Tag: Devil's doorbell

Tastebud Heaven on the Canal; Sunday Lunch at The Water Gypsy

If options for urbanites seeking experiential or themed dining experiences are boundless, they’re lesser so in our rural backwaters. Yet, we’ve returned from a delicious and most memorable Sunday lunch at The Water Gypsy, a working longboat pop-up licensed restaurant cruising the Kennet & Avon Canal; it’s the unique and enjoyable experience you really need to sample for yourself…..

In order to do so you can either check their website or social media for availability and mooring in your area, as they stop at various locations throughout the summer, autumn and Christmas season…. but chase them up and book you must! This spring season has started their third year, and its popularity is such it gets booked quickly. Until your lucky occasion, I can only try to express in words just how scrumptious and wonderful our experience of it was, and boy, it was!

Drawn to The Shed at Dulwich social experiment, where pranksters tricked TripAdvisor into ranking their shed #1 restaurant in London, to the “middle age” scene in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, where Idle and Jones play an American couple dining in a torture chamber, some quirky dining enterprises can be unnecessarily extreme, some exploit desire to discover unique dining experiences rather than conform to parochial restaurant culture. Howbeit, if seeking such experiences you must, The Water Gypsy presents a most honourable, comforting and hospitable repast; Polly and Hank run the show, balance cooking with being perfect hosts, and stop at nothing to ensure you’re fed in finest fettle.

Being they’re currently moored in Devizes, it was a short appetite-boosting walk along the towpath and we boarded this beautifully decorated and pristine boat, warmed by a log burner, welcomed affectionately and seated on the only communal table set for twelve guests. You could liken the reception, and the whole occasion, more to a dinner party than sitting alone in a restaurant.

Life on the canal may not always be the romantic setting of freedom preconceived, but The Water Gypsy hones on that idyllic image, glimpses into the fantastical.

Drinks are served, and you are not rushed here. It’s all finest ingredients, homemade and using local produce, which they proudly transform into tapas-style plates that celebrate sharing and connection. A grazing board, chockfull of dips and tapenade arrived, with pesto topped crostini, charcuterie skewers antipastisti with melon, avocado & prawns, Moroccan carrot puff pastry with orange and thyme syrup, and harissa tahini yoghurt, and, and, oh, look I’m no Jay Rayner, don’t even sport a goatee, I’m only now aware how my tastebuds will love me forevermore!

Pescatarian and vegan are catered for, but our main courses were beef estofado, a scrummy slow-cooked Peruvian stew, and delicately sliced hasselback potatoes, sticky pork glazed in garlic and ginger, with spicy Asian broccoli, and chicken tikka skewers with tomato salad….need I say more for clues to the way to my heart? Food heaven in gypsy ornamentation charm, canalside!

A perfectly baked brownie with strawberries and ice cream polished me off, though the other choice was a rather smashing looking cheese board, which Newsquest reporter Jamie opted for, and while tempted to nick his grapes, such was the hospitable atmosphere and such was the gorgeous food so beautifully presented, I thought I’d best behave!

Herein arrives the time when, in a typical restaurant, you’re encouraged to get your coat, but I’ve already observed a washtub and broomhandle propped up in the corner, and identified their owners; we’re in for some entertainment, and I couldn’t think of anyone more apt for the occasion.

Polly wants Sunday afternoons to have an additional live music finale, and while we’ve pondered some alternatives, boaters themselves, Nipper and Jellylegs Johnson drop in to tantalise us audibly the same way and with the same proficiency Polly has done with our palate. It’s a show you could never tire from, nor find fault with. The Devil’s Doorbell, cheeky, quirky duo passionately recreating jazz and blues roots with homemade instruments, skiffle, bucketloads of charisma and more double entendres than Finbar Saunders remaking the entire backlog of Carry-On films.

There was an encore singalong, and with conversation and wine flowing, the atmosphere was unlike anything you’d find at a restaurant. The Water Gypsy is, by very definition, the most pleasant and divine, not to mention scrummy, dining experience this side of Milliways, Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe, only this one is a bit closer, just along the towpath!

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Radium on Liddington Hill

Swindon-based adrenaline pumping five-piece Liddington Hill released their first EP for three years, and Radium is highly radioactive….. For most on the North Wessex Downs,…

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JP Oldfield Meets The Devil’s Doorbell at the Cellar Bar

To suggest I’m knowledgeable about the music of the 1920s because I lived through the era is plain cheeky, though I wouldn’t put it past you! I like to think I know just enough to hold my own in a drunken waffle on the subject. Such is that Jellylegs Johnson suggested a resurgence of 1920s jazz was pending, to which I agreed, or at least I would appreciate it if it was so….

Cos I love digging to discover the roots of music, although I cannot be certain a gig of the era resembled what occurred down the Bear’s Cellar Bar last night, even if it was labelled thus, but it was an entertaining night for sure. This much is guaranteed whenever The Devil’s Doorbell has moored nearby.

