What A Week That Was: Sergeant Buzfuz at The Servant JazzQuarters

I saw a little thing on Facebook about a last minute support for Sergeant Buzfuz who was celebrating a new EP release, so I put up my hand and found myself with a gig after work on Thursday.
Normally, the tutorial diary is full of urgent students who then don't turn up, so my day is full of admin and tea breaks. I anticipated a peaceful plough through pending piles of files and emails, followed by a causal wander over to Dalston.
But no, students' minds don't work like that. To a man, woman and... whatever, they all turned up, including the double booking that I always put in because students never turn up. So Catia was sitting mixing Shola's track with the headphones on at one table and a steady steam of questions filtered through the door for me to answer at the other.
Several Youtube disco tracks later (the energy), I headed over to the venue.
The Servants Jazz Quarters is a gorgeous little place. I haven't been for ages- I went to see Steve Beresford play there one afternoon and loved the Dutch Interiors light that filtered into the basement from upstairs. This Thursday they had a super-duper playlist and after the sound check I just sat back and absorbed it all.
It was such a friendly gig- after I'd played people just spoke to each other and to me, and it was great to see Nat, who I haven't seen for ages, and to have nerdy guitar conversations with Cold Spells before they went on and played their very Sid Barratt-influenced pop electronica. That's a photo of one of them doing something with his pedals, below.
After that Sergeant Buzfuz took the Barrattism one stage further. I've only seen Joe play solo before, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him with his quite big band, augmented by a drummer, nother guitarist, nother vocalist, violin/piano player and bass player. I loved the songs (this was a real night of songsmithery) and actually coughed up for an EP which I haven't listened to yet because I'm writing this. There was also lots of hilarious bantz from the stage, in particular a running roadie gag, and I was also standing next to a chap in the audience who told me drummer jokes in the gaps between songs until I floored him with one of my own. Then he told me a banjo-player joke.
I hadn't intended to make a big fat whole evening out of it but it was such fun- the best of a little London night out, I recommend both bands to you- great music!