Orange Street Blog

2006-12-02T16:52:00.000Z

I've been busy in the kitchen, all of you funny monkeys seem to be loving my lushious toasties, that makes me happy. It's really nice to be open during the day again, we have an atmosphere when people come in for the evening now which makes things more fun.

We have had a wonderful week of music. Monday saw Eric's Acoustic Alliance funking the place up with their energetic band of musicans. It was exciting to see so many different musicans from so many different bands on stage at once.

Bluesday Tuesday, what can I say. Brendan Power played some old style blues that got you all going, again. Cat played her second set here & once again had you all captivated with her seductive & melodic voice. Bluesday has really become an incredibly busy night lots of people are coming back every week, I like this. It means we can get to know you.

Jazz Jam on Wednesday was welcomed back with open arms, really nice relaxed night. I especially enjoyed Gee Baby ain't I good to you, that coupled with the jam at the end make it a wonderfully musical night.

Tonight Amber Room & Amanes are going to get you dancing, see you later

Congratulations...

2006-11-25T20:45:00.000Z

Before I give you a run down of Thursday night congratulations must be written.
Well down to all who graduated on Friday.
Our very own Stevie Wynn, well down, seems like you haven't been out of a suit all week.
Ellie Thomas, nice to hear about you feeling better & climbing trees & statues on the day.
Finally, the delightful magnificent & beautiful Nikki Ross. You looked wonderful last night & your graduation was well deserved as we all know how hard you worked for it. A real achievement whilst looking after two beautiful children & that pesky husband of yours.
Well down all you offically qualified monkeys.

More congratulations must also be dished out to Icallshotgun who played their debut set at osmc on thursday. A local band with a sound reminisent of Radiohead, helped greatly by the lead singers beautiful & haunting voice. This band have a large local following & I'm sure this is due to the quality of their performance, very tight & together. It is rare to come across a band that really communicate with their audience & it was most lovely to have them sitting on stage, facing the audience & talking about their songs. A beautiful communication that made the performace feel very personal & intimate. Check out their Myspace for their next gig, this is a band you must see.

Dr Dark...

2006-11-23T17:01:00.000Z

I wandered into the osmc last night expecting exactly what was here, a heaving venue, smiles & laughter, lots of dancing & an incredible band.

Dr Dark are basically the doors meets the beatles with a heavy ska influence. These guys create an amazing sound (I never thought that you could do that to a guitar, drums, violin, bass) & have a fantastic stage presence. They will be back again & we are very much looking forward to it.

We had a Fantastic debut last night from the wonderful Cat. It's very rare that a musician can hold an audience with just their voice & a Guitar, but Cat does this perfectly, I must admit I wasn't here when she played to a full ballroom, however as I was cleaning up from my toatie praticing she came in for her sound check & gave me goosebumps. She is just what we had been waiting for, beautiful haunting voice, wonderful lyrics that make you want to cry into her shoulder and not a sliver of pretence. I have booked her in for Bluesday Tuesday so catch her here on Tuesday if you missed her last night.

Dr Dark...

2006-11-23T01:51:00.000Z

Another lively night for the folks that managed to get into osmc tonight.

Weren't you funny monkeys luckym to get in, v. budy & fun.

Wonderful performace from lovwly CAT, NOT REALLY A FELINE, ZA PERSON, AM CURRENLLY ATTEMPTINGH NTO GET HER ONTO BLUDAY BTUESDAY.CEAUTIiful voice, captive aduience, what more could i wanttt

Katie B rocks us out... again

2006-11-22T02:11:00.000Z

Wow, what an amazing night. Katie B sang the blues & got the whole place rocking. It was quality to see alot of the people that had been there the week before back again, we love return custom, it means we get to know who you are & what you like, this is so important to us, as we love to bring music to everyone.

How happy was I to see you all dancing your little socks off, you lovely (yet crazy) people, you fill me with happiness when I see you having such a lush time.

