Bees Mouth - March 2022

March 28

We all live in hope of a better world where peace and justice prevail across the land, where all god’s children live in harmony, and where all Hollywood awards are decided by the nominees all b*tch-slapping each other onstage until the last one standing wins and, tears coursing down their stinging cheeks, delivers the usual acceptance homilies..those days may be far, far away but JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is live and direct, real and uncut right here and now as man like Luke “Fresh Prince” Rattenbury (gtr) and special guest Tristan “Bad Boys For Life” Banks (drms) are ready and willing to lay down the coolest licks and hottest grooves for your delectation, elevation and general all round enrichment, with some form of support being offered by me on bass, and whatever knights in shining Beskar may issue forth from the misty neon lit wastelands and sit in to do their thing…. the immaculate ascended beings of the Bees Team will be on hand with libations of the finest liquors known to humanity, the nameless denizens of the night will gibber and grimace at the steamy windows, at the end of the echoing street the sea will sough away into the darkness out towards the hopeful windmills, but in here all will be sweetness and warmth so why not tear your tired eyes away from the spectacle of over-paid human fraility, put your doomscrolling on hold for a while, it’ll all still be there when you get back, give yourself a break from all the bad things and let’s get into a good thing for a time, for a little while again, come and join us, this is the way.

 March 21

So time to take a deep, healing breath, bang a gong and get yet chakras all cushty, maybe some shiatsu or get some fish to eat your dying feet, something like that to relieve the jarring “cognitive dissonance”, as we used to say on the internet, between the glories of emerging spring and the mediated horror leaking out of your tethered device… oh wait, its not working, so it’s back to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH for you until your soul is thoroughly cleansed and your flagging spirits reinflated by the turbo pumps of musical power that have spontaneously manifested themselves on this earthly dimension in the finely sculpted forms of Luke “Aetherius” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Cosmic Web” Thomas (drms), aided and abetted by me taking various musical risks upon the bass, and whatever honoured guests may drift gently in out of the spring evening under the disinterested stars as the moon sucks the sea away off the glistening sand flats hidden right at the edge of your poor over-extended consciousness…. give yerself a break and come and check it out, we all know that shit isn’t funny any more, so don’t sit on your sagging furniture lamenting the days, oh so recently passed, when we all had attention to spare to such trivialities as Backpack Kid and his facially immobile flossing, or how to make slime, or Jeremy Corbyn’s beard, before the Great Harshness settled over us… throw it off one more time, let’s throw it down, come join us, grab yer axe and come and sit in, we’ll make a good thing happen, what’s to lose?

March 14

OK - time to get back on the good foot and accentuate the positive, put on a happy face, count your blessings, accept the things you cannot change, have courage to change things you can, wisdom to know the difference etc etc… however if you find yourself staring with a strained rictus into the mirror as the sweat trickles down your furrowed brow and your veins stand out like that meme kid* and any more positivity will make you sick then JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is the haven you’ve been waiting for cos even as the world we all kinda knew and sorta love continues to descend into ever more depressing circles of over-bureaucratised plague ’n war hell like some kind of deeply uncool mix of Dante and Michel ‘He’d never get away with it nowadays in Higher Ed’ Foucault, those masters of musical restitution Luke ‘Optimus Prime’ Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘Naruto’ Thomas (drms) will be on hand to weave their webs of sonic mystery and imagination and remind you of all the good things in life, long before we even forgot about Bozza and his parties and his band of sheepish clowns and all the crap they’ve done… I’ll be hanging around on bass as per, a selected group of esteemed guests may well show up to sit in and do their thing, all manner of working stiff, grifters, hopers lover and fakers will mill around in a celebratory fashion and the peerless Bee’s team will be on hand to ensure an equitable spread of good vibes for all….the sun sinks in a scarlet haze over the teeming sea, the greenfinches are loud upon the hill, in the thickets and upon the hill, in the gathering darkness under the thickets….come and join us while u can cos you never know, do you?

March 7

Everyone’s had a busy week of cowering, denying, bemoaning, commiserating, quailing, railing impotently, empathising (Not Priti Patel), accusing, etc etc… it’s enough you wish for the good old days when all we had to worry about was a deadly plague and a corrupt heartless and incompetent government, but the moving finger has written so time to dry ur eyes, save your piety and wit for whatever’s left and get on down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH cos it’s time again to connect with the eternal verities of hot licks and cool grooves as manifested on this imperfect material plane by man like Luke “Thoughts” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Prayers” Thomas (drms) as they set your spirit free to soar high high high above the chartered streets and overpriced leaky rooftops and all the rest of whatever cut-price low-rent mundanity has been weighing you down.. I’ll be contributing whatevs on bass as per, a host of shining talent may come swinging through the door to get on the stand and do their thing, the shimmering ascended beings of the Bee’s team will be on hand to make with the quality hooch on your command, and there will be an abundance of all the riches that money can’t buy so come and join us and we’ll all set sail over the blck horizon in a bit shiny oligarchal yacht made of music and good vibes… that’ll show em.

Bees Mouth - February 2022

28 Feb

There are times when you feel empowered, a contender, hanging with your own bad self, riding the wave of history towards the sunlit sandy shores, and there are also times when you feel like an abject cowering ball of jangling overstimulated nerve ends confronting the end of your puny existence as it looms before your bulging bloodshot eyeballs… by all means carry on doomscrolling if you think it helps, but also get your sorry mortal ass along to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH because you can depend upon it that man like Luke “Svarozhits” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Rugievit” Thomas (drms) will be playing licks like lightning and grooves like rolling thunder, while I will be in between their fire and ice, like lukewarm water, doing something or other on bass, the ascended beings of the Bee’s team will be waiting as they are always waiting in the scented dusk behind the well-stocked bar to minister unto your needs with libations of the finest liquors known to man, and all around the various denizens of the night, the young and hopeful and beautiful, the aged and gnarled and disillusioned, the tryers and the keepers, the quick and the dread, everyone in their own right place in this time we have to share together for a while, will assemble to get into it and do their thing, once again…tear your horrified gaze away from the slo-mo disaster unfolding on your tiny chattering screen, ignore what the haters and fakers are trying to push into your eyes, cos the stars are bright overhead, the blossom is upon the blackthorn, the calls of the greenfinches are heard again upon the hill, and you can really just grab yer axe down off the shelf one more time and come and join us, what’s to lose?21st Feb

Hey caregivers, grownups, significant others, birthing people, chestfeeders, and sundry non-denominational bodies with whatever organs you’ve picked from the great cosmic Easy Hours Store of destiny, is the burden of wokeness becoming too heavy to advance/resist? Are you too morally compromised, too inexperienced, too involved, or just too plain pooped to figure out what you need to be outraged at? Time to get whatever it is you think you are along to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH so you can to tune out all the chatter and online negging and tune in to your own bad unique glorious self by letting it all hang out in the steady radiance emanating from man like Luke “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Dumpling” Thomas (drms) as they lay out an endless stream of cool grooves and hot licks to bring you back to the eternal now, basking as on the warm sands upon the banks of a mighty flowing river, the breeze heavy with the scent of possibilities, unknown birds wheeling high overhead, the cries of the river traders rising above the water’s ceaseless murmur…. sounds good, doesn’t it, so tear your poor overhyped eyeballs away from those Russian Slap youtubes, tear your earpods out and leave them dripping Rogan all over the floor, , leave your Truth Social sign-up for another darker day, block out the threat of impending Euro war for a few more hours, step bravely forward into the wind-scoured streets … I’ll be there, the Bee’s team will be there, the music-and-blunt guy will be there mouthing and gesturing through the glass, the pale faced creatures of the night will shuffle past on their nameless missions, honoured guests may step inside to sit in and do their esteemed thing… all will be well, come down and let’s do a thing. Concerned Tory Councillors welcome if you think you can take it…

14th Feb

Have your plans for calendrically mandated romance been thwarted by current global instability? Citybreak in Kyiv inexplicably cancelled, Dutch hothouse roses wilting away in import/export bureaucratic limbo, favourite aphrodisiac restaurant succumbed to COVID, strippergram seized by immigration officials etc? Simply hurry your intended off to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH where those paragons of amour Luke “Theophilus P Wildebeest” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Walrus Of Love” Thomas (drms) will be on hand, making good the global passion deficit with their unflagging devotion to the constant creation of hot licks and cool grooves to restore your faith and confidence in the nobility of the universe… I will be doing something or other on bass to reassure all that this is indeed the best of all possible worlds, the ascended masters of the Bee’s team will be waiting in the velvet fog behind the well-stocked bar with all manner of aphrodisiac potions, an array of special guests may interrupt their own well-laid plans of seduction to come and sit in for your enhanced enjoyment, the air will be laden with the intoxicating scent of possibility…. be you dating, married, playa or self-partnered, all are welcome, and as Saint Valentine himself is also the patron of epileptics and beekeepers we’ll reserve some space for those guys as well… don’t miss out, it’ll be very.

7th Feb

What a great time to be an energy CEO, to be called Guto, to sing “I Will Survive” as the nation tightens its belt, to order new wallpapers, to move your troops hither and thither in the snowy hinterland, to be skiing n curling n figure skating etc in jolly authoritarian dictatorships, to sign a celebrity podcaster without actually listening cos you’re a tech bro millionaire so why tho… but what if you’re not hip to any of these options? Why then, JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH might just be the place for you tonite and every Monday nite, so let off a 41 gun salute and give thanks that man like Luke “Boba Fett” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Lando Calrission” Thomas (drms) are there to light up another blazing furnace of hot licks and cool grooves to nourish your flickering inner mounting flame in a way that you know Beeple’s overpriced clip art cartoons never ever will, as I attempt to lend appropriate support and make the world a better place via the medium of hastily configured bass playing, as the imperturbably smiling ascended beings of the Bee’s team stand by with libations of top quality hooch, as Bozza squirms like a greased piglet, as Zuck's empire suddenly falters as it feels the cold hand of mortality upon its' virtual shoulder, as the denizens of the night emerge from their lairs to stand twitching, mouthing prayers and invocations and flickering in and out of focus just outside the steamy windows under the bitter starlight, the king crabs scuttle ever closer under the inky sea… are you lonely, are you lost, are you warm, are you real, are you standing on the rooftops having it ready to go ready to go? Grab yer axe off the shelf and come sit in, or just bring your own bad self, let’s have a time, we’re not through yet, not by a long way.

Bees Mouth - January 2022

31st Jan

Put on your velveteen smoking jacket, sit back in your easy chair, pour a glass of port and settle in for the evening with a morocco leather bound edition of Sue Grey’s lovely report to peruse at your leisure….. oh look, you’ve finished already and there’s nothing you didn’t already know, so why not do yerself a favour, grab your axe down off the shelf and high-tail it down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH to witness the clear and robust policy of hot licks and cool grooves being implemented by man like Luke ‘Leadership’ Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘Judgement’ Thomas (drms) as they demonstrate their ability to observe the high standards expected of those rocking some killing bop-to-blues-to-whatever…. I’ll be there maintaining a respectful attitude towards the public interest on bass, the peerless ascended masters of the Bee’s Team will be there, under the responsible and accountable leadership of the redoubtable Captain Jack Rowan, to ensure that the consumption of alcohol is entirely appropriate at all times, and who knows what travellers may appear unbidden at the door from out of the star-studded night sit in, do their thing and get into it? Significant levels of uplifting musical vibrations will be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately, so leave the lying liars to loll on the broken swing, eyes glazed and swollen tongue protruding, polluting your newsfeed with their lying lies, and come and get where the good people are, nothing is true, everything is permitted… the song of the dunnock is heard once again upon the hilltop and the starlings yearn to leave the flock, the world is turning, come and join us, what’s to lose?

