The Blues Collective first emerged blinking into the light with a series of four
'Bop while you Shop' gigs
on Saturday afternoons in the gloriously sunny April of 1996
at Lewisham Labour Club (R.I.P.), promoted by Paul Panic.
I got to two of them, writes Ian (BJ Webzine Janitor),
for strange breakfasts on that balcony outside the bar,
with sundry Balloons, Brain Of Morbius and
Baby Trio personnel, Frank O'Donnell and others ...
Several families downstairs, refugees from consumerism fresh from the battlefields of
Lewisham High Street offering Billy their shopping lists to sing as lyrics.
Plenty blues there.
The next sighting was another sunny Saturday afternoon that summer
in a tent in some park off the South Circular for Lewisham People's Day.
More homage to the King (the B*rger King) and a Harry Corbett-influenced 'Stormy Monday,'
- "What's that Sweep? Tuesday's just as bad?" Sweep met a sticky end that day as I recall.
Then in December '97, blues instincts honed by too much squinting in daylight,
the Blues Collective
ventured into the dark, into Woolwich, suited, tied and shaded,
ignoring the warnings of
the coach-driver (played by Michael Ripper).
Two consecutive nights at TJ's, with Orbit Bay
(Baby Trio as was, augmented) as improvising guests performing Bay of Orbs and Bay
of Bits.
