Sunday provided a busy double-header, with an afternoon feature spot at Drapers in Coventry,and an evening session with The Sly Old Dogs in their new home out at the quaintly named Willey.
Drapers is a bar I've liked for a while. As "Brown's," like many other customers I boycotted it because of a discriminatory dress code and an unpleasant atmosphere. Under new management, the food is good and the beer selection is eclectic. The interior design is fantastic. Its central position is without rival: within view of the Old Cathedral quarter and handily placed for Coventry University and surrounded by Council Offices. It has always been busy when I've dropped in for a meal or a pint. Probably few youngsters in there realise that among previous uses it served (immediately post-war), an annexe for the Herbert Art Gallery, and it has also functioned previously as an underground public convenience!
The divine Kristy Gallagher, a tireless champion of good acoustic music in the city, has been organising Sunday sessions in there for a while now. They have proved to be very popular, with a mixture of Open Mic slots and longer feature sessions. Our original invitation was for Nunc to play unaccompanied there, but as there is nowadays quite a bit of co-operative work between John Kearney and myself, we dragged the Cork Nightingale himself along too,so I suppose for that afternoon, we were Junc.
Amongst the floor spots preceding us were Kristy in person, Wilson Wright and Glyn Finch. Kristy was as professional as ever. Hilz and John also just seem to get better and better. I take some credit for persuading them to appear more often together as a duo. Individually they are both solid performers. But together, they definitely have an extra something.
Glyn Finch I had not seen before and I very much liked what he did. " She moved through the Fair," is not an easy song to do but he did it great credit. The three of us in Nunc were impressed. Strong, confident vocals and very tasty, bluesy guitar work. Hopefully we'll lure him out to The Crown soon I think our audiences would get him. Spiros preceded us. He had a percussive guitar style and a very powerful voice with a broad range. He employed it to great effect in a series of strident and powerful songs.
Nunc/Junc finished the session with a 25 minute slot. Usually performing a capella, it was a challenge to adapt part of our current set to musical accompaniment,especially having only rehearsed together once. But we warmed up with "Cold Haily Windy Night," and then followed it with "When I get to the Border." By the time we did "Bring It On Home," people passing the open windows outside were stopping and peering inside, Hopefully for a good reason. Our Buddy Holly medley went down well, and a few people started singing along with us. More of the general public stopped to listen and a few came in! We added another Richard Thompson song "Down Where The Drunkards Roll " and then Flossy finished with her party piece with Eddie reader's "Perfect." A great afternoon and very enjoyable. Thank you, Kristy.
A highly recommended venue for audiences and performers alike. It was only afterwards I discovered that they had my beloved Beavertown on tap there, but at 7.2% it is probably for the best that I left it alone. Especially as being the incredible Rock and Rollers we are, Mr. Kearney and I were soon back off on the road again. With his son Brendan and the redoubtable Sue Sanders, we went out to The Wood Farm Brewery Tap for an evening session with the Sly Old Dogs there.
The usual night of three halves followed, with a depleted Dogs leading and a plethora of floor singers following the pack. ( See what I did there?). We were spared Tool's awful joke telling, as he is currently regaling the unlucky residents of Kefalonia with them. Paul Kelly was missing, too. This did not detract from the usual spirited assortment of rousing traditional songs, with choruses righteously and loudly echoed by another large audience.
Among the guest performers were Maria Barham, Cheryl Ning, Campbell and Jan Perry and Allan Birkett. Plus two lads whose names I did not quite catch,but both of whom did songs with an Irish or traditional theme-very impressively. Sue Sanders fiddled along right merrily with a lot of the general stuff and also did a couple of excellent solos herself. And the talented Kearneys interchanged guitars and ukes with a dazzling display of family dexterity. Me? I did "Drunkards" again (seemed right in a Brewery?) and then,my vanity flattered by requests, I rolled out Di Di De Mascio and his Red and Yellow Vans. I was tired by this time, and forgot the words-leaving the Postman and the Pools man out of the second verse, but nobody seemed to mind!
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| Nunc plying their art at Drapers in a beautiful bar setting. |
Amongst the floor spots preceding us were Kristy in person, Wilson Wright and Glyn Finch. Kristy was as professional as ever. Hilz and John also just seem to get better and better. I take some credit for persuading them to appear more often together as a duo. Individually they are both solid performers. But together, they definitely have an extra something.
Glyn Finch I had not seen before and I very much liked what he did. " She moved through the Fair," is not an easy song to do but he did it great credit. The three of us in Nunc were impressed. Strong, confident vocals and very tasty, bluesy guitar work. Hopefully we'll lure him out to The Crown soon I think our audiences would get him. Spiros preceded us. He had a percussive guitar style and a very powerful voice with a broad range. He employed it to great effect in a series of strident and powerful songs.
Nunc/Junc finished the session with a 25 minute slot. Usually performing a capella, it was a challenge to adapt part of our current set to musical accompaniment,especially having only rehearsed together once. But we warmed up with "Cold Haily Windy Night," and then followed it with "When I get to the Border." By the time we did "Bring It On Home," people passing the open windows outside were stopping and peering inside, Hopefully for a good reason. Our Buddy Holly medley went down well, and a few people started singing along with us. More of the general public stopped to listen and a few came in! We added another Richard Thompson song "Down Where The Drunkards Roll " and then Flossy finished with her party piece with Eddie reader's "Perfect." A great afternoon and very enjoyable. Thank you, Kristy.
A highly recommended venue for audiences and performers alike. It was only afterwards I discovered that they had my beloved Beavertown on tap there, but at 7.2% it is probably for the best that I left it alone. Especially as being the incredible Rock and Rollers we are, Mr. Kearney and I were soon back off on the road again. With his son Brendan and the redoubtable Sue Sanders, we went out to The Wood Farm Brewery Tap for an evening session with the Sly Old Dogs there.
The usual night of three halves followed, with a depleted Dogs leading and a plethora of floor singers following the pack. ( See what I did there?). We were spared Tool's awful joke telling, as he is currently regaling the unlucky residents of Kefalonia with them. Paul Kelly was missing, too. This did not detract from the usual spirited assortment of rousing traditional songs, with choruses righteously and loudly echoed by another large audience.
Among the guest performers were Maria Barham, Cheryl Ning, Campbell and Jan Perry and Allan Birkett. Plus two lads whose names I did not quite catch,but both of whom did songs with an Irish or traditional theme-very impressively. Sue Sanders fiddled along right merrily with a lot of the general stuff and also did a couple of excellent solos herself. And the talented Kearneys interchanged guitars and ukes with a dazzling display of family dexterity. Me? I did "Drunkards" again (seemed right in a Brewery?) and then,my vanity flattered by requests, I rolled out Di Di De Mascio and his Red and Yellow Vans. I was tired by this time, and forgot the words-leaving the Postman and the Pools man out of the second verse, but nobody seemed to mind!
