Comedy connections for Witness To The Beard

It was gig number four for Witness To The Beard last night, and my throat is certainly paying the price for it today. I only sang one brief ditty, but my vocal chords were already feeling vulnerable after a week of coughing, and - if it's possible for throats to have mood swings - it's now sulking in a big, croaky way. Ah well.

We returned to The Comedy Pub for the gig, which is where we played live for the first time a few months ago. It's a nice little venue and the sound quality is pretty decent. We were playing alongside a really eclectic mix of artists too. The first act were a funky group called Scarletts Roses, whose songs were foot-tappingly and smile-inducingly catchy, with some quirky rap thrown in for good measure. I really liked their song 'My Heart Belongs to Judy', and I'm very jealous of the girl singer's voice, which is as melodic and floaty as mine isn't.

Second up were The Technicolour. Their drummer, Alex, used to be in our band (before we were reincarnated as WTTB) and we have the same drum teacher (the awesome Darren Malley). It was nice to catch up with Alex and see him in action as a drummer, since he used to play bass / guitar in our band. A very good drummer he is too.

Then we took to the stage for our 30-minute set. I think it was the best we'd played out of the four gigs, although there were a few fluffs, but nowt major. We also played a couple of new songs for the first time, which is always a bit nervewracking.

After us, one chap and his guitar - Chris MacArthur - wowed the crowd with his amazing guitar skills and voice. Stoned Phoney were the last to play. Unbelievably this was their first ever gig as a band, and they really were brilliant. They described themselves as grunge / blues when we were chatting before the gig, and I guess this sums them up pretty well. The ferocity of the drummer's beats was demonstrated when a huge shard of drumstick flew across the stage during a particularly frenetic flourish. I wish I could flourish like that, but as Darren is constantly reassuring me, keeping a steady beat is more important than doing fancy fills and whatnot. Yeah I know, but it's just not as cool! I also wish I could link to them so you can have a listen / look for yourself, but they have no internet presence whatsoever.

All in all it was a fun night, and we donated all £22.50 of our takings to Movember. When I told someone last night we were giving the money to charity, they jokingly responded "what, a beard charity or something?!" to which I accurately responded "Yes".

The next Witness To The Beard gig is on Friday 11 December at The Cavendish Arms in Stockwell. I'm hugely excited about this one, as we were invited to play by all-round funny man H Anthony Hildebrand, who runs the An Event of Some Kind night at the pub every couple of months. The evening is a mixture of comedy and music, and if I wasn't playing at it, I'd go along anyway. Headlining the night is Tom Basden, who was a Never Mind The Buzzcocks guest a couple of weeks ago. We've got two mini sets throughout the evening, which will be a refreshing change, and if all that isn't enough to tempt you to come along, there's a drawing competition in the interval, and free snacks from the bar! Anyway, enough plugging...