24th Jan

Ok, so maybe April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain, etc etc, but January is still a pile of depressing wintry despair, frozen hard like your poor aching heart, your tiny hand skittering over your touchscreen trying to summon joy from the metaverse, no more ice-skating or laughing, only dread and emptiness… but wait? Who’s a-coming? Thank holy f*k, it’s JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH riding back into town with it’s silver spurs a-jingling, straight up the snow-covered main street with man like Luke “The Revenant” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Master Of Niflheimr” Thomas (drms) standing back and standing by to deliver another intoxicating brew of blues-to-bop-to-swing-to-whatever goodness to restore the circulation to your pleasure centres and get you back on the good foot, aided in some manner by whatever I can cook up on bass….we’ll keep the howling insensate darkness at bay for a little while longer thanks to the additional ministrations of the peerless ascended beings of the Bee’s Team as they wait, shimmering imperceptibly, behind the well-stocked bar ready to make with the quality liquors at your command, and thanks to whatever honoured guests may find their way across the pitiless wasteland of the garbage strewn pavements and enter, shaking the frost from their brazen wings and the dirt from their agate claws, ready to sit in and do their thing… don’t slump feebly in a corner waiting for sh*t to get sorted by all those no-mark lollygagging assholes who’ve elbowed their way into the seats of power, don’t turn your back on love, don’t let em grind you down, grab yer axe down off the shelf and come join us, though your path may seem beset upon all sides by the unrighteous, we’ll have a time.

17th Jan

Let’s be honest and admit it - no-one has a clue - that we’re all just blundering around in a digital fog of hyperreality, never knowing our right foot from our left, our hats from our gloves, our signifiers from our referents, or even which way is up anymore, so how to really tell the difference between work n partaaay? Morally vacuous political leaders looking for guidance should get down smartish to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH, and so should everyone else cos you’ll get to witness the full glory of man like Luke “dApp” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “NFT Derivatives” Thomas (drms) as they demonstrate the fine art of working everything u got while partying like it’s ZOZZ forever, thus showing that for those with a full command of hot licks, cool grooves and all the good sh*t that comes with a thorough mastery of blues-to-bop-to-whatever it’s possible to defy that square-ass Newtonian jive and be in both spaces at the same time…. I’ll be involved in some dimensional capacity on bass, the peerless ascended beings of the Bees’ team will materialise on this gross vibrational level just for you, laden with libations of the finest booze known to humanity, and any manner of freaks and monsters may swing by to express themselves… drive your seasonal ennui down to net zero, stabilise your vibe deficit, get on the good foot and get on down…. Bozza may be sagging against the ropes like a sad stuffed toy that’s been left out in the rain but his evil boneheaded minions are rallying, fresh bullshit is being cooked up as we speak, the game’s not over yet, so prep yerself by grabbing yer axe down off the shelf and coming to join us, we’ll have a time.

10th Jan

What’s keeping your ship afloat on the murky seas of boring January? Is it transcendental meditation, disappointing polyamory, making models of Lincoln cathedral out of matchsticks, thrilling to the cross-border adventures of Serbian sportsmen? Or are you just waiting out your medicated meatspace days in a cycle of mask n swab until the moment when the Singularity arrives and your Ring doorbell takes control of your puny destiny? Get up and get jiggy with it cos JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is back roaring across the turgid ocean of your post-festive ennui like a massive gleaming hydrofoil made of gold that you can eat, under the proud command of man like Luke “Pink Panther” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “So Solid Crew” Thomas (drms) as they weave a deep-pile carpet of sonic luxury, with hot licks and cool grooves in every warp and weft, for you to just roll around on like a demented labrador until every drop of foul-smelling weltschmerz is wiped away and you feel free… I’ll be contributing what I can on bass, dandy highwayman Jack Rowan and his fearless crew of lusty buccaneers will be standing by behind the well-stocked bar with all manner of top-quality hooch, various esteemed guests may chance their arm and come down for a blow to enhance the splendour of proceedings, a whole bunch of good shit will go down regardless of isolation rules, supply chain issues, plunging crypto prices, Russian troops massing at the frontier, etc etc … wanna be a part of it? Let not procrastination be the thief of whatever time remains to you on this earthly sphere, get your Hi Tec trainers on and get down, it’ll be very.

3rd Jan

Are you hesitating, poised, balanced on a knife edge between hope and hangover, quivering on the brink of whatever ZOZZ may bring, peering out between your fingers from behind your suspiciously stained sofa? The time to hesitate is through, jack, it’s time to man up, get camelicious and dive right in cos JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is here once again to stiffen your moral fibre, put a spring in your step and restore the light of hope n stuff to the poor washed out caverns of your post-festive eyes, so stop squabbling listlessly on socials about shit that you didn’t break and can’t mend and instead get your bad self down to where man like Luke “Papa Legba” Rattenbury (gtr) and returning champ Loz “Eternal Lightness Of Being” Thomas (drms), assisted in some measure by me on bass, will be laying out a broad smooth highway of hot licks and cool grooves for you to stride your way right through whatever lamentable confection of chicanery awaits us from our elected representatives, unelected tech moguls, culture war wankers, nationalists and know-alls, Youtube experts, Bitchute blowhards and Bitcoin bores, right-wing crybabies and left-wing buzzkills, and all the rest of the appalling cavalcade of repellent poltroons that beset the paths of righteousness…. wait for the slow return of the light across the bitter hillside, listen to the soughing of the wind in the branches at dusk, watch the flight of the starlings, raise up your eyes from the babbling twinkling microelectronically pulsing quicksand held in your trembling lil paw, remember to breathe, let’s go…

Bees Mouth - December 2021

Dec 27th

As you navigate that strange calendrical perineum between the wholesome child-like magic of Christmas and the sordid adult excess of New Years Eve, as your socials feed devolves into a mess of end-of-year humblebragging, seasonal vegan anguish and the usual libertarian loudmouths, is there a hole in your soul that cheese and flashing LED strings can no longer fill? Join with the nation to breathe a collective sigh of relief as we announce that JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH will be following the science and continuing as scheduled tonight, thus permitting those fabled enablers of the good times Luke “Bedford Falls” Rattenbury (gtr) and special guest whizzkid Joe Edwards (drms) to get up and do their thing, get into it, man, movin’ and doing it, like an all-ages-appropriate machine, spreading a message of goodwill, hot licks and cool grooves for all mankind… I’ll be doing something or other on bass, the Bee’s team will be standing by in the scented shadows behind the well-stocked bar with libations of the good stuff to ease the passage of time, various emissaries from the distant kingdoms may swing by to sit in and do their thing, it’ll be a stone groove… as the troops mass on the frozen frontier, cryptos ricochet around like ping pong balls, Bozza grovels pleading at the feet of the worst sort of Tory w*nker while Sajid does his Shrek-meets-Nosferatu schtick once again to cover for him, Sir Kier looks earnest and worried, our Celtic neighbours bravely and decisively move to table service only, and the whole shebang teeters on the brink of the year’s turning, why not forsake the chance to watch another 4 hours of the Beatles pissing around back when times were simpler and instead grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us, one more time for this time around… all together now…

Dec 13th

Darkness sweeps over the land, a sickly wind sighing in over the compromised downland under the horrible stars and wrapping you its plague-laden breath, while far away in the expensively refurbed corridors of power the usual cavalcade of dismal goons scramble to cover their own backs as disaster approaches.. but don’t get mad, get even and get down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH where it’ll be a horse of a different colour thanks to the unyielding energies of Luke “Breakfast Of Champions” Rattenbury (gtr) and special guest hooligan Tristan “T-Bone” Banks (drms) burning with a hard gem-like flame to dispel any lingering gloomy-ass bullsh*t and get you back on the good foot with their matchless energy and sheer musical good vibrations… I’ll be doing my utmost on bass as per, various seasonally disenfranchised waifs and strays may blow in out of the underwhelming night to sit in and help us light a fire and keep the shadows at bay, so leave your busy lil newsfeed and its tireless trickle of angry misinformation, extricate yourself from the slough of festive dread, rise above the quickening flood of cancellations like Lewis H soaring on an updraught of good sportsmanship and join the throng, zoomers and boomers, edgelords and tradwives, freaks and monsters and anyone else trudging along the greasy pavements to the end of the night, drop in for hang, it’ll be very.

Bees Mouth - November 2021

Nov 29th

Is it that time already? Dig out your Joker facemask, cancel your skiing trip, try and get interested in livestreams, remember how to operationalise your Millenium Falcon zoom wallpaper, pin your gig tickets on the fridge and go for another frickin walk?? Not while JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is still alive and kicking, bub, cos as long as man like Luke “Phi Delta Kappa” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Operating Thetan” Thomas (drms) are still un-isolated and fully operational we’ll be delivering up monster portions of blues-to-bop-to-swing-to whatever and spreading some highly transmissible good vibrations to all… as your bot-ridden socials feed oozes out tides of mucilaginous misinformation to pollute your noble confounded spirit, as all around you the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate bullshit, as Venus and Jupiter begin their descent below the horizon, out beyond the hopeful windfarm into the freezing blackness of the tragic ocean, as Boris deflates like a gaudy punctured balloon,grab yer axe down off the shelf, venture out under the teethgrindingly self-consciously hip Xmas lights and come and join us, let’s keep the darkness at bay, it’ll be a trip.

Nov 22nd

Do you ever feel like it’s just too much? The FUD, the FOMO, the endless pump n’ dump of the chaotic mediated livestream that you used to call your life? Will you make like jolly Bozza and retreat into the reassuringly 2-D verities of Peppa Pig World, will you howl at the moon, will you lapse into incoherent conspirituality, will you coweringly await the final O-Ring Failure? Don’t do any of that, git along to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH instead, because if you do you’ll be treated to man like Luke “Zero-Days” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Oh-My-Days” Thomas (drms) as, burning always with a hard gem-like flame, they lay out some prime cuts of hot licks and cool grooves and generally maintain this ecstasy through the medium of bop-to-blues-to-swing-to-whatever just for the sheer hell of it…. I’ll be doing whatevs on bass as per and a selection of local heroes will be swinging by in their burnished armour and polished greaves and, laying aside their plumed helmets upon the well-stocked bar under the watchful eyes of the Bees Team sylphs and naiads, will be busting out some sick manoeuvres on their mighty instruments… if you’re lonesome tonight, if you’re full of piss and vinegar, if you’re high on your own supply, if you’re mad as hell and just can’t take it any more, don’t give up, don’t turn your back on love, Sailor Ripley, stop watching the stats as they rise and fall, switch off your busy bot-ridden feed, grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and come join us, we’ll have a time.

Nov 15th

Does your spirit soar, unfettered, like a rainbow-tattooed dolphin covered in inspirational quotes leaping and laughing through the sewage-filled seas? Or are you crushed by life and unable to move from your disappointing sofa, doomscrolling in front of Netflix, sighing into your tuaca and weeping silently into your Uber eats? Either way, you need to cut that shit out right now and get your bad self down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH where we’ll be keeping it hyperreal thanks to the special international guest artists Paul “One Inch Punch” Richards (gtr) and Angus “The Velvet Fog” Bishop (drms) as they join forces to create a unique stochastic process event of improbably hot grooves, cool licks and general musical excellence guaranteed to get you vibing right here on the regular Cartesian plane or in any higher-dimensional Euclidean space you care to inhabit… I’ll be involved in some capacity on bass, a randomised sample of special guests will be blown in through the welcoming portal on the winds of probability all fresh and ready to do their thing, the room will be fully stocked with vibe in defiance of any etherial supply chain issues, outside the spice demons may be shuffling past with their symmetric random walk and the damp chilly air may be full of the debris of unrealised martingales and malignant particles of unrevealed gain-of-research horrors, far away across the dark hillsides sleaze may fester unchecked, Bozza may leer and Kier may crumple his face into an earnest worried frown, all manner of internet dogs may delight to bark and bite, all manner of unnecessary stuff that you didn’t ask for and don’t need may be trying to lay it's boring shizz on you, but here in the scented twilight we’ll have the good stuff going on and all will be well as long as we all just keep believing…

Nov 8th

Autumn is here, season of arson and sectarian pyrotechnics, but once the thrill of bangs and flashes and anti-Papist parades wears off, how will you reconcile yourself to the inevitability of the waning year, presaging as it does your own inescapable demise? Why, by getting your bad self down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH, of course - cos where else will you find man like Luke “Stepping Razor” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Cash Is King” Thomas (drms), abetted by me on bass, laying out such a cornucopia of dazzling swing-to-bop-to-blues-to-whatever delights that you’re guaranteed to banish that post-Samhain downer feeling without the need to recourse to any form of wickerwork-based human sacrifice and regain your faith in the consolations of symmetry and geometry against the wild spinning of Fortuna’s wheel.. make like Hroswitha and dig on some perfect numbers to keep the barbarian from the gates, even though the the air may be heavy with the cloying stench of rotting pumpkins inviting the inevitable comparisons with the odour of sickly sleaze wafting off jolly Bozza and his crooked lil chums, even though elsewhere the drinks may be spiked and your newsfeed may be awash with wild rumour and evil intent and ignorance, even though plague and lust may stalk unchecked through the land, wasting and ravaging, here in the velvet darkness the music will act as a shelter from the storm and all will be well….. your life is changing. You can feel it. Time to grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us.

