issue20 by Rhythm & Booze

rhythm and booze Brews, News, Bands & Reviews - Issue 20 - July/August 2013

EMPIRE OF THE FUN

British Empire Medal recipient Brian Kell, pictured in 1984, with former World’s Strongest Man Geoff Capes. Photograph courtesy of Peterborough Morris (www.peterboroughmorris.co.uk). A folk music fan has been awarded the British Empire Medal for his part in reviving the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival. Named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours – for services to the community – Brian Kell first

heard of the Straw Bear custom through Ashley Hutchings’ Rattlebone and Ploughjack album. Moving to the area in 1979, he joined forces with the Whittlesea Society to revive the event the following year.

n The Straw Bear Festival 2014 takes place on the streets of Whittlesey over the weekend of 10-12 January 2014. For further information, including a history of the event, visit www.strawbear.org.uk

Battle of the Sexes PMT / The Destructors Sous Les Paves La Plage

The ‘Noisy punk birds from Norwich’ join forces with The Destructors for this eight-track split EP. Alongside a reworking of PMT’s Drama Queen is The Destructors’ long-lost Penguin War Blues. Out Now

“The insanely prolific Destructors punk-as-fuck Crass meets Stiff Little Fingers meets Motorhead inspired efforts here will cause you to fling yourselves across the room! A great record!” - Big Takeover Magazine

BUY ONLINE or as a DOWNLOAD BY MAIL ORDER FROM www.destructors.co.uk

OR AS A DOWNLOAD FROM iTUNES/7DIGITAL

The Surrealist Sportsman’s Club

In this issue, David ‘Dai’Roll discovers that life is beer and skittles. With the Beer Festival almost upon us, I’m dedicating this issue to one of the games available there, skittles. This particular variant (and there are many in this ancient game) is played with the nine wooden skittles set up on a leather lined table that is fitted with a hood a bit like an ice hockey goal net. The players then take it in turns to throw three wooden cheeses at the skittles to try and knock them down. A hint I was given was to throw the cheese forehand rather than backhand as the cheese may

then spin after it hits the table and so take down more pins. In Leicestershire the distance from the table is usually nine feet, in Northamptonshire it’s ten feet. Generally the skittles are left where they fall during a player’s turn, though in Rutland and Leicestershire they can be removed after each throw. In some games the player has to nominate (before the throw) which pin will be knocked over first, if this pin isn’t hit, then none of the pins knocked over on that throw count towards the

score. If the cheese hits the floor before reaching the table, all players are expected to sing the Dam Busters theme tune. Last year I did an article on Dominoes and kept on meaning to update you as to which pubs have teams. Around Peterborough you can find teams at The Cherry Tree on Oundle Road, Cock Inn in Werrington and at the Whittle Way in Stanground. Over in Whittlesey, The Bull, the Boat Inn, the Bricklayers, Letter B and the Straw Bear all have teams. Though if you know of any’ more please let us know.

4 Real Ales and Cider ~ Log Fire Every Evening ~ Great Music Every Day ~ Pool Table & Dart Board ~ Whisky Rack ~ Lagers - Bitters - Ciders ~ Bottled Real Ales ~ Choice of 9 Wines ~ Covered Heated Smoking Patio ~ Free Parking ~ Hot Drinks – Costa Coffee & Twinings Tea ~ Big Screens - Live Sports ~ Bar Food & Snacks ~ Free Function Room

what’s on Mondays – Free Poo Tuesdays – Food N Thursdays – Twiste

ight

d Tunes

Fridays – LIVE NIG HT Saturdays – Party N Sundays – Free Pub

ight

Games

8pm Free Pub Quiz OPENING TIMES Monday - Thursday 12 - 3pm & 5 - 11pm Friday - Sunday 12 - 11pm

749 Lincoln Rd, New England PE1 3HD www.thecrownonline.co.uk Tel: 0843 523 5181

by Cardinal Cox

Pub Scrawl

The Eighth annual TS Eliot Festival (eliotsociety.org.uk) at Little Gidding (just off the A1) will be held over the weekend of 6-7 July and includes the poets Daljit Nagra and Robert Crawford. This year’s John Clare Festival will be held in Helpston over the weekend of 12-14 July, kicking off with the poetry smack down (and other events) at Torpel Manor on Friday night, and the school and church for the rest of the weekend. For further information, visit johnclaresociety.blogspot.co.uk The Blyth Power Ashes (www.blythpower.co.uk) will be held at The Plough in Farcet Fen over the weekend of 23-26 August and among the crusty/folky malarkey will be punk poet Attila the Stockbroker, AJ Brewster (purveyor of twisted tales), Project Adorno and The Antipoet. There is still time to enter the John Clare Cottage (www.clarecottage.org) annual poetry competition; this year’s subject is ‘Landscape’. Poems can be up to 20 lines long, the deadline is 31 July and the entry fee (for the adult competition, younger age groups are

