Music, mayhem, politics and humour!
Alan Dearling introduces more musical mayhem from the North…
Musical compere for this night, Pip Fowler/Miss Airedale suggested in advance:
“In between the two arse-cheeks of Christmas and New Year; an evening of exhausting in-your-face entertainment.
Headlining is our very own Glastonbury Festival regular: Isaac Hughes-Dennis. (Photo left). Also headlining are the riotous Wonkypuss .”
It was a lively and highly eccentric, eclectic evening of entertainment at the rather lovely and intimate Thai restaurant bar, ‘3 Wise Monkeys’ in Water Street in Todmorden.
Pip Fowler added: “And we have an extra special guest: Ian H (Hodgson) from the band, Bradford, doing a solo slot. He’s the singer from one my favourite bands of the late 80s/early 90s.
And Morrissey was a big fan too, having recorded a cover version of ‘Skin Storm’, one of his songs.”
Ian proved a ‘class act’ including in his set, ‘Witching Stone’, and ‘Shirking Class Heroes’ from his new album. He explained that he has recently been playing with Glen Matlock and has had one of his tracks included on a ‘Mojo’ magazine compilation.
Ian H from the band, Bradford.
‘Skin Storm’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsfvkQaZSOY
‘Gang of One’ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdstwhfAcy4
Wonkypuss… Kevin and Karys are a duo from Littleborough, near Rochdale. Kevin is a quirky, singer comedy front-man, backed up by his guitarist partner. Self-described as: “Tragicomic acoustic twee punk folk rant duo from the South Pennines. Best served with cheap lager.” They reminded me of the earlier antics of eccentric Jonathan Richman. Lots of clever and amusing lyrics, for instance, in ‘Flaky’, it includes “…Mind like a sausage dog.”
There was even a song concerning, “ ‘Cooked-up squirrels’ living in my attic!” I seem to also remember a tale about a funicular railway involving sex and train-spotting. And, ‘I will be your jelly-baby!’ Loads of fun. Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKwc1qlh8H4
Isaac Hughes-Dennis.
Young, confident, even arrogant… An impudent young singer with ukelele. Loud, brash, angry and at times confrontational. He is a self-proclaimed ‘ranty anarchist’! Precocious and talented. Isaac told the audience, “I’m just back from Ireland…not played here for a few months…I’ve been performing now for seven and a half years and I’ve just turned 20.”
His songs are extremely political. “What’s too young to throw a petrol bomb?”
The songs seem largely autobiographical. He explained that he was brought up in a horse-box by new Traveller parents, claiming that he was raised on Special Brew by Animal activists. Amidst the rants was an amusing tale featuring Goths, in their dark, heavy clothing, suffering more in the future from climate change. There was also a song about undercover, ‘Spy Cop’, about Mark Flash, Dodgy Mark, who pretended to be a punk-poet as he infiltrated the animal rights’ activists under the name, Mark Stone aka Mark Kennedy.
Isaac: ‘Teenage Jesus’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WCbhRVDRcw
The night was hosted before and in the midst of the musical mayhem by Miss Airedale/Pip Fowler, accompanying his songs on auto-harp with dollops of additional humour.
‘Joe Bell’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM90XIc0AJQ