HOLE IN T' WALL - Hebden Bridge (25.11.10)

Won't you take me to? Funky Town?

Hebden Bridge is situated between Halifax and Burnley on the Yorkshire side of the Pennine Hills.  It has its roots in the wool industry, but during the last decades has become known as a centre of creativity and artistic endeavour.  This month, Hebden won the ‘Great Town Award’ given by The Academy of Urbanism, and has also been crowned the fourth 'funkiest' town in the world (not sure how that works) so I thought I’d pay one of its open mic nights a visit and see for myself how funky it gets in Hebden.

The Hole in t’ Wall is on Hangingroyd Lane, next to the canal and the open mic night is run by Craig.  Craig is well known round these parts and does loads of work for local music, getting involved in festivals and different musical events, and also running a separate acoustic night.

When I arrive at the pub, Craig is having a dilemma - no-one wants to open the night.  After some persuasions a pianist, and a regular on these nights, Derek Elton, kicks off with a couple of Beatles numbers.  When I last saw Derek play he turned out some rock n roll circa Jerry Lee Lewis and a few numbers the likes of which you might see Jools Holland play.  The Beatles numbers are well played, but they are short songs, so all the people who didn't want to play first, don't want to play second either.

There’s a group of younger players in one of the warm side rooms and you can tell there’s no way they are going on next.  And there’s a group of guys at a nearby table who I hear have already told Craig, with some proper Yorkshire firmness, that they won’t play early.  Other singers have suddenly disappeared from the room, which means I am moving rapidly up the list.

I’m thinking what’s the deal with not playing early? But because no-one else wants to play it makes me not want to.  So I try not to catch Craig’s eye and chase the Copper Dragon that I’m nursing.  I look at the walls and make conversation with a stranger, but I can sense Craig has got me in his sights and I can’t avoid it any longer.  I’m on next.

Random things happen when you play live electronic music and for some reason half way through my set I found myself using the wrong loops for the wrong words.  In a lapse of concentration I’d spun the wrong dial and sent a pattern intended for later, back into the here and now.  So I went through ‘Disappeared Friend’, having created the music for 'It’s been a Good Year for the Spiders' – and only realising half way through when the setting was in the wrong key.  Not that anyone would have noticed.  These two separate pieces super imposed themselves on top of each other reasonably well.  And that’s what the kaoss is all about in my book, every time I play those tunes they are different.

There were a fair few people listening to my set and I later reflected that sometimes it pays to play early, because people leave as the evening wears on, or the crowd changes.  In fact some of the later players had less of an audience than me, just showing that you shouldn't fear the early set.

Lost Soul played after me, a punk rocker in a stylish hat, tattoos and ear piercings.  He dedicated a song to the two Christian ladies who told him God had not intended him to use his skin to draw all over.  What arrogance some believers have, to think that they know what God intended, and that they can speak for the God that they worship!  Doesn't the bible say 'never judge a book by its cover'?  Little wonder that one of the many stickers on Lost Souls heavily decorated guitar reads ‘No God, No State, No Lies’.

Lost Soul plays a strong set and one of the songs asks where are you now and did you find the answers?  It could be a lyric in my own Disappeared Friend.  He dedicates another song to the memory of Sophie Lancaster who was viciously beaten and murdered by a group of young thugs because of the clothes she wore.  She was different and therefore a target in their eyes, and ignorance reins supreme on the streets of England.  It was a tragic loss of a young life. 

Lost Soul also sings of other equally highly charged issues and I like that about his song writing.  That you can bring these issues to the fore are important.  On the last song he is joined by his mate ‘Zero’ and the songs are given a folk lift by some clever picking.

Bowfell Ribbon and the Band are up next, a trio of musicians who have come from all around Lancashire and Yorkshire to be here tonight.  Cleverly named after an area of outstanding beauty in the Lake District, they play some self penned number and some covers.  The rhythm is kept going by a guy playing a Cajon. Cajon's are becoming a major feature of open mic nights it seems, possibly because they are so portable and have a great sound.

A singer by the name of Bill Pringle played a Randy Newman song called Drop the Big One which is a sarcastic dig at American foreign policy.  At least I think it’s sarcastic, but you can’t quite tell with Randy, whether he might just have meant those words at the time.  It’s not a well covered song for that reason, because it speaks about America obliterating the rest of the world like that would solve all their problems.  Some things never change, as Bill rightly points out and wikileaks have all the facts.

Bill finishes with one of his own tunes and I always like to hear what people are writing for themselves.  It’s a song about that infamous statement ‘we can still be friends’ and how you don’t necessarily still want to be friends when you’ve been through so much together, maybe you just can’t.  It goes down well with the regulars singing along to the words like it’s a song they’d heard on the radio, and well it could have been.

Quite a few people had been telling me about how good the next band were but it was time to head back.  There were weather warnings in place and I needed to get over the Pennines.  Hebden is lucky to have a night like this and I hope the people appreciate it.  In my home town we had a similar event every month but it went by the way side through lack of support and it was a shame, everyone misses it now.  It’s a lot of work putting on these nights and they are to be cherished and enjoyed, even if the music isn’t always what you’d listen to and you never know what to expect.

Hebden Bridge the cultural centre of the universe?  I'm not sure about that, but its certainly well worth a visit and if you've nothing much on this Thursday night and your in the area you should get yourself down to The Hole in t’ Wall for some free music in funky town.