Ship! Shark! Spaniards!

[alexsarll]

It came as no real surprise that my boss should be at Scarlet's Well last night. That the support band of whom I'd never heard should feature a bassist I'd known at school was more of a shock.

It felt moderately strange to see Scarlet's Well sober. Not that I'm suggesting one needs be drunk to enjoy them - far from it, clearly they're marvellous - but if I asked myself "When am I in greatest ideaspace proximity to the concept of Scarlet's Well?" it would have to be sloshed on either rum (for the nautical aspects) or port (for the Englishness). Similarly, if I'd done anything other than straight edge the Dexy(')s show I attended I'd have felt somewhat uneasy about it, and the best Jacques show I ever saw was the one with candlelight and red wine.
That aside, a damn fine show. I still don't quite know how to recommend them to people (even my excitable "Pirates!" was misheard by rhodri as "B0ll0cks!"), but very much want to do so. For one thing, it's a rare band where every member is worth watching on stage (though I do fear the cult of martylog may eventually lead the others to slay him in a jealous fury).
And those who stayed away in solidarity with dickon_edwards totally played themselves - he's far more in his element guesting as a homoerotic fop cabin boy than he ever was as a guitarist.

Comments

[martylog.livejournal.com]

It felt moderately strange to see Scarlet's Well sober

I was thoroughly sloshed by the time I went on stage, if that goes any way to making up for it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I loved the way you even dashed off to fetch the video in the style of Oh, Martin!

[serious-k.livejournal.com]

Bid, circa 7.30pm: "He's drunk already, isn't he? He is. He's drunk. Martin's drunk."

Bid, circa 7.35pm: "I'm SO looking forward to going on tour with you, Martin"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

When the Scarlet's Well equivalent of the Motley Crue book is written, the sales will owe much to Martin.

[martylog.livejournal.com]

It will, of course, all be lies of the most libellous kind.

As Churchill said of Arthur:

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It's all true, or ought to be, and more and better besides.

[martylog.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my new favourite soundbite for describing Scarlet's Well is... ship-hop.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds good but there aren't really any hip hop elements, are there?

[martylog.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can persuade Bid to add a rap breakdown to one of the songs, to justify the term.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

So long as Dickon delivers it, I'm there.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I dunno, Kate is a bit Bling! ;)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I don't know...they're none of them nouveau enough to be bling. It would be like calling the Vicomte de Valmont bling.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Well she's shiney then. :P

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, most certainly.

[martylog.livejournal.com]

I was always quite fond of the term 'Pirate Pop' which I coined to sum us up, but it never really caught on. Although I think Dickon adopted it in some of the pieces he wrote.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've used pirate pop before now, but it tends to confuse people.
ALSO, pet bugbear: to coin a phrase is not actually to invent it, but to re-use it.

[(Anonymous)]

Umm, no. It does mean to invent a phrase. It's 'coin' in the sense of 'to mint [currency]' (i.e. from cuneus, meaning wedge). Unpet that bugbear.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Measure for Measure says otherwise, and afaik that's the origin of the expression. 'To coin' meaning to mint, yes - but the coins are all replicas, and the stamp is the original.

Anyway, who are you?

[(Anonymous)]

Who was the bassist?

Robin

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oli, can't remember his surname. He was a year or two below us.

[(Anonymous)]

Rings bells, how funny.

Robin