free) is £4. Congratulations are due to Teresa MacLean who won the post of Stamford Poet Laureate at the final held in Stamford on 24 April, taking over with the change of mayor in May. Congratulations also to Mixy for landing a part in Richard Tyrone Jones’ Big Heart which will be broadcast on Radio 4 before too long. On Thursday 11 July, Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, will be at Central Library speaking about her new novel Perfect. The event starts at 1pm and tickets are £5 (£4 concessions and reading group members) and are available from any Peterborough library or Waterstones in Bridge Street. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m a geek for space, so I’m looking forward to the series of lectures to be held at Peterborough Museum as part of the Space: Fact & Fiction exhibition season. On Thursday 11 July Professor Carolin Crawford talks about space, on Monday 15 Professor David Cullen talks about detecting evidence of life on Mars (using a

The Cardinal’s Calendar

10 July/14 August – Pint of Poetry, Dash of Drama @ Charter’s. August marks the groups sixth birthday. So look forward to cake and balloons. The evenings now start at 8pm, and you have to be there early if you want to read. 31 July/28 August – Stamford’s Pint of Poetry takes place from 8pm in the cellar bar at the Arts Centre on St Mary’s Street.

Author Rachel Joyce is at the Central library on 11 July. pregnancy test); Anu Ohja talks about how space science has changed our lives on Monday 12 August, while Victoria Lonnon talks about satellite technology on Thursday 5 September. Talks start at 7.30pm and tickets cost £5 for adults. To book (and you’ll have to as these will sell out) ring 01733 864663 or email museum @vivacity-peterborough.com As part of the end of the Peterborough Festival there will be a Literature Tent over the weekend of 7-8 September. Look out for details of poets who will be performing on the Vivacity website. In the next issue I’ll be telling you more about the We Love Words festival (www.welovewords.org) and The King’s Lynn Poetry Festival (www.lynnlitfests.com) Cardinal Cox’s act Lapsed Agnostic is now available for book groups, clubs, societies or arts related events.

Good I Offering more than 350 cask ales, plus wine, cider, perry and bottled beers, the Peterborough Beer Festival is Britain’s largest beer festival outside of London. Taking place on the Embankment between 20 and 24 August, visitors come from around the world to enjoy good beer, exotic food and live entertainment. As ever, Rhythm & Booze offers its unofficial guide to the Festival. Who to watch… From an open mic session on the opening night to Think Floyd (a tribute to Pink Floyd, complete with laser show) on the Saturday, there’s a varied

programme of live music throughout the Festival. But for me, the best of these has to be The Librarians. Influenced by The Libertines with a hint of The Pogues, and none of their history of substance abuse, the band will be the first act to play on Thursday evening. If you want a preview of their sound, you can download five tracks from fb.bandpage.com /TheLibrariansmusic …what to wet your whistle with… Last year, Oakham Ales followed its usual Beer Festival tradition in making a song and dance to herald the arrival of its festival special.

Called Carioca, the name for residents of Rio de Janeiro, a colourful procession from the Brewery Tap to the Beer Festival took place, with participants dressed in carnival fashion, banging drums and blowing whistles. Who knows what the company will pull off this year but one person who’s louder than any Brazilian rhythm section is the Destructors’ lead singer, Allen Adams. With the 30 th anniversary of the band’s temporary split fast approaching, Allen is commissioning Castor Ales to brew him a commemorative ale, which is expected to be a light and hoppy session beer.

n-tents From Left to Right: Plenty of beers on offer, the new beer garden at The Palmerston Arms, The Librarians enjoy a different kind of brew.

Steve Saldana, owner of Bexar County Brewery, is also ‘brewing quite a few special things’ for the Beer Festival, and like Market Deeping’s Hopshackle Brewery is worth looking out for. …and Where to Wander? The festival has all a real ale fan could possible need but if you fancy a wander, then you’re never too far from a decent pub. The nearest pub to the festival is Charter’s, the converted Dutch barge, which like its fellow Oakham Ales’ pub, The Brewery Tap, serves a large selection of ales and offers a Thai food menu. A ten to 15 minute walk,

