It’d been a while since we had last ventured over to Hackney for a gig – possibly due to the fact that in many ways we considered this to be fairly well charted territory. You may or may not be aware that the recusants had in fact already conquered this area of London last year when they triumphantly played THE HACKNEY EMPIRE (theatre bar). Now, it’s a question every group must ask themselves: “Where does one go from THE HACKNEY EMPIRE (theatre bar)?” And indeed, on asking ourselves such a question, the firm response appeared to be: “Lets go back to Hackney, and this time to somewhere decent.” So, what better than to organise our own night at a cool little pub, get everyone down and generally have a bit of a party?
Now, not only was the gig an exciting prospect in itself, but, as the pub has no house equipment, we were also faced with the opportunity to hire a van. Van hire is a relatively rare occurence for the band (living in central London it is not usually necessary), and yet it is one which brings quite a ridiculous level of excitement. Unfortunately for Adrian though this excitement was tainted slightly when (due to various unforeseen circumstances) he found out it was up to him to be driver for the day. Not such a problem you might think, except for the fact that when you haven’t driven a manual car since the day of your test six years ago, the prospect of pulling a van out of a hire company’s car park (under the intense scrutiny of some of the most van loving-petrol blooded-alpha males in all of England) is a somewhat daunting task. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve never managed to obtain a driving licence of my own (tit), I would have been first to volunteer, but alas Adrian, AKA the adriman, AKA Browners AKA the lid, was lumped with the job. Any worries of death or mutilation however were defiantly cast aside when said van driver proved himself to be a natural, enjoying the experience so much he even found time to go on a jolly down to Greenwich on the Sunday. Lovely.
The gig itself took place at Biddle Bros, an ace little pub whose staff were very accomodating and which, despite it’s size, managed to house all of our equipment, as well as a good number of people. On first was the one and only Josh Vizor; a young man whose determination to create a moment of subtle audio loveliness (amidst the distractions of a few boisterous idiots) was matched only by his determination to make full use of the free bar made available to him. For those who missed him you certainly missed out, and so, just in case you did, here is his home on the internet: http://www.myspace.com/joshuavizor
After Josh it was our turn, and although the space limitation was bordering on the ludicrous, we managed to set up and play a gig that has to be one of our most enjoyable to date. I had worried that due to the close proximity of ourselves and the crowd, it could prove to be somewhat awkward. But luckily for us everyone was thankfully enthusiastic and helped make it into a great evening. Check some photos:
After our set the night was then taken over by our good friend and superstar DJ Toot Sweet, who though only permitted to spin an hours worth of tunes, managed to send everyone home dancing (find info about his nights here: http://btglondon.com).
So thanks to everyone for coming out, hopefully we can do something similar in the future.
Oh, and in case you were wondering about the after party, well, the less said about that the better. But I can let you know it mainly consisted of the three V’s.
Vodka. Vinyl. And (in some cases) Vomit. Beautiful.
Well that’s the end of a fairly long and rambling post, thanks again for coming (and for reading this), and remember: The new EP is out on 31/05/10 from which a track is already available to listen to on the myspace (www.myspace.com/therecusantsmusic).
Keep it fresh
Sean
(Photos courtesy of Kirsty Buck & Becky Johnson)
