not to say unhinged), but I thrashed out those Maximum R’n'B powerchords and yelled as hard as I could, which seemed to keep people fairly happy (if startled). I didn’t stick around long enough to really see/hear anybody else as caffeine-induced physical jerks propelled me out of the door, into the Teutonic Princess and off to the Beercart in a matter of minutes.
The revived open stage at the Beercart looks promising, although the first night was quiet-ish. These things take time to build (Beercart Arms management please note). Having spent most of the day feeling like I had a Duracell up my arse, I was starting to flag, but it was good. The usual suspects were there (Katie Bradley, White-Washburn Chris, Luke Smith, Jo Hook, Jake…) Do call again…