These are pictures of the fabulous Jive Aces, a UK swing band from London. I first heard about these guys on the Roaring Forties website as both bands met recently at a Norwegian jazz festival. These guys are the business, come on, they’ve got coordinated yellow and pink suits and everything! If you don’t believe me, just download a few of their songs or videos from their website. Anyway, you can imagine my surprised delight when Julian, the notorious drummer and infamous style guru from the Roaring Forties, left a comment on my previous Doubletime post on Saturday stating that the Jive Aces would be playing in Soho (that’s the bar in Cork by the way, not the slightly dodgy part of London) that very same evening as part of the Beamish Experience. Well, I don’t know about you but I was well excited at the prospect of seeing such a great swing band in my own back yard.

Although, to be perfectly honest I was a little unsettled by the fact that they were playing in Soho, which if you ask me is even worse than Reardons, which is saying something! At least Reardons doesn’t have any pretensions, it knows it’s a tacky venue of last resort for drunken male tossers and desperate scantily-clad slappers and makes no apologies for being so. Heh, sorry if your feelings are hurt but I ain’t pulling no punches to avoid upsetting your fragile sensibilities. That said, the sweet irony about a place like Soho is that its owners and clientele are so self-deluded that they actually think that both it and they have class. Whereas the reality of the situation is that Soho is just the latest bar that the fashionable boys and girls about town, whose collective IQ would probably fall short of one average individual, have deemed the current in place to be seen until their herd like mentality kicks in again and they decide to move on to graze elsewhere. (Meow, bitchin’ form this evening!)

But I wasn’t going to let a small thing like that put me off. So off I went to spruce myself up, cursing the fact that everyone else had fecked off to see Tom Baxter in the Savoy, who by all accounts played a very good mixed set. Finally, suitably spruced up, I grabbed my camera (ok, a brief anorak moment, just cut me some slack) and headed off out into the pissing rain. Of course, thanks to said rain, it took me twenty minutes to find a parking space and after parking somewhere near the edge of hell, I grabbed my coat from the car and trekked off into the rain drenched night, somewhat vaguely in the direction of Soho.

One brisk walk later, which made Noah’s Ark and the whole flood thing look like a walk in the park, I arrived at the door of Soho with a bright eager look on my face. I’m going to see the Jive Aces don’t you know, they’re like a really happening swing band. It doesn’t bother me that they’re playing in a real trendy bar that’s about as appropriate as the frickin’ Pope hanging out in a strip club. Ya, like an innocent lamb to its unsuspecting slaughter. Unfortunately, so full of anticipation was I that I neglected to engage in my usual parley with the door staff, they’re people too you know and if treated right will never hassle you or give two hoots as to what you’re wearing. Anyway, big mistake! Mr. Brightside took one look at me and with a grim dour look politely informed me that they have a “dress code” and that I couldn’t go in because I was wearing sneakers. Suddenly, my Whatdafuckometer (patented by China Blue) kicked into action and my blissful haze of euphoric happiness was swiftly swept to one side. One quick argument later, during the course of which I told said bouncer what I thought of his stupid fucking dress code (they’re Converse One Stars for feck sake) and of his poxy trendy slapper joint, briefly interluded by a bizarre side conversation with a crazy French tourist who wanted to know if it was too late to have dinner at the restaurant above Soho and me trying to explain that despite any appearances to the contrary that I didn’t actually frickin’ work there and terminated with me quickly getting the hell out of there before the door man called in a half dozen of his buddies to collectively beat the living shit out of me down the dark alley conveniently located beside the entrance to Soho. Well, I did mention that it was a classy establishment.

So there you have it. There I was - wet, distraught and alone. I mean, I had even washed before I went out, like with soap and everything! It just wasn’t fair, the world can be a cruel and unforgiving place at times. Although on the one hand even though I didn’t get to see the Jive Aces, on the other hand I didn’t have to spend even five minutes in that shit hole. Hmmm, it doesn’t matter, I’m still cross. Cross with Soho and their stupid dress code! Cross with Beamish for making such a colossal fuck up when it comes to matching bands to appropriate venues! Cross with God for pissing rain all over me! Cross with the Jive Aces for not personally promising to play at my next birthday just to make up for the whole miserable experience, in fairness, I even bought their cd on their website earlier and you can’t say fairer than that! Cross with... look just cross because I wanna be! Grrr! Grrr! Grrr!

Kids, step away from the cross man, now come on children, let’s move along quickly...

(For a calmer version from someone who was let in, have a look at Donal's post.)

Labels: Bands, Humour, Swing Jazz

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.