Vinyl log 23 - 20 October

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
20	October	1971	Dave Evans	The words inbetween

As I wrote here several years ago, 1971 found me as a dewy-eyed teenager sitting agog at the Bristol Troubadour. I had just discovered that my adopted home city had a strong "folk scene," and that good music was always to be found in that musky room in the Clifton district. Of the many musicians that I saw there, the strongest impression was made by a guitarist and singer called Dave Evans. It always seemed that he had several hands playing the guitar at the same time, and his performances used to hold me spellbound. One Sunday evening at a concert (at the appropriately named Newman Hall, actually not far from my house), Dave introduced an instrumental as "a number which I recorded this afternoon for a forthcoming album". I waited a few weeks, then went round to the local record company's headquarters and purchased my copy of The Words In Between.

The "local record company's headquarters" was situated a short walk away from my school, at the top of Park Street, and was called The Village Thing. The person who I used to deal with was called Rod Matthews who was a graphic designer. He was also a drummer and played on a later VT record by Hunt and Turner; by the time that record had been released, I no longer frequented the VT offices, which was just as well as I was saved having to tell Matthews that he wasn't a very good drummer.

The newspaper here runs a weekly column in which they ask questions of minor celebrity, generally about the celeb's youth. One frequent question is "what advice would you give to your 16 year old self?". Apart from trying to grow a thicker skin, I would have advised my younger self to seek guitar lessons from Dave Evans. I have no idea whether he actually gave lessons but it wouldn't have hurt to ask. But at the time, I considered myself a mean rhythm guitarist and would have been embarrassed by the need to take lessons.