My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): 24/10/2003 - Bar Lorca, London

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It is a truth universally accepted that the gigs you think will be "important" never are (probably because hardly any gigs in the history of SENTIENT LIFE have EVER been actually IMPORTANT, but you know what I mean), whereas the ones that actually make a difference to your life are usually the ones that seem a bit daft from the outset.

This is one of the latter, a gig organised by those DELIGHTFUL people at Kooba Radio for some of the acts they were featuring on their still young Interweb Radio Station. I rolled up at the venue to find it EERILY FAMILIAR. It didn't LOOK the same inside, but something about the frontage caused STIRRINGS within my gig memory. After some investigation it turned out that MANY years previously it had been called The White Horse, a classic old fashioned Indie Toilet Venue which my band VOON had once played at. True to the spirit of that particular band we had THOUGHT we were playing the markedly more prestigious White Horse in HAMPSTEAD, and only realised we'd got it wrong the next night when we started boasting about it to people who'd actually been to the RIGHT one.

The gig itself was a bit of a struggle to start with as almost NOBODY had come to see me and so were happily CHATTING to each other while I was playing. It's a funny old room, The White Horse, or Bar Lorca, or JAMM as it's now known. It's quite a big SPACE, with the tables sat quite far back from a stage which is unusually TALL so you already feel quite distanced from the audience. When they put the big bright lights on you feel even FURTHER away and it's difficult to know what's going on.

Stood there feeling THE FEAR approaching I instead decided it was time to DEVELOP my ACT. I'd recently started standing up at gigs as a means of dominating the room a bit more, but now I took it further and began to DANCE. DANCING on stage is AMAZING voodoo magic - to the untrained eye it may look like I am WRIGGLING uncomfortably like a drunken uncle at a Wedding Reception, on a BOAT, in STORMY WEATHER, but ACTUALLY I am drawing the EYE towards my Dancing Body, and also instilling the idea of DANCE in the audience. DANCE! DANCE!

Honestly, it's incredible how often this works - if you're doing a gig and start to jig about, even if it's in as haphazard a way as I do, audience members will ALSO start to jig about. It works!

Unfortunately my choice of songs had unintentional ADVERSE effects on potential audience members. In the other side of the pub there was a RAGGA night going on. My good friend Mr Charles Flowers was dashing between the two events, having a WHALE of a time (though from the STATE he was in at the time he probably would have had a good time BOPPING to a car alarm, the KRAZY rascal that he is), and he came in for my set just as I was launching into the song "If You're Too Turned On". As ALSO previously mentioned this song features a section advising people to think of ugly old politicians in order to forestall orgasm, and I'd JUST got to the bit where I sing "Oh Enoch Powell, Enoch Powell" when Charlie was followed by one of the Ragga Regulars into our side of the building.

He BAULKED. "This isn't the place I should be in", he said, and beat a HASTY retreat. URK!

Still, apart from that misunderstanding the evening went pretty well and people got ONSIDE, including Mike the Promoter. He told me he ran a CABARET night there, and that he'd like to get me back to play it. I didn't know it at the time, but over the next few years I would be playing a LOT of gigs at Bar Lorca/Jamm, gigs which themselves would never be easy but would lead on to a LOT MORE other gigs elsewhere. I don't know why, but playing there has ALWAYS led to me getting other gigs elsewhere, it is FERTILE.

I didn't know that then, of course, and it wouldn't be until a month or so later when the OTHER promoter would see me playing somewhere else and, by complete coincidence, ALSO book me to play, that I'd be set on this course of action. For now I was sat in a pub FAR from home drinking Guinness, watching bands who people actually INTENDED to see, with my friend Charlie, laughing his tits off at me. "ENOCH POWELL! HAHAHAHAAA!"

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