The Impossible Gentleman - PizzaShed, Soho - 13.06.11

[Guest]

I want to find something positive to say about my evening but, at present, nothing will come.

I disliked the venue, was unimpressed with the customers, the waitresses were frost-faced and the music didn't work for me in this venue. The bar looked as if it had been made in a junior school woodwork class and was stocked accordingly. I let myself out of the front door at half-time to get some fresh air and realised, once I was outside, that I didn't want to go back in. Got the bus back up to Hackney.

I took some notes but am too sorry to bother writing them up.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry to hear about your disappointment, Phil: hope it wasn't too costly. I must say I don't recognise most of the names appearing at that particular venue, these days. I strongly recommend Monday nights at The Oxford, in Kentish Town. I get along there when I can. Only a fiver, it's friendly and presents some of the best up-and-coming young bands, and is conveniently close to the tube. For more experimental stuff in your immediate locale, apart from the Vortex there's Cafe Oto, and the Flim Flam in Stoke Newington, run by the saxophonist Alan Wilkinson and usually in the basement of Ryans Bar, in Church Street - both around £6, if my memory serves me.

S-A

[hackneyvi]

£27.50

When I left, I forgot to pay for my drink

Well, it turned out to be a basement diner. I stood in the doorway wondering if I was in the right place but the stage and guitar reassured me. Do I just wander around and find a seat, what do I do? A waiter eventually comes over and takes me to my seat at the point in the room farthest from the stage and with bogs, bar and kitchen all within arms' reach. Standing long at the shabby bar to be frozen by the waitress was disagreeable; she needn't have bothered putting ice in the glass, its contact with her hand would have been quite enough. She might even have been able to freeze gin and tonic with the power of her stare alone.

The waiting staff can't corner and kicked my chair every time they came past. They varied this with intermittent brushes and knocks of my shoulder.

Before the music began, an announcement seemed to be made about a silence policy but there was too much chatter to be certain. The staff had work to do and inevitably there was noise from the bar throughout the concert whilst the kitchens clattered and the clientel tramped and wove past. I had to ask an oldboy standing next to me to stop rattling his change during a very soft guitar intro. He apologised and stopped for a moment before starting up again. My eyeline to the stage was occupied by a boy with a mobile trying to get a drink; a couple who talked incessently in loud whispers, leaning across to one another, blocking my view. Beyond them was a woman slicing and chewing her showroom demonstration-model robotic way through an hour of pizza (I think she would have been a Model 90: described in the catalogues as, "Unreliable Belgian housewife. Variety 5, in grey."). The rhythm of her movements put me in mind of a comedy appliance from Are You Being Served?

I couldn't make anything out of the music.

At the interval, the staff hawked CDs round the tables: "You vant CD?"

I never got over the experience of entering the venue; the stench of pizza that was indistinguishable from my own dried sweat. A foul place.

PizzaShed - Welcome to our grim bunker of indifference. Where a smile is always too much trouble!

Coming soon to Maidstone: Gareth Gates! Early booking is recommended. In 2003, Gareth was awarded Best International Male Artist by MTV Taiwan.

[hackneyvi]

I strongly recommend Monday nights at The Oxford, in Kentish Town. I get along there when I can. Only a fiver, it's friendly and presents some of the best up-and-coming young bands, and is conveniently close to the tube. For more experimental stuff in your immediate locale, apart from the Vortex there's Cafe Oto, and the Flim Flam in Stoke Newington, run by the saxophonist Alan Wilkinson and usually in the basement of Ryans Bar, in Church Street - both around £6, if my memory serves me.

S-A

Thanks for the recommendations, SA. I have been to the Vortex recently (and worked there very, very briefly in the early 00s). Cafe Oto I haven't found the right band yet; alot of electric noise seem to have been playing lately. Flim Flam? I'll look that out.

[Tom Audustus]

I've always enjoyed going to the 606 in Chelsea. It has a good old jazz club atmosphere, but it is a bit out of the way.

These days I tend to go to the Fleece which is now held in a smart country club styled hotel. The atmosphere isn't quite right, but the quality of the bands is very good.

I really enjoy finding a pub jazz jam night with some locals getting up and playing through standards. Often dreadful, but sometimes brilliant. Unfortunately the number of these local pub jazz club nights has dropped off in recent years but this is sort of environment that I learned my jazz back in the 70s. Does anyone know of a website that lists them?

[Ian Thumwood]

Staggered to read the rather negative review of the gig with Gwilym Simcock, Adam Nussbaum, Steve Swallow and Mike Walker. I caught this band in Southampton last year and thought that they played one of the best gigs of 2010. I think Mike Walker is seriously under-rated in this country and was very impressed to hear GS in a far more robust line-up than previous appearances / recordings would suggest. Nussbaum is a brilliant , driving drummer and teams up well with the veteran , Steve Swallow. Each to their own, I suppose. The reviews I have read of the CD by this band have been positive as well.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've always admired Mike Walker too. I surmise - well, I HOPE - this might be a case of bad, expensive venue, ruining an evening of music. It CAN happen - in my experience.

