So it was Sarfend night dahn in uber hip and trendy Dalston at the Railway Tavern for Mule Freedom's regular monthly shin-dig. This month's bash brings us a solo show by M G Boulter who I last saw playing with The Lucky Strikes and who is promoting his new album 'The Water or the Wave.' He also plays with Simon Felice and The Whispering Pines and he is preceded by MICKY DENNY.
Micky opens his set playing banjo and singing Woody Guthrie's I Ain't Got No Home that can just about be heard above the noise of those patrons who are too hip and trendy to shut the fuck up while the acts are playing which was a problem all night long. Despite the noise from the bar Micky plays a nice version with some good picking on what looks like a very old banjo.
He then switches to acoustic guitar to sing about how his drifting days are through. Well I'm sure they are as no one drifts like they did in the old days. Jesus Was An Only Son was the theme of the next song, but it got resolutely ignored by most of the pub except the hard core of music heads who were near the front.
The Milk Boy of Alcatraz was next and it's about delivering on a notorious housing estate in Basildon nicknamed Alcatraz. Having been to a few estates in Basildon, I can well understand it having that nickname as you'd be desperate to escape. A very cool song and probably the best of the originals that Micky played.
Broken hearts always need some mending but pouring out your emotions while the cool and trendy carry on chatting can't be easy and it was dispiriting enough sitting trying to listen in the audience.
Micky then did a cover of Tom Waits' Chocolate Jesus: a song I'm not familiar with but sounded typically Waits-ian in its lyrical contortions just in time for us to be Waiting For Jesus, yes there was a bit of a Jesus theme developing in this set. We then got what was the high spot of the set courtesy of a fine version of Camper Van Beethoven's Take The Skinheads Bowling and it brought back memories for me of being chased by skinheads outside the bowling alley on Southend pier many moons ago! If only they had been inside...
One More Mile Forward seem to be a good song and not bad advice at all. He then switched back to banjo to finish with Take Me Down Where The Cold wind Blows. It would have been much better without the background chatter that was almost as loud as his banjo picking..
After the short break it was time for MG BOULTER'S set or Matt as he introduced himself following on from Gerry Ranson's long and rambling intro in a vain attempt to get the hipsters to shut up.
Matt opened with what I'm calling Palace of Gold. When it could be heard, it sounded really good with Matt's vocals a lot softer than with The Lucky Strikes but really getting the lyrics across to those of us actually listening. It was a surprise how many of the talkers clapped really loudly at the end of all his songs.
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I think the next song was Time To Let Light In which had some good lyrics in danger of being lost among the chattering classes. Matt then told us how he was Homesick for Hamlet Court Road that leads you down to the Esplanade in Westcliff. For those of you that haven't had mis-spent Essex childhoods, I won't add my memories of that road here but I do have some. It is one of those places that sticks in my brain that's for sure. The Last Song That I Might Sing wasn't the last song of the set, thankfully, and was rather poignant for its death bed revelations. I'm sure it lost a lot of its impact due to the inattentiveness of some of the audience.
This was very much how it was going as I was battling sitting near the front to hear what Matt was singing about. I know he made reference to John Fowlis and how he was ready to fly. I Stand With The Drummer was really good and, damn, we could have done with a good noisy drummer to shut a few folks up. Yes I think most of us thought Stand with the Drummer a very cool song. That was followed by A Medway Queen that was dedicated to his Grandma who may well have come from the other side of the Thames from Matt. But a very nice tribute, with as ever some accomplished guitar playing.
By Now Matt had let us know this was a warm up for the Leigh Folk Festival where I'm sure they paid more attention. Then he was singing about "so it's done" and, as the sorry tale was unfolding that could only end on broken beds and with broken hearts, this set was at an end.
It always baffles me when an audience who never shut up then go mad at the end of the set!! But still that's what happened and soon enough Matt was ready to give us an encore that I have down as opening with a song about Julian Barnes' Fever. Of all the maladies you could catch in Dalston that would be a pretty mild one. He then closed with Evelyn: a love song of sorts and another good tale to leave us with that also opens his new album 'The water Or The Wave.'
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