Saturday Evening's Hat Club; A Big Hit!

Saturday evening's Hat Club was a great success; indeed a sell out!
Martin Stephenson and is partner Helen (not the bearded fiddle player left) produced two idiosyncratic sets of wonderful, rootsy, warm melodic music. As well as some fine singing and sublime finger picking, there were mirthful moments of unpredictable banter that added to a crackling quirky atmosphere. Part of that dynamic came from the fact that we opened the gig up to 20 non members, folk who brought tickets directly from Martin's website. New faces, new friends who knew all of the words and helped lead the singalongs.
I'm sure some might remember Martin from the 80's & 90's.
'Boat to Bolivia', 'Gladsome Humour & Blues' were never off my turntable back then; I saw him play many times with his band The Daintees. And Helen's band The Chiefs were darlings of The John Peel Show around the same time.
Martin has just released his 41st (yup) album 'California Star' to much acclaim.
Anyway... there was some weird serendipity around on Saturday: In the morning a copy of the monthly magazine 'R2' dropped through my letter box.
My band Miracle Mile have an interview within, courtesy of Jeremy Searle.
We also have a track on the free 'Unherd' CD that comes gratis with this fine mag.
And who do you think has the track before ours?
You couldn't make this stuff up!

A fine night was had by all; I'm told that we hit the £800 mark in bar takings.
Thank Christ for WKP! I think that he accounted for about half of that...
He also sired one half of our formidable bar staff; Connor and Alex, who did a sterling job behind the bar; they even granted me my very own tab, making a very old man sappy...
Kudos also to all of the members who turned up; particularly Howard and Irene Machin, Willie and Sarah Kirkpotty and the Courtney Lucks who, I believe, have attended all of the presentations thus far.
Paul Austin should be wrapped in gold leaf that we can all lick it off; we'd be a non starter without him providing, setting up and taking down his excellent PA.

The next Hat Club is on April 26th and features KT Tunstall band member Paul Gilbody who'll be bringing his unique brand of percussive pop 'n' roll to the club.
Details of that will follow soon.
Have a look below at a clip from The Old Grey Whistle Test as a sample of what you missed on Saturday if you were absent.