[Old Grumpy]

Must be the venue - sounds like a dump from your description.

I caught this band on the first gig of their tour at the Sage Gateshead. This is an excellent venue and the band were on top form. Apart from Gwilym Simcock I had no knowledge of the other members (although I realise they all come with "pedigree"). All players were excellent and all in all it was a thouroughly enjoyable gig. I have the CD coming, but have not heard it yet. I have enjoyed the excerpts I have heard and it has been well reviewed.

[hackneyvi]

Must be the venue - sounds like a dump from your description.

I feel I deserve your name a good deal more than you do, OG.

I really enjoyed the album track I heard on Jazz Line Up but the total experience in PizzaShed venue was loathsome. Maybe the music didn't stand a chance with me on that night in that venue. Maybe it was never going to be my cup of tea (there were some pubrock moments, to my ears).

Something very good did come out of it, though. I realised not to take for granted the welcome one gets and the respect the staff and the audience gives at the Vortex in Hackney.

[hackneyvi]

Staggered to read the rather negative review of the gig with Gwilym Simcock, Adam Nussbaum, Steve Swallow and Mike Walker. I caught this band in Southampton last year and thought that they played one of the best gigs of 2010. I think Mike Walker is seriously under-rated in this country and was very impressed to hear GS in a far more robust line-up than previous appearances / recordings would suggest. Nussbaum is a brilliant, driving drummer and teams up well with the veteran , Steve Swallow. Each to their own, I suppose. The reviews I have read of the CD by this band have been positive as well.

I feel at fault here because I was simply unable to engage with the music. Some of that had to do with the music itself but the bulk was the experience in the venue. What I haven't mentioned is that some squirt in a suit who seemed to have a connection to the place - I don't quite know how to characterise what happened - but sort of seemed to square up to me as I waited my turn at the bar. I get this from some men occasionally, I think because I'm very tall but it never gets any easier. The cumulative unpleasantness meant that it was a rather grim evening.

[hackneyvi]

My original posts were made in disappointment and anger and I've re-written them. Sorry to have brought such a sour tone here. Apologies.

[Serial_Apologist]

My original posts were made in disappointment and anger and I've re-written them. Sorry to have brought such a sour tone here. Apologies.

No need to have done that Phil. Recommendations are the very stuff of this forum!

[hackneyvi]

I don't want to harp on, SA, but I was unfair to the musicians.

The bar corner of the venue is a damn nuisance to sit in. I've not been able to find any direct means of communicating with the Soho branch (had to go into the upstairs restaurant today to settle for my unpaid drink). If anyone wants to go, there's a central number to ring for all their venues, it seems, and I'd strongly suggest booking by phone and getting firm details of your seat.

An expensive lesson learned.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Well I was there last night, and unusually as a reviewer (national newspaper critics normally get quite decent seats) I was stuck in the bar corner as well, which certainly changed my impression of the club, not least because of the hubbub from upstairs that seeped in every time the service door opened. But I was impressed by the music. And the staff were polite and helpful. Review in the Times during the next couple of days...

[hackneyvi]

Well I was there last night, and unusually as a reviewer (national newspaper critics normally get quite decent seats) I was stuck in the bar corner as well, which certainly changed my impression of the club, not least because of the hubbub from upstairs that seeped in every time the service door opened. But I was impressed by the music. And the staff were polite and helpful. Review in the Times during the next couple of days...

I only recall two numbers from Monday. The first was Laugh Lines, the album track played on Jazz Line Up. The track isn't really representative of what they played, I thought. More importantly, I didn't think they pulled it off live. The album track features a prominent 'vocalisation' sound that comes from - I think - the guitar and piano playing unison? But someone, I believe the guitarist, was out and the number was therefore blurred; I don't think that as a unit they achieved the necessary elegance in the piece at their chosen pace.

However, the second track I remember was pretty much r'n'b; a very humble, Louder-Than-It-Had-Any-Right-To-Be Blues. I'm a jazz novice with a closed mind and so my ignorance tends to be self-perpetuating. But after eventually 'tuning in' to the Overtone Quartet, a significant pleasure was the drummer's lack of "Boom!", his tendency to delicacy and refinement, avoiding noise nuisance. Essentially, I suppose, The Impossible Gentlemen earned themselves an ASBO from me with their blues number and there was no way back from there. It may be terrific music but I didn't like their sound.

I wonder if amplification can lead to a sort of Mutually-Assured Destruction whereby volume increases and some degree of crudity commonly ensues? Does a different kind of music arise from groups without drummers - Storms /Nocturnes - or where drummers are sharing a platform with reed instruments without much amp - Overtone Quartet?

I think I discovered from Monday that I wish to be able to hear the individual instruments fairly clearly rather than have the music roll over me as a musical homogeny. The club? The seat? The band? My ears? All?

Dunno.