Tuesday 28 January 2025, 7.30pm
KLINKERCLUB in its Forty "turd" year.. long-awaited celebration returns to WONDERFUL Oto Cafe with familiar diverse acts from Suffolk London& Welwyn Garden City ..on Tuesday 28 Jan 2025
- Hugh Metcalfe & Jackie Montague
- Builders Crack - Paul Hill, Patrick Conway and Stanley Bad
- Antonia Cook - flute + poetry.
- Maxwell Owain Reynish muso/ poet.
- Skip: Hugh Metcalfe & Veryan Weston
- Jonathan Byrd - Unprepared guitar
Play-by-ear flautist ranging from melodic to experimental improv. As an MA English graduate, I use compact, abstract language to form impressionistic poetry. I have performed at the Woodbridge Festival and Dragon Hall (Norwich). I enjoy combining my flute and spoken word in corresponding, interchangeable sets at open mics in Ipswich and Felixstowe. I enjoy showcasing in collaborative formats with the Klinker Club, as a collective with Hugh Metcalfe and other artists.
https://www.tiktok.com/@antoekneea
Jonathan Byrd has not attended any prestigious music schools; entered any national competitions or won any prizes; He has not been nominated for, or won, any awards; receives no grants or funding; has no links with any organisations or charities; has not worked with, and has no connections to, any apparently famous musicians or personalities, or anyone in media. He also steers away from cliques. Declaring ‘Free-Improvisation’ to be too restricting, Jonathan simply plays the unadulterated classical guitar without inhibition. The guitarist and composer returns to Cafe Oto as a long-time friend and supporter of Hugh and the Klinker.
Films made by Hugh Metcalfe with music by Hugh Metcalfe (guitar, oscillator, amplified gasmask, violin etc) and Veryan Weston (piano)
The films not only offer personal glimpses into an everyday life over a span of twenty-five years but are an example of what can be done with a super-eight camera. Experiments in time, distance, angle and colour manipulations are some of the technical procedures used to observe ordinary objects, holidays, journeys, animals and humans – all with an edge of humour, rawness and the oblique.
A multi instrumentalist, poet and sound experimenter based in Suffolk. Klinker nights have given me a home to explore collaboratively and share different parts of my experiments in sound and art. Currently I have been playing shows across East Anglia with a Large flint stone through electronics but this is yet another aspect to my sonic explorations, alongside a very wild bunch of fellow Suffolkites.
“Never Knowingly Underrated Since 1972”
In February 2024, Who Writes This Rubbish? A long overdue retrospective exhibition at 142 Gallery, finally gave an unsuspecting public a taste of the unique world vision and 40 odd year career of the musician; filmmaker; artist; poet; Klinker Club organiser; anarchist; disruptor that is Hugh Metcalfe.
Surreal, honest, silly and deeply philosophical, Hugh’s poetry, films and music (some say) sit somewhere between genius and unfathomable. Co-conspirators along the way have included legendary sound poet Bob Cobbing, Penny Rimbaud (Crass),Tony Oxley and Lulu (possibly.) His own experimental improv bands Bugger All Stars and Fuck Off Batman are still together, despite having to endure occasional personnel changes whilst members go off to play with the likes of Peter Gabriel, The Pogues and PiL. This year he achieved a long-held ambition of creating Poo Poo Band, an ever-changing improvised collective, last heard primal screaming in Felixstowe before the watershed.
A night at Klinker Club, founded by Hugh in 1982, is still a place to expect the marginalised and mental. Arts Council England have never been involved.
Klinker operations are directed via Metcalfe Towers in Suffolk and Klinker Club returns to London on 28 January 2025 at Café Oto, Dalston.
“A lovely voice but concerning and controversial lyrics”
Described recently in Outline Magazine as “bawdy, humorous -ding dong-and uncompromising,” Jackie is a spoken word poet, writer and performer based in Suffolk.
After making her debut with Poo Poo Band performing Night Soil For The Soul, Jackie’s association with Hugh Metcalfe was tested with a 7 hour car trip for a Klinker Club in Frome, Somerset. Both survived unscathed and enthusiastic.
Recent performances for Klinker Club have included Harwich Arts Festival and Asylum Studios Bentwaters. Her work has been selected for Ruthin International Arts Festival; Instant Vortex Live Art Happening Colchester Arts Centre and Spill Live Art Festival as a performer and writer. Jackie has been published this year by Earth Island Books in the 10 Poets Anthology. Follow on Instagram @BrainwavesAreBetterThanPerms