Nov 1st

Time to wipe the goth makeup from your face, put your fishnets back into the cupboard and drag yourself away from the annual festival of sugar-crazed kids and sexy adult zombies and back into … what exactly? Your place in the metaverse is reserved OK but all the cool avatars are taken, and you can’t afford the NFTs since your crypto crashed, so how will you keep engaged til the Zuck says go? Transport your physical envelope to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH and revive your flagging interest in our shared embodied temporality cos we’ll be setting targets for reduced emissions of ennui and making firm pledges to increase our commitments to a sustainable blend of hot licks and cool grooves thanks to men like Luke “Renegade Master” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Ill Behaviour” Thomas (drms) as they come back once again to set up a welcoming web of pure 100% proof musical good vibrations as a barrier to the howling sea of bullsh*t assailing us upon all sides…. they’ll assisted in some measure by me on the COVID-free bass, plus an array of mystery guests of all shapes and sizes and degrees of commitment to beanies and facial hair will be contributing their finest creative efforts, the velvet shadows behind the well-stocked bar will be alive with promise thanks to the tireless ministrations of the supernaturally talented Bee’s team, the air will be filled with emanations of the purest spiritual osmium, so come in out of the damp blustery darkness where the cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes and street lights share their hollow glow, join us and let the thing with feathers banish the funeral in your brain, it’ll be very.

Bees Mouth - October 2021

18th Oct

How was your weekend? Slumped on the sofa in your overpriced accoms, listlessly doomscrolling on your tethered device’s grubby screen as the rotting garbage piles up outside? Or out out, having it large, chasing the phantom of pleasure through the guilty maze of dissipation before ending up in that terminus of despair at the end of the night known as Legends bar? Banish any residual chagrin by hastening to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH and rekindling your inner mounting flame at the volcano of hot licks and cool grooves laid on like gas used to be by man like Luke “Tat Tvam Asi” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Ob Nicht Natur Zuletzt Sich Doch Ergründe?” Thomas (drms) as they channel the boundless energies of creation into the white heat of musical expression, aided to some extent by me on the bass frequencies described by Schopenhauer as “the lowest grade of the will’s objectification”, plus an array of special guests stepping up to the plate to do their thing, the majestic ascended beings of the Bee’s Team making free with the quality hooch, and the regular cavalcade of the young and the hopeless, the eager and the lost, the quick and the undone, the coming in and the passing out, the masked and the unmasked, all passing across the greasy pavements on their way towards their personal meeting with the great whatevs… don’t waste another eve watching digitally pixellated images of fictional Koreans massacring each other as you try not to think about the coming metaverse that the Zuck has in store for us all, grab yer axe down off the shelf and let’s do a thing.

11th Oct

An ominous calm hangs over the glassy sea, the last paddleboards of autumn drift aimlessly before the motionless windfarm, the dryrobes are still tucked away and the starlings aren’t photo-ready yet… promises of a full on retro return to a classic 70s themed winter of shortages outages and other outrages may be looming, so if you’re all tuckered out from wondering nervously what terrible thing is going to happen next then JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH should be your number one destination this breathless star-strewn evening cos we’ve got man like Luke “Iron Fist” Rattenbury (gtr) plus Loz “Velvet Glove” Thomas blowing the energy shortage all to bits with their boundless reserves of natural groove and high-octane swing, I’ll be doing whatevs on bass, the peerless Bee’s team will be standing by with generous snootfuls of the good stuff, and all manner of special guests will be joining the legions of hopeful young beanie-n-beard wearing musos lining up to whack hell out the kit in the second set… outside the streets may be littered with broken dreams and besmirched with the grimy footprints of the legions of rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, and other unmentionables, out beyond the city limits well-meaning insulation enthusiasts may be glued to the thoroughfare, 127 Euro-truckers may be searching helplessly for the exit sign, Putin may snicker and Patel may smirk, the bin bags may be piling up in their thousands, but here in the velvet darkness there will be only unity and good vibes, so grab yer axe down off the shelf and come join us, why don’t you?

5th Oct

It’s ok - we know.. Sometimes a day spent driving around burning fuel in an attempt to buy more fuel can just seem too much like a metaphor for the utter inescapable pointlessness of your bounded earthly existence, but before you reach journey’s end and cry yourself to sleep outside a sternly closed Hollingbury Asda at 2am, why not drop in to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH and pick up a different perspective, cos we’ll have man like Luke “Quantum Of Solace” Rattenbury (gtr) and special guest sticks n traps punisher Tristan “T-Bone” Banks (drms) defying any kinda bullshitty supply chain problems and building a sonic elevator to the stars and beyond with their inexhaustible reserves of hot licks and cool grooves.. I’ll be on bass as per, a range of eager young hopefuls will be sitting in, hoping to impress with their youthful ardour and untainted sincerity, dandy highwayman Jack Rowan will have a steady hand upon the tiller and all will be well … if you’re after a glossily produced blend of machismo and post-imperialist dick-swinging with a sheen of contemporary inclusivity to make it palatable, and couldn’t get into the Bond, then there’s always the Tory conference, but really, why bother? The sap slows in the sodden woods, the mackerel swarm in the greasy sea, the waning light of evening is heavy with nostalgia, the lord yeeteth and the lord yoinketh away, so grab yer axe off the shelf and come join us, time’s a-turnin.

Bees Mouth - September 2021

27th Sept

The seafront is now a place fraught with nocturnal peril… eager Freshers, thirsty for the higher knowledge that only disillusioned middle-aged pinko academics can provide, cluster outside Pryzm in a dense miasma of hormones and vodka jellies, Labour delegates storm angrily to and fro, Conspiracy Corbyn challenges Allotment Corbyn to a final deadly dance-off… let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH be your sanctuary from the storm of howling craziness that constitutes the kingdom of Brexitain in the year of the plague, let dandy highwayman Jack Rowan and his team of fearless supernatural crewmates stand by to repel all boarders, let man like Luke ‘E10” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘97+ Octane’ Thomas (drms) demonstrate that when it comes to hot licks and cool grooves there really is Enough Supply To Meet Demand as they build a sonic bulwark against the squares bringdowns and buzzkills, while I muck about hopefully on bass and all sorts of special guests bring their talents to adorn proceedings… let Bozza’s shabby assembly of ghouls, feebs and dinlos practice their surprised faces in the mirror as poor Sir K puffs earnestly along in his sad shiny suit and enraged hoarders shank each other over a Ginsters in ring-road forecourts glaring with wasted light, we’ll be having no truck with any of it, so why not grab your axe down off the shelf and come and join us? It’ll be very.

20th Sept

Hey! Such a busy week! Killing comedy, tearing down historic statues, removing books from universities, dumbing down panto…that stuff can really tire you out, so if you feel more wearied than woke, more distressed than denim, more swollen than engaged then it’s time to get your fine self down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH where we’ll be going the full nine metres with man like Luke “Eight Furlong” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “16 Bushels” Thomas (drms) as they pour forth an endless cornucopia of shining musical splendour beyond measure, guaranteed to reinvigorate your chakras, revitalise your frontal lobes, fill your head with glittering orgones and generally pick you back up onto your non-metric feet and get u feeling good like you know that you should… the whey-faced denizens of the night may shuffle past on the reeking pavements outside but inside the peerless interdimensional beings of the Bee’s team will be waiting to pour you healing libations of the finest wines known to humanity, the air will be vibrating with purest osmium, I’ll be doing something or other on bass, a host of special guests may drop by to do their thing as the company will be assembled, smoothing their irridescent feathers with their beaks of brass and shaking their burnished horns and agate claws, so take a break from the bean-splattered unstable mundanity of 21st century Brexit, tear your weary media-saturated gaze away from the latest Whitty/Minaj beef track, let the fruitless search for Ms Minaj’s cousin’s friends engorged particulars continue high and low (mostly low), let jolly Bozza insist that all will be poggers to his gurning cabinet of monstrosities as the gas runs out under his barbie, let low-grade idiocy parade itself all across the public sphere, let life be measured out by the squares in bushels and pecks, fathoms and hundredweights, here in the velvet darkness we’ll be weighing out a goodness that can’t be measured so grab yer axe and come and join us…

13th Sept

As we slide gently into the season of Keats quotations, as the leaves start to show signs of withering upon the branch like SIr Kiers’ charisma, as the nights draw in as quickly and stealthily as Nigel Farage revising his opinion on British Rumanians, as the mighty rivers of Old Albion gush a merry reddish brown with hearty discharges of untreated sewage, how will you fight the inevitable post-summer ennui? JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE”S MOUTH is here right on time to sooth away your pre-equinoctial angst and fill you with courage and resilience thanks to the inexhaustible fountainhead of creativity that spontaneously generates whenever man like Luke “Straight Sets” Rattenbury (gtr) and special guests maestro Nigel “Mystic Law Of The Lotus Sutra” Thomas (bass) and Tristan “T-Bone” Banks (drms) come together like a bunch of hipster arachnids to spin webs of musical enchantment for you to climb inside and there drink deep, healing draughts of bop-to-blues-to-whatever goodness…… the shelves of our beloved supermarkets may be a bit light on seasonal bounty at the mo and small gnats may be mourning in a wailful choir, but we’ll have international special guests flouting the hostile climate to come sit in and do their thing, the Bee’s Team standing by with libations of otherworldly goodness, and all kinds of other desirable outcomes, so come and bask in the good vibrations like the British media basking in the glorious light shining forth from the radiant teeth and gilded racquet of Raducanu,… Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, so grab yer axe down off the shelf and come join us… just believe, just believe.

6th Sept

So here we are under the breathless skies of summer’s end, everything back to the nice new normal…kids back to school in a heatwave, Bojo breaking his last few election promises, Taliban spinning donuts in their new Hummers to celebrate their conquest of Texas…. even crypto is back on the rise, so get to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH quick as you can before the Bitcoin bores get ahold of you, and hold em off by filling your ears up with the hot sweet swinging bop-to-blues-to-whatever sound generated by those paragons of hot licks and cools grooves Luke “Triple Lock” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Ethereum” Thomas (drms) as they tap into the motherlode of musical inspiration that springs eternal and shoot sparks up to the sky, my friends… I’ll be along as per on bass, dandy highwayman Jack Rowan will be supervising the ascended vibrational masters of the Bee’s Team as they stand by to minister to your material wants, and who knows what special multidimensional guests may be dropping in to get their COVID passports stamped* and pour out their lil hearts in music and song … Bolsonaro-level bullshit may continue its fetid purulent spread across our fair irreplaceable Urantia on both micro and macro levels so that brain-fogged crowds may attack vaccine stations and Cheryl Cole may be put in charge of R&B, but Jupiter still burns in the velvet blackness above, along with Elon’s boring ol junk, the fish swarm in the glassy sea, the bees alight upon the ivy, the swallows congregate, chittering, on the obsolete overhead wires, ready to go but not yet, not yet…. show’s not over yet, so grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us, rise up, rise up.

*not literally, yet.

