Stick In the Wheel

The Jam Jar

The Jam Jar, at heart of Bristol's prestigious "self-storage" district, is decidedly not a church. Up some stairs on a back street, it could be a disused warehouse. It feels a lot like a bar in a corner of a redbrick campus. There is a small stage and a bar with no bitter and a barman who outdoes me on the waistcoat front. There is no jam but there are some jars hanging from the ceiling. It is supposed to be a standing gig but the management provide some chairs for the folk-age members of the audience. The posters describe Stick in the Wheel as a "medieval Kraftwork" which is an interesting point of comparison. I might have said folk-punk-minimal. The material is certainly stripped down, although not without ringing guitars and complex rhythms clapped out by members of the band. When I first heard them (at Bob Copper's centenary conference in Cecil Sharp House, I believe) they felt like a breath of fresh air, doing something with The Tradition that has not been done before, at any rate, not recently. Five years on the joke is wearing a bit thin. Nicola Kaerey still affects to be bored by the whole procedure. She still introduces Bedlam Boys with "this song's about nutters". By the time they have rattled through that and Seven of the Gypsies and Champion and Keeping Them Rolling I feel I have heard what they do. I enjoyed Nicola's half sung half chanted recitation of a ghost story about a robot, and here more or less unaccompanied Spare Me The Life of My Georgie. The youngish audience seemed to enjoy the punkier numbers; the night club sound mix tended to lose the vocals and the people behind me were strong contenders for the Gaz Brookfield "try not to be a dick" awards although since the sound was turned up to 11 it didn't make that much difference. I believe the current CD output tends towards curating and song collection, so they might fit better into an environment where people could sit down and concentrate