This was a last minute decision to go out and we are mighty glad we took it. We got into the Gypsy Hotel with ANDY TWYMAN already onstage. He had been described as a one many Boogie machine and that's pretty spot on as he plays guitar, drums and sings all at once, which makes him one very co-ordinated man indeed. His songs are good, too, very bluesy and with the quite brilliant I Eat Pot Noodle With A Plastic Fork pretty funny as well.
He did a great version of Mystery Train that had a great rumbling propulsive beat from his three piece drum kit. He finished with Sharkey's Bar: it sounded a very raucous place to hang out. I want to see more of Andy Twyman as he was loads of fun and, damn, he can play.
Next up and making their debut live performance anywhere are THE GOMEZ ANGEL FIRE QUARTET who are a band shrouded in mystery. They refuse to use the stage and play in the audience among us in a real New Orleans style, fitting with the set being a tribute to the late great "Uncle" Lionel Batiste.
Strangely for a quartet there were 5 of them, but as the fifth member (drummer boy Jary) isn't mentioned in the band name he was left off the band count as the other four are Phoebe Gomez De Ville (Trumpet), Lady Ane Angel (Tuba), Paul-Ronney Angel (Banjo) and Luci Fire on Saxaphone. As some of you will have noticed already, they are all also members of The Urban Voodoo Machine. They wandered out amongst us and opened with a rousing version of The House Of The Rising Sun with being fully acoustic the crowd needed to be quiet or join in, so we all did.
I'm not sure what the second tune was other than it was another New Orleans marching band classic. Not that they were marching, it was more like lurching while raising the roof. Still as soon as it became clear it Ain't My Fault or the fault of anyone else involved if we love them and want to see this lot perform again.
They did a very cool almost instrumental version of the Urban Voodoo Machine's Down By The River before finishing up with Jesus On The Mainline; Paul-Ronney doing everything he could not to sound like Steven Tyler on Aerosmith's version of this classic tune.
Next up on this busy evening was THE JOLL JOCK who actually doesn't sound Scottish but does sound Northern. He is certainly a very Jolly old man with a big beard who looks a bit like Alan Moore. He was also very funny and knows how to play a trombone while telling jokes and playing guitar as well. No mean feat.
Highlights of his set included his re-working of Hotel California into a song about the Gypsy Hotel. It used most of the orginal lyrics but with careful emphasis and funny voices to bring out the absurdity lurking within. A trick he did again with Free's All Right Now to brilliant effect.
He managed to be very ooignant on The Iceberg: a song about a Polar bear working in London waiting to hear news about what happened to his family who were on the Iceberg when the Titanic collided with it. Very, very clever and very sad - he is worth seeing just to hear this tune. He then followed it with a brilliantly funny version of Addicted To Love that continued with some audience participation for I Want A Hug during which he made sure we all had a couple of hugs. Bless him.
He closed his set by proving that just about everyone knows the words to Nellie The Elephant. No matter how cool they look everyone sang along!! He was well worth the encore he got and for that he performed Waltzing With Bears and left us all with smiles on our faces and laughing as well as being grateful that he was on before The Urban Voodoo Machine at the Bearded Theory festival. Apparently they liked him so much they booked him for this show.
Well how do you follow that other than bringing on punk legend TEXAS TERRI & THE GLORY HOLES? The Glory Holes are her acoustic band for the night and for regulars at The Gypsy Hotel feature some rather familiar faces with J-Roni Moe on drums, Paul-Ronney Angel on Guitar and Marc Olivier also on Guitar and Adrian Stout (I believe) on Bass and Electric Saw.
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They opened with a great version of I Need Somebody, showing us Texas Terri's voice is still intact and she performed the hell out of this Stooges classic with her friends cooking up a storm.
It was soon time to get us all to do the Hip Shake Baby. Then it was time to go all Stonesy for a great version of Factory Girl with rollicking chorus where Paul Ronney's backing vocals working a treat as the band cooked up a storm of anticipation for that Factory girl as she ended her shift. That was followed by a great raucous version of Little Bit of Whore which might have missed some of Johnny Thunders' brilliant one liners, but despite that they certainly nailed the song and it sounded great.
Then the real highlight of the set came when Adrian Stout switched to Electric saw to brilliant effect on the opening of I Wanna Be Your Dog. It worked perfectly and Texas Terri brought plenty of sleaze to this most sleazy of songs. It just worked brilliantly and for a song I've seen performed as much as this the Electric saw really added a new twist to it. It was followed by much claiming that no one took drugs or spent money on them before she sang 100 Bucks. I'm not sure who did the original but it worked brilliantly as she begged for the 100 bucks and then kept claiming the money wasn't for drugs...it was a highly effective finish to the set.
They encored with a great version of Round & Round - the old Chuck Berry classic and seemed to be channelling the David Bowie arrangement of it a little bit. Whatever, it was an excellent set, the parting shot of which was for Texas Terri to moon us all in appreciation.
Next on was COUNT ADRIANO FETTUCINI who was dressed up as a Mary Poppins-style Chimney Sweep for his routine that was set to Chim Chim Cheree. No really. He did a good dance with the brushes before getting onto his Unicycle and then - while riding around the stage - he did a strip tease that included him getting his trousers off while continuing to ride, not something you see too often. when he took his shirt off, he then managed some impressive twirling of his nipple tassles on the unicyle. This was a very funny and cool act.
He was followed by LUXURY CONDO, who after what we had already seen were a bit of a let down. They are a four piece who want to sound like Robert Gordon, only the singer's voice isn't that good and he doesn't play guitar as well as either Chris Spedding or Link Wray although he does play in that style.
But they were just a little too one note and a touch boring in comparison the the rest of the bill. The highlights of the set was Gorilla and the final song Don't Shoot me Mr President, but in between those two was plenty of filler: the worst of which for me was Escalado Man. That just didn't work for my ears.
After Luxury Condo had finished up, we decided to call it a night as having already seen Patti Plinko once this year didn't feel the need to see her a second time. As ever though with Gypsy Hotel this was another great night out, accompanied by some superb tunes from DJ Scratchy thoughout the evening.
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