I'm off the train at Tottenham Court Road up the stairs, then the escalator, through the ticket barrier and up the last familiar stairs to the streets of London. As ever Tottenham Court Road where it crosses Charing Cross Road is vibrant in the mud sliding mess of wet pavements. A blaze of lights. Christmas in full swing.

I digress for tonight is going to be kind of Isle of Wight party at the 12 Bar. JC and Angelina Grimshaw have been booked to open up Bob Paterson's Christmas Party. Bob, researcher for one of our leading DJs Bob Harris and also a DJ and promoter in his own right has loved JC's music since I sent him a copy a while back. They've never met, tonight they will.

Vic says he will be here at around eight. It's a little before that now. The alley between Andy's Guitar shop and this tiny little place is empty. The 12 Bar's door firmly shut. Rico Bell, late of Leeds now living in San Francisco comes out of the tiny stage exit door with a couple of his musicians. I take the opportunity to squeeze inside with the barman. 'Who are you?' he's asked. 'I'm JC's manager . . .' and I'm in.

No sign of any Grimshaws in the tiny performance area but through at the bar it was a different matter. Vic King is standing there drinking back schnapps with Bob Paterson and the stringman himself is cradling a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale at the bar.

Down the bar is Angelina, JC's sister talking with the man they call Big Paul on the Isle of Wight. Paul Armfield double bassman, songwriter and Chet Baker afficianado. Let the party commence.

It is never going to be a packed gig tonight but a few people start to come in, some of Bob's contacts in radio and the media but the majority of the early gatherers have driven up specially from the Isle of Wight.

Nick and Margaret who seem to hang out at all JC and Angelina's gigs have come, driving up with another friend of Vic's. They've hauled in a couple more London friends so the Grimshaw support crew are going to take the front seats tonight.

Paul Armfield has driven his old VW up bringing not only his big double bass but also his lovely wife Gina and both JC and Angelina. They are all heading home tonight for either the 1.30 or 3.30am boat.

I'd hoped that Angelina's boyfriend Rupert Brown was going to be on drums tonight but he's back home up to something with the whanging jazz rhythm aces the Goose Island Syncopators tonight.

As ever on these occasions it is time to catch up with all kinds of news and share some of the more whacky adventures of the Grimshaw's with Bob Paterson. Angelina adds a little more to a couple of tales, the bar story of Hotlips Hiroshama who comes from Japan and is befriended by the Grimshaws in Ryde and promises to get them in a gig in Japan.

What I'd never heard before was that when Hotlips boat came in the Japanese sent a 12 man delegation to the Isle of Wight to check out if JC and Angelina could cut it. They could and got an all expenses paid tour of Japan out of it.

Angelina also recounts how they first met Bob Brozman that dazzling finger picker from America who on his first tour of the UK was looking for places to play and landed up on the Isle of Wight. He returned the Grimshaw's kindness by inviting them to California for another blast of music. They went of course . . .

Angelina's other bit of news is that Paul Butler has got a record advance. Paul's a young musician and great talent who records as P Nu Riff for the tiny Holistic Records label (comprised entirely of Islanders who have gained a name as far afield as Japan for trance, hip hop, etc).

Angelina tells us he's bunged off a piece of music to Warner Brothers and they have given him an advance from it. Wow up and at 'em. On the Island we call what Paul and his friends record as 'shed' music. Because these guys all record in their garden sheds. Apparently this piece of music that has garnered the big labels atttention is closer to the Beach Boys than the Chemical Brothers, Vic's getting on the case of that one . . .

Thus far Bob Paterson seems well chuffed with the Grimshaws and Paul. They have turned up on time, done their sound check and are ready to fly. The second band, Citizen, from Kent have turned up late and are still soundchecking. The headliner is Rico Bell and a couple of his mates from Leeds. Sound checks finally out of the way, the bar is filling, a few more folks through the door and the Isle of Wight contingent all in the front row of the seats such as they are.

Playing the 12 Bar is like being in someone's front parlour with the stage set so the performers are playing half to the audience under the low ceiling and partly to the audience on the small balcony above them.

'Prenley' as we say on the Isle of Wight JC and Paul assemble on stage. Citizen have offered to move their entire drum set off stage. Paul says it won't be necessary he'll make room in front of it if its stacked against the back corner. Fender amps are buried in the 12 Bar's chimney breast and everyone seems happy and ready.

Bob Paterson has put on Stacey Earle's Simple Gearle CD and it has been great to sit here and listen to it while we waited. Vic and I could chat about his two day soiree to London which had been as successful as he had hoped. Our good friend Jake Rodriques had gone down with flu and Adam Kirk Island guitar player had gone to the Island to be with his family for Christmas.

Vic found the £25 for George Melly's annual Christmas bash at Ronnie Scott's a bit too much for his pocket so had gone to Cecil Sharpe house the home of English folk music for a folk club night. 'The standard was pretty poor, last night' he laments. 'Trouble is you are too spoilt on the Isle of Wight,' I laugh . . .