Bees Mouth - August 2021

23rd Aug

Is summer’s cup starting to run dry? Maybe you’ve sat on the beach, maybe in Crete with your phone bravely switched off like that Mr Raab showing us all how to be the best idlers in the world, maybe you’ve chased Jon Snow down a fire escape shouting anti-vaxx slogans, maybe you’ve set fire to your own hair for Extinction Rebellion, maybe you’ve paid £8,000 for a week’s holiday let in bloody Cornwall… but now what? Why, time to hasten down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH of course, where you can reconnect with the lambent glittering estival expanses that seem to spread before you like a land of dreams, and recover your zest for the finer things in life by basking in the golden radiance shining forth from those beacons of swinging creativity manifesting in this dimension as Luke “Mission Accomplished” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Tora Bora” Thomas (drms) as they pour out another lavish cornucopia of hot licks and cool grooves, supported in some fashion by me on bass, as the ascended masters of the Bee’s team stand by with libations of the good stuff, the whey-faced denizens of the night shuffle past on the stained pavements outside, and the velvet darkness the streets is alive with the whisper of electric scooters and the constant tiny tintinnabulation of COVID apps…. special guests will doubtless swing by to do their thing, there will be music and laughter and those other things we thought might be gone for good, so don’’t be like poor puzzled Sir Kier stuck at home with the poster paints, grab your axe down off the shelf and come and join us, pump up the jams, cos you’ll find out if you do that.

9th Aug

What’s that you hear, knocking at your door? Is it the dread hand of fate? Is it the folk from Ipsos Mori enquiring why you’re still not impressed by Sir K? Is it the machine elves coming to claim you as their own? Be cool, fool, it’s just JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH reaching out across the aetherial plane to remind you that it’s Monday again and that you should make like Alok “Eco Warrior” Sharma and fly, fly, fly down to Western Road where man like Luke “Modern Pentathalon” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Artistic Swimming” Thomas (drms) will be atop their respective podia and going for gold with their all-conquering freestyle bop-to-blues-to-whatever medley, assisted by special guest Maestro Nigel Thomas on bass keeping the swing turned up to max…. You can bet your sweet life that the majestic sylphs, dryads and naiads of the Bee’s team will be there, vibrating gently in the scented shadows of the well-stocked bar, ready with healing libations to counter the constant susurrus of mixed messaging that’s been twisting your melon on the daily, so if the travail of keeping your sang-froid in a world where Piers has become the Corbyn with the biggest rallies is grinding you down, come and join us as we erect a bastion of hot licks and cool grooves against the coming tide… sitters in welcome except DaBaby

Bees Mouth - July 2021

July 26th

How’s your Freedom been working out for ya? Do you feel full of a boundless love for all of unmasked viral-shedding sweaty humanity, or do you still feel as empty as an Olympic stadium on opening night, each firework tracing a line of tears across your poor cold heart? Level yourself up at JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEES MOUTH and realign your chakras till they’re positively humming by bathing those poor lil guys in the interstellar vibrations streaming forth in arcs of righteous fyah from the ascended masters Luke “Turiya” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Satchidananda” Thomas (drms) plus special guest George “Il Leopardi” Trebar (bass) keeping things on the regular…. If all the heady optimism of last Monday seem to have melted away, like Crypto gains at the first breath of summer, don’t hide at home like poor lil Dommy Cummings as he lies alone in the dark weeping hot tears of bitter frustration and gnawing on the covers, while Boris floats effortlessly aloft like a gaudy balloon filled with Nigel Farage’s rank gaseous farts, don’t turn your back on love, Sailor Ripley, grab yer axe off the shelf and come and join in the fun - recently arrived boat people welcome. 

July 19th

Has Freedom Day left you feeling deflated? Maybe you’ve tried: deleted the app, set fire to your blood- and mucus-encrusted mask, hoofed a load of gak and lager top and stuck a firework up your bum - yet still somehow you don’t feel really, truly, taking-back-control free? Banish your entirely understandable chagrin by squaring your shoulders and pinging your way down to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH as it arises phoenix-like from the smouldering ashes of whatever used to pass for normality, and prepare to set sail once again on the seas of hot licks and good grooves with the steady hand of Cap’n Jack Rowan at the helm, as the mysterious sylphs and naiads of the Bees’ Team return to hover, shimmering gently at a higher vibrational level, deep within the scented shadows of the well-stocked bar, ready with libations of the finest liquors known to humanity… marvel afresh at the undimmed radiance bursting forth in great arcs of glittering sonic glory from man like Luke “Ivermectin” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Hydroxychloroquine” Thomas (drms) as they cook up a heady brew of swing-to-bop-to-blues-to-whatever, with me gamely tagging along on bass and a host of special guests joining in to do their thing….Look, it’s been mental, hasn’t it? Should we be doing this? I don’t know. If you don’t feel safe to come then that’s fine. But if you fancy diving back in, then grab yer axe off the shelf, dust off your glad rags, get on the good foot, wear a mask to show you care, come and try to set the night on fire*.

Renell Shaw’s The Windrush Suite Presented by The Vortex Online

Monday 22nd June, 2020

This project, supported by the PRS Foundation and The Shape Of Jazz To Come, would have been a significant statement under normal circumstances: had it been performed live at the Vortex it would certainly have informed and possibly elevated those lucky enough to attend in person. Against the backdrop of global Black Lives Matter protests and the re- addressing of the Windrush scandal its message resonates louder than ever; and performed under lockdown and over livestream, it encapsulates a particular moment of conjuncture so completely that it makes totally compelling viewing.

Proceedings begin with a dark screen over which the unmistakeable mid-Atlantic tones of patron Dave Holland introduce the show. Then the music kicks in, and the camera introduces us to the players, one by one, each performing in isolation from their respective locations. Drummer Samson Jatto lays down a hypnotic 12/8 groove from a shadowy studio corner; Ayanna Witter-Johnson dances with her cello in front of the Egyptian statue on her mantelpiece, joining Renell Shaw’s bass guitar to interweave some melodic lines and embellishments over the carefully wrought harmony, and Orphy Robinson layers some dazzling figures on marimba from his narrow sound booth with an African mask displayed on the wall behind him. The glimpses into the performer’s personal spaces make the impact of the spoken word extracts that play across
the top of the music even stronger: we are presented with a powerful image of a fractured community uniting itself around an expression of shared history and culture.

Shaw’s music moves over a series of differently paced, evolving sections; there’s a wide ranging blend of influences, from the soca flavoured pulse of We Don’t Sleep No More, spiced with marimba, baritone sax and some fluent bars from Shaw, to the gospel-flavoured intro to Umoja that develops into a slow, portentous, proggy workout that wouldn’t be out of place on a Pink Floyd release. Shaw makes full use of the multitrack recording process, layering up Nandi’s vocals into a psychedelic choir, building up the rhythm beds with extra
percussion and keyboards, and bringing tap dancer Delycia Belgrave in to add slow, precise figures over the
final movement’s sombre harmony. Throughout, the recorded voices from the Windrush generation are overlaid to tell tales of aspiration and endeavour, meeting differential standards and endemic racism, additionally contextualised by Kevin Le Gendre’s narrative interlude. Out Of many Come One features Shaw reciting Haile Selassie’s famous speech, in South London accents over a pumping groove; then the pace drops, to build back up with the voice of Dr. Io Smith MBE recounting his

lived experience over a slow bass and tap duet into a dramatic finale, and we are left with the word ‘Revolution’ across the black screen. Tonight’s show had the immediacy of a live performance with the extra depth and polish of a structured broadcast piece. While the Vor tex audience would have numbered in the hundreds, the video has been watched 7,000 times to date: a lesson in how restrictions can turn into possibilities if they’re embraced with resilience and collaboration.

Bees Mouth - March 2020

March 16th

Dear friends, it is with a heavy heart that I take up my touchscreen in this year of our post-Fordism 2020, to share with you the news that tonight, for the first Monday night in ten stimulating years, JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH will be reluctantly but definitely cancelled…the voices of those indefatigable paragons of hot licks and cool grooves Luke “Masque Of The Red Death” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Twelve Monkeys” Thomas (drms) will be temporarily stilled, I won’t be doing anything perceptible on bass, and while the peerless ascended beings of the Bee’s team will still be flaunting their gothic majesty in whatever dimension they are currently manifesting, their ministrations will be unaccompanied by our customary offerings of blues-to-bop-to-latin-to-whatever… acting on the vaporous advisory prevarications of our elected supreme representative as he balances insecurely on his 80-seat majority like a weird haggard toddler on a pile of sofa cushions trying to reach up to the sweetie jar, we have suspended operations in an attempt to thwart the progress of an unseen enemy and assist towards a victory that we hope will not be phyrric…ever inching towards tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, we have been creeping forward at our petty pace, and now Fortuna has stuck a stick in her spokes, and we will be thrown back upon whatever resources we can muster to recreate our forward impetus - what will we keep, what will we discard? .. look to Boethius and Hroswitha, look to the buds upon the hedgerow, listen to the voices of chiff-chaff and wood warbler returning from the scrubland at the edge of town, see venus glaring overhead, feel the quickening in the air, look out for the vulnerable, be excellent to each other, we will return. Bee’s Mouth Western Road not now - the future.

March 9th

Are you at a crossroads? Are you on strike, on zero hours, on lockdown, are you mad as hell and not going to take it any more, are you stepping away from royalty to concentrate on your innate fabulousness, are you warm, are you real, is your figure less than geek, is your mouth a little peak? You need to take a step back, Jack, so let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH provide the necessary lacuna in the unfettered hurly-burly of your bounded earthly existence, and come and join us in our warmly lit heterotopia between the shish kebab shops, cos we’ll have the regular operating Thetans Luke “Dragon Hide” Rattenbury (gtr)and Loz “Corrupted Blood” Thomas (drms) as they weave a web of musical enchantment to set you up for whatever is going to happen next, as the Bee’s team wait, poised and majestic in their gothic splendour behind the well-stocked bar, I do something or other on bass and the pale-faced creatures of the night pass by on the greasy pavements outside… as the last bowel towel warlords fight to the death outside the Co-Op, as the Meth chemists all start cooking up hand sanitiser, as the sweaty staring-eyed hoarders scrabble after facemasks to cover their shame, who will you be spending your pre-lockdown with? Now the sticky buds are thick upon the hedgerow, the black dripping woods are alive with birdsong, Venus is bright in the acme, the earth is turning.. don’t stay home chewing nervously on your guilty Andrex mountain, get out here and join us before COBRA call time on us all, and don’t forget to wash your hands first … who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?

March 2nd

April may be the cruellest month but March can be a real asshole too, breeding lolcats out of the dead land, mixing Megatron and desire, yeeting dull roots into spring rain, generally harshing everyone’s vibe with its mix of crocuses and death on a pale horse…. if you’re feeling like the sap is finally stirring in the withered bough, but also like you’re just waiting for the next terrible thing to happen, why not cut and run along to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH where we’ll be convening our own COBRA meeting with high-level operatives and musical Operating Thetans Luke “Gnosis” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Clear Channel” Thomas (dmrs) as they demonstrate their indifference to mere physical constraints by creating an endless flow of musical good vibrations out of the ether, while I do something or other on bass and the Bee’s Team wait, silent in their gothic majesty, behind the well-stocked bar, to fulfill your darkest most secret joy available within the constraints of the local licencing authority, and who knows what special guests may enter, folding their tarnished wings, from the echoing dark outside … don’t let the crazy oscillations of Fortuna’s wheel give you a whitey, don’t let the wicked witch of Watford haunt your dreams, don’t sink into the virtual Slough of Despond lurking greedily behind your watchful little screeny pal…. see the sun sinking into the sea in a blaze of fading pink n gold, see Venus burning in the acme, see everything aligning in its celestial catchment, don’t click ‘accept’ , click ‘more options’ and come and join us, it’ll be very. 

