Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05

Subject: Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:36 AM

Proudly waving my pensioner's railcard I made my way to the 5th Interplanetary *FREE* Festival of Skiffle and Related Musics: SKIFFLE MADNESS at the Cabbage Patch at Twickenham. 1pm to 5.30-ish on Sunday, all for nowt!
Proceeding kicked off with the veteran trio (186 years between them!), The Zimmer Boys. Usual fine selection of skiffle and jug band numbers and country blues including one of my favourites, K.C. Moan.
Then came the Madness! Last year Betty Davila and her Acoustic Astronauts with its child prodigy fiddle player was one of the unexpected hits. This year he had been replaced by a tenor sax player, and after a couple of numbers the guitarist donned an Elvis wig and dark glasses and the rest of the set was a not very good impression of early Elvis. I'm not averse to a bit of Rockabilly but the general consensus of the audience near me, the place was getting packed by then, was that last year's line up was better.
Then it was back to skiffle central with the New City Gamblers. No Steve-Benbow's-Protege (did you get the house painted, Pete?) but the great British skiffle and folk veteran, Steve Benbow, was back playing lead guitar, though not singing. Pete's fez was supplanted by the banjo player's selection of Davey Crockett hats, including zebra striped and leopard spotted versions!
Organiser King Street Smith with his Blues Buddies, augmented by a discreet accordian, took us to the Delta with more country blues and skiffle favourites, giving the enthusiastic audience plenty of chance to participate in the choruses (I was the one off-key, Frank!) with such songs as Diddy Wah Diddy,Wine Spod-eee-o and the Kweskin favourite I'm satisfied with my girl.
Then the Jim McLean Band gave a brief set taking us more to the Appalachians, and a fiddle and 5-string banjo made their first appearance of the afternoon.
They were scheduled to finish at 4pm and it was already 5.15 so I had to miss the Mounthoolies, a young band who were very good last year with "Oh Brother" repertoire, as the usual shambolic band changeovers were taking longer and longer (well,that's skiffle!) and remembering last year's train problems, I decided to head off for home. Herself, refreshed from a day with uninterrupted access to our PC, was kind enough to collect me from the station to round off the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. There were the usual determined dancers, undeterred by lack of space, lack of partners or danger to life, limb and the musicians, and the only downside was that the only person I saw smoking decided to settle next to me!
Did I say it was FREE?
I don't know what the bar takings were. Naturally, I didn't contribute too much to those (*BG*), but Sam Smith should have been there. He might have been converted!!

RtS
(Is that all right, Frank? Make the cheque out to CASH)

Subject: RE: Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:28 AM

Today's deliberate mistake (!) That should have been HumphreySmith of course!!

RtS

Subject: RE: Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 03:36 AM

A final refresh in case this hasn't reached the more distant planets...

RtS
(I gather from KSS that the Caversham Festival fringe Skiffle session at the Clifton Arms in the Summer is unlikely to happen this year.)

Subject: RE: Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05
From: GUEST,Tharg from Planet Zarg
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 09:47 AM

Sorry our contingent couldn't get there due to an Asteroid shower in the Arcturus Nebula. We sent you back Elvis, did he get there OK though the regeneration beam?
We picked up the in-house video on our scanners. I thought we had mastered all types of Earth music but there was one bloke singing choruses that didn't seem to fit any known notation.
Must go, my warp drive powered wshboard is overheating.
See you next year.
TfZ

Subject: RE: Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05
From: GUEST, Hamish from Planet Berko
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 10:52 AM

I don't have anything informative or witty to add, but I thought I'd just pop in, say "hullo", and let you know people do read these posts even if the thread activity's slow.

HfB

Subject: RE: Review: Skiffle Madness 5 Twickenham UK 20.2.05
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 01 Feb 06 - 09:58 AM

Frank of King Street Smith tells me this isn't happening in 2006, at least on this planet!

RtS