Yeah, that’s right, I said The Cellar Bar, that central cobblestoned cosy dungeon which holds as many fond memories for Devizions than it does history. It feels great to be down there, as it’s been a while, and this sentiment is shared with the modest audience.

Backstory to why we’re here goes, after our interview with Devizes’ rising star of kazoo-blowing, suitcase drumming idiosyncratic delta blues, JP Oldfield, he landed a gig at Chippenham’s Old Road Tavern supporting the bonkers jazz skiffle duo and boater’s royalty of double-entendres, Devil’s Doorbell.

Being he was unaware of them at the time, I assured Josh he was in apt company. For if JP’s style is quirky, Nipper, a freewheeling James Baskett/George Formby crossover, and Jellylegs Johnson in sequined hot pants, feathered flapper girl headband and marigolds, audaciously but not impudently salvage long-lost rags, nuggets of bebop and gypsy jazz with tenor ukuleles, a kazzumpet, and Jellylegs on a bass handmade from a washtub and broom handle… and that’s beyond averagely quirky!

It’s also a hard act for anyone to follow, as the agenda was switched for Nipper and Jellylegs to open the show JP Oldfield had arranged. They rang the doorbell for surety, with their unique cheeky tunes and banter, which Jellylegs told me afterwards are often assumed to be of their own pen, rather than outrageous long-lost 78s of a golden jazz era. It’s always a pleasure to hear them play, and so playful with the circus-cabaret they are, it’s infectious.

JP contends with more sombre moods versus a need to be jocular, but his ability to find that perfect balance is his unique spin on delta blues, that and using a kazoo where a harmonica is usually positioned, and both are something blossoming with each gig. His masterwork to date, The Ghost of Spring-heeled Jack is the verification of this balance.

I don’t believe confidence was ever an issue for JP, but that’s grown too, and he proficiently pulled a stunning set of originals and rare covers, neatly chosen to compliment those of his own labour; Tainted Love perhaps not so rare, but with added kazoo, welcomed!

Though on this occasion JP proved he’s no one trick pony as he turned to harmonica for a song, and excused himself for any amateur delivery of it, which was unnecessary as it was sublimely done. As was his entire set.

If we fondly reviewed his debut EP last month, JP Oldfield astutely replicated the magic on stage and guided the crowd to his chosen mood. Likewise, we fondly reviewed Devil’s Doorbell live recording from Trowbridge’s Pump a couple of years ago, and their excellent stage presence sticks like mud. Two acts, complimenting in a manner others might find it tricky to do, makes for an entertaining night, which it was, and back in the Tin Pan Alley days of yore, of course instruments were handmade or secondhand, salvaged from wherever they could be sourced.

Maybe a gig in the 1920s wouldn’t have been so different to this after all, as both JP and the Devil’s Doorbell are authentic enough and value the retrospection, and when sprinkled with this fun element, does it even matter?!

Devil’s Doorbell Live EP from the Pump

It’s any wonder if this bonkers jazz skiffle duo found a double-entendre in the name of Trowbridge’s finest live music venue, The Pump, when they visited at the beginning of the month in support for Jaz DeLorean, being they’re the boater’s royalty of euphemisms, but at least they did find time to release a recording of the occasion……

A judiciously selected four-track EP acting as a teaser for this asinine pair, Devil’s Doorbell is up on Bandcamp, recorded live at The Pump by the man Kieran J Moore, and while it might be some way from Dark Side of the Moon, it’s a half-hour of carefree jollity your life might yet depend on.

In true circus cabarert and homemade instruments, Nipper plays tenor banjo and kazzumpet, while Jellylegs Johnson is on the washtub bass, and both tend to finish each other’s lyrics with hilarious consequences over some good ol’ foot-tapping scrumpy and western flavoured skiffle. Take it no more seriously than this.

Rife with retrospective euphemistic rhymes, rudeness is abound from the start, mocked in goofy George Formby subtlety, Carry-On titillation and Pythonesque nonsense; it’s a west country thing! My Girl’s Pussy opens the EP, reminiscent of Eric Idle’s Noel Coward charade, Penis Song. Hot Nuts continues the ooh matron theme, while a slip of self-fashioned blues plays out with When I Get Low I get High, and we’re back to square one with Rattle Snakin’ Daddy. Dammit though, it’s frolicking fun now, would’ve tickled the 1930s New Orleans high-energy jazz circuit pink, if only they were allowed in with wellies!

If it’s jazzy it’s silly in equal measure, yet with one eye squint you can envision yourself haphazardly perched on a log in dew-drenched tallgrass, near a Kennet & Avon towpath, swigging flat cider and thoroughly soaking up every minute, particularly during those random moments when they up the tempo.  

And if you like this audacious audio, the stage show is the visual treat you’d expect from those crazy west country boaters, all props, burlesque, and silly hats, and you couldn’t contemplate a better way to tickle the fancy and warm the crowd in your humble boozer, other than a real ringing of the devil’s doorbell. You can book them at your own risk, HERE.

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