Haunted Dancehall was the second Sabres Of Paradise album, released in November 1994. It was recorded as and should be listened to as a whole piece, a musical wander round the minds, music and influences of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns.
On the inner sleeves were extracts from a novel, also Haunted Dancehall, by James Woodbourne. The extracts follow a character called Maguire round London at night, a London noir novel taking in Battersea Bridge, Borough tube station, Soho, Berwick Street and a strip club on Dean Street*. In the final extract Maguire pulls some planks off the front of a boarded up cafe and steps inside...
Those of us that spent time in second hand books shops looking for Haunted Dancehall (back in the pre- internet age) found out fairly quickly that no- one had heard of it. Unsurprisingly really, as the novel didn't exist. Neither did James Woodbourne. The author of the text was Andrew Weatherall, using one of his many pseudonyms to create one of his many worlds and subcultures.
On Wednesday night Sabres Of Paradise arrived in Salford to play at The White Hotel, the second stop on their week long tour of the UK, bringing those tracks from 1994 and 1995 to life on stage, Jagz and Gary with the 90s live band, Nick Abnett (bass), Rich Thair (percussion an drums) and Phil Mossman (guitar, keys, synth). While returning home from the gig, elated, in the murky black Mancunian night I wondered about whether James Woodbourne could make a to return to the Haunted Dancehall...
Maguire was lost, no doubt about it, lost and a long way from home. The East End of London he knew very well, and Soho like the back of his hand, but he was now well out of his manor. He stepped off the train at Piccadilly, through the barrier and down the escalator. A quick pint in a pub across the road from the station, The Bull's Head he recalled now some days later, to settle the nerves and then he stepped back into night. He headed up Dale Street and round what locals called the Northern Quarter ('as if this northern town was somehow French', he snorted to himself). The backstreets seemed familiar, similar to some of the ones in London but dirtier and wet, always wet. He slipped down Shudehill and pausing to check his bearings turned right up Cheetham Hill Road. Ahead of him the tower and walls of the infamous Strangeways prison loomed out of the darkness.
He was only five minutes from the city centre but this was a different world, vape shops and takeaways, a distinct lack of gentrification. Turning left- 'can it be down here?', he asked himself, 'a music venue round here?'- he saw concrete fences, barbed wire, yards with barking Alsatians, graffiti, urban dereliction and businesses that couldn't be totally law abiding. He could hear the thump of the bass now, up the road, and he continued, turning right past a few optimistically parked cars. Ahead of him, The White Hotel.
Someone, Maguire thought, was having a laugh. This place was not a hotel, never had been and it wasn't white either. It looked like a rundown mechanics garage, single storey and unadorned, with a bouncer outside. Maguire approached the man sitting by the door. 'I'm on the list', Maguire muttered. The list was checked and indeed, Maguire was on it. 'Round the back', the doorman said. He walked round the building, past the smokers and through the door. Maguire entered The White Hotel. Colourbox were playing through the sound system, the dub bassline rattling round the building and gunshots echoing out.
Looks Like We're Shy One Horse
Inside it was clear the venue was indeed once a mechanics garage. There was a hole in the wall covered in a sheet, the pit to work on the underneath of cars was still there and a roller shutter formed the back wall of the stage. The stage was only a couple feet high and there was no barrier between the stage and the crowd. The room had a pillar in the centre and a girder formed a cross, ready for some urban crucifixion. The DJ, one Alex Knight, was playing from inside a cage. Maguire moved inside the room and shuffled round the back. He waited. It smelt of damp, grease and beer. Nearby someone lit a spliff. The room was busy and still filling up. They all seemed to know each other.
Colourbox faded into In The Nursery and as the symphonic strings played five figures took the stage, The Sabres Of Paradise, suited and booted. At the back of the stage, Jagz Kooner, behind a table full of boxes and mixers. Near the front Mossman, behatted, strapping his guitar on. The bassist, Abnett or something like that Maguire remembered, looked sharp, short hair, suit and tie and bass worn suitably low. They started up, a slow ambient intro, the guitar and synths kicking in gently, the sound moody and dark. Like the venue. Maguire nodded along.
Mossman hit the riff and the song shifted, the drums kicked in and everything lurched, a James Bond theme but if Bond had been a proper wrong 'un, a small time hood rather than an international spy. The Sabres weren't playing the songs as Maguire remembered them, they were looser, dubbier, more drawn out with the bass loud and central. There were parts where Abnett pummelled his bass for ages, the noise filling the venue, a huge wall of distortion, then suddenly cutting it and the band back into the track. Maguire grinned to himself. All this on a wet Wednesday in an unloved corner of Salford.