Katie B once again filled our space with her beautiful voice, she makes me tingle sometimes. Adam lynch did a little singing as well, that he always does so well, Jimmi R blues as always was a magnificent compare. Many thanks must go out to Katie's band, Jeremy on bass, Jake on Guitar, Ian on drums, Adam on sax & James on saprono sax, sorry if I forgot anyone.

I am pleased with the positve reception to table service, please remember that we are trying this out, so bear with us, we are getting there.

must go, my curly fries are burning.

love love holly

p.s hey louis, the blog is back

grave apologies

2006-11-20T17:10:00.000Z

Have been suffering from the 'have to much to do' sydrome lately, so sadly lack of posts makes you little blogger monkeys suffer, however leaps & bounds are being made daily at the club.

We are all set to relaunch our day times with the toastie revolution, coming on the 24th - this friday, so make sure you pull your socks up, come along & have some lovely food, you can see where all my efforts have been diverted to.

have allocated myself half an hour a day to update you guys on what happened last night, so as of tomorrow you'll have the new review.

tonight frettnoise with lucy kitt, alex cross & crazy adam

see you soon

love love

2006-10-29T17:21:00.000Z

So the festival is over & what a weeks worth of events we had, every night sold out early & many nice things were said

2006-10-24T13:18:00.000+01:00

Last night we saw some amazing short films,

however I am feeling uninspired to put an intersting entry right now...

maybe later.

p.s make sure you love & care, there is not enough love in this world.

2006-10-22T18:03:00.000+01:00

What a night, it seems you were all keen to kick off the Canterbury fringe festival in style with weekend long celebrations starting on Friday.

Lucy played us a beautiful set & it seems that you guys loved it as well, being very quite & attentive to the lovely Miss Kitt. Her unique blend of singing whilst gently thrashing the guitar (if thats possible) seemed to have captivated you normally noisy monkeys. Katie B also put on a stella show as always, her backing band were fantstic, really tightly held together. Katie has a classic blues voice. So very sexy, she really makes you listen & draws all attention to her as she belts them out in the way only she can. Katie will be performing at another Bluesday Tuesday soon so keep looking at the website to see when shes up next.

Steve Watermans jazz jam, the first event of the festival fringe @ osmc was a marvellous sucess. It was very busy & absolutely amazing to see so many musicians on the stage at once. What a talented bunch that turned up to make last night amazing, a real mix of jazz, definetly something for everyone. (As with all the festival events make sure you get tickets sooner rather than later as they are selling out so quickly on the night)

Some non musical news to report...

Sadly Friday night was Ellie's last with us, so goodbye & good luck Miss Thomas.

Happy Birthday to Mr Winn. Steve has been with us now for a couple of months & I think we are going to keep him. As one of the new partners he hasn't quite settled in yet & is doing lots of work all the time, not having caught on to Adam, Stefan & Sams technique of not doing much(I jest, I jest), Steve needs to learn how to get other people do the work, however he is good at getting things done & we have seen a great improvement in various areas that were severly lacking before due to incompetence & inexperience.
In short, Steve has really contributed alot to the club & we are going to keep him because he is lovely.
Have a lovely B'day Winnie & enjoy your time off.
p.s spelt your name wrong 'cos I know it annoys you.

2006-10-19T15:39:00.000+01:00

I have been encountering difficulties with updating this thing. It seems that every time I attempt to something comes to stop me.

However I have finally got onto the net & the pc seems to be working so i'll keep my fingers crossed.

It's been an interesting week with some really good acts. Dr Dark played a blinding set on monday & will be coming back to play on a friday in the new year. It was amazing to see a band with so much raw talent & potential, a refreshing change & a geniuenly inventive sound. This band are one to watch so if you can catch them anywhere go along, I promise a great night.

Tuesday bluesday was a wonderful sucess, this night seems to go from strength to strength, the acts are always of the highest quality & the ballroom is packed out by half eight. I am feeling a renewed viguor after seeing Andy Sneddon beatboxing along to James & Phill on the sax, amazing, all eyes on stage, silence in the audience & a real buzz. Beautiful.

I managed to learn some Salsa last night, I improved minimally from my previous lesson, but the pros came out in force last night, but we saw lots of beginers taking to it amazingly well.

