Shrinkwrap followed. Non stop, two guitar, hard punk salvoes losing the vocalist to a scream. The floor packed with visiting Japanese students dancing out of their trees.
Meanwhile down at the World's End the place was filling up for Newport's rocking barstool combo Chiz and Russ. Chiz has got the songs, more grit than Newport Quay and he don't sing by halves. Russ plays fat, solid, booting bass lines. A duo to fill a bar with. I catch just a few songs of their set. A new song by Chiz, a killer reggae number and a stunning twelve bar blues about riding a south bound train to Memphis. A cracking reading of an old John Martyn song.
Then back to the Calverts where Gypsy's Edge played hard rhythm and blues. The four piece are picking up gigs at the Fountain in Sandown and Yelf's Cellar Bar. They've got a good hollering vocalist and the guy on guitar who plays the kind of licks to make me sit up. Adam Kirk, about to join Joan Baez's band for a European tour, has his head turned too. "Are these guys from the mainland?" he asks. "No, they play Yelf's Cellar bar, Dick Taylor sits in with them," I respond. Adam sits down to lap up the end of the set. Nothing ever happens on the Isle of Wight. Who told you that?
Next morning Pete Turner was off to rub ties with the corporate set in the 'executives' box at Portsmouth Football Club. Vic King and I were back at the headquarters of Sunny Promotions in deepest Niton watching the late Townes Van Zandt sing an emotional version of 'Waiting Around To Die' in Guy Clarks kitchen (Heart Worn Highways video 1974). It was so stunning I never finished off the traditional morning tea, toast and marmalade.
The early morning set was by way of a preparation in response to a long standing invitation with an Island musician who is as rock solid as his late friend and Island music mentor Tom Taylor. We were off to Calbourne to talk country with Brian Munro. Brian picked us up from the pub, his wife Jan welcomed us at the door. These Island country boys are a different breed. The last time I had seen the Detour band they had just completed a great country with Western swing set at Newport Conservative club. The band and wives were kissing each other goodnight in the car park. Pete Turner reckoned "We don't get this at rock'n'roll gigs." With that Tony Malo planted a smacker on his cheek.
We ate Jan's excellent Texas Mexican flavour sandwiches, consumed her blackberry pie with cream and drank several cups of coffee. From eleven that morning to eight that night Vic, Brian and I sat, talked, listened and watched country. Right across the great divide. Brian's taste suited ours like the T for Texas. No time for industrial country we wallowed in the real McCoy. From a brilliant new album by George Jones onto bluegrass, Western swing, honky tonk cowboy songs, Chris Hillman's Desert Rose band, Pete Rowan, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Roseanne Cash, Jerry Jeff Walker and the master himself that Texas back bar kicking troubadour Joe Ely.
Ely's Letter to Laredo was the cream on the blackberry pie. A masterpiece of Picasso proportions. Shot like a hit of tequilla with visions of the Texas/Mexican borderlands. Like a soundtrack for John Sayles superb film Lone Star. Kristofferson's role in Lone Star reminding us of the time that Brian Munro and Tom Taylor sat in with Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and band in a Shanklin pub way back in 1970.
As Brian ran us down to our next gig at Plessey's Club we reminisced about Tom Taylor. We reminded Brian of the time that Tom, ever the practical joker, phoned up Cas Caswell and sent him from Bristol to Plymouth for a non existent gig. "He used to do that kind of thing all the time. You would get a phone call, Tom was always changing his voice. He'd call up and say he was from the Gas Board and that you had not paid your bill. I miss him." So did we.
Our gig that night was the Jones' supported by Void at Plessey Club. The Japanese students turned up en mass to join the sizeable crowd of Cowes regulars which included Pete Turner back in T-shirt and jeans.
Void opened with a good set to get the punters dancing. I missed most of it because I was talking Ferrets with Graham MacFarlane. Vaguely Sunny Promotions are going to try to hustle a gig for the Ferret Theatre Company in Southampton. Void have just completed a four track demo to hit record companies with. Like all promising young bands (average age of Void is probably 16) they just need the right shove. The music had stopped for the raffle and the announcer noted that Lucy the singer was real 'Top of the Pops' material. If only rock'n'roll was that simple. Without the right backers even the Spice Girls would be a footnote in the music machine.
Talking of backers a Brighton power trio are coming up for some gigs next week. They are called Platform. Rumour is that Adam Faith, sixties singer from the Marty Wilde school of pop turned savvy businessman, is interested in promoting them.
Plessey Club packed around the stage for the Jones'. The band exploded like a series of depth charges. Mark Wozencroft, as ever, giving the snare drum a right hammering, firing all over the cymbals and generally going for it. Up front Chiz and Russ at full stretch. Right in the face of the packed dancefloor. Sean from HMV bopping along on tambourine like a punk version of the Joystrings. The wayward mother of mayhem Mr. Graham MacFarlane parts the sound. He is either stabbing chords like daggers into his laptop organ or whanging out notes on the electric piano.
Frequently he leaves the stage to dive in amongst the bouncing sea of bodies swelling the dancefloor. He's joined by Sean who is whamming the tambourine above his head. They are lost in a sea of Japanese students and locals pitching to the beat at a frantic pace. This is back bar rock'n'roll at its best. Raised to the rafters. Shaking down to the foundations. Passion, commitment. You can expect nothing less from Chiz and co.
Sunday morning. Rich Wilkinson is on hydrofoil duty. He dallies on board to have a chat with me about the set of Beken Jimi Hendrix photos that are up for sale at Bonhams rock'n'roll auctions in London. Rich is so excited he is almost takes an unexpected trip to Southampton as the hydrofoil staff are about to batten down the hatches.
As ever Isle of Wight Rock never stops. It just pauses to catch it's breath once in a while.
Mike Plumbley