Stuck in a Groove

OYSTERS, FILM, Poetry, the Arts. If you can see it, hear it or stuff it down your throat, chances are it’s got its own festival in Galway.

There was whinging beforehand from Dublin’s hipper-than-thou club fraternity that Ireland’s first Acid Jazz splurge was taking place beyond the Pale but, once again, they were completely missing the point. 10,000 party people would get lost in the capital whereas in the City of the Tribes, there was a camaraderie and palpable sense of excitement which lasted from sprinting off the train on Friday night to being escorted back onto it by two burly Garda and a medical team on Monday morning.

A loose coalition of ‘70s funk and ‘90s street smart, Acid Jazz’s common denominator is that it’s invariably made by thirtysomething ex-punks who still admire the Sex Pistols’ prickliness but prefer listening to their old Sly & The Family Stone records.

“If you trace back punk’s lineage,” Galliano’s somewhat tired and emotional Rob Gallagher tells me over a pint or four, “it actually came – in part, anyway – from the London and Essex soul boy scene which was based round venues like the Lacey Lady in Canvey Island. It was as much about looking sharp and having a laugh with your mates as it was music and, you know, the buzz this weekend in Galway reminds me of that.”

In 1975, no self-respecting fashion victim would dream of leaving home without a couple of strategically-placed safety-pins. 20 years on and you can’t walk down the street without dampening your undergarments at the sight of hats that aren’t just silly but criminally insane. Those hand-knitted ones that taper off to a very long point may be the height of cool among Andean goat-herdsman but at zero altitude you’d come in for less ridicule if you wrapped a pair of your Great Aunt Biddie’s incontinence pants round your noggin. Ditto the sad Student Grant-types who’ve saved up all their hormones to grow a wispy goatee and now resemble a slacker version of Jimmy Hill. Desist!

I remember telling anyone who had the patience to listen to me that sticking House Of Pain on the Groove Weekender bill was as incongruous as getting Boyzone to open for Napalm Death and, lo, I was proved right when the Acid Jazz contingent voted with their wallets and left L.A.’s only white gangstas to play to a crowd that consisted entirely of 12-year-olds. And me.

On record, Everlast and Co. can rhyme with the best of them but live they’re clumsy, tuneless and – sin of sins – completely impossible to dance to unless you’re in the middle of an epileptic fit. Even the dumb but mighty ‘Jump Around’ sounds arthritic tonight and there aren’t too many prepubescent tears when the rappers skulk off after three-quarters-of-an-hour having charged what I reckon to be just under 30p a minute for the pleasure of their company.

The organisers’ assurances that you can get from the Leisureland to the centre of town in less time than it takes to watch Neighbours might be valid if you’re Linford Christie but if you’re not in possession of an Olympic sprint medal, it’s a bloody long hike. Still, the pilgrimage to catch the James Taylor Quartet at the GPO proves to be worth every staggering step, the venue emitting the most positive vibes I’ve encountered this side of the Ministry Of Sound and everyone – I mean, everyone – taking to the floor for at least a quick shuffle.

Taylor himself is the epitome of geezerhood, the Del Trotter of the Hammond who gets a huge cheer when he stops mid-set to clout an over-exuberant punter who keeps spilling his pint on the stage. The feeling that you’re living out some sort of ‘70s retro fantasy becomes overwhelming when the JTQ launch into an impossibly gyratable version of the Starsky & Hutch theme and the whole gaff goes ballistic. Respect.

Galway’s reputation for bonhomie takes a bit of a dent at The Warwick where the door-staff appear to have graduated with diplomas from the Eric Cantona School of Tact & Diplomacy. There are many ways to woo punters, but telling them at regular intervals to “get the fuck out of it” is not one of them. For those lucky enough to have a sworn affidavit from the promoter letting them in, Galliano are about as joyous as you’re going to get without zipping off to the Rio Carnival and Mother Earth’s ultra-slick grooves on Sunday afternoon are the perfect cure for the previous night’s rhythmic excess.

Padre Pio might’ve had a crack at getting to everything but for mere mortals the Heineken Weekender presented some difficult choices – Galliano or Acid Jazz godfather Gilles Peterson?; Night Trains or Baaba Maal?; or The Federation vs. United trouncing City 3-0 on the telly?

The general consensus among the daft-hatted cognoscenti is that Giles Petterson is God, The Feds and Baaba Maal could both do with taking a leaf out of the JTQ’s funky book and the Premiership has a more than evens chance of returning to Manchester this season. Night Trains, meanwhile, were victims of not even the most mind-expanding of drugs being able to make you omnipresent and the Roisin Dubh rivalling Shergar in the impossible-to-find stakes.

Gil Scott-Heron’s no-show at the Leisureland was a downer we didn’t need but otherwise the Groove Weekender was pretty much what the hype promised – 48 hours of wanton partying with half-a-dozen seriously kicking bands thrown in for good measure.

Roll on 1996.