The Thirteen Club return

9th June 2017
The Penny Theatre, Canterbury

The evening started early with me going to see my old friend Miriam taking part in something I only vaguely grasped the idea of, at the Lilford Gallery in Castle Street. It turned out to be a promotional event for the launch of the debut album by singer-songwriter Jude Adams. Miriam was playing violin/viola and providing backing vocals while the should-be-legendary Frances Knight played piano. The songs were pleasant enough, lounge-y jazz, but the bulk of the event was offputtingly and uncomfortably self-promotional. Jude has a background in marketing — it showed — having turned to music in her 50s. But I was especially happy to see Miriam and Frances working together — a new development likely to lead in some interesting directions.

I made a swift getaway and pedaled over to the Penny Theatre on Northgate to catch the end of a set from The Thirteen Club. They're a jazz-fusion band who originated in Canterbury via the CCCU music department back around 2014. Several of them have since moved elsewhere, but they're keeping the band going and seemed delighted to be playing back in Canterbury.

They've got a new lineup, with Jason having moved from bass to guitar (a good move — he was a great bassist, but it had seemed a shame that his exceptional guitar playing wasn't part of The Thirteen Club sound). He's been replaced by a virtuosic young bass player called Lewis who they found in London. A new drummer too, I think. I caught the last number (a long one, everyone soloing) and a brief encore. Sounding really great, I do hope they keep it together and keep coming back to East Kent.

The Top Cat Collective looked like a lot of fun (two singers, heavily mustachioed-male-with-bandanna and skinny-female-with-tambourine). But I just wasn't in a funk mood. I had a good chat with Irish Richie before taking off, though. He was once in a short-lived shoegaze band called Plume with some of the Club, now in local acoustic grunge outfit The HarshMellows. I learned that he was soon to be moving with his family to Luca in Italy, so resolved to get the 'Mellows to play one of the woodland gigs I've been curating.