Saturday night and I’m at The Hobgoblin at Staines. It’s my
favourite local venue and it’s all set to be a classic night at ‘The Hob’. An
evening of Reggae, three bands crammed into one night. Except I always had a
certain sinking feeling about it all.
For a start, all the bands are white which is a potential
problem for me, if only a cultural one.
Secondly, if I hear someone from the home counties say ‘I and
I’, there will be trouble.
And finally, if I catch so much as a hint of a pretend
Jamaican Accent, I’m off home. I can’t even rescue the evening by going to see
The SkaSouls, because they are playing the conservative club over the road and
I’m not prepared to hand over a fiver to a bunch of tory B@#*&£$ds.
Instead I got something I wasn’t expecting;
I’ll start with Captain Accident and the Disasters, here’s
The Captain;
And this is one of the disasters:
I missed a big part of the set –we’ve been flooded and my
Mum’s carers couldn’t get through, so I had to leave, go home and then drive
back. When I struggled back in I was met by a big thrash guitar slowed down to
half speed and a bass that sent The Hob’s ancient floorboards buzzing. Hmmmh,
that’s interesting.
Like all three bands, they were playing their own stuff.
Reggae? No, not really but then again no fake accents either. I’ll stick around
a bit.
The headliner’s were ‘Tree House Fire’ with a bass that
started various internal organs dancing to the beat, always a good thing in
reggae terms, but they weren’t letting me off either. A heavy Reggae beat
couldn’t disguise the fact that this wasn’t Reggae.
And was that Daft Punk I was listening to?
It was.
And metal thrash – why? But it's after midnight and I’m
still there.
Now The Hob has a habit of picking out a good line up,
usually with a connection. Mocara just took it to the extreme;
What’s going on? There was Reggae;
There was thrash
In fact there was Reggae and Thrash in most of the numbers,
sometimes at the same time.
There was a nod to Ska, but at high speed. There
was Punk but they slowed that down. And what’s with the Heavy Metal Jewellery?
I know what it is, those damn kids have been in again and
they’ve been listening to my precious record collection without permission. All
‘The Ramones’ stuff has gone and they’ve muddled everything up. I had a 12 inch
of ‘Shinehead’ I was really fond of but when I pulled it out there was only a
‘Clash’ single in the sleeve. I have no idea why there is metal in my
collection, I never had any of that and why is ‘Burning Spear’ turning up where
The Jam should be?
Worst of all I had some mixtapes on cassette which had a lot
of sentimental value and they threw them all out. They put the stuff on MP3 and
they’ve changed it all around. What did they do to my music? Who gave them the
key to the Juke Box?
Oh dear, I just got very old. I was going to use the word
‘context’ and I stopped myself just in time. I was going to mutter about a lot
of ignorant kids messing about with really good stuff they didn’t understand
because they weren’t there.
Without knowing it I became the curator of the Music Museum
and I’m not happy. Who messed around with the Sex Pistols exhibit?
I’m not sure where it’s going but there was energy, there was
life, especially from Mocara. They may have been shambling and muddled at times but they got it together and took a lot of music, threw it in the blender
and something different came out. Just like 77 in fact, just like we did.
Nice
work.
Now if you don’t mind I’ve got to close the Music Museum
early today, some vandals have been at the X-Ray Specs cabinet.
Neil Harris
