That's right - the final meeting of ShadowMusic South-East will take place on Wednesday 6th July.
After eight years, Spencer Scott and I have decided that the original aims of the club have been more than achieved and are unlikely to be surpassed and that in the current climate, with clubs subsequently having been started in Dartford, Surrey and Sussex, the "South-East" tag (initially adopted quite deliberately as opposed to any more local Kent description) can no longer serve its original purpose.
I must stress that Spencer will continue to run the venue at Temple Farm Workingmens' Club on the first Wednesday of the month, though I shall no longer be involved. Members in attendance last night were invited to submit ideas for a new name for the club which reflects the location and coverage area of the club's current home. I'm sure they will be inventive.
So... looking back through the archive, I see that we started in August 2003 with nearly forty attenders, including my son James (then in his last year of A-levels) acting as backing track DJ, Andrew Bailey (our stalwart doorkeeper and cash-collector for many years) and The Secrets. Members joining us at that first meeting on that hot and humid summer's night hailed from Carshalton, Kingston, Barkingside, Byfleet, Wansted, Plumpton Green, Laindon, Forest Hill, Westcliff-on-Sea, Hassocks, Thundersley, Crawley and Hassocks, as well as from every part of Kent. At our peak during that first year we had 75 members (plus James and Andrew).
Considering that we were operating in the quite odd basement/ground floor of the old Upper Bell pub at Bluebell Hill, space was often at a premium, never more so than on the occasions when we had live bands playing, with our still-extant petrol expenses record showing that over the years and at various venues, The Secrets appeared no less than four times at regular club meets and charity events, while Mike McWilliams' band The Contenders, local outfit The Banned and Alan Scrafton's (Southend) Saddows each appeared once. Mean Streak did two shows for us, one of them in London. We lasted at the Upper Bell for about a year, until the pub closed down. We had a brief sojourn at the nearby and equally famous Lower Bell - for one month only as a stopgap because we needed a room where we could control entry - before moving on to the Hastings Arms in Gillingham, a venue suggested by one-time member Ian Surita (to whom, many thanks).
The Hastings Arms was almost perfect for us through at least three changes of licensee: a sizeable back room with controllable entry, a small stage, lots of car-parking and (initially) a semi-isolated position surrounded on three sides by fields. We also ran various special events there, and the Sunday all-day charity function (raising money for the Nicholls family) with top of the bill Cliff Hall playing keyboards with Ian McCutcheon's Shazam was a real highlight.
We also ran a well-remembered Sunday charity event in Central London in 2004, in partnership with Pipeline Magazine (Alan Taylor and George Geddes) and with lots of welcome help from friends from all over the country. Bands donating their services at our charity events over the years have included The Secrets, Legend, Mean Streak, The Runaways and Shazam, with honourable mentions for USA guests Abel Khineche and Tony Chan. We welcomed guests from other parts of the country too - including David and Barbara Martin, Chris Kenward and co from the Berkshire and Surrey clubs and Ecca and entourage on their way to Le Touquet.
In 2009, due to various difficulties at the venue (not least its almost complete engulfment by new housing, requiring a more rigorous policy on noise), we moved on, to a small club in Rochester: The Billabong. Not universally popular with members (a few of whom never attended there even once), we eventually accepted an offer of the back room at what became SMSE's fifth and last home: the Temple Farm Workingmen's Club. The first TF meet took place in early March 2010. Unprecedentedly, I was unable to attend since I had already booked a trip abroad.
Over the years. SMSE has raised and/or donated well over £2,000 for several UK medical charities and every year since we started, at a cost of about ten per cent of the club's income, we have provided a free buffet for attenders at the December meeting (except when snowed off, when it has shifted to January). We constantly improved the means of delivery of backing tracks, obtaining a dual-deck CD player, two iPods, a portable PC running iTunes and a Mackie PA system over the years. All this was achieved with no increase in member's fees or attendance charges since they were set for the first meeting: £1pa to join, £2pcm to attend a meeting and £2.50 for a guest.
Looking back over those eight years, I have to say that the most memorable meeting for me was the second one, in September 2003. My friend Roberto Pistolesi was staying with us (we were off to Shadowmania) and he brought along a reworked Gibson Explorer valve amp (rewired with 1958 Fender Tremolux circuitry), his extensively restored Meazzi tape echo and one of his two 1959 Gretsch 6122 model guitars. The atmosphere was electric as Roberto explained his famous Gretsch theory to a packed basement at Bluebell Hill, not without a certain amount of heckling. Happy days.
For the next - and last - meeting of SMSE, we have an eventful night planned. Tony Dobson has kindly agreed to bring along the bassist and drummer of his group "Quiff and The Shades" as well as his own Gibson J-200. Don Vann (on bass) and Geoff Cousins (on drums) have undertaken to provide live backing for our very own Hanks, and we're in the process of sorting out the parameters of a possible repertoire to choose from.
We hope you can attend. It'll be your last chance.
Don't forget: the July meeting also features the annual presentation to the SMSE Player Of The Year (in this case, the last one).
Many thanks to everyone who has supported SMSE over the last eight years, and best wishes to Spencer and members for the future operation of the club at Strood, and good luck in whatever direction it takes.
See you in July,
JimN
PS: Dob Dore (admin): I'll be in touch asap about changes that will be needed to the club section in order to reflect the above developments.