The Last Days of Something Special

Standing outside, the Last Days of Decadence looks like any one of the pubs and bars on Shoreditch High Street. But step across the threshold and you enter the glamorously debauched world of a Prohibition-era Speakeasy.

The decor is authentically 1920s, and the drinks too match. A handful of girls at the bar are decked out in full ‘flapper’ outfits, accompanied by boyfriends sporting suspenders and trilbies, although most are uniformed in jeans and t-shirts. Tonight’s entertainment isn’t rigidly anachronistic either, the theme taking second place to putting on a damn good show.

Our compere for the evening is a flamboyantly camp vaudeville act, who sings and baits the crowd in a sequined Union Jack waistcoat. He introduces a Barbarella-themed cabaret dancer and a stand up magician who shocks the audience as frequently as he entertains. Then the act I’m here to see.

Beth and the Black Cat Bones make an understated entrance to the stage. Refreshingly full of energy they start in fifth gear, belting out their 50s-inspired Blues. Lead Vocalist, the eponymous Beth, has a tight leash on her extensive range, delivering the sort of formidable female voice that characterised Motown.

Rhythm is the essential component of anything you want people to dance to and the Black Cat Bones have that covered. The sturdy drums and bass, played by Charles Benfield and Rob Pokorny, are joined by Jess, as rhythm guitarist, for most of the songs. But when she hits her cue, Jess breaks into wild solos, inspiring envy in the heart of every guitar owner in the room. Having earned the nickname ‘B B Queen’, she never strays into indulgence.

Tonight is Jess’ last night, not that it shows. When they finish their set, the audience won’t let them. Often the encore is merely a convention, with Beth and the Black Cat Bones it’s the only way the crowd can satisfy their cravings.

The Last Days of Decadence is a fantastic venue for an act with the originality of Beth and the Black Cat Bones. Velvet curtains on the stage, mirrors on the walls and martinis on the bar remind you that going to see band should feel this indulgent.

All photos by James Munday, for more of the night click here.

For a taste of the magic that was the old Beth and the Black Cat Bones line up, their EP 'Off to the Moon' is available now. For more information or dates of gigs with their new line up, go to www.myspace.com/bethandtheblackcatbones

There's cabaret every Saturday at the Last Days of Decadence and most of it's pretty awesome.

24 Pesos - Busted Broken and Blue

So you're a self-respecting bluesman who wants to stick on a record and get dancing, what do you do? You invest in a copy of the new album from London three-piece 24 Pesos.

The album is a mix of Beastie Boys delivery, guitar picking that it's a crime not to dance to and lyrical references name-checking the great and good of Blues. Stylistically it flits from acousitcally mournful, dipping a toe over the border with Country, to spitting rhymes like old-school hiphop.

For those afeard that this may be too much experimentation, be like a double bass and fret not. The songs are consistently danceable tales of girls and partying, from the opening track Maxwell Street to the closing ode to the fuller-figured woman, Neckbones and Gumbo.

This album is well worth seeking out and suffers from only one major flaw, it isn't as good as seeing 24 Pesos live.

Stompin' Dave's Electric Band - Mystery Train

Stompin’ Dave Allen is one of the hardest gigging musicians in British blues (if you don’t believe me check out his tour dates) and he never fails to entertain. Now’s no exception as Stompin’ Dave’s Electric Band release their latest album Mystery Train.

As an artist, Stompin’ Dave is hard to define; he sounds perfectly suited to being a solo acoustic performer, but equally so as the front-man for this electrified three-piece. He mostly tours in the UK’s South East but his voice is pure Americana.

The new album is in keeping with that spirit of ambiguity, as Dave shifts from whooping like Jerry-Lee Lewis amid mad piano solos on I’m On Fire to sounding like a 60 year old Detroit bluesman on Mean Sad World. This mix of styles keeps a tight hold on you as the album switches between well known classics and self-penned originals which sound so much like classics that they’ll have you questioning whether or not Stompin’ Dave invented the blues.

Backed by Graham Bundy on drums and Chris Lonergan, playing bass so rhythmically you could set your watch to it, Stompin’ Dave serves up frantic lead guitar and measured, soulful piano with deft skill. The result is an album that not only sounds like it features a host of blues legends, but also sounds as fresh as music did when they were writing it.

Mystery Train is out soon, available from www.stompinstore.com

A brand new hit of old fashioned Blues

Every musical genre has its clichés. There are as few heavy metal tracks about unicorns as there are Rap songs about respecting women and learning to appreciate what little you’ve got. Blues certainly isn’t an exception to this rule as armies of middle aged, white Englishmen will attest, taking to the stage at open mic blues nights to sing about “goin’ down to the roadhouse” and how their baby has done gone left them.

