That logo!
Two cassette releases from the first two years of the club!
The China Pig Club
ran for just over three years in a room over the Rose & Crown pub in Hackney. As usual, the pub had no music licence, the landlords were willing to let us use the room for the extra custom, and the musicians shared the door money, less a few pence for photocopying & postage etc.Yes, the name (and part of the sentiment) did come from the Captain Beefheart song ( "mmm....Trout Mask Replica"!), but was also a reference to a succession of mammalian names for such clubs, eg Francine Luce's Black Cat Club, Andy Hammond & Nick Couldry's Polar Bear Club.
The policy, was to present "the best in original & improvised musics". In other words, the music could be improvised, jazz, classical or whatever, as long as it was the performers' original work; no pops, covers or standards.
The result was a program of wonderful and eclectic British and European improvising musicians, free jazzers, avant-garde electronica and the occasional original cabaret songs or classical composition; everything that was not, broadly, mainstream. The list of musicians who played there reads like a Who's Who of British free jazz, free improvising, electronic and eclectic players, plus a good few names from Europe and even Japanese zen monk shakuhachi player Shiku Yano, with Satsuki Urasawa on koto.
After its demise as a regular venue, I helped out on the door for Elton Dean's Jazz Rumours while it was running at the old Vortex, and also when Jims Dvorak and le Baigue revived it at the Cross Kings in King's Cross, but the China Pig name seems to have lived on, attaching itself to occasional gig promotions (such as the Porkestra) and an Arts Council sponsored festival. Although there are no plans to resurrect it as a weekly or monthly club, the Pig refuses to die, surviving as Chinapig Productions, an umbrella tag and label for CD releases and appropriate future enterprises.
John Russell's Mopomoso continues to happen on the third sunday of each month, at the Vortex in Dalston; Hugh Metcalf's Klinker (or Clinker) has resurfaced at Apiary Studios on Hackney Road, on the 15th of each month (whatever the day!), and Alan Wilkinson's FlimFlam still happens the last wednesday of the month downstairs at Ryan's Bar on Stoke Newington Church Street, while Sue Lynch & Adam Bohman's Horse improv club is currently happening at i'Klektic Arts Lab, in Lambeth. Noel Taylor has been doggedly promoting improv at Arch 1, an intimate venue close by Star Lane DLR station in West Ham. It's so much easier to find than people think, but the same was true of the Chinapig Club in its day ("Oooh, E8? How far out's that then?"); everyone knows now though - 'cos they all go to Cafe Oto who've built their reputation on the promotion of improvised & 'left-field'. music!
Many other much-loved clubs have come & gone, so check out and enjoy these places while they're still flourishing!
