Just for Ramsay as I know he likes a bit of football, weather and travel reports... Early afternoon Simon and I cycle to Peckham Town FC for which a frozen pitch inspection at 11 am passed. Arrive for 2 pm KO (early as no floodlights) and pay a fiver each for entry (incl. programme) and then buy cans of Peckham Pale. 5 mins before KO ref decides it's "too boggy" and calls the game off. No one else agrees including both teams, managers and the 40 odd crowd who half heartedly boo the decision. So we (and mate Nick who's arrived) with the 40 odd others spend 30 minutes watching PTFC practice (pitch not too boggy for that!) whilst supping beers then call it a day. At least the Arsenal result was pleasing.
Simon and I meet later at Angel tube and hot foot (it is cold out) down to The Lexington. Having popped upstairs and briefly glimpsed Hagar the Womb we go down to the main bar for pints. Back upstairs we catch the end of the band who have quite a few on stage and play an enjoyable but not too challenging anarcho punk fare which to be fair is the theme of the night. Next up is The Astronauts Songbook which turns out to be a tribute to Mark Astronaut (nee Wilkins) who passed away in 2022. It's introduced by someone who sings in a sort of east end pub song style a bit Dury-esque and then hands over to someone else who is the lynchpin for the set. He sings a couple of numbers, all are written by Mark, then hands over back and forth to a succession of other singers. The crowd seem to know all the songs and Simon and I are wondering how we haven't heard of him or his band. Maybe we had back in the day and if they played the free festivals I'm sure we would have seen them. Any readers with better memories than me please enlighten me. The set ends with a lot on stage I think many from Hagar. The songs are damn good and it's great to hear how much the singers respected Mark. As the main guy says, possibly dissing the singers, the songs are so great that you don't need to be that good a singer as they stand up for themselves. After this set of enlightenment the drummer, bassist and guitarist come back on as they are Zounds. None from the original band (I'm pretty sure) although the singer guitarist is an original sporting a lovely sparkly jacket and they launch into a good few songs of their debut The Curse of Zounds. They sound a lot more rock than the original and whilst I'm appreciating the riffs and songs they don't have that unique sound that they originally did. No matter, they have got the crowd going and I'm jigging about getting into the groove. Simon in his braces is skanking a bit too. The main man is very chatty starting off by saying that he's just been told that he's been playing the first number "Fear" in the wrong key for the last 50 years. Not quite 50 but nearly. A lot of his chat is about his poor guitar playing and he spends a fair bit of time retuning whilst telling us he paid someone to tune his guitar and it should have stayed in tune. I'm sure he knows but cold night air and hot sweaty clubs. He's funny enough and we are amused. After a few classics including Demystification and Can't Cheat Karma they play a few I don't know, probably from mid 80s, and finish with War and Subvert which has got me moving in an anarcho punk style although not in the mosh pit as I fear I'm too young for it, which is a novelty these days. They actually finish with another song which they have to rush I think and then they are off. No encore as I think they have to clear the room for the 11 pm disco. We don't hang around but nip back to the tube for what turns out to be an early homecoming. So a very interesting evening and great to hear those old Zounds tunes from 40 years ago.
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Introductory song
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| Main singer |
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| Guest singing about burps and thoughts |
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| The guy who blamed the drummer |
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| All on stage and a view of the audience, a strange brew |
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Zounds! Methinks that's a fine minstrel's jacket
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| Jacket off to reveal crisp white shirt |
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