Scaledown

This is where the real fun in gig-going lies - 7 acts, none of which I've heard before, presented under the aegis of Resonance FM's "Scaledown" programme. It's billed as alternative/experimental - who can say what that'll involve? Could be great, could be awful - but it's free, so why not take the chance? And it's being held in a room above a pub, which automatically makes anything better.

We arrive round about 7, get the first round in, then hang about in the downstairs room wondering if we should wait until there seems to be some action, as there doesn't appear to be anyone going through the door to the upstairs room. Eventually we feel emboldened enough to go up, on the assumption that if we're not supposed to be there we'll be told about it. The room's small, it's almost like being in someone's living room. there are a few people milling about, mostly the organisers as far as we can tell. We sit down and nurse our pints, and people start to drift in. We wonder if we're the only people here who haven't come because they're mates with one of the acts or connected with Resonance in some way.

Two of our compères, Mark Braby and Dan Whaley, start off the evening with a rendition of a Copper Family song, "Babes in the Wood", before Whaley gets things going as the first act proper, under the pseudonym Big Ron Turner (one of many, as you'll see if you click through to his site). It's twangy bluesy stuff, which is the sort of thing I like, but it doesn't quite hit the mark for me. It makes me feel slightly bad to say this, because he's obviously deeply committed in his performing and deeply in love with the music.

Same Actor announces that tonight's a bit of an experiment for him, as he's left his laptop at home. His set divides into two parts, the first of which, he happily informs us, is inspired by the feeling of having stepped in some dog poo, and the second by the elation at having been shat on by a bird (it's good luck, you know). It's a minimalist affair, droning acoustic guitar which for the latter part is looped through some kind of sampler pedal (I assume - he's sat on the floor so I can't really see him) over which he then plays a sitar. it's quite hypnotic, although maybe lacking something - probably the laptop, judging by the excellent tracks on his MySpace page.

The Reactor Core Is Splendid consists of one man and his guitar, playing naive songs that have words that ramble rather than scan, that bring Ivor Cutler to my mind, for some reason. It's kitchen sink music, all about little details, which, while it does raise a chuckle or two, I can't help think lacks humour. On the back of these thoughts we wonder between ourselves whether it's humour or charisma that the performances so far have fallen short on - or whether these two things are connected.

Things perk up with the Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra, whose leader Martin White is the first performer tonight I feel has connected with the audience. (I wonder if it's partly that as the biggest band there, they have more friends in the audience, but I don't think that's it, although the fuller room obviously helps). It's funny stuff, stylistically out of the Weill/Eisler school of cabaret, with a healthy dollop of the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band thrown in for good measure, with settings of Poe as well as a song about John Cage's 4'33" and a heartfelt ballad about Euro-rockers Europe, which are very funny and leave us determined to catch them again sometime.

Nigel Burch is, as the pre-show publicity has it, a big man with a small instrument (a banjolele, to be precise) who rattles through some gleefully misanthropic songs that seem mostly concerned with the idea that people in love should not be permitted to live. It's what might happen to you if you grew old without shedding yourself of your youthful sense of the world's injustice against you. I Thoroughly enjoy it, my companion finds it to aggressive and bitter.




From one man with a tinny strumming instrument to another - Al Duvall look like he's stepped out of a Robert Crumb cartoon, dressed in cream suit and plantation tie. His songs are pure vaudeville, and seem to have a fixation with the act of being beaten up by one's love - "bare-knuckle ballerina" for instance. Lest this sound disturbing, I should point out that it's very funny, and he demonstrates that Americans in fact can do irony when he asks us to buy his album, thereby support the War in Iraq via his tax bill.

The final act is Mike Cooper who's been around since the sixties when he was part of the English blues/folk movement led by Davey Graham and John Martyn, and therefore the nearest thing to a star we've seen tonight. He's come to sing completely unaccompanied, so, he explains, as he rarely does this, he'll only sing two songs. In fact he's coaxed into doing a third, and all of them he sings with a dignity that ends the evening on an unexpected note.

I really enjoyed this evening. There's something in a small-scale event like this that moves me in a way that larger gigs don't. it's not to do with the style of music, or the quality - it's about the passion. These are all people doing what they do for love - the only payment any of them will get for this evening is what gets thrown in the pint glass that's been passed round the audience for donations - and there's a DIY aesthetic to the whole proceedings that's refreshing and inspiring.

There was recording going on, so listen out for some of this stuff on "Scaledown" on Resonance (alternate Friday afternoons), and keep an eye out for the next gigs at The Orchestra Pit. It'll be good for your soul.