Luke is on tonight & tomorrow we will see the lovely Katie B entertaing us with that beautiful soulful bluesy voice, Lovely Lucy Kitt will be supporting so friday will be wicked with two very different acts. Be in by eight thirty to make sure you're in.

Jazz Knights

2006-10-13T17:50:00.000+01:00

I have finally logged back on, Tonight we have Jazz Knights & the famous Jim the drummer, should be an excellent night & remember we are open til midnight now.

2006-09-19T18:18:00.000+01:00

Having been so chronically rubbish at leaving posts in the last couple of weeks I have decided that I shall turn over a new leaf & become more attentive at posting reviews, appologies for those of you who are looking reguarly (as if).

Bluesday Tuesday. Review Tomorrow.

Love Love Holly

Week Review

2006-09-12T14:44:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of posts. I'll give you guys a brief run down of what you missed last week.

Tuesday night saw the start of Bluesday tuesday. A great new event at the OSMC, showcasing Blues groups. Dave Ferra entertained a few of you guys with his haunting unique style. A really talented guy who got you up on your feet with his more upbeat songs.

Wednesday night saw the first of the film nights put on by UKC film society, the audience were mainly students but if you love film you must come along to these monthly nights as the standard is always very high, in future though we will be putting on the music, as we are not entirely sure if we can cope with the extreme experimental style. Experimental is always good, but I'm not sure if we are willing to take it to those extremes yet.

Thursday night. Luke, as always put on a blinding show Presenting you guys with a great band, Two men & a tree. These guys were experimental in the good sense. A really interesting group, swaping instruments & doing something really interesting. Quite folky & quirky, sure to get better, just a shame that half of them are going to uni.

Friday night was great, sorry to turn so many of you guys away but you have to get in early at the weekend if you want to get in at all, especially when Syd Arthur are playing. If you haven't seen this group they are a blend of funky folk with Liam providing beautiful vocals over their always tight performance & with Mohanski supporting they really created a vibrant & exciting atmosphere. Mohanski were really innovative & played some great tunes, Friday night was great for eargasms.

Saturday saw the return of Jim Leverton & Geoffrey Richardson formerly of Caravan. What a great performance from two of Canterburys best loved musicians. With their stories of travels & concerts all over the world it was great for reminising & a really nice relaxed vibe as you all came out to see these great performers

Sunday with the Stacks of Wax collective was a really nice end to the week. Loads of people turned up to see these guys do their thing. Sundays are the new thursdays.

More reviews tomorrow. Love love

2006-09-05T15:08:00.000+01:00

psycho comedy last night was great. I could do with a laugh after the mission I had trying to pay my council tax yesterday.
I went along to the office after my sister called me up to ask me to go & pay it, I had convieniently accidently on purpose forgotten about it. So I reluctantly dragged myself up there & was a little shocked to see that the whole place had changed & that I now had to get a little ticket to wait for ten minutes to be told that I couldn't pay it because it wasn't in my name. I'm boring myself now so I think I'll go & do something more useful

Monday here at last

2006-09-04T14:06:00.000+01:00

Well it looks like we made it in the end. After all the blood sweat & tears we got there. The club looks great & I think we all feel a little better now the opening weekend has got out of the way.

Luke played fantastically well as always which was nice as it felt like things were back to normal, apparently he wrote us a special song but I missed most of it as I was skiving have a roll up down the fire escape.
Lovebucket were amazing on friday, they got the place absolutly alive with their blend of jazzy love.
Flipron... I don't really know what to say about these guys. Personally I think that they are the best band we've had here, they are so unique. It's hard to put them into a metaphorical musical box as they seem to have totally created their own genre. Spooky & very sexy. Check out their website (its on the links) as I am not very good at doing them justice.

Big thank you to every one that come along over the weekend & looked after us over the past month. See you soon I hope.

Tonight is psycho comedy, sadly a ticket only event, but it happens every month so if you wanna come to the next one get a ticket from the Marlowe

One day left...

2006-08-30T22:52:00.000+01:00

The deadline approaches fast but we will be opening tomorrow. I suspect that the work will continue through the night, but there are things that must be done.