starting from the footbridge directly to the right of the festival, takes you to The Woolpack on North Street, Stanground, the closest you’ll get to a village pub in the city. Woodston has two very good real ale pubs, The Coalheavers’ Arms on Park Street and The Palmerston Arms, Oundle Road. Billed as a permanent beer festival, ‘the Palmy’ mixes ancient and modern with its large window into the cellar. Landlord Ian ‘Bertie’ Benton has recycled old car seats to make the best of the small beer garden to the rear. In the city centre itself, there’s The Ostrich Inn on the

other North Street, which serves six real ales and a real cider, and has a landscaped beer garden. As it’s not too far from the bus station, why not jump on a Number 1 bus from Bay 14 and pay The Hand & Heart, Highbury Street a visit? Normally open from 3pm, for the Tuesday of the festival, Landlord Bram will be serving his well-kept ales from lunchtime. If you pop back on to the bus and get off outside the old Great Northern Railway Cottages, you’ll find The Crown on the other side of the road. Recently reopened after a year, the pub has a selection of ales from local brewers.

Hand & Heart

12 Highbury Street. Peterborough PE1 3BE 01733 564653

A traditional back-street pub with up to six real ales at any time nBeer garden and stage for live music nTraditional pub games nTraditional cider and perry available nCAMRA Cambridgeshire Pub of the Year 2010 nCAMRA Gold Award Winner 2010 nLocAle Accredited nListed in the CAMRA 2012 Good Beer Guide nCheck our Facebook page ‘Friends of the Hand & Heart’ for updates on beer festivals and live music

This time, next year... A game by game account of one of the most gripping seasons in Peterborough United's history. Available for £9.99 from Waterstones on Bridge Street, www.amazon.co.uk and www.divisionfourpublishing.co.uk Also available on Kindle. publishing books we’d want to buy

REVIEWS

Cupid Stunts: The Life and Radio Times of Kenny Everett By David & Caroline Stafford, Omnibus Press

‘If you seek his monument, look around you,’ says the tribute to Sir Christopher Wren in St Paul’s cathedral, a phrase that could be applied to music radio and YouTube when talking about Kenny Everett. Not only famous for the silly voices and ridiculous costumes, he was a pioneer of audio editing, splicing together the spoken word with the hits of the day for comic effect. And while it’s much easier to do with the advent of digital wave recording, ‘Ev’ had to rely on scissors and sticky tape to produce this literal cut and paste comedy gold. Pushing the comedy envelope, not always ‘in the best possible taste’, it’s little wonder that the former Maurice Cole was at times shy and retiring, enjoying a ramble through the Peak District with his bank manager. There are happier moments though, featuring his time at sea as a radio pirate and the burgeoning Radio 1. Although he was often sacked for the odd on air infringement, which seems tame then, let alone now. There are plenty of anecdotes from close friends and colleagues including Cleo Rocos and Barry Cryer. Despite struggling to come to terms with his sexuality and having worked with Jonathan King, Chris Denning and

Jimmy Savile, we’re reminded that ‘before any hint of guilt by association can begin to form, let it be said now and let it said loudly that Kenny Everett was only ever attracted to grown up women and big strong men.’ The Eccentronic Research Council @ London Village Underground, 17 May 2013

Maxine Peake and her fellow “hard grafting bastards”, Dean Honer and Adrian Flanagan, were given a warm welcome as they made their London debut, performing 1612 Underture – their radiophonic tribute to the Pendle Witches – in its entirety. Initially too low in the mix, Peake’s recognisable voice was soon brought to the fore, delivering a darkly humorous narrative over lively analogue synths. Backing vocals, additional keys and percussion came courtesy of Flanagan’s The Chanteuse & The Crippled Claw colleagues with Lucy Hope taking lead vocals on the triptych Pendle Wind/No Hackney Cab To Gallows Hill/The Hangman’s Song while wearing a glittery dress, accessorised with a noose around her neck. Returning for an encore, the group performed Black ChristMass, their only (so far) non-album track, but for me, the winning performance of the night was for Another Witch Is Dead. With Flanagan freed from his keyboard to sing, he ran round the stage, throwing microphone stands

about, much to the cackling Peake’s amusement.

British Electric Foundation Music of Quality and Distinction Volume 3 Wall of Sound WOS120CD Having spent the past decade developing 3D sound installations, Martyn Ware returns with an album designed to take advantage of that technology. Like previous BEF releases, Volume 3 features an all-star cast but this time the electro-assisted covers have been stripped back to reveal the darkness of their lyrics. Much of it works well, from Kim Wilde’s opener, Every Time I See You I Go Wild, to Glenn Gregory’s tribute to Billy Mackenzie on Party Fears Two. But Gregory’s Heaven 17 colleague Billie Godfrey fares less well with her reading of Smalltown Boy. Like Kate Jackson’s take on Picture This, it can only have been rearranged with the John Lewis Christmas advert in mind. With a macho sounding Boy George performing Lou Reed’s Make Up and Iggy’s I Wanna Be Your Dog, you’ve got to look elsewhere for camp. And while the intro to Sandie Shaw’s cover of Gladys Knight’s Just Walk In My Shoes is a close contender, the award has to go to Max Pokrovsky. His Sparks-esque take on ABBA’s The Day Before You Came moves Ware’s desire for an atmospheric soundtrack to one kind of theatre, the cinema, to another, cabaret.

