Psicle: Hit for Six

Friday night I'm cycling through South London hoping to get to see the start of play at the Oval. Have two tickets for the T20 Surrey - Birmingham Bears (don't they mean Warks) match but as Pete has bailed out due to canal boat moving (see my nautical reference there) I stop at Oval station to bargain with a tout "buying and selling". As he starts his bid for my spare at £1.50 I tell him it's not worth getting it out of my bag and am soon locking the bike up just inside the stadium which is a relief as last time we locked bikes outside at pub at the Oval some spotty git tried to take parts off them. There's a big crowd tonight and is fairly vocal which as it's 7pm on a hot summer Friday night is not surprising. Surrey kick off, sorry, bat first and make a mediocre 205 although as this is 20/20 it involves a lot of slogging and boundaries. One six gets caught by someone in the crowd which causes much entertainment for the crowd with repeats on the big screen. Pity the West Indies up in Yorkshire can't catch for toffee at the moment. There again that guy gets a cool grand. As the cameras are on him and on the big screen his mate gives him a big hug and sloppy kiss which creates even more hilarity in the crowd. Oh what fun. Birmingham / Warwickshire aren't here to muck about though and they are giving lots of opportunities for others to win a grand but no one does that I could see. Comes down to needing 8 off the last over. First is hit for six. Next for four. Thousands of disappointed South Londoners and south western home county types. Hundreds of happy West Midlanders. The result doesn't upset me too much and I cycle home having had an entertaining albeit lonely evening. Photos at the bottom.

Saturday is a scorcher and plans to go see St Pauli on telly at the Vauxhall German Pub and then to the War Museum for their peace protest exhibition melt much like the tarmac on the roads. I hang around the garden, literally, in the hammock, reading and generally moaning about the intense heat to anyone who will listen. No one does. Early evening I meet with Sarah down from Yorkshire in town and wander along the South Bank giving her the guided tour spiel and then wander up to a packed Leicester Square for a quick pint with Roy, brother and friends before bidding farewell and tubing home. Still hot out.

Sunday is a another lazy stifling day and again I do very little except for read and practice the bass. I do believe I'm a waster at heart. I cook in the early evening though whilst in a very bad mood. Not cos of the heat or having to cook but due to The Arsenal's thrashing by Liverpool and apparently no leadership on the pitch at all. Three points out of nine and we were lucky late on to get those against Leicester. My works fantasy football score is relegation stuff and I'm strong as in supporting the table as I play by my heart rather than head. Early evening sees me and Debs cycling up to the Brixton Windmill to catch the last half of an all dayer. The place is busy and the back smoking room has been converted into the Smallest Gig Place Ever. Honest, my front room is bigger and I live in a terraced London street so hardly big enough to swing our cat in. I tried. Room too small. Cat didn't like it. Failure. Only Simon here so we text Jules to come along and after a while Pete and Wendy join too and then Todd. The usual Windmill Suspects back together. Now for what most of you have been waiting for....

First up, well, not for the day but for us, are Mega Emotion which the flyer says are ex Bears if that mean anything to you. They are two women and a bloke variously on drums, tom toms, synths, guitars, cow bells and such like. The guy seems to be cutting his fringe when we arrive at the stage and as they are all dressed in voluminous hooped night shirts I'm assuming that they are more performance art than heads down mindless boogie rock and roll. I'm right. But that's not a bad thing as they have a very interesting mix of dancey shouty electronica at times sounding like the Slit's infamous Y bootleg (subsequently official) album. If you're under 40 and reading this (very unlikely I know) go Google bootleg album (other search engines are available but not worth using). The band are too energetic for performance art and so we give them the benefit of the doubt and jig about a bit and cheer after each song. Also they do drop into heavy rhythmic mesmerising beats at times so a great start to the evening and worth checking out again if our paths cross.

The Hurtling are a more traditional trio of two blokes and a woman. A very tight band who are obviously very good musicians. The female guitarist and singer plays a mean riff, the bassist runs around the neck like a lead soloist and the drummer keeps them all honest and on time. The sound ranges from a melodic almost bluesy rock through to a fairly thrashy heavy sound with a ton of big fat riffing making it a hard decision whether to jump about or head bang whilst gazing at shoes. The quieter songs make Debbie think of Tracey Thorn and they do have that whimsical feel to them. Until the guitarist's head goes down, she faces the on stage speakers and she starts the heavy riffs. Well worth seeing and a nice change from the first band but that's the Windmill all over.

The two guys who Jules has been chatting to outside are up next and they look like nice clean cut boys. Drummer and guitarist. Maybe taking it down a bit before the last band? No such thing. Frauds thrash and shout and bash and riff with a relentlessness that can only be instilled in a duo who have lived for a long time in Croydon stuck on the outer reaches of London but it's up and coming and out to get you so move over you Brixton musos and let the future wash over you and dance! There was a fair amount of dancing in the cramped dance floor which went up a notch when their Danish friend took on all comers, including Simon, for the hoe down. Damn fast and loud hoe down mind you. They were great and if you need to bring yourself out of a soporific slumber during a repressive heat wave (as we are now experiencing) a few ditties from these guys will shake you awake. To be fair it wasn't just a thrashy row. Lazy label would be a post punk grunge influenced old school festival rockers. Maybe Six by Seven but when I mentioned them to the guitarist in the toilet he said he's never heard of them and would check them out. Nice to see a drummer singing too.