Bees Mouth - February 2020

Feb 24th

Darkness sweeps in across the land, over sacked eugenicist spad and microbriefing wonk alike, over the chartered streets and soggy horrible edgelands, over the smirking edgelords and the poor defeated beardies, over triumphant Tyson and battered Deontay, over eager Kier and his jolly chums, over Julius the equivocal and Harvey the damned, over the cancellers and the cancelled .. peak times for all, but you can sorta swerve it by ducking along to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH where despite the prevailing winds we’ll be spinning a magical web of of pure good vibes thanks to the uplifting musical genius of special guest artist, king of the Brunswick and highly trained combat specialist Paul “Ghostface Killa” Richards (gtr) and the endlessly and unpredictably creative Loz “Pound On The Top Line” Thomas (drms) .. I’ll be there on bass, special guests may breeze in upon the winds of happenstance to grace the proceedings, the peerless Bee;s team will be on hand to cater to your bibulous desires, so if your so-called friends are making you feel as welcome as a sneeze on a cruise ship, if your life goals seem to be receding, with rude and mocking gestures, into a waiting Uber bound for somewhere much nicer that you will never go to, if everything you see on socials just makes you feel worse, if your resting bitch face is now the only face you possess, then you need to get yerself out of your eyewateringly overvalued residence, away from the malign influence seeping out of your tethered device, and come and join us as we get together to build a thing… one step at a time, easy does it.

Feb 17th

Now the incontinent winds of Storm Boris have sent our little red wagon careening crazily along the shingled foreshore into a bright new future of government by Weirdos and Misfits, let’s see what outside the box bluesky thinking they can deliver - Eugenic racism! Trial by ordeal! Ducking stools in every courtroom! If you’re feeling temperamentally unsuited to this brave new world and all the mediatized creatures in it, come to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH and enter into our own micro-climate of integrated inclusive individuality where you can tune into the good bait we will be presenting for you thanks to the tireless talents of Luke “Tuff We Tuff” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Only A Self-Constructed Collective Subjectivity Can Overcome the Strictures Of Internalised Normative Neoliberalism” Thomas (drms) as they deliver another irresistible concoction of the henchest hot licks and cool grooves simmered together into an enriching gumbo of blues-to-bop-to-swing-to-whatever…I’ll be there with my bass, the fearless heroes of the Bee;s Team will be waiting, ensconced in swirls of gothic glory, behind the well-stocked bar, it’ll be lit, so don’t spend the evening trying to boost your tragic insta strategy, or making out like Love Island is still a good thing that makes you relatable, or weeping while trawling TikTok in a last desperate search for meaning, or trying to compose epic poetry in Urartian, Khinalug, Woleaian, Nahuatl or Kickapoo - slip on your Vaporflys and come and join us, before we say Good Yard, good yard, good yard, but not for ever, let's take it Higher Than The Sun…

Feb 10th

How’s the brave new windy decade of freedom rolling for you so far? Are you going all Philip Scofield for total fearless self-realisation, or are you holding back in case it all goes a bit Jameela Jamil? Are you setting hard deadlines and opening tough negotiations, or are you curled up behind the sofa waiting for the Rapture to sunder you from your dental work forever? Let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH be an anchor of stability in these trying times, cos we’re back once again with our doughty captains Luke “Nemo” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Ahab” Thomas (drms) with their super-talented fingers firmly on the wheel/tiller/hyperspace drive, ready to cast off on another thrilling voyage of discovery upon the high seas of rhythm and melody armed with a locker full of hot licks and cool grooves, assisted in some circumspect manner by me on bass, while the lusty buccaneers of the Bee’s team stand by under the command of intrepid cosmic adventurer Jack Rowan, and the pallid creatures of the night flock by on the bitter pavements outside upon their journeys towards the end of the night…. we are such stuff as dreams are made on, our little lives rounded with a sleep, so even if the signs and portents seem to be ticking all the boxes from locusts to plague to flood to wildfire to Priti Patel on a pale horse, don’t be afraid, don’t turn your back on love, don’t turn around, be of good cheer, Patience Strong, just pop on your Hazmat suit and stroll down to join us, unless you’ve been skiing in Chamonix recently, in which case maybe leave it for a week or two…. Derevaun Seraun, derevaun seraun, Let’s celebrate the setting forth, even as the returning, even as the coming back…

All Night Long

In his biography of Debussy, Eric Frederick Jensen records a conversation between the great pianist and composer and his friend and mentor Ernest Giraud. Debussy plays a series of intervals on the piano – notated in the book as impossible-to-parse mix of apparently random clusters and wider leaps – and Giraud asks him what they are. “Incomplete chords, floating” replies Debussy, “One can travel where one wishes and leave by any door”. Giraud replies by playing a simple diatonic progression that suggests A minor and asks “Do you find this lovely?” – Debussy enthusiastically assents, and Giraud then plays another progression – a series of 3rd inversion major triads descending in whole steps. “How would you get out of this?” he asks Debussy. “I’m not saying that what you do isn’t beautiful, but it’s theoretically absurd”. To which Debussy replies “There is no theory. You have merely to listen. Pleasure is the law.”

This last statement is a wonderful piece of fin-de-siecle aestheticism worthy of Oscar Wilde, prefiguring the kind of statement made by self-consciously decadent Edwardians like  Aleister ‘Do what thou wilt’ Crowley and revived to varying emancipatory effect in the swinging sixties (guys generally benefitted more than gals). Let’s link this specifically to jazz:  Debussy was ahead of his time in many ways, including as the recipient of one of the earliest ever colostomy operations, and his search for open doors led him to an investigation into early forms of African-American music. He was not unique in this: awareness of African-American music was part of the cultural repertoire of the Belle Epoque. The Fisk Jubilee Singers toured Europe in 1873 to wide acclaim and even got a gig performing to Queen Victoria, and Dvorak studied with Harry T Burleigh and, after the latter played him Go Down Moses, famously declared “Why, this is as great as a Beethoven theme!” Though the terms of Debussy’s engagement may now seem problematical (Golliwog’s Cakewalk contains a package of condescending attitudes along with its brilliant musicality), his desire to travel where he wished and search for new doors nonetheless instigated a dialogue between the worlds of classical and jazz that has continued, often uneasily, ever since.

Jazz, it is generally agreed, arose from a conjunction of folk and popular commercial forms. Early recordings from the likes of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith document how the syncopations and microtonal ambiguities of the blues were adapted to fit into the orderly front parlour of European musical theory, with regular bar lengths, theme-and-variations structure and tidy harmonic resolution. Dvorak responded to the melodic vitality of spirituals, and Debussy seems to have been most inspired by the rhythmic elements of ragtime: in return, jazz was to borrow from his harmonic innovations, but at a far slower pace. By the early 1930s, jazz bands were cautiously extending their major chords to include 6ths as sweetener: Artie Shaw added some chromatic bass to Nightmare and Django Reinhardt wrote a song called Nuages, (like Debussy), with all kinds of chromatic melody notes, diminished superimpositions, altered dominant substitutions and minor/major modulations, but these were already old hat by classical standards. Jazz harmony remained firmly wedded to the comforting resolution of the ii-V-I harmonic movement, a series of steps that lead inevitably towards a home tonality, like a train running towards its terminus. In fact, a comparison of pop composer Cole Porter’s original harmony for Love For Sale with the versions reproduced in the jazz fake books of the world’s jam sessions shows how Porter’s chords have been rationalised by successive generations of jazz players to conform more closely to the ii-V-I pattern.

This column has previously noted how conceptions of jazz have constantly oscillated between conformity and subversion, both socially and musically. Coleman Hawkins could combine earthy blues phrases and gestural smears with unstable extended chords borrowed from Ravel. Parker and Gillespie mixed dance band swing with the rhythmic innovations of Stravinsky. Duke Ellington embraced dissonance and politicised it as well, declaring “Dissonance is our way of life in America. We are something apart, yet an integral part.” Bill Evans borrowed from Debussy’s chords and Monk used his synthetic scales, yet as long as jazz remained tied to the Great American Songbook the ii-V-I remained as a default, tugging the harmony back towards the centre, no matter how much composers like John Coltrane might try to disguise it by piling substitution upon substitution.

In The Unbearable Lightness Of Being the jolly Czech chauvinist Milan Kundera compares diatonic harmony with hierarchical social structures through the metaphor of chess, the Tonic with the King. The ii-V-I survived the post-war social upheavals and even had a glorious Indian summer in the pop conformity of the 1950s, but as the 60s approached and social norms were loosened, musicians were increasingly chafing at its restrictive triteness: Frank Zappa was to refer to “that moron ii-V-I syndrome … the goddam jazz guys with their ii-V-I, the bottom line of straight white person music”. To many it seemed that Coltrane had reached the limit of adding more harmonic content; the only way to ‘travel where one wishes, to leave by any door’ was to go to the other extreme, and Miles Davis, inspired by the minimalist stylings of Ahmad Jamal, started experimenting with taking harmonic content out of the songs, removing chords, adding long, harmonically ambiguous vamps that didn’t resolve, paving the way for a disarticulation of harmony and eventually of rhythm and tone as well in the wilder reaches of the free scene. Is it just coincidence that the next generation of young musicians, as they abandoned jazz for the anything-goes world of 60s rock music, abandoned the ii-V-I as well?  Miles’ and Coltrane’s modal experiments were hugely influential on the Beatles and the Byrds – in return, by the 1970s Miles had abandoned functional harmony altogether.

This is of course a broad-brush analysis but compare the material in Herbie Hancock’s 1995 The New Standard album to any Songbook-based ‘standards’ trio (why not start with Keith Jarrett’s state-of-the-art statements which include many of the classics, up to and including Autumn Leaves) to see how comprehensively modern popular music has left functional harmony behind, and how much the mainstream of jazz language still relies on functional harmony as the backdrop against which it can exercise its personality. In pop music, despite the best attempts of such as Donald Fagen, the trend has been towards less chords, and weaker links between those chords: you will search in vain in the works of Max Martin for the cycle of 5ths progression or the considered use of modulation in the bridge. The decline of functional harmony has been linked to a general dumbing down of musical culture: less is just less. Do we agree?

The current musical landscape is certainly dominated by the monolithic likes of Drake’s Passion Fruit with its non-triadic arpeggios, or God’s Plan with its mistily ambiguous minor vamp. While re-workings of the Pachelbel’s canon progression still regularly crop up in the charts, its also true that the commercial public’s ears are far more attuned to minimalism and ambiguity than ever before. One might see this as resonant with a loss of certainty in existing hierarchic structures and an increasing tolerance for individualism and self-definition. Or maybe people are just too tired to take on the strident certainties of densely harmonic progression and just want to drift around in a tepid lake of ambient modality while they wait for their Uber Eats to arrive. But every action invites reaction, so let’s finish up with the prodigious talent that is Jacob Collier.

Music teachers around the world owe Collier an eternal debt of gratitude for making music theory not just accessible but actually fun, exciting and relevant. His instinctive feel for the new affordances of YouTube tech, combined with an enthusiasm as limitless as his musical understanding, have placed him at the forefront of a movement to return the content to music. In his acceptance speech at this year’s JazzFM awards he described how he would listen to pop radio as a child and hear extra notes in every chord: his mission now seems to be to play all those notes and share the results on socials. His latest offering is a reworking of Lionel Richie’s evergreen party favourite, All Night Long. The harmony is thoroughly enriched with substituted and added chords and daring modulations, but that’s just the beginning. How did Lionel’s original ever manage to capture our attention without a full orchestral arrangement, a six-piece vocal choir, a hip hop breakdown, Jackson Five quotes, an audience participation section, a modern jazz-fusion piano solo, multiple re-harmonised breakdowns and a full samba percussion team? How hungry for extra content are we, and how much extra content can a song take before it splits open at the seams?

There is indeed a season for everything. Artistic process is both noble and fascinating in its own right, and music is a finely developed art form, but more content doesn’t always equate with more communication and after seven minutes of Collier’s exuberant virtuosity I feel the need to lie down in a darkened room with some Morton Gould. Jazz borrows from all forms and its endless flexibility enables it to tread the line between complexity and simplicity as it continues to travel freely, to seek new doors.

