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Shake a Leg this Christmas in Swindon with The Tribe, Showhawk Duo, and Brother From Another

With the beguling blend of hip hop and reggae, Swindon’s pride The Tribe are a force to be reckoned with. Always a lively show, they team up with a most original act you’ll see this millennium, the Showhawk Duo. Recreating rave classics acoustically, yes you read that right, they’re super amazingly awesome.

And not stopping there, local purveyors of funky reggae, the ever-entertaing Brother From Another are also invited to the Christmas Shake a Leg party at Swindon’s Meca.

It ’s been a crazy year to say the least and we all need a good ol’ knees up so we’d like to invite you to the Shake A Leg Christmas Party on 12th December.

This could be just what you need to liven up this terrible year.

Full production for the show; Amber Audio & Patch are providing sound, IC Lighting will be bringing the stage to life with a lighting show and OT Films will be streaming the event live.

Adhering to restrictions, there’s a limited capacity and table service for the show. Tables of up to five are £33. Over 18’s only.

Johnny Lloyd’s Cheap Medication

Coming from a more Tribe Called Quest angle than Johnny Lloyd, Dan White, Jim Cratchley and Miguel Demelo’s three-year stint under the banner Tribes, I’m trying to like Johnny’s new solo album Cheap Medication, but there’s no hope in forcing me to commit to say it’s more than mediocre. Soz, intent to say something, certain many readers will disagree with me.

I’ve had nothing but praise for the “indie” I’ve been sent recently, there’s been some great stuff, particularly on our local scene. There’s only a tenacious local link, being Johnny is going out with Swindon’s nineties teen heartthrob Billie Piper. This isn’t Hello magazine, though, least not the last time I checked.

The bulk of Cheap Medication is produced to a high standard, to be expected, but feels overall pretentious. Affluent celebrity blues amidst tunes like Oh Lord are unidentifiable to us commoners, ballads to his newfound love are somewhat conceited and wishy-washy. The tempo drags, sentiments are middling. Though Johnny has a key to winding emotion in his vocals and tunes, like Better Weather, which drifts like Radiohead, dreamy like Spiritualized. Not that I’m too keen on them, truth be told! Guess you could summarize, it’s not for me. Or am I just having a bad hair day?

I like the cover, given the brilliant Gecko used a photo from his childhood for his recent outing, a kid Johnny proudly shows off his Batman uniform in a Christmassy regular looking home. I like this approach, especially from someone already in the spotlight. Perhaps there’s more meaning in the image of a once proud superhero, from this rock luminary than there is hidden in the songs, or they’re too intricately hidden.

Tabloids quote smitten Johnny declaring he was lost before he met Billie, and in so much as hope and love, this album is personal and openly frank, though through the often too private bulk I couldn’t identify with where it wanted to take me. It’s like that infatuated associate who speaks of nothing else.

In this World carries the twangy guitar of a country classic, acoustical goodness presides with Based on Real Life, an upbeat Simon & Garfunkel-eske tune, downbeat Heaven Up Here comes over all Morcheeba; credit where it’s due, it’s not all dull. There was one magical nugget, an uplifting track called Suze which breezes akin to Harry Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talking, so who knows, it might grow on me if I gave it time, but I’ve got to push on with lots more to review. For indie aficionados and leaden adolescents, this may agree with you; it’s out now, give it try.

Baby, we were Born 2 Rum!

Received a substantial golden handshake when Anchor Foods closed the Swindon site in 2000, by the following week I was maxing-relaxing on Long Bay near Sam Lord’s castle in Barbados, sipping the local beer, Banks. Upon my second influx at the beach bar, a conversant gent questioned why I drank beer, “mek ya belly get big,” he advised.

“What do you recommend?” I inquired. He suggested I gave this local lad a dollar, I did, and before I knew what was what, he had ascended a palm tree with a machete and used it to knock off a coconut. With a thud it hit the sand, the top was severed, the remaining part handed to the barman who filled it with a generous dosage of Mount Gay white. I’ve been a rum drinker since.

You can’t get white Mount Gay for love nor money in the UK, so I made a beeline for the Muck & Dunder’s mobile rum bar at the Devizes Scooter Rally to ask them. I’d been chatting online with Stu and Shelly, listing their Born 2 Rum event at the Wyvern Club in Devizes. Sad to have missed it, what with the now defunct SN Dubstation playing. I don’t intend to make the same mistake this year, as the Muck & Dunder plan to do it again, with bells on, same place, on 23rd May.

What these kids don’t know about rum you could write on the back of a matchbox, with space for diagrams. It’s a borderline obsession which sees them travel the Caribbean searching to increase their collection, and they call that work! Since 2018 they’ve been a welcomed sight at our food festival, fetes and events, providing fabulous insight on their passion, often bringing an exotic musical accompaniment, and generally providing the joyous ambience you’d expect from drinking rum, as well as the rum itself of course!

You can guarantee they’re sorting through their collection right now in anticipation, claiming to bring us over forty varieties of rum, some locally brewed rum-ale, with all the added cocktail ingredients they so expertly concoct. Tickets are a tenner and on sale now. It includes a Rum Punch on arrival, and a Rum Map (with tasting notes.) Doors open at 7pm, last entry at 9pm, event closes at 11pm. Strictly over 18’s. There promises to be beer, soft drinks and food available from the club.

As of last year, WierdyShit spins some tunes. Not come across this DJ before, so I’m intrigued. One thing is for certain though, the most innovative and exciting band to come out of Swindon for a decade or so, The Tribe, will be playing a live set. This year sees a new release from the Tribe with Shakka and Chunkz, yet their debut album Tribal Wave is three years old. If hip hop is usually tricky to reproduce live, The Tribe are a firm favourite on the contemporary festival scene, with a plethora of bookings, and I’d speculate their live performances are the greater priority for them; and take it from me, they rock.

First time I came across The Tribe was Calnefest some years ago, where I’d returned to my car, taking a break from overheating in the Wilber the Wiltshire Air Ambulance Bear suit! Some fine bands played, but I chose my timing badly to leave the site. This funky, hip hop sound I was appreciating from afar, contemplating heading back it was so good. But when it unexpectedly split to an offbeat ska, the crowds exploded and I hotfooted it back to see what the deal was. Here’s where The Tribe excel, embracing the original hip hop ethos of a fusion of styles, they encompass localised preferred genres, of rock, gypsy-folk-ska, then blend it with funk, rap and dancehall reggae. It’s frenzied, stylised, unique and invigorating, and has to be seen and heard to be believed. So, grab a ticket to Born 2 Rum!