I've seen your double dares - everything extraordinaire

I suppose that, if one regards Acoustica as the quirky yet good-natured fellow of the Gloucestershire music scene, then Calmer* could be viewed as its scampish and eccentric younger brother. In that case, extending the clumsy and slightly regrettable music-nights-as-relatives metaphor, Chapter 24, the new kid on the block, must be the mad aunt in the attic who screams a lot. It was a crazy night at the Slak Bar last Thursday but I don’t regret for a moment my presence among the hepcats and hipsters of Cheltenham Spa. My comrade A writes here that the first act was the finest and I humbly concur with that discerning blogger. Richard Davies, who organised the night, played just the one song under his stage name of Men Daimler. He ululated violently, sang tenderly, held his head in his hands in a wrought fashion, fell off his stool and shook his three-stringed guitar (which contained stones) a good deal. I admired his passion and certainly wanted a song or two more from the gent. He was good.

What else happened? There was an unaccompanied folk singer who filled the room with some traditional numbers. Then a Belgian dude, Ignatz by name, sat behind a large speaker and played his blues gee-tar over a drone and sang through an electronic device. Finally, Arrington de Dionyso from Washington (U.S.A. not Tyne and Wear) produced a challenging set that enthusiastically amalgamated the separate joys of nose flute, jew’s harp and bass clarinet. He groaned through a machine like a moose or something. The encore featured most of the evening’s performers who gathered on stage together like some deranged supergroup to challenge us all a tiny bit more. Then we all went home. It proved a lot of fun.