All of this makes me very happy that the new Eric Street Band album is soon to be released on Southside Music.

For those unfamiliar with the other E-Street Band, their last album, the Journey, was a masterpiece of dirty bottle-neck slide guitar and lyrical originality. Their soon-to-be released offering, titled the Drifter, ploughs the same whiskey-soaked furrow.

The essence of good ol’ fashioned blues is still there, songs about drinking, dancing and one stands, usually followed by early mornings on the road out of town, are all there. What Eric Street Band does is to own these stories. They aren’t singing about a 1920s black American riding the roads, they’re singing about four old British guys doing it, and that truth makes the image that much stronger.

It helps that the band is fronted by Denis Siggery, a man whose voice is equal parts Rod Stewart, Roger Daltry and a 72 hour bourbon binge, and that he’s supported by three of the most competent Blues musicians in Britain. But that’s no reason why bands with healthy lungs and livers shouldn’t learn a lot from this.

The rest of us, we just get the joy of listening to it.

Tour dates and albums available at www.ericstreetband.com

A timeless Kind of Blue

A new two part collaboration between the Kind of Blue Sextet and Paul Lashmar is shedding an unexpected new light on Miles Davis' seminal album Kind of Blue.

Long recognised as one of , if not the most important Jazz albums of all time, Kind of Blue has been examined from enough angles to make a nun blush. Quadruple Platinum selling, placed 12th in Rolling Stone's top 500 albums of all time and inspiration for everyone from James Brown to Pink Floyd. Yet against these odds, Brunel University lecturer Paul Lashmar has teamed up with a specially arranged band to offer a take on the album that is both new and surprisingly timeless.

Part of the Brunel University Jazz Outreach Project, which aims to make Jazz more accessible, the show begins with a history that finishes at the album being cut. Perhaps surprisingly, this evening of Jazz and lectures is likely to appeal to hipcats and square Jazz novices alike.

At the core of the show, titled simply Kind of Blue: Homage to Miles Davis, is a live performance of the album. This is delivered, in its entirety, by a band of the highest calibre musicians under the leadership of veteran Band Leader Frank Griffith. If arranging and orchestrating a band to replicate the sound of the two Manhattan recording sessions that created Kind of Blue weren't enough, Griffith also plays an active part in the first half of the show.

Lashmar's introduction to the scene that first created Miles Davis then Kind of Blue avoids indulgence at every step. No mean feat from a man who is visibly passionate about his subject. Key points on the road are expounded, explained and then it's off to the next stop. Punctuation in this whistlestop tour are provided by Griffith, who, along with his band, provide musical examples which make real every place, era and mood.

It looks likely that this show will be a small part of the Brunel University Jazz Outreach Project. If it's anything to go by, they will no doubt be a flawless juggling of musical history and toe-tapping music. And it should go without saying that if you don't own the album, you should daddy-o.

Sam Hare - Down to the Sea

Sam Hare has been a mainstay in the British Blues community for a while. In the last few years it’s been common to find him in bars that, whilst nice, were frankly below the status he deserved, playing with Ian Seigal, Matt Schofield or the late Hucklebuck. He’s also graced the pages of music magazines as a freelance photographer, runs the weekly blues jam at London’s ‘Aint Nothing but the Blues’ Bar and appeared in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Now his first solo album has graced us and it’s doing little to disappoint.

The feel of Down to the Sea is certainly more Country than some of Hare’s previous work. This doesn’t mean he’s abandoned the electric guitar noodling he’s great at, tight-rope walking the line between indulgence and failing to satisfy, but does mean a more laid back final product than some of his fans might be expecting. There’s more than a touch of Terry Bush’s Maybe Tomorrow about the thoughtfully melancholy Her Time of Day.

This lack of virtuosity marks Hare out as part of a new breed of Blues guitarist, one happy to stray from the spotlight and let other musicians lead a track. That’s all providing the end product sounds great of course. There’s no denying that it does on the album’s instrumental cover of Mr Bojangles or ‘One More Chance’ which is lead by a mean Honky Tonk piano courtesy of Joe Glossop.

By embracing a countrified sound, Hare hasn’t turned his back on good old fashioned Blues. It’s still there in bundles on tracks like The Bridge (send word from me). What it does mean is the sort of tired old clichés that usually begin “woke up this mornin’...” have been replaced with competently-written songs, wistful and teeming with traveller’s regret.

You can listen to tracks from ‘Down to the Sea’ on Sam’s MySpace page at www.myspace.com/samhare. Once you have, you’ll want to buy it and you can do that online at www.samhare.com.