LISTINGS

Charter’s Bar, Town Bridge, Peterborough PE1 1FP 01733 315700 July 05 - Stone Pony 07 - The Guards 14 - Skulduggery 19 - Derrin Nauendorf 21 - Les Woods Bands 26 - Shake Hands Eric 28 - Groove Cartel August 02 - The Last Echoes 11 - Motor City Vipers 17/18 - Peterborough Folk Rootz Festival 23 - Lexie Green & The Indigo Blue 25 - Tom & Pete Cock Inn, 1305 Lincoln Rd, Werrington, Peterborough PE4 6LW 01733 322006 July 05 - Bon Rogers 06 - Lee Major 12 - El Tano 13 - The Returns 19 - Be Bop A Lulas 20 - The One Eyed Cats 26 - The Influence 27 - Code Red

August 02 - Children Of The Revolution 09 - Zeb Rootz 16 - The Guards 23 - Fen Boy 3 The Hand & Heart, 12 Highbury Street, Peterborough PE1 3BE 01733 564653 July 11 - Open Mic Night 18 - Captain Backwash & the Barley Boys and Girl Rafter Raisers 25 - Cheese Club August 01 - Open Mic Night 15 - Captain Backwash & the Barley Boys and Girl Rafter Raisers 26 - Bram’s 55th Birthday Bash - Bands TBC 29 - Cheese Club The Ploughman Staniland Way, Werrington, Peterborough PE4 6NA 01733 327696

The Crown, 749 Lincoln Road, Peterborough, PE1 3HD 0843 523 5181

July 05 - Hooker 06 - Nil by Mouth (3pm) Motor City Vipers (9pm) 07 - Children of the Revolution (3pm) Citizen Smith (8pm) 13 - Rocket Dogs 19 - Grove Cartel

July 05 - Ramshackle Serenade 12 - The Influence 19 - The Veltones 26 - Soulweaver

August 02 - On The Ceiling 10 - Hooker 16 - Citizen Smith 17 - The Nuggets

The Ostrich Inn, 17 North Street, Peterborough PE1 2RA 01733 746370 July 05 - Kickback 13 - Electric Warriors 19 - Chill Factor 20 - Porky Pig 27 - The 707 August 02 - Retrolux 03 - The Limit 09 - Wild Honey 16 - Grumpy Old Men 30 - The Mistreated 31 - Easyersaid All listings given in good faith, Rhythm & Booze cannot be held responsible for any discrepancy. An Open Letter to Landlords Everywhere Here we are again, another two months since I last delivered your copies of Rhythm & Booze and you’re still not quite getting it, are you? I see you immediately turn to the listings page as I’m walking away, muttering that you’re not in it again, and why’s that? Simple, I don’t own a crystal ball so the best way to get a mention in this magazine is by dropping an email to simonstabler@aol.com The cut off date for the September/October issue is 9 August so you have a couple of weeks to do something about your lack of coverage. Thanks Simon

The Palmerston Arms 82 Oundle Road, Peterborough PE2 9PA Tel: 01733 565865

Vinyl Night

(Dates TBC via Facebook) Bring your favourite record along.

Philosophy Night

(Dates TBC via Facebook) Share ideas about life's big questions in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.

Lazy Sundays

Enjoy Peterboroughâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finest acoustic acts, every Sunday from 3pm.

Every Sunday Quiz

Free Buffet. Cash Prizes. Win a weekend in Norfolk. Starts at 7.30pm. For more live music and events, please see our Facebook page O p e n i n g T i m e s : Monday - Thursday 15.00 - 23.00 Friday and Saturday 12.00 - 00.00 Sunday 12.00 - 23.30

The Woolpack North Street, Stanground, Peterborough PE2 8JF (01733) 753544

Stanground's Best Kept Secret - A 15 minute walk from the centre of town n Open all day, every day n Up to four real ales available n Food served Tuesday to Sunday lunchtimes and Monday to Saturday evenings n Quiz on Sunday evenings with cash prizes

Cider Festival 16-18 August

10+ Real Ciders Live Music (Acts TBC) Barbeque