LOVE MUSIC HATE RACISM – EVENT
It’s the last in a slew of Bank Holidays for a while. With no more maypoles to dance round, religious festivals to celebrate or royal nuptials to watch/ignore it’ll be August before we get a collective day off again. So what better way to make the most of this one than to do a spot of loving music and hating racism? And where better to do it than at Medway’s fifth Love Music Hate Racism festival just outside the Command House, Chatham?
Somebody has, apparently, suggested renaming the event “Love Music Hate Medway”. Which is rather cruel.
Love Music Hate Racism has spent three days celebrating the message of unity in the area through a diverse array of music from gospel to dance, blues and folk. Bank Holiday Monday, the final day, is reserved for a selection of chilled out folk and acoustic acts, along with some slightly noisier tunes from other guitar based bands. This is going to be good.
Didi Bergman - Photo by Bob Carling
Didi Bergman
Didi Bergman is first up on the Bob Wade Stage in the RAFA Club (so named after one of the founding members of the Medway campaign who passed away recently). It’s a suitably mellow start to this lazy sunny afternoon; Bergman opens her set with an a cappella treatment of Sandy Denny’s “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood”.
“I usually do that one to get everyone on my side,” she admits to the captivated audiences afterwards. Seems to have worked then.
So when she meanders into her own material, there is no question about the support for her – even when her song “Chelmer” collapses near the end (“I knew I shouldn’t have done that last bit,” she mutters as much to herself as to us).
Didi Bergman sings with an unaffected estuarine accent. If you’re looking for the mockneyisms of Lily Allen and co. you’ll be sorely disappointed. This is raw, simple and genuine stuff. So when she sings “Why don’t you leave me be?”, you feel maybe now would be a good time to go. Conversely, when Bergman sings of being “with my darling on the banks of the Darland” you cannot help but be lulled into the summery mood she creates.
Towards the end of her set, she’s assisted by two guitarists: first Joe Cottis who accompanies her for his joint composition, “Emily”. “It sounds a bit like Damian Rice,” says Mrs. Morris beside to me. “You can have that!” she adds, pointing at my notepad. Thank you.
And then she’s joined by Barry Kearns. Their first song together is called “Dog Shit Street”, although Bergman seems a little coy in introducing it, preferring the word “poo” instead. The lyrics, though, remain strangely unchanged.
Despite its canine and lavatorial title, the song, just like its predecessors, is a thing of beauty with a Kings of Convenience-ish lilt to it: “Tell me you and she are starting over again”. It’s at once beautiful and heartbreaking.
A couple of happy songs follow (“I don’t know if that’s allowed in folk music,” Bergman muses at one point. “The Levellers did it and they were shunned.”) and then it’s time for her to go. A great set of gentle summery songs. Marvellous.
Wheels - Photo by Nicholas Blake
Wheels
“We are Wheels,” says Rew Oates, front man of that very same band. “Named after…the wheel.” It’s a suitably dry, quirky and low key way to introduce their set of unique and dusty transatlantic folk. If you thought the word “shambolic” only ever had negative connotations, think again. Wheels will show you that rambling, wandering tunes could well be the future.
Due to the sheer length of the tunes involved, Wheels will perform just three songs today: “Friday” (“named after…Friday,” Oates helpfully informs us), “Adverts” and “Forget It”, the last of which is cheekily dedicated “to Medway’s bid for city status.” It gets a cheerful, knowing applause. Ah, you can’t beat a bit of biting satire on a Bank Holiday Monday afternoon.
A first aural glance of Wheels (if such a thing is possible) would suggest the band have taken America’s “Horse With No Name” and stretched it into several songs’ worth of material. Certainly “Friday” (no relation to the Rebecca Black classic) and “Adverts” do this – in part, at least.
But just beneath the surface, there’s a wealth of sounds and rich textures. If prog-folk or even math-folk didn’t exist before, Wheels may just have invented the genres. This could even be prog-math-folk.