Kooner hit a button or moved a fader or did something and the horns from Theme blared out. A cheer from the crowd and the nodding and shuffling increased, the hip hop drums thumping and the gnarly guitar hook caught in a whirl, going round and round. A pause and they slid into Edge 6. 'What a track', Maguire thought, 'and a fuckin' B-side too'. The drums shuffled, the bass pumped. The descending mournful keys at half speed. The spirit of King Tubby lurked somewhere in the room Maguire thought- maybe trapped in that fuckin' mechanic's pit.
Years before Maguire had encountered Wilmot, chasing that trumpet line. It repeated its magic, the trumpet and the keys and snatches of a vocal, 'ai ai aiee'. Maguire hadn't expected to hear these songs played live, not three decades after the band split and, what was it now, nearly five years after the man that dreamt it all up had sadly left this world. But here he was, among two hundred and fifty other revellers, hearing Wilmot. The skank of Wilmot. Fuck.
'Chase that tune, scour the shacks, pester the sound boys', Maguire recalled, a line from a book he once read.
On it went, the band now in their element, feeding off the crowd and playing the songs as if they were both brand new and centuries old. Kooner stopped between two of the songs and made a dedication to Mani, 'a fucking great musicians and a fucking great bloke', Jagz said and they began to play Smokebelch, the twinkles of the ambient, beatless version lighting up the darkness of the room. Abnett's bass and Burns' piano and oh, what a moment. Grown men with tears running down their faces. Even Maguire was moved.
Clock Factory, many minutes of delicious weirdness located somewhere between ambient and industrial, a ticking of clocks and doomy chords, a track that somehow expands time and makes it stop. Maguire rubbed his chin. This was special, it made him think of things bigger than himself. Music and its power. Both beautiful and strange, he thought.
There was a pause and then it got louder, thumping kick drums and whoops from the crowd, metallic clangs and throbbing bass, that Sabres collision of spectral melodies and thumping rhythms, everyone, band and crowd in the same place. Mossman waved his hands in the air, encouraging the crowd. Kooner conducted from the back, red shirt and black tie.
Still Fighting started with long chords and tension, and then the release, the thump of the bass drum. That's the spirit, Maguire thought, that's it, they're still fighting. Crashing drums and early 90s synths, and then that two note whistle, the track betraying its origins, a remix of a remix, a version of a version, Don't Fight It, Feel It, Nicolson's topline refrain- doo doo doo dit dit- ricocheting round the space, this former industrial unit, God knows how many cars ended up in here, Cortinas, Datsuns, Fords, knackered vans and failed MOTs, oil and spanners all over the place, mechanics in dirty overalls- and now this epic piece of music filling it. Still fighting.
The Sabres took the applause and headed off stage, through the hole in the wall. A few minutes later they returned, as the crowd knew they would, cheers and hollers welcoming them. They went in for the kill, more Smokebelch, the David Holmes version, dancing piano lines and that enormous acid house squiggle, the drums battering the walls and the roller shutter. One of the venue's speakers was right behind Maguire and he could feel the music, the bass rippling his trousers and rattling his chest. Behind him a scouser was lost in his own world, his head in the bassbin. At the back a woman danced on a step against the wall, grinning, lost in the moment. In front of him people jumped up and down, danced and span. Then the breakdown and the drummer, Thair, on the snare, recreating Holmes' majorettes- then the bass bumping up and down and those Smokebelch melody lines riding the wave, on and on... Maguire had to pinch himself to check it was real, that he wasn't imagining it from his room in Limehouse, an armchair reverie. No, it was real and it was happening right in front of him. The Sabres stepped out from behind their machines, moved to the edge of the stage and arms around each other, took their bow, all smiles.
Afterwards, in the outdoor area, the band milled around with punters and well wishers, taking in the Salford air and drizzle. Maguire overheard Jagz telling a fan that when they arrived he saw the graffiti and barbed wire and thought 'this is exactly where Sabres should be playing'. He looked on from a distance, pleased he'd made the effort. Maguire enjoyed the pursuit, the chasing of the tune. He contemplated the walk back to Piccadilly and wondered whether he could find somewhere on the way to have a drink. Maguire walked past the band and their fans and stepped into the street outside...
Smokebelch (David Homes Remix)
* The strip club on Dean Street was the home of the Sabres Of Paradise office, which operated on the first floor above the strip club.
Thanks to Linda Gardiner for the photo of the band onstage.
