Friday the 13th and I’m in the 13th Note with a few hours to fill before kebab time. I’ve even got time to ponder why this venue is called The 13th Note and I decide that the most likely possibility is that you need to visit twelve bars before you get here. That might not be correct but it would be a workable plan.
Talking of 12 bars, or 12 bar to be technically correct, Sleepy Eyes Nelson was clearly borne of the acoustic blues tradition and with what is generally called dexterity and purpose, he set about proving that he could stand, or more correctly sit, amongst the greats. That’s the thing about the kind of technical ability that he ably demonstrated. It allows the past to be drawn right into the present.
Entertainingly named but otherwise straight down the singer songwriter line was A Song Of The Morning Star for, armed with electric rather than acoustic six stringed weaponry, he did the one man and a guitar thing like someone who wanted to do the one man and a guitar thing.
Band time. Four honest and true, The Reverse Cowgirls showed their love for doing it in the garage. I mean that in the quasi-religious sense of course as keeping the music running like it was 1958 going on 1978 was clearly their metier. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll but I like it, yes I do.
Coolest band name of the evening award went to the headliners Roy & The Devils Motorcycle and a whole different ball game they were too. Having three brothers in the same band was always likely to bring synchronicity and duly the deadly sibling guitar powered groove was ploughed and made fruitful with a hard working head band set that ran in miraculously straight lines no matter how twisted the musical road. Turning “May The Circle Be Unbroken” into an end of the century groovathon took what was left of my logical head and bent it out of shape thus leaving me to conclude that cracking things open and improving them was undoubtedly the musical direction of choice for Roy & The Devils Motorcycle.
As an aside, the unmistakeable aroma of the 13th Note had tonight been disguised by the equally unmistakeable aroma of cheap perfume. Cheap perfume covers a multitude of sins. Cheap perfume also causes a multitude of sins. There’s something else to ponder.