Bees Mouth - January 2020

Jan 27th

How will YOU be spending your last ever Euro-Monday? Will you weep and rend your garment? Will you gird yourself with sackcloth like Ahab, will you eat ashes like bread and mingle your drink with weeping, and sew sackcloth upon your skin, and defile your horn in the dust? Or will you just sit down like a boss with Julia Hartley Brewer and a big pile of 50p bits? Let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH establish a special relationship between you and the good times and open up meaningful negotiations on a big, a very big, a massive deal of cool grooves and hot licks, all freely and fairly traded tariff-free by those masters of positive international relations known to all as Luke “The Wealth Of Nations” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Theory Of Moral Sentiments” Thomas (drms), as they cook up a heart-warming brew of jazz-to-blues-tobop-to-whatever, facilitated in some subaltern fashion by me on bass.. if your skrrt is turned to hurt and all your hopes seem to be chlorine-washed, don’t despair, don’t turn your back on Love, Sailor Ripley, just grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us… the Bee’s team will be in attendance, waiting in all their gothic majesty to pour you a libation of the finest liquors known to man, the nameless creatures of the night will be welcoming you from their stations on the dripping pavements outside, and who knows what special guests may blow in out of the chartered streets to do their thing… don’t give in to the overwhelm, be yourself, be extra, it’s not the end or the beginning, just ask Heraclitus, and then come and join us, join us, it’s a good life if you don’t weaken.

Jan 20th

Ploughing doughtily through January is such a chore innit? Are you keeping on top of your socials, are you pining for the holiday Tui are tempting you with but you can’t really afford, are you considering stepping back from your job, your family, your moral compass, your New year resolutions, your temporary teetotalling and your voluntary veganity? JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH can be a pilot through the wintry narrows, avoiding the reefs and the shallows and seeing you safe to the calm deep waters and fair winds that surely await beyond the blighted headlands, cos we’ll have your captains Luke “The Argonaut” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Poseidon Of Pivot Tables” Thomas (drms) whipping up a maelstrom of hot licks and cool grooves to spin you around and send you back on course, aided to some degree by me on bass, as the Bee’s team wait, poised in their gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, and we stand by for a piratical crew of special guests to scramble over the scuppers and get involved … what strange shores await us? What silent beaches, what resounding coves, what disappointing mudflats will we encounter on our ineluctable voyage? Will “Piggsy” Francois get the bongs he craves with every fibre of his shiny pink flesh, will Elon move us all to Mars as his robot spies block out the starlight, will RLB mug off Kier n’ Jess on Labour’s Love Island, what hastily confected tissue of tendentious tosspottery wiill Bozza and his busy little crew of goblins, gremlins and smirking gorgons come up with for us all? Let us fortify you agains the coming storm…… Little Birds, Gingerbread boys and Minors all welcome, come down and have a blow, what’s to lose?

Jan 13th

What can we learn from our elected leaders and their inspiring capacity to govern and holiday simultaneously?… the Orange Trumpkin ordering a hit poolside at Mar-A-Lago, Bozza phoning it in from Mustique, Scotty From Marketing garlanded with lei in Hawaii before the FOMO kicked in and he mooched back to smell the smoke… actually, screw those guys, they couldn’t make it at JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH, as they lack the necessary moral fibre and the ready grasp of symmetry and geometry so apparent in those paragons of post-bop known in this episode as Luke “Uptown Top Rankin’ Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Pass The Boof” Thomas (drms) … come fight your way through the boringly inhospitable and ludicrously named Storm Brendan and marvel as our heroes create their own micro-climate of hot licks and cool grooves, aided in some undecipherable fashion by me on bass, as the tattooed nephilim of the Bee’s team wait, brooding in their gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, to pour you a refreshing libation, and the night air outside is alive with the cries of the lost and the hopeful… time to make like Megs n’ Hazz and consciously uncouple from all the boring breadhead hassle, so come all you angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, don’t sit at home getting your data scraped, gather ye lolcats while ye may, grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us, times a-passing, seize the day, seize it.

Jan 6th

So you’ve completed and posted your ‘2019 Summary’ of all the places you’ve been, people you’ve seen, all your hangs and life goals and relationship goals and relationship life goals, perfect beaches, avocado breakfasts and hottest licks… now all that’s left to you is the inevitable hideous crashing disappointment, the freezing darkness and time for work… but wait! JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is back, surging ahead into the new shiny double-20 decade, all set to remind you of all the best bits of 2019 and scrub your frontal lobes free of any remaining negative trails from all the terrible things that happened, and prepare you to face Fortuna’s crazily spinning wheel with the fortitude of Boethius and the wisdom of Hroswitha, cos we’ve got man like Luke “Din Djarin” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘The Child” Thomas (drms) still here, bloody but still unbowed and unconquered, all set to keep bringing the fyah and the selection of hot licks and cool grooves to tide you over til the green shoots take a chance on it, plus I’ll be doing whateves on bass and the peerless Bee’s team will be parading their Gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar…. outside in the cold hard world, the leadership candidates are stirring, R L-B is standing in front of a mirror trying to come into focus, Kier is trying to be the best Kier ever, Jess is hoping not to get cancelled, while far away the world is burning, overhead the drones are humming, all kinds of bad things, bad things… don’t let em grind you down, it ain’t over til it’s over, so grab your axe down off the shelf, come along and we’ll get into something. 

Bees Mouth - December 2019

Dec 30th

So Fortuna’s wheel gets ready to spin again, dear friends, and as Venus lights up beneath the crescent moon high above the soughing ocean’s breath, let’s have one last throw of the dice before we all rush out to debase ourselves to various degrees, get mash up and then enter our own Period Of Reflection where we meditate on the decade’s ever-expanding clustef*ck…let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH set you up to mark the 20-teens passing with style and grace, symmetry and geometry, or at least a stab at stoicism in the face of the grinning vampire on the New Year's Dishonour list and other manifestations of the endless procession of unredeemable howling idiocy trickling down your newsfeed as your busy little thumbs scroll, scroll, scroll into the future… those paragons of creativity Luke “We Are The Generals” Rattenbury (gtr) and Special Guest Angus “Vybez Cartel” Bishop (drms) will be laying down a broad gleaming highway into tomorrow, paved with hot licks and cool grooves, I’ll be doing whatevs on bass, the Bee’s team will be waiting in their sculptured gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, and you really should grab at this last chance of the decade to bring your axe down from off the shelf and come and sit in with us… outside in the streets the population will pass, the hollow men leaning together, the hopeful and the lost, mandems and Mandalorians, the winners and those who only managed to win the argument, the beautiful and the damned, the beloved and the unelectable, while the chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings… if you feel the hot beat of the future’s breath upon you, if you did not think that death had undone so many, if you hanker for the rose of many leaves, the voice you left behind, the memory of the roseate dawn ebbing from your poor mortal mind’s eye, if the invisible worm has found out your bed of crimson joy, or if you just need to get out of the house and escape the normative seasonal hegemony for a precious hour, then come join us, join us… Love is shining Life is thriving in the good life Good life Good life Good life Good life Good life.

Dec 23rd

Just one more push before the Great Seasonal Hiatus when all are encouraged to disengage from the relentless digitally mediated hyperreality of post-industrial late-stage transnational neoliberal consumer capitalism and cosy back up to some old-fashioned values, like carb-heavy carnivorous gluttony, daytime drinking and actively engaging with the loved humans in ur life.. JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is here for one last pre-festive charge, as the city’s bar staff pause momentarily, before the onslaught of suits on coke and dysfunctional works dos is resumed on NYE, as the welcoming smiles of the woke girls in Lush Cosmetics are stretched to breaking point amidst the throng of seekers for some scented token of whatever they were hoping to convey to their loved one in the last seconds before the darkness closes in, and as Australia burns in the faraway distance as a warning to the unwary…. we’ll have Luke ‘Bedford Falls’ Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘Gremlins 2” Thomas (drms) unpacking a seasonal hamper of hot licks and cool grooves and decking the halls with a multicoloured tapestry of blues-to-bop-to-swing-to-whatever, I’ll be doing something or other on bass, legend of the conga drum Will ‘Nice Guy’ Fry may be along to rattle the holy skins, the Bee’s team will be flaunting their gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, all manner of guests may enter through the magic portal to contribute the last of the year’s melodies, symmetry and geometry will be present and all will be well …. come all ye Karens, gammons, boomers and coomers, e bois and VSCO girls, gamers, shamers, incels and outcels, leave the post-election dissection alone for an evening and get along to where it’s at… all are welcome, let’s be excellent to each other…

Dec 16th

So now the dust has settled, the virtuously Insta’d canvassing is over, the re-posting of twitter feeds and links to interesting polls that support your analysis is starting to lose its heady excitement, the unfriending of people you never ‘liked’ anyway is complete …. where to regroup, rediscover your inner equilibrium, get back in touch with your own bad self and get back on the good foot? Why, JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH of course, where we’ll be celebrating the enduring continuity of good things and flicking V signs at bad things thanks to those Successfully Held Key Marginals of music Luke “Red Wall” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Withdrawal Agreement” Thomas (drms) as they get properly stuck in to creating a beautiful whirlwind of hot licks and cool grooves for you to get caught up in and whisked away far far far across the rooftops til you’re not in Kansas any more…. I’ll be there by me on bass, so will the the Bee’s team as they parade their gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, plus whatever creatures of the night may drop in to grace us with their ethereal presence…. so what if the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned, the best lack all conviction, while the worst  

are full of passionate intensity and hedged about with astroturfing bots from another evil dimension?… pull yourself out of the virtual one-dimensional monoverse of antisocial media for an evening and come and refresh yourself with some non-partisan good vibes irl. Trad voters, squeezed middles, disenfranchised youth all welcome - lying liars and their lying lies and attendant bots definitely not.

Dec 2nd

Alas for the carefree days of carbon-enhanced endless summer, when possibilities seemed to lie before us like a land of dreams, when your targeted adfeed offered you more than a choice between wounded nobility, brazen mendacity or a selection of inconsequential wierdos to lead us out of this slough of boring despond… cut that mopey sh*t right out of your life and let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH put the zing back in your paleo smoothie and iron the kinks out of your poor crumpled mojo cos we’ll be right here irl delivering a 100% fact checked broadcast of hot licks and cool swing thanks to those titans of bop-to-blues-to-groove-to-whatever known throughout the gratefully enfranchised electorate as Luke “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Cash Is King” Thomas (drms)…. I’ll be doing whateves on bass as per, the incorruptible Captain Jack Rowan will be overseeing the dispensation of healing liquors, the nameless creatures of the night will be shuffling past upon their nameless errands and the young, the hopeful and the beautiful will be forging their way along the icy greasy pavements into the future, while we build a shelter against the typhoon of unforgiveable patronising toxic bullsh*t streaming forth from the numb panic stricken lips of our semi-elected leaders … out beyond the sodium glare, where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, beyond the pitiful tents on the lawn, the pebbles’ grating roar and the eternal note of sadness, the silent void between the stars is waiting for us all, so forget for a moment their attempts to co-opt your precious intelligence, never mind the bollocks, grab your narwhal tusk from off the wall and come and join us, what else can we do?

Bees Mouth - November 2019

Nov 25th

As the darkness gathers, the rain drives in over the sea, your tethered device lights up hot with the rising tide of angry political shitposting, what’s your take as we swoop in towards the big reveal? Is Jezza gonna sell on his promised hot girl summer of jam for all, or will Bozza’s blustering sweep us away in a hot tide of rancid eructations? JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH may not have the answers you are looking for but neither does anyone else so you’d better squeeze into your galoshes, put on your best face and get on down and join us as we celebrate life thanks to the tireless musical ministrations of man like Luke “Don Gorgon” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Spreadsheet Shotta” Thomas (drms) laying out a magic carpet of hot licks and cool grooves for you to ride away on far far far above the tiny little squishy figures of your quotidian concerns... there will be honoured special guests blowing in upon the winds of change to grace us with the fruits of their creativity, I’ll be doing whatevs on bass, the dauntless Bee’s Team will be hovering in the velvet shadows behind the well-stocked bar, and the procession of humanity, so various, so beautiful and new, will be making their way through the slippery streets …. who will come in through the misleadingly aligned portal? Angry boomers, haggard coomers, disappointed VSCO girls, 50,000 imaginary nurses, the self partnered and the inextricably connected, Undines and hyacinth girls, wastemen and wreckheads, strivers and ordinary working stiffs, all are welcome, so come and join us and we’ll make you glad you did.

