The Flowing and Whisky Moon Face in the woods

secret woodland location near Canterbury
Monday 29th May, 2017

I've been trying to get one of my favourite regional bands, The Flowing, down from the Medway area to play in the woods for a couple of years now. That finally happened on Bank Holiday Monday and it was worth the wait. They're a four-piece now, fronted by Dave Pickett (singer/songwriter/guitarist) backed by Vicky on French horn and accordion, Hannah on violin and Theo on bass and ukelele. Dave's got a poet's soul, a great voice, and an exquisite ensemble backing him up. Great to be able to put them in front of a receptive audience as the evening birdsong faded and twilight gave way to firelight. Almost half of the audience were new to the space, friends of theirs down from Medway, getting the full enchantment hit. I discovered that Theo's into hosting jam nights up there, is connected to the people who used to take the "Freedome" (a geodesic dome jam space) around festivals and free parties. I jammed in the Freedome once with some of Melski's Bristol improv crew at Big Green Gathering over a decade ago.

I'd strongly recommend giving their beautiful debut album Talk About Wonder a listen here:

Whisky Moon Face have been down before, always a joy to hear them (last time was on my birthday on the Walmer seafront last year). Louisa on vocals, accordion and trumpet, Dakota Jim on double bass and Ewan Bleach on ultravirtuosic clarinet and sax. Ewan's pretty obsessed with Turkish music at the moment, spoke to me about it at great length (tho' he can't integrate those scales into this music). Dave from The Flowing had suggested that they might do a joint gig with WMF (who he joked that they were in awe of), and it was a great pairing. It was particularly satisfying to see them all making friends, swapping contact details and making plans for joint gigs in Rochester and London.

And big respect to the weather spirits (or whatever they are)...it was suppposed to rain and I almost cancelled the event, but something wouldn't let me, I just carried on regardless, and it turned out to be a clear night.