All very tired here at OSMC, it seems as if it will never end & personally I'm not feeling particularly productive.

I know it will all be done by tomorrow afternoon, I also know it will be well worth it to have the place full of life again, but a fear has crept into me & convinced me that something is bound to go wrong.

Some men came today & put some new pumps on the bar, we are now selling John Smiths & Kronenburg. All our beer is extra cold as we have had a new cooler fitted & some other things that make it cold.

My spirits were greatly raised when I saw that Vera had left me a comment. Thank you Vera, keep checking the blog out to keep up to date with all the goings on here. I miss you.

Its getting late. Cups of tea must be made. Tables must be stained, there's a floor to buff, glasses to wash, mayhaps some arse scratching, painting to be done.

Watching paint dry...

2006-08-29T20:42:00.000+01:00

Today everything seems to have really come together. The sripper has gone on the floor, the toilets are being papered as I type, the hall is almost finished & the ballroom is pretty complete. Today I put the bar back together & apart from washing some glasses that is ready to go.

It's strange to look at. With the absense of pictures(sorry mike) I'll do some describing for you. The stage has been put into position, although it is currently topped with chairs. Its pretty big, but has been placed to the left of the bar along the side wall. Now when acts perform the audience will hug the stage & you will be able to see whats going on from everywhere in the club. The monstrosity that was the former sound desk has gone & been replaced by a piano. It looks a little strange, as if someone has just left a piano there.
The black chairs the marlowe provided us with have gone & are now replaced by various other mismatched chairs.
The Ballroom looks incredibly large. Very bright & airy. The hall to the ballroom looks fantastic, Adam lovingly restored the panneling that was uncovered & has fitted the gaps with backlit glass.

I hope we will be finished in time. Luke will be opening us up on thursday night & I can't wait to see him & the feelings back in the club.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Stevie Wynn who got some shit on his face yesterday when he was buffing the floor. Don't worry mate, you still look pretty with nasty gungy black sludge on your face. I suspect this wasn't the first & am sure it won't be the last time this happens.

See you on Thursday.

love love

Starting to panic...

2006-08-28T19:11:00.000+01:00

2006-08-23T15:26:00.000+01:00

I have been back in the club since Monday. Well rested, energised & ready to tackle some stuff.

The ballroom is looking really good, I painted the skirting on Monday & am finishing it off today, Damein & Micheal are tackling the walls & pillars.

Yesterday I put wax on half the stairs & buffed it off & lacqured them, they look really nice, but I suspect that's due to Micheal spending most of Monday sanding them.

Adam & Stefan are working really hard, early mornings & late nights, but they will both be getting away for a couple of days before we reopen.

Any questions?

p.s Happy Birthday for tomorrow Alexander, please post me some cake

Late licence

2006-08-18T14:39:00.000+01:00

We were granted our late licence on Tuesday. We will now be open till midnight on Fridays, Saturdays & some of the Saints days.

2006-08-08T14:14:00.000+01:00

Am now on holiday, so for a couple of weeks there will be no entries on the blog, however this shouldn't stop you lazy monkeys leaving comments.

I spent all of Saturday stripping paint from the stairs, while the guys linned the walls & painted them magnolia. It's all looking really good, really coming together. The wall paper has been chosen for the toilets & I am really looking forward to seeing how its going to look.

Off now to buy a dress, I'm really not looking forward to that, especially not when I have to wear it, the things we do for love...

Love love, more entries when I'm back at work.

Day Five...

2006-08-04T16:23:00.000+01:00

It's strange how used to things we get. The club without the sound desk & stage seems to be totally normal now. We ripped the kitchen out the other day, I had great fun smashing all the shelves out with a hammer. The decorators have arrived & have stripped three pannels in one wall & are currently lining the others. I have spent today trying to shift the underlay that has stuck to the stairs from the carpet, I did most of this yesterday but I've got bored & am now washing the skirting boards so that they will be ready to paint onto.
I have been lent a camera & I finally brought it in today & have taken lots of pictures, so once they are up on the computer I will try to post them, Adam will send some out with an email as well.
So far so good, progress is being made, it's starting to come together...

