Forgive us, Father, for we are about to make a link to a MySpace site.

The first time we tried to go to a Hugh Coltman gig, some weeks ago, Olive came down with a cold. So when we heard Coltman was playing this past Monday at the intriguingly named Istanbul Basement Bar, we wrapped ourselves up warm and headed to the deserted after-hours darkness of Cleveland Street.

Someone had written online, about the Istanbul Basement Bar: “…and you can get a kebab upstairs after the gig!” “This is great,” I’d said, and in my mind I’d seen a tubby man in an apron and an impressive moustache standing in front of a tower of glistening lamb on a rotating spit.

Turned out the so-called Istanbul Basement Bar is the unnamed underground wine bar of the Istanbul Meze Bar, a very proper Turkish restaurant with neither neon nor pirouetting kebabs in the window. We bypassed the restaurant entrance and took the narrow steps down; the basement room was chocka with stylish young things in beers and cigarettes. “Weelll,” I said, “I’m hungry.” “Me too,” Olive said, so with at least half an hour to go – who starts an 8:30 gig at 8:30? – we went back upstairs. The waiter had just, of course, put a basket of warm pide bread on the table when we heard the whoops and cheers float up the stairs in the back. “Oh,” I said.

The Istanbul Special Kebab was very tasty. The hot sauce was very hot.

By the time we made it down to the basement again, the small stage area was clear but for the fairy lights and the mike stand. We squeezed, standing, into the only available space next to the bar. “That’s him,” Olive said in a low voice, looking straight ahead. “Mm?” I said. “To your left,” he said, still in espionage mode. “Ah,” I said, and Hugh Coltman was hunched over a table and a highball glass in front of me. He had a black-and-white checked scarf around his neck and his guitar was in its case.

“We came to see you,” I said, to Hugh Coltman, because I am not always the best spy, “but we got distracted by the kebabs upstairs.” “Were the kebabs good though?” he said. “Yup,” I said, and he said: “Well.” He shrugged his shoulders. It was a sentence. “I’m playing again on the nineteenth,” he said, “somewhere,” and I said, “Okay!” I wanted to redeem myself.

We stayed long enough to hear a funny Japanese boy and his guitar before we left in the blustery night. He hopped onto the stool, Moss did, in a grin and a knitted mushroom hat, and said “Hey!” The room was in love with him already. By the time he got to his “Pepe Julio”, in which he sang-yelled “Pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe-pe… Julio!!” over some violent, jangly strumming, the crowd was hooting and clapping along.



Olive knows things about music, so last night we counted on third-time’s-the-charm for the Coltman gig at the shiny, new Fopp store on Tottenham Court Road. Fridays at Fopp – who knew? With free live music, and a bag of Marmite crisps and a J2O for less than two pounds, it’s the best thing to happen to Friday nights recently. Susy Thomas sounded like coffee late on a sunny Sunday morning. Lisa Theunissen had a big voice. Harold Someone sang off-key, and with his eyes closed. He did a rendition of “Blackbird” that ended like this:

Ah said,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Ah said,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Ah said,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

“I hate him more than James Blunt,” Olive said, and I said, “But we love James Bond!” I remembered coming out of the cinema on New Year’s Day and walking down Boulevard Saint-Germain, singing “Nung-nuh-nuh-nung-nung nung-nung-nung nung-nuh-nuh-nung-nung.” I was ready to sing it again. “James Blunt, I said,” he said, and I said, “Oh.” “I like James Blunt,” I said, and he said: “Eeeyur!”

Hugh Coltman came on stage, he slipped his guitar off his head, he said, “Wait.” “I’m going to start with something else,” he said, and he eased a harmonica out of his jeans pocket. He blew into it, a wailing intro to a great blues song. He sang, and in a smoky corner in your mind you saw a blind black man in a dignified hat, tapping his shoe in the dust. You opened your eyes to a skinny Lego-playing white boy in a faded Millfields Shine Academy T-shirt. There was a single mike on stage, the guy was playing his harmonica, and the lights on the back wall changed green and blue and yellow and orange.

“I think of a New Orleans funeral,” he said, later, in the middle of a song, and his fingers tapped and strummed, still, on his guitar. “Imagine the, y’know, the cortège coming by, and the brass band. The trombones,” he said, and he scat sang over his invisible accompaniment. The invisible trumpet behind him glinted an invisible gold.

We were all leaning forward, I tell you, we wanted more, he was a road trip chasing the sun and a quiet day in the French Quarter, he was a deep velvet booth in the back; and when Hugh Coltman shouted into the wings, “How are we doing for time?” the girl behind the bar shouted back, “Great.” One day he will be £25 (£20 advance) at the Scala, but right now he is no money down and playing again in a couple of weeks.