it's the saturday afternoon/ evening, horsemouth is back from an afternoon in camden watching jacken elswyth (ably backed by alula down). it was a good gig in the greennote (a tiny little venue where he has seen jacken and alastair roberts before with myk).
after coffee, a blog and then tea and toast horsemouth travelled over to camden road railway station. he waited for howard to arrive eyeing the conveniently placed falafel wrap stand hungrily.
only then did he discover (by means of a phone call) that howard had arrived an hour earlier and was up at the ice house (a large wetherspoons on the canal). horsemouth dutifully made his way up to the ice house (opposite camden lock for future reference) battling his way through the crowds of solvent consumers.
howard was hidden in a corner with a pint and a copy of joan didion's where I was from having been there since midday. (he's not getting on with it. horsemouth thinks it is one of joan's duller books)
horsemouth was keen to get to the venue early and get a seat (he remembered how small it was) and so they dived down the backstreets, onto camden parkway and, just before camden parkway ran out, they found the venue.
the only tune horsemouth knew from before was poor boys long way from home (a john fahey stadard - but also mississippi john hurt, r.l. burnside, barbecue bob, blind blake, robert pete williams, booker white etc. ). the rest of it was tracks off the new jacken elswyth album (backed by alula down), many of the tracks having had their start in improvisations.
ladies and gentlemen, this may have been your only opportunity to see these tracks performed live.
horsemouth said hi, but he was a little shy so he said little more.
he chatted a little with another banjo player (in the queue for the gents) and then back in his seat with anna and her boyfriend up from bristol - she had played flute as a child and had a lap steel guitar in a cupboard somewhere (horsemouth, the ever helpful, recommended daddad tuning, a volume pedal (for getting those country swells) and buying a shruti box with a foot pedal operator (like the one jacken had)).
horsemouth had a pint and a bottle of ipa all told, howard had had a pint by the time horsemouth got there and had two bottles of ipa (and another smaller one) in the venue. horsemouth has been a little bruised by beer of late and so was glad, in a way, to stop early (at a sensible level of befuddlement).
and so horsemouth finds himself home early (and reasonably sober).
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it's the morning (a beautiful morning). his mum has just been on the phone - the router was flashing (horsemouth has recommended turning it off and he'll deal with it when he gets back). he's got a phonecall with his brother at 6pm and a phonecall with his mum at 8pm.
it's the anniversary of various half-term mixing and recording sessions with musicians of bremen
one from six years ago (for volume four, covers, everything is going to be alright etc.) and one from 2 years ago (for the demos over on soundcloud).
horsemouth will go out for a wander in a bit.
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