Day two

2006-08-01T14:25:00.000+01:00

The stage has gone as has the sound desk. We ripped it all out yesterday & found lots of fiberglass that had been used as soundproofing & many layers of carpet. We are going to reuse the fiberglass as insulation for the cellar & the carpet has gone to the tip. We have salvaged alot of the wood that the stage was constructed from & are going to reuse this somewhere. The carpet on the stairs has also gone & we were pleased to see that the floorboards are in a decent state.
The club looks a little strage with no stage or sound desk, it looks alot bigger & we can see how it was painted before & have revelaed various layers of nasty & nice wallpaper. Things are going well & we hope that the decorating will be done in the next two weeks.
I have borrowed a camera & will be taking pictures everyday so we can see when its all done the progress, Adam may also send some out to you guys via email so you can see how its all coming along.

Finally congratulations to the Lasletts. Baby girl arrived safely on Sunday, 6lb & 8oz, welcome Ophelia Rose, we can't wait to see you.

Refurb...

2006-07-30T17:36:00.000+01:00

It is with some degree of sadness that I post this review. Last night was our last Saturday night till we reopen in a months time. It was absolutly amazing. Amanes brought with them a carnival atmosphere, an incredibly energetic performance & as always you guys got the floor moving & had me impressed as you danced in the oppresive heat. It was so amazing for me to feel the energy & excitement in the club & I feel it was such a good note for us to end Saturday on, at least for a little while.
My thanks go out to everyone who came along & put up with the heat & sometimes short tempers behind the bar. You made my last night of work for a while really fun & it was so nice to see everyone having a really good time.

So, the refurmishments begin on Monday, I am really looking forward to this as I, unlike some of you, didn't ever see OSMC as Local Hero's. I can't wait for us to start taking the place apart & putting it back together again. I am very excited about all the stuff we are going to do & I can't wait for the night when we reopen & you all come back to see us again. Over the refurb I will still be putting posts up so you can keep up to date with all that we are doing, I might even try to sneak a couple of pictures in if I can finally work out how to put them up.

Now for my horrendously long like list of thanks...
Big thank you to everyone who has really supported us & put up with us over the last few months, you guys are the ones who kept us going. Thank you to all the wonderful acts who have played & given me some really enjoyable nights at work & to all the artists that have displayed their work. Jen, for setting up my blog so that I can comunicate what's going on. Andrew, for leaving me posts, hope you're having a good time in Scotland. Everyone who wrote wonderful letters & emails of support, it's nice to know that you people love us. Jack, I don't think you read my blog but I miss working with you so much, you are lovely & OSMC wouldn't have done so well if you hadn't been there to pull the ladies in. Vera, who has gone back to Luxembourg. I will really miss you so much & will never forget that first night when you asked me how to make a gin & tonic, I was so worried about what the hell I was going to do with you but you were & still are amazing. Ellie, on so many occasions you've helped me out & I don't think you understand how much that means to me. Alexander, thank you for making my blog international. Frankie, you're lush. Finally, Adam, Stefan & Sam for giving me a really wicked opportunity. I appreciate all the stuff you've let me do & all the things you've taught me, I think where we fail sometimes is by not letting people know how we feel. I am so glad you guys gave me a chance, & I hope that I'll continue working with you for a long time.

Friday...

2006-07-28T19:26:00.000+01:00

The only words that have really been coming out of my mouth lately are that I'm hot. I am not doing too well at thinking at the moment either.

Just some quick orange news. Tonight we have some lovely jazz. The David Holland quartet will be putting on an eclectic fusion of trad-sax jazz with a modern be-bop twist. Should be lush.

Tomorrow night will be great as we have the lovely Amanes. Traditional greek music with pounding western beats. If you look back over the blog entrys you should see a review of them that is more exciting. Am having difficulty thinking. However I do think that if you need to take someone out e.g a relative who is getting married, & you've failed to organise anything this would be a great way to spend the night.

Sorry for not updating the Blog over the last few days. My brain & body seem to be shutting down with the heat.