The Moot, Trees And The Slipway, Andy Hepburn and DJ Lambo at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham

The Moot at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham

The Cabbage Patch in Twickenham is a great little venue, there are drums hanging from the ceiling and the walls are plastered with posters and artwork that pays testament to the many luminaries of the local 1960's British Beat boom such as The Who, the Stones, The Yardbirds, Downliners Sect and the Artwoods. We are a mere (Rolling) stone's throw away from the legendary Eel Pie Island and it's a fitting location to see The Moot as they probably have a lot of these influences stored up in the locker. Although bassist Mark Leech and vocalist Nick Stone used to be in the 80's Paisley Psych band The Onlookers, they pretty much leave the the trippy stuff to one side with The Moot and concentrate on a sound as stripped down and back to basics as you can get. It's vocals, guitar, bass and drums and the songs are taut and short and owe as much to New Wave and Post-Punk acts such as The Flys, The Nerves and Subway Sect as they do to the 60's R'n'B bands that used to frequent the area. Tracks like "Reggie Bags" and "My Sister Brenda" are catchy as hell and my favourite "My Fixation" should be snapped by a record company with any sense and released as a single immediately. Drummer Philip Pinch keeps things ticking over nicely and singer Nick seems to be growing in confidence with each performance. He looks out into the audience and I don't take it personally when he announces "If you have hair, we say let it down" and then the drums kick in followed by a funky Mark Leech bass line and it's the extended intro to the brilliant "Let Your Hair Down" which highlights Dave Clark's guitar style perfectly. The Moot are going from strength to strength and hopefully they will be treating us to some new recorded music very soon!

The Moot at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham

It's not often that I like a band before I even hear them play a note but as soon as I saw that Trees And The Slipway's front-man Stephen Wood was wearing a Dukes of Stratosphear T-Shirt, I knew immediately I was going to be a big fan. Actually, there is something about XTC's mind expanding alter-ego running through T&TS's music, it's catchy but slightly discordant Psych Pop music that crosses continents and time zones. In fact in thirty minutes or so they take us on trip from the 60's West Coast with Stephen's impressive jangling 12-string guitar and some great three part harmonies from him, bassist Karl Sabino and guitarist and keyboard player Matthew Lees. Then "Psychedelic Evolution" clatters along at a fair pace and transports us to the Velvet Underground's downtown New York and then we're off on our magic carpet to Avebury and Stonehenge to wave hello to Julian Cope, in fact interestingly Julian's brother Joss once played bass in the band.

Trees & The Slipway at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham

Added into the mix is a healthy dose of challenging Lo-Fi Krautrock on "9:52 Thursday Morning" and the crunching heavy Blues riff intro to "I Need Her" grounds us firmly back in the local Twickenham and Eel Pie 1960's British Beat Boom. It's certainly an intriguing and highly original concoction. While I'm videoing a song someone nudges me and says "I hope you're filming the drummer..." Indeed Talya is our new favourite drummer, she certainly has an idiosyncratic style that appears to defy conventional timing but there's no doubting it is effective! Unfortunately, Trees And The Slipway don't have any records out yet, something I really hope they'll get round to rectifying as soon as possible. In the meantime I urge you to check out the band live as soon as possible.

Trees & The Slipway at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham

Andy Hepburn opened the night's proceedings, alone with an acoustic guitar he played a short but well received set of bittersweet songs crammed full of clever and witty lyrics. My personal highlight was the excellent "We Don't Talk" which you can hear a version of at his Soundcloud site here. I chatted to Andy afterwards and found out that he used to be in a Post-Punk band called Fractured with Dave and Philip from The Moot. He then moved to China where the sights, sounds and experiences inspired him to make Ambient and Trip-Hop music under the name An Di Yi.

Andy Hepburn at The Cabbage Patch Twickenham

So, a thoroughly enjoyable night of free music courtesy of The Moot made even better with the addition of DJ Lambo spinning an eclectic mix of vinyl. I sincerely hope that they can make these regular events and if so please try and make it along, they deserve supporting. For more info on all the featured artists please click on the highlighted links above. There are lots more photos over at the Retro Man Blog Facebook page here and videos up on our YouTube Channel here.