Moonlighting.

As a consequence of attending the Littlehampton Uke Jam I met Jim:

Jim is on the left of this picture.

Jim is on a mission to revive the Calypso music of the 1930s-40s.

Jim has a band named The Bamboo Band which spearhead Jim's mission.

There's John and Dave:

If I had a drum machine that sounded anywhere near what these two blokes do with a djembe and a set of claves I'd marry it.

The Bamboo Band membership is quite fluid, but Jim, John, Dave, Jan seem to be the core of it all.

Jim given me an open invitation to sit in with the band whenever they play.

An invitation I take up anytime I can.

Before meeting The Bamboo Band I had a vague idea of what Calypso was.

I knew it was related to the Ska and Blue Beat music I love, but I wasn't sure exactly, outside of geographical location, how.

I'm still not sure and Jim took the trouble of explaining it very carefully to me.

With BeHeld every nth degree of any performance is dissected and debated and on and on and on...

Things are somewhat different in The Bamboo Band.

With The Bamboo Band Jim will email me to tell me where they're playing.

Jim doesn't work with a set list as such, but uses his extensive knowledge of the genre to assemble a collection of post-it notes with various song titles and an indication of the key it's played in written on them.

The post-its, stuck in a note book, are in no particular order, Jim decides the running order on stage during the performance.

I've had 3 or 4 rehearsals with The Bamboos yet still have no idea what I'm doing, at all, in the slightest I just throw myself in with reckless abandon of it all and hope nobody notices I don't know what I'm  doing.

The Bamboo Band are playing at the LOVE LITTLEHAMPTON ARTS FESTIVAL organised by The Littlehampton Organisation of Contemporary Arts:

HELLO LITTLEHAMPTON!!

Of course the seemingly endless sunny weather (about two weeks now) has completely disappeared.

What the Hell, I came to raise the, errr, roof, so to speak.

I have decided to go electric for this gig.

Here's my massive rig:

One of the stage crew gave me a crate to stand it on to make it look even more impressive.

This amp is not as daft a choice for this open-air gig as it might seem at first glance.

My uke works in the upper frequencies of the overall sound picture and, much like a tambourine, can usually cut through anything.

We were originally booked to play for about half an hour, but the Portuguese Folk Song and Dance Group have pulled out so we get to play for an extra quarter of an hour.

And away we go:

Jim brings the joy of Calypso to the masses.

As I'm not familiar with all the songs on the post-it notes, plus the occasional songs like 'Yellow Bird' Jim decides to drop in, I decided to play my uke in a kind of cascading arpeggio style which is my pale imitation of African bands like The Four Brothers.
This means I can usually twangle my way round any given chord sequence and fake it if I'm not entirely sure what it is.

We rattle along, I twang my uke and jig about wearing a completely inappropriate solar toupee until a gust of wind removes it from my head.

Playing with the Bamboos is like nappy-free playtime.

I love it.

Despite the distance from the stage to the audience they seem quite enthusiastic, but unwilling to get any closer or, God forbid, dance.

The 'Green Room' was a blue tent filled with fizzy pop and crisps ('Murican's note: Fizzy Pop = Soda. Crisps = potato chips)

After the gig I hung out and had a couple of tins of Fanta which is an orange flavoured solution of several different chemicals and leftover toxic waste invented for NAZIs to drink because they couldn't get Coca Cola syrup during the war.

I wandered round the festival site and fell in love with an owl:

I have Fanta induced infatuation with you natural born killer.

I didn't manage to get this owl's eyes in the picture.

They were astonishing and filled with a  completely predatory raptor focus.

I found a sad example of the decline of the Bumble Bee:

A dead bee.

One last word of thanks to Stacy MQ who, I think, organised it and features in OnAPlate 201 actually holding the plate.
Stacy is a 'crazy Americano' and seems very, well, exotic I suppose, but then again I don't get out much so most people in Littlehampton seem exotic to me.