Bob Paterson grabs a microphone to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and talks of how he first got introduced to JC's music. The room hushes, JC has his acoustic guitar plug in, Paul is sucking on a cigarette and cradling that big black beautiful bass of his.

I'd thought before hand to ask JC for a request but then thought better of it because I don't have the right to dictate what he does and I'll be happy to hear anything he comes up with tonight as I am any night I've heard him play this year.

But darn he steps to the microphone and says 'This ones for Mike Plumbley', Vic lets out his breath because he knows what is coming. JC just strokes this gentle rolling guitar intro and bowls into Riding On A Smile. I've loved this one ever since he did it at my unoffical birthday party earlier this year.

Its a troubadours song about living your life like the roll of a dice. Half a bar in Paul lets go a double bass run that just fits perfectly behind JC's dusky voice.

There is nothing dazzling about what JC plays in this but the simplicity of the delivery, the words just make me take another gulp of beer. As they finish I can sense that some of this audience are going 'where did these guys come from?'

The next song is another one I've never heard. You can go to JC gigs all year and you'll hear an entirely different set depending on mood, audience or event. Dreaming Girl sounds like it came out of one of those dark Ray Wylie Hubbard sessions like Loco Gringos Lament. The chords are dirty and black and Paul's bass sounds like film noir. And the trading of riffs between the two is really flying.

Angelina in a long black dress, her long black hair down her back and a neat red waistcoat climbs up onto the stage to plug in another acoustic. Earlier JC had wondered what the sound was going to be like. It is, as ever, crisp and clear, absolutely spot on, just as it was the last time I was here for that humdinger with Lloyd Maines, Terri Hendrix and Ray Wylie Hubbard.

Angelina's voice is deep, dark and wonderful behind her brothers rough, warm burr. They are singing Sunset On Your Smile, another relatively new song to me. JC is running harmonics down the fretboard and letting his fingers bite down into chords and runs that hit the mark. I turn around to see Bob Paterson grinning.

Big Paul is not only playing cracking bass runs but singing beautiful harmonies.

'This next one's about eight minutes long, about meeting an old girlfriend' laughs JC putting his guitar back on the stand and taking up the mandolin. Jenny Remember Me is an Irish ballad that is worthy of being played in a Dublin back bar. JC's mandolin playing literally rings off the walls, the harmonies, the dynamics, the interplay are just right there.

'I'm going to sing a couple of mine to give JC's voice a rest,' says his sister. Angelina sings Going Away and Sinking Stone and I've never heard her voice captured so well. You can hear every word from up there but the instruments are right in your face as well. JC adds mouthfuls of harmonica and I'm thinking that it is a long long time since I've had the delight of hearing Angelina do some of her great versions of Memphis Minnie tunes.

It is going to be all originals tonight though and quite rightly so. 'This one is about a friend of ours currently in Australia, his lifestyle is one of loving the ladies, living with them, drinking all their booze and then moving on, it's called the Ballad of Rod Garfield.' Vic and I are sitting there grinning from ear to ear especially when they hit that line 'it may sound like country but it comes from the blues . . .'

The Ballad of Rod Garfield is the first they've done from JC's solo album Dance When You're Living but they'll end this set up with two of that albums stonkers. JC announces Honeyman and they just literally take the walls off with it. Jeez if Rupert had been up there on drums they would have taken a wall down. This expanded unit ain't called the Dance Preachers for nothing. The tune kicks off with that delightful Quintet of the Hot Club of France intro between JC's guitar and Pauls bass then JC does that neck hair tingling run that sounds like Django meets Blind Willie McTell.

You can hear the drawn breaths all around the room as they just stonk this one right up. Phew what a way to take a set to the end. Time for one more, 'this is for Bob Patterson, thanks everyone for coming, have a good Christmas, this is Pretty Girl.' JC has switched to mandolin and they just fly again.

In an Isle of Wight pub they would have just locked the doors and let them play all night at this point. But as support slot they have their 45 minutes and have to make room for other bands. They have gone down a storm.

Bob Paterson has come to the stage to raise more applause and ask them what they are up to on May 18th? There's an American band coming over and Bob would like them as support. He'll walk up to me later and say 'They are the real thing.'

I look at Vic, 'that's my Christmas present come early.' 'That will do me as well,' he grins before partaking of another schnapps.

By now it is eleven and our Isle of Wight friends have made for the bar where there is time to catch up on more stuff and wish everyone the very best for Christmas the the New Year.

If we all stay for Rico Bell we are all going to be facing late trains, late ferries and too little sleep before work the next morning. Nick suggests asking Rico Bell for a CD so it can be played the next day to hear what 'we' missed. Bell will be great I suspect, he has a fiddle player and guitarist with him and if his association with the rocking Waco Brothers is anything to go by he'll give this audience a great time.

Rico Bell as we discovered tonight is also acquainted with another Island great Barclay McKay still up in Leeds and working with a blues band. Barclay is an old cohort of JC's from the days of the wonderfully daft Chuff Train Hot Dogs . Don't Isle of Wight musicians have great names?

Yours dancing down the Tottenham Court Road.