Nov 18th

Hey! We all know it's tough out there.. one minute everything seems just peachy, you’re dancing the night away in Bouji’s to the sweet sweet sounds of Armand Van Helden, the next you’re been cast aside like some gremlin, you’re sweating profusely into your pizza, Fortuna’s wheel has swung and you’re cast into the outer blackness, a hideous realm of arid nothingness populated by the shrill ghosts of the lost, the lonely and Change UK… but wait! JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is on hand to offer the sleepless in Woking some shelter from the coming storm, an oasis of positive vibrations where you can revive your poor saggy kundalini by taking deep healing draughts from the bottomless well of cool grooves and hot licks embodied on this octave by the spiritual vessels known to man as Luke “BoomShanka” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “BoomShakalaka” Thomas (drms) plus earthly assistance from me on bass, while the fearless gothic masters of the Bee’s Team hover, shimmering, in the velvet darkness behind the well-stocked bar, waiting to anticipate your material needs and slake your inner thirst with the finest liquors known to humanity.. so what if the river’s tent is broken, the last fingers of leaf clutch and sink into the wet bank, the wind crosses the brown land, unheard, and the nymphs are departed? Don’t let the wasteman get you down, don’t be downhearted, be of good cheer, Patience Strong, come and join us and we’ll armour ourselves, we’ll build a boat together against the coming tide.

Nov 11th

Only 31 more thrill-filled days to go before this year’s bumper size family fun polling day offers minutes of endless fun to the grateful nation as they pointedly exercise their democratic franchise in some draughty primary school hall under the reproachful gaze of year 3’s animal project artwork, before returning to their chartered homes to compose a really stinging fb post about it all … JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEES’ MOUTH will provide a much needed antidote to the dreary heckles, endless statistically compromised polling, gifs of Toady Nigel and his cranky crew of hedge-dwellers, Boris flinging different coloured wreaths about in a Brexitty frenzy, Jezza looking noble and wounded, Jo Swinson like a pushy school mum trying to muscle in on the Summer Fair committee after one tin of G & T too many, the frantic opportunistic jockeying around the Celtic fringe, and all the other sagging rusty panoply of our great democracy in the exercise of its most sacred rite… this very evening we’ll be unleashing the power that lurks within man like Luke “Love Bomb” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Time Bomb” Thomas (drms) as they lay out a life-affirming display of hot licks and cool grooves, aided in some fashion by me on bass, while the fearless Captain Jack Rowan and his doughty team prepare to repel boarders and a host of exotic special guests throng the companionways, shaking their tawny manes and clacking their brazen claws, and the air is thick with the heady scents of the spices of the isles and the intoxicating effloresence of distant, sybaritic sunkissed shores…. you could stay in knitting your own boomer vs millennial memes, or trying to deceive your fitbit, or trying to remember where you put your bitcoin, but don’t, don’t do that, come and join us, it’s time.

Nov 4th

The streets were alive with the shrieks of a thousand sexy vampires, the sullen mumble of teenagers in Purge masks, precocious Hanover kids dressed to express their parents’ political prejudices, incomprehensible video-game themed tweens enjoying their last sugar rush before they move up to Year 8 and the hard stuff.. now the vampires are sad, their greasepaint is gone but no amount of Nivea can remove the stain of remorse from their hearts, and JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is here yet again regular as the spin of merciless fortuna’s wheel to cheer everyone up as we all bump down from a high of inhibition-busting adult dressing up fun and down down down to the dreary reality of five weeks of a torrent of electioneering socials on your feed, the gruesome zombies of a million bitterly unresolved fb arguments about Jezza rearing their ugly heads yet again and Farages' froggy jowls quivering back onto your neglected tv, plus the sneaking suspicion that you’ve been pyschographically targeted by Russian bots based on an assessment of all your most boring charateristics and maybe that’s just who you really are…. a murrain upon the lot of em, cos we’ll have man like Luke “Don Gorgon” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Tunguska Event” Thomas (drms) raising the vibe and setting the night on fire with their customary outpourings of 100% proof swing-to-bop-to-blues-to-whatever, as I do whatevs on bass in the corner by the door, the peerless ascended beings of the Bee’s team wait, smiling enigmatically, from the scented shadows, and whatever honoured guests drop in from the cold steaming kebab scented darkness… Pump up the jam, pump it up, while you feet are stompin’, and the jam is pumpin’, look at here the crowd is jumpin’…. come and join us, make your day, make your day.

Bees Mouth - October 2019

October 28

So it’s Halloween No-Go for Bobo, and we’re all shuffling our wheely cases on the travelator to the shadow realm, down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, between the musty napthalene smelling coats deeper into the wardrobe and whatever doom awaits .. if ‘dead in a ditch’ can also mean ‘leading us all to glory’ then it’s probably time for you to reinvent yourself as well, and JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH can provide the perfect portal to interface at 5g speeds with the new you, while flocks of imaginary birds fall stunned around your feet, as you can let slip your inhibitions and expand your persona like a billowing cloud of sparkly radiant gas thanks to the mighty sounds emanating from those regents of re-invention Luke “The Hood” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Voice Of The Mysterons” Thomas (drms) as they create a shimmering lattice of musical possibilities to hang momentarily in the air before bursting into a bazillion brightly coloured stars before your poor overstrained eyes… I’ll be doing whatevs as per on bass, the Bee’s Team will be standing by to guide you on your journey towards the new you, sundry honoured guests may materialise out of the ether at your startled elbow, so don’t just sit there glued to your chartered twitter feed watching the Lib Dems start to shapeshift clumsily like Terminator-2 era CGI, or try to shut your eyes and just believe in Strictly, or wait for nuclear fusion to save us all, save us all, or shoot down into your very own Fortnite black hole, while Keith Vaz searches Checkatrade again with tears in his eyes and somewhere out in the cyberverse the busy little bots scurry on their unknowable missions sorting, sorting, sorting you and me and everyone and everything we know… time to spin Fortuna’s wheel, restore some symmetry and geometry to your daily round, shed the old skin, move closer baby…

October 21

If the first time is tragedy and the second is farce, where are we now? The tide of history swells and recedes, leaving the usual manky detritus, beached cetaceans, fragments of broken dreams and promises, waterlogged ineffective petitions, dead jellyfish that look like Mr Gove, bits of rancid old shit, all getting underfoot and messing with your vibe… let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH be your portal through the new reality that’s trembling, immanent, behind the quotidian, the chartered high streets with their sullen queues, the parks with their desperate military fitness grunts and their Tik Tok girls, the alarm’s dread summons in the black morning, the school run and Getting Breakfast Done, the traffic on the clogged greasy ring road on your way to whatever you have to do to keep the wheels turning, all steps leading us towards the destiny that will be unleashed in a torrent of non-biodegradable plastic tat as the darkness of Samhain swells to envelop us all…get ready for whatever cavalcade of poltroonery is about to unfold by soaking yourself in the pure positive vibrations emanating from Luke “SattaMassagana” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Terminator 2” Thomas (drms) as they weave a magical web out of hot licks and cool grooves to keep that darkness at bay, aided in some fashion by me on bass, while the unflappable gilded creatures of the Bee’s team wait, pulsating imperceptibly, in the velvet darkness behind the well-stocked bar, various guests shimmy in out of the nebulous dampness, and we bind together before the coming storm…satire may be dead as the nation stare fixated at the Mother Of Parliaments reeling about like a straggler from a particularly brutal hen night outside Pryzm at 4am, but it’s not over yet, not by a long shot, so let’s have ourselves a time, it’s all to play for.

October 14

Ploughing your way through the mediatized thickets of modernity has never been so tough - will you keep clocking in like a good lil elf, will you superglue yourself to the railings of your convictions, will you double down on your own Reddit derived wall of shouty psychic defences and hope the big lie will see you alright? Grim all over innit.. but wait! JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is back, like an oasis of green pastures in the parched shimmering desert of hyperreality… where the ibis clacks its beak, the shy gazelle dips its head, and man like bronzed gods of rhythm Luke ‘Thoth’ Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘Trouble Man” Thomas (drms) get real and lay out a verdant thicket of hot licks and cool grooves for you to get lost in from your own over-stimulated self, plus me doing whatevs on bass, the interdimensional Bee’s team making readiy with the quality liquors, and a host of special guests dropping by and flexing.. as the frame rate speeds up and up, as we all prepare to dive into The Tunnel, as things fall apart and the centre doesn’t hold, as our political class runs screaming through the aisles of their own horrorshow ideological Supermarket Sweep without even a Rylan to guide em while Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel smirks like a school bully and the storm clouds gather over the smashed up play equipment in our poor underfunded playground, don’t let the endless pissing rain get to you, we’ve got space for you all, even the hemp smelling un-cooperative ones… everybody huddle together and repeat, ‘it is what it is, it is what it is, it is what it is’…… come join us, we’ll build a wall against the rising tide.

Old and New Dreams

As festival season proceeds regardless of the changeable weather, leading us damply but surely towards the autumn touring and album release schedule, when new releases drop as swiftly as autumn leaves, the protean artform known as jazz continues to attract media attention, holding out the possibility that some of the online verbiage will  translate into bigger crowds, higher sales and even, eventually, taxable income for the diligent practitioners. Festivals like We Out Here in Cambridgeshire and Brainfeeder and Love Supreme in Sussex are providing platforms for new UK artists to connect with new audiences, while labels like Ubuntu and Whirlwind keep up a breathless release schedule of new material. At the same time, the persistence and profitability of reissue culture keeps the Amazon deliverymen busy; labels like Avid can take advantage of  EU copyright legislation to issue cheap ‘Five Classic Album’ sets by Golden Age giants as the rights to the masters lapse, while Jazz Images exploit the same rich seam, mixing and matching material to sometimes uncertain advantage. Hot on the heels of the  rediscovery of Coltrane’s missing Impulse sessions, the release of which as ‘Both Directions At Once’ actually propelled Mr C into the UK album charts for the first time (delicious irony), we are promised another ‘lost’ album, comprising recordings made by the classic quartet in the run-up to the Love Supreme sessions for a Canadian documentary soundtrack, now to be made available under the title ‘Blue World’; meanwhile, and more controversially, some of Miles’ uncompleted early sessions for Warner have been revived, decades after both creator and label abandoned them, to be issued by Rhino records as ‘Rubberband’. Meanwhile the growing appreciation of 1960s UK jazz talent  received a major boost as the spotlight shone on one of the scene’s prime movers: thanks in no small part to the tireless championing of the indefatigably multi-tasking tenor supremo Simon Spillet, Tubby Hayes’ legacy was enriched by the release of his own lost album (featuring our own local drum legend Spike Wells) plus a beautifully presented and  fabulously expensive 11 LP box set of his entire output for Fontana. How exciting to hear that Mr Spillet has been invited to appear at the Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival over four days this autumn, fronting an American big band playing the music of Tubby Hayes - an accolade richly deserved by both. 

The mining of jazz’s legacy continues to bring new treasures to the surface, to the benefit of aficionados, entrepreneurs and, one hopes, the artists themselves; but are the voices of new artists at risk of being drowned out by the continuing chorus of wonderful music echoing ever louder from the music’s past? ‘Kind Of Blue’ is reported to still be selling 5000 copies a week, while sales figures of 500 in a week are above average for a new jazz release, and rare indeed for a new UK jazz release. The growth of streaming continues to change the way that music is consumed, and this column has already discussed the way that jazz artists have often been ill-served by the change as the revenue from streaming is often inadequate to compensate for the fall in those hitherto all-important CD sales at gigs. Yet the news is not all bad, as a couple of examples illustrate. In their capacity as a label, multi-tasking new-jazz svengalis Jazz Re:freshed were able to capitalise on the media attention around Nubya Garcia, and their own understanding of the fan demographic for the scene she’s been chosen to figurehead, and by presenting her debut album on vinyl they’ve managed to sell out two pressings; now the reissue on CD has sold out as well. Meanwhile young traditionalist Gabriel Latchin has scored over two and a half million Spotify streams of his recording of  Polka Dots And Moonbeams via the ‘Coffee Table Jazz’  playlist. Is it unfair to suggest that jazz artists are more than usually susceptible to adopting an attitude of cynical fatalism towards the business, when a willingness to investigate new models of monetisation might serve them better? 

