Power Of Zeus: the club

POWER OF ZEUS

The Windmill, Blenheim Gardens, Brixton
Friday July 26 2002
8pm til late
adm: £3

to get to the Windmill:
click here for a map with an arrow pointing to the Windmill

nearest tube: Brixton (Victoria line)
nearest BR station: Brixton
from the tube station, the Windmill is about 15 mins walk up Brixton Hill, or you can take one of several buses (59, 109, 159, 133, etc) from outside Woolworths'. Get off at the third stop, opposite the White Horse pub.

Blenheim Gardens is the next turning on your right, and the pub is at the end of the street on the right hand side. If you're coming from the south, you probably know where it is anyway If you stay til the end, there are night bus services to central London and south to Croydon that run along Brixton Hill. Or you can ask the bar staff to order you a taxi

Well, after literally months of faffing about, there's going to be a second Power Of Zeus club. And, to those of you who attended, wanted to attend or even were only dimly aware of the first one, it has a reassuringly familiar ring to it.

Yes, we're back, Back, BACK! at our spiritual home, The Windmill, SW2, with the very ace LITTLE BARRIE treading the boards around 10-ish and a couple of crates of the best in rocking funking funky rocky rock and funk and funk-rock. Oh yes.

The only significant change from proceedings last time is that we've managed to get ourselves a better night of the week: this time it's a Friday, which means you can stay out longer. Unless you have to work the next day of course. In which case, apologies.

If you didn't make it to the first one, or anyone who did who fancies a recap, you can see what you missed by viewing our photo gallery at this link <<here>>. There's also a complete track listing of every record played to be found <<here>>.

Anyway, for anyone joining us late, here's what the whole thing is all about.

The idea is that the club will specialise in funky rock, rocking funk and the heavier end of the breakbeat spectrum. We're talking everything from Led Zeppelin, Blood Sweat & Tears and Grand Funk Railroad to Sly & The Family Stone, Eddie Bo, Jimi Hendrix and Baby Huey. Basically, anything with hard drums, raw rock power and driving funk energy stands a chance of getting played. POZ isn't envisioned as competing with the numerous excellent funk nights that exist in London, but hopefully will compliment them by going off in a slightly different, more rockier direction.

While The Gospel According To Zeus remains the touchstone record of the club, in many ways the concept is also very well summed up by the title of Funkadelic's Who Says A Rock Band Can't Play Funk? My other club, which I run with Ian Watson, is Club Beer, where we play Music That Only Sounds Good When You're Drunk. The serious intent behind that (and yes, there is one) is that throughout your life you're coerced into thinking that some music is cool, and some other music isn't. It took me years to arrive at the conclusion that there's really just good music and bad music; and after I'd realised that, it didn't take as long to decide that there's actually only music you like and music you don't.

I don't intend to make Power Of Zeus a forum for playing anything that comes into my head, so there are parameters. But I'm going to keep them pretty vague, as there are a lot of records that I want to have the freedom to play if I feel like it. There'll be plenty of room for funk records with no guitars on them, with no conventional signifiers of rock. And there'll be things that are more
vintage metal than anything else. But hopefully the underlying thread of this being great, perhaps under-appreciated and quite often deliberately maligned music will hold the night together. I don't want to play a boring record just because there's an 8 second drum break in it; and I don't intend to be a snob about it, and only play obscurities. Hopefully, POZ will be a place where you can hear something you've never come across before, and where you'll hear old favourites in a new context.

Once again, the live band for the night are LITTLE BARRIE, a London-based, Nottingham-founded trio who have released three singles - Shrug Off Love, Don't Call It The Truth/Give Me A Microphone, and Memories Well - on the Stark Reality label. Imagine the Meters playing the second Stone Roses album, or the Spencer Davis Group jamming with Booker T & The MGs. They're simply one of the best new bands in Britain, they were the perfect group for our opening night, and they're still perfect for POZ2. We're fortunate to get themback for a second slot as their star is firmly in the ascendant. This gig will be a warm-up for their biggest show to date two days later, when they play at the Route of Kings in Hyde Park as specially invited guests of the Modfather himself, Mr Paul Weller. Come and catch 'em here while you can still get close enough to see the whites of their eyes...