Wheels - Photo by Nicholas Blake
It’s an expansive sound with changes in speed and rhythms throughout. At times free-form jazz (albeit an oxymoronic pre-scripted form of free form jazz), at times a trip into a scorching hot, Mexican landscape, all Spanish guitars at dawn, it has a complexity and spirit that whisks the audience far, far away from the RAFA Club, Chatham. Far, far away.
The first two songs are new – to this listener at least. There’s a more experimental feel to them. Having established their style, Wheels are now delighting in shifting things around, playing with ideas and toying with new sounds and rhythms. And with any luck, this sense of fun will be caught on the album the band release in June.
Los Salvadores - Photo by Nicholas Blake
Los Salvadores
Los Salvadores take to the stage next, another eagerly awaited band. You remember them, surely: they’re the four piece band featuring a French horn and violin where you’d expect the drums and bass to be. Less than a month after their impressive appearance at the Sweeps Festival, they’re back with a similar set of folk songs with a local theme and, at times, a punk spirit.
Los Salvadores - Photo by Nicholas Blake
“St. Bartholomew’s Day”, “Old Diesel Train”, “Holly Shore”, “White Horse”, “The Ventriloquial Figure”, “Smuggler’s Leap” and “The Last Soiree” are all present and correct, filled with ghost stories, legends about battles and massacres, and, of course, a peek into the world view of a pigeon as it flies over a long diesel train. Isn’t that what all the bands are singing about these days?
The French horn acts as a soothing counter to the staccato attack of the vocals while the violin underpins everything with a calming lilt. It’s an impressive and imaginative set: an unusual but compelling collection of songs its impossible to tire of. Great stuff.
Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society - Photo by Nicholas Blake
Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society
And then it’s time for a trip out into the fresh air. Besides the impressive Georgian façade of the Command House stands a temporary platform fashioned from scaffolding. The backdrop features painted images of famous acts from John Lennon to the Foo Fighters. And it’s here that the fabulously named Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society are performing.
Mr. Turner has a lot to live up to: he’s introduced by Vince the compère as “one of Medway’s greatest acts”. And given the sheer range and strength of musical talent in the area, that’s no mean feat. But there’s no need to worry. He hardly needs to rise to the challenge; he’s already level with it.
Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society (do they ever wish they’d chosen a slightly shorter name?) are a heavy blues infected act. There’s blasts of funky trumpets and raw rock throughout to boot.
In fact, the front man introduces one song (“I Spent My Last Fifty Pence on the Taxi Here”) as “Blues Disco Hardcore Punk, for people who like to pigeon hole things”. It would probably be quite a small pigeon hole with some very lonely contents to be honest, but one that the band would do a fantastic job of filling it.
Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society - Photo by Nicholas Blake
Turner has a deep, growly voice to which Ben Ottwell of Gomez or Tom Waits’ vocals don’t even come close. We’re entering Screamin’ Jay Hawkins territory here. And it’s a vocal style entirely appropriate to the style of music.
After his set, Turner will laugh at the memory of how, while mid performance at a previous gig, one woman came up to him and said: “I really like what you’re doing, but have you ever considered singing more melodically.”
The band is here to support the cause of loving music and hating racism, of course (their closing song, “Essex” is an angry essay against the rise of the BNP: “What were you damn well thinking?” runs the opening line), but they’re also seizing the opportunity to promote their new EP, “Weekend Heart”, available on vinyl and download. The aforementioned “I Spent My Last Fifty Pence…” is the first track from the EP. Expect a separate review of this shortly.
As befits “one of Medway’s greatest acts”, STATFES (it’s much quicker to type their initials) have done a fantastic job entertaining the revellers on this bank holiday. With a bit of luck and a following wind, they’ll have picked up a few more fans and sold a few copies of the EP while supporting a very worthy cause.
And with the sun still shining down on the festival, it’s time to head home. Sorry. Can’t stick around. There’s a pasta bake at home awaiting the Morrises’ attention.