With this in mind, let’s turn the focus onto the way that UK jazz is making its way though the hazardous waters between the Scylla of media incomprehension and the Charybdis of audience apathy. This column started, believe it or not, in 2013, and ever since then we’ve been privileged to documented the genuine flourishing of a scene of young players, largely but by no means exclusively London based, who have worked to carve out a distinctive take on the jazz tradition, and whose freshness, energy and personal charisma has been rewarded with a great deal of media attention and a dedicated and youthful fanbase. The scene has been supported by media and industry alike (our New Generation Jazz program, with the generous support of the Arts Council, has played its own small part), and this has, alas, not been uniformly appreciated. As in Newtonian physics, so in the music biz; every action sets up an inevitable reaction, and there have been muted but persistent voices from within the community claiming that the spotlight that has shone so brightly on some artists has cast others, more musically deserving but less charismatic or sellable, into the shadows. Of course, the music biz is never just about music, and culture is about more than the execution of art. For jazz to appeal beyond its loyal core following of mature connoisseurs into a broader, younger, more diverse demographic, it needs to be populated with characters that reflect that demographic. As a result, some players may be foregrounded before their  talents are fully developed, but let us remember that jazz is a long game and that posterity will be the judge. Much of the initial excitement around what we’ll call the New London scene was generated before there was much in the way of recorded material or audience figures beyond the artist’s own manor - how is the scene delivering on its promise? 

Promoters and live agents certainly have much to celebrate. To pick a few examples, Shabaka Hutching’s Sons Of Kemet, Joe Armon Jones and New Cross collective Steam Down have been tearing it up on the UK festival circuit, crossing over into the greenfield boutique market to take their place alongside the spectrum of contemporary UK styles from dance to indie rock; Ezra Collective move from West Holts stage at Glastonbury to headline at Camden’s legendary Roundhouse; Nubya is touring Europe, and a select group of these players can now reliably sell out mid-size club venues across Europe. On the recording front, Cassie Kinoshi’s Seed Ensemble have made the Mercury shortlist with their debut; Ashley Henry’s upcoming Sony release features guest slots from Keyon Harrold and Makaya McCraven.

The signs certainly seem propitious - but readers with long memories will be aware that this is by no means the first promised UK jazz revival. How representative are this small group of players of the UK scene as a whole, how can we place them within the UK jazz tradition past and present? Please accept our invitation to return for next month’s column, where we’ll attempt a coherent examination of those questions.

Bees Mouth - September 2019

September 30

So here you are, some kinda non-gendered big-time Charlie Cheesecake, cutting big deals, reaching for the top, living your best life, every day FTW, a gracious Like for your fans, a curt Get Rekt M8 for your enemies, a swift Unfollow for the hollow husks of those who no longer have anything to offer… it’s a winner takes all world, and the politics of envy are just for the losers, and a Significant Response is all you need … Listen, JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH doesn’t care for your overweening pride nor your shallow pomp, but when the sudden shadows fall across your endangered hardwood decking, when your Beemer falters inexplicably at the lights at a crossroads on the wrong side of town, when your well-groomed reflection in the mirror seems blurry and indistinct, the reception leaches out of your iPhone 11 and leaves it just an inert slab of blood-soaked Coltan, the chill fingers of mortality pluck your skin into gooseflesh that no Spa facility will ever soothe, the aircon in the Executive Lounge suddenly whispers a memento mori into your stupid ear…. when your senses awaken to the planet’s shift away from the sun, the wind rising over the bitter surf, the furtive scraping behind the walls in the small hours, the rot in the apple and the rust on the beam, then you can always come on down and join us as we smash out another celebration of cool grooves hot licks and good vibes thanks to the tireless ministrations of man like Luke “The General” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Ourobouros” Thomas (drms) plus me doing whatevs on bass, and Fortuna’s latest assortment of whatever guests may come in out of the turbulent night to join us… let Bozza huff and puff his duplicitous humbuggery to his desperate disciples, let the Mother of Parliaments collapse in hot flushes, let all kinds of idiocy run unchecked through the chartered streets, we’ll be there doing our thing, come and join us, hang up your hang ups and get on the good foot, let symmetry and geometry be our watchwords, nothing less will do.

September 23rd

Here we go again… the greasy equinoctial streets resound to the cries of freshers hungry for knowledge and 2-for-1 shots of the most diabolical tequila known to humanity, eager to discard their inhibitions, their virginity and their dignity on the threshold of Casablancas, while Labour hosts its annual trade fair of optimism and disintegration in the grotty environs of the Centre, mixing their tremulous cadences with shingle’s grating roar.. JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is here to offer succour to the weary, comfort to the bewildered, hope to the terminally discouraged, and welcome relief to those unhappy wretches employed as politicians or teachers, compelled to strut and fret for their allotted slots until breaktime comes, perhaps this time for ever… we’ll be riding high on a magic carpet of good vibes skilfully woven together just for you by man like Luke “On The Corner” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Live/Evil” Thomas (drms) out of pure 100% uncut blues-to-bop-to-swing-to-whatever, aided in some manner by me on bass, plus non-factional interventions from whatever surprise guests may blow in on the un-nervingly warm night air, shaking their golden horns ’n stomping their brazen hooves, along with the pleading-eyed activists, placard-carrying schoolkids saving the future by playing hooky, Mercury nominees toting their severed heads, bad boys with their tasty burgers, and whoever else shakes off the shackles of the quotidian to come and join us… as our barely elected leaders slough off their skins to reveal themselves as the sinister bungling trolls we all knew they were, as the planet leans in towards the season, Len Mcluskey peels himself another grape and Porky Cameron slouches weeping through the streets of Chipping Norton clad in Savil Row sackcloth, we’ll be having ourselves a time …. don’t stay grounded like a package holiday pensioner, repatriate yourself back to the good times, good times, good times, we’ll be here and so should you.

September 16

Well, here we all are still, despite everything - as you edge ever closer to the event horizon sketched out by that nice Dr Cox with his laser pointer, ready to hurtle over towards the personalised singularity that’s waiting for each one of us, like the Door to The Law guarded by your own private security solutions operative, what will go through your about-to-be-spaghettified mind? “Should have gone to JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH”, before your timespace matrix warps beyond the comprehension of your distantly remembered physics lessons, before the glimpse of the radiance glowing inextinguishably from the Door shuts off as the doorman gently closes it, before your bad self goes supernova and rejoins the subatomic boogie? If that’s the case, then rejoice, cos it’s Monday and it’s something you can actually fix, right out here in meatspace where things still happen… just slurp down a nourishing beaker of Huel, put on your facial-ID-shunning facewear and this season’s creps and hit the pavements, where the hushed expectant stillness of summer’s end lies behind the city’s grotty soundscape, cos we’ll be here, kicking out the jams with man like Luke “Cyborg” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “I’ll be Back” Thomas (drms), spinning another musical web to dazzle and delight with the customary mix of bop-to-blues-to-swing-to-whatever to make you forget and make you remember … forget The Incredible Sulk’s gibbering bluster as the Queen licks her eyeballs with a foot-long tongue, the dreariest of nazis gets out of jail disguised as a hipster, Labour still tries to pick up the bag of marbles they dropped all over the floor in 2015, the Lib Dems go too far as usual like the try-hards they are, the spiders get busy in Westminster and everyone bends their energies to throwing shade as the temperature rises and all manner of indignities are heaped upon every aspect our human realm, but remember the warm wind blowing in from the surf, the voice of the nightingale hidden in the dusky glade, the voices calling from across the park, from the end of the path, from home.. it ain’t over til it’s over, and it’s not over, so what are you waiting for?

September 9

What an absolute shower,eh? Parliament packs its toothbrush and Bozza crouches gasping against the toilet door as the cold sweat trickles down his soggy collar, Bolsonaro lights another Players No 6 with a fistful of $100 notes, Dominic Cummings cracks his knuckles and chitters like a cartoon goblin, the Trumpkin puffs and blows like a grampus in a bath of melting ice cubes and scribbles marker pen over his own face… screw those guys, right? JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is here once again as the earth’s axis shifts, the mackerel swarm in the greasy sea, the Ace cafe bikers’ rotund leather-clad figures recede into the petrol smelling distance, the swifts crowd the lines on their way back to distant climes, and we have the consolations of symmetry and geometry on offer thanks to the talents of special guest Al “Crazy Eyes Killa” Scott on the keyboards and regular maverick gunslinger Loz “True Grit” Thomas (drms), both of em primed and ready to run all traces of negativity out of town with their sureshooting hot licks and cool grooves, and to totally drown out the frantic hooting and gibbering of our elected and unelected leaders with their brave torrent of blues-to-bop-to-groove-to-whatever, aided in some fashion by me on bass, and whatever guests we may discover poised in the velvet twilight with their golden horns gleaming and their teeth shining like garnets … don’t be sad for Johnny Bercow, he’s all right, don’t sit at home trying to believe in Strictly, or panic buying on Amazon with your Bitcoin, don’t let em grind you down, we’ll be out here doing our thing so come join us, make like Tay Tay and shake it out, that’ll show em.

September 2

Hey! How’s it going? How was Boomtown/Cornwall/Ko Phi Le/Your Tantric retreat? Kids back in school yet? Or are you just feeling, a bit, y’know, like the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned, like tiny sad kittens in a rusty Brexit bucket? Does the return of Naked Attraction to the terrestrial networks seem the herald the End Times, are you waiting for Bozza’s skanky cabinet to announce the Rapture? JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is here to steady your hand and stiffen your resolve by putting you back in touch with the eternal verities of hot licks and cool grooves, supplied by those inexhaustible fountainheads of bop-to-blues-to-swing-to-whatever known on this octave as Luke “Hidden Dragon” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Crouching Tiger” Thomas (drms) as they lay out enough of the good stuff to build a wall against despair and a redoubt against ill counsels, aided by me on bass, and joined by a smiling host of special guests ready to adorn the gilded halls of their musical creation… if the sudden cultural diversity upon Hove Lawns stretches your self-esteem, if you can’t tell your elephant traps from your pigs in pokes in the melee of metaphorical fauna encumbering our public sphere, if the world seems divided between Gemma Collins and Dom 'Laughing Boy' Cummings with no room for the squeezed middle, if autumn’s sere breath seems to lurk beneath the quickening zephyrs of summer’s end, if you suddenly feel old and alone, if it really appears as though the world, which seemed to lie before us like a land of dreams, really hath neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain, then get on the good foot and come and join us, join us, time’s getting on, they haven’t got us yet.

Bees Mouth - August 2019

August 26th

August beach delight!
Body red - your lager drunk
Where now? No tear-ups please.

August 19

Hey! Welcome back! Good holiday, yeah? Superchillaxed boutique Air B n’ B Sunday supplement pastel coloured Havaianas small batch artisanal G&T sun sea sand innit? But … what have you come back to? What kind of horrorshow hot mess is this? Bozza and his band of shrieking goblins spinning thru the sunny skies on a cloud made of pure evil, while the rest of our elected representatives line up to give each other wedgies? Let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH come riding to the rescue, as you gape openmouthed in your stupid holiday shirt while your inflatable flamingo slowly expires like your pitiful dreams, your Lei suddenly turns brown and withers like your capacity for optimism, and the sand trickles from the pockets of your tattered cut-offs with painfully obvious metaphorical intent, for while the forces of disorder run amok across the land smiting at will with no regard for symmetry or geometry, we will be marshalling the awesome powers of Luke “Birthday” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Castle Grayskull” Thomas (drms) to keep the darkness at bay for a little longer with a heady dose of top-quality unchlorinated hormone-free swing-to-blues-to-bop-to-whatever, aided by me on bass, plus surprise guests, and the peerless denizens of the wood between the worlds who manifest at this octave as the Bee’s team under the leadership of Capn’ Jack Rowan will be standing by with generous libations of the finest liquors known to humanity… come and cut a series of brilliant trade deals with your own better side, end the freedom of movement of negative vibrations into your precious domain, give optimism a good name again, rock it like Peggy Gou or Mtislav Rostropovich, be free, be yourself, be free to do what you want to do. Cleanliness and valour will be our watchwords, for nothing less will get us past the armed sentry and over the mountainous border.