Last up are one of Ramsay's (aka Otley Simon) and Jo's and Yorkshire's finest. Missed by myself and Bruce at the Leicester Micks Mayhem Punk Cow Shed Festival (see previous post) and therefore probably last seen at the Otley Buff Club over a decade ago. The Scaramanga Six are two down and a quartet with standard drums bass two guitars and occasional keyboarding duties for the bassist. That's where the conventionality stops. The front two are brothers (a quick google tells me twins from my childhood local sea side resort of Weston super Mare transplanted to Yorkshire) who are hardly shrinking violets and bring a great sense of theatre to their set. The drummer has head phones on which looks a little too professional for the Windmill but maybe the musical mayhem going on in front of him warrants it. The second guitarist (I mean in that there are two and one is one of the twins not that she's playing second fiddle or second guitar as such) has striking red hair and a nearly as striking red spangly guitar which is used to great effect in keeping the songs riffing along whilst not stealing the limelight. The twins are the main singers and look a little scary whilst doing that especially the bassist who looks slightly demonic at times but maybe that's just his snarling vocals for the punkier numbers. Ah yes, just for the Otley crew I'd better let you know what the music is like. Hard hitting rock basically. Alt rock I guess it would be called as not straight up rock and roll. They range from aggressive punk attitude with sounds to match through to near psychedelic space rock but without too many twiddly bits with a weird near jazzy feel at times. A bit mid 70s New York. Maybe like a hard edged Talking Heads with more shouting than David B's geeky singing. Pete says a bit prog rock which I don't exactly agree with but I can see if he means tending towards 70s space rock. OK, I'll come out with it, my standard lazy comparison. I'm pretty sure they will have listened to Hawkwind but who hasn't and who hasn't been influenced by them. I have and I've only written two bass riffs in my life (Pete, when are you going to put the guitars against them?) I try not to google bands before writing about them but having written all that my research tells me that The Stranglers are an influence and you can see the pub / punk rock coming through but with that great band's (see previous posts) alternative take on that genre with clashing guitar and tripping soaring keyboards. The Scaramanga Six keyboarding is not quite as fluid as Dave G's but I guess that's been done before. Big chords smashing against the guitars is more this bands style. And stylish they are. Decent shirts instead of scummy T shirts. Nice to see they've made an effort for the salubrious Windmill and on that point they big it up at the start of the set which is nice and gets the crowd on side. And that is the most disappointing thing about the set. The crowd starts small and dwindles to a hard core who are getting into the music and dancing or at least jigging about. My take was eyes closed blissfulness which regular viewers will know is my stock way of getting into the band I'm watching. I think the punters are probably a bit music-ed out as we don't often have this much excitement up these parts and maybe they'd had one too many sausages from the barbeque out back. Hopefully those piggies would have wreaked their revenge on those who eat them but I won't get on my high horse. Partly cos that would be exploitation. Hmmm, my brain seems to have reverted back to last night (it's Monday now) so I'll shut up soon. Last word on the music is that the Scaramanga Six have a broad range of songs and they by no means all sound similar. Maybe a touch of the punkier indie side of goth in there too? I think they got a long back catalogue and it shows. Excellent way to round off the evening. And the kids who missed them missed out and gave us more room to dance. After that excitement we drink outside chatting loudly about weddings and suchlike until the bar bloke turfs us out back and then soon after turfs us out altogether into the night. After goodbyes to everyone at least twice Debs and I cycle back down the quiet roads and I fall asleep not watching Froome win his La Vuelta stage and spill water all over me. Honest that's what did happen!

Bank Holiday Monday is hotter than July by a long way and I'm flaked out indoors until 2pm when I start moving myself to get down to see Dulwich Hamlet play Tooting and Mitcham United. A good crowd, in fact a queue to get in was up into Sainsburys (other supermarkets are not available near the DHFC ground). I'm near the Dulwich ultras for the first half behind the opposition goal which gives lots of opportunities to abuse the goalie. They score what looks like a soft penalty within about 10 minutes and then start wasting time. Cue more abuse for the tardy goalie. His problem is that at this ground he'll get this for the full 90 minutes as the ultras change ends with the teams. We're all over Mitcham though and not sure how we haven't equalised by half time. Disappointment doubled at half time as the Bratwurst cabin has run out of Veganwurst. Ah well, next time on a cold Saturday when the crowds are less. Second half we're as bright as the first and after hitting the post a couple of times we score from a deserved free kick (hard and low) and after hitting the post again a thunderous goal from the edge of the box. Happy that I've seen one victory this weekend I cycle home back along my Windmill route as I near home. So, a stay at home Bank Holiday weekend but it was hot and I had just enough excitement to satisfy.