'It's the size of a shoebox' my date tells me. 'And it's always rammo'. Possibly the worst two lines you could hand me when describing a venue. But those were my dates choice words as we hit the tube en route to the 'Ain't Nothin' but the Blues Bar' down Kingly Street in Soho. We slip by the doorman who punches his clicker twice.
Inside, the long bar to the right is 3 man deep and everyone is craning drinks backwards over their trilbys to the parties in wait. I snare a couple of Heini's and we fluke a couple of seats by the stage. The backdrop are old posters of blues greats with retro neon bar signs adorning the walls. Imagine Roadhouse the movie minus the wire mesh to protect the bands from missiles. The only thing missing is the smokey fog of old cigars circulating around the room. There should be a law allowing people to smoke in bars that play blues music.
Instead everyone has a rolled cigarette tucked behind their ear, they're table tapping, some are air drumming. Downstairs the toilets are flooded and there's no soap in the dispenser. Chalk portraits of Screaming Jay Hawkins, BB King, Fats Domino and other legends of the genre, stare me down from the walls by the stairwell. I think on my blues name as I sit through the next band which is more clean cut James Dean rock n roll. Intsantly I want to go the bar and tell Lou to give me a milk, chocolate, and have it slide across the bar like a tractor beam to my palm. I try this with my bottle of Heini and nearly stack it all over my date. When the burlesque dancers come on its all a bit too much for my English awkwardness so my date and I agree its time to hit the bricks. Overall the 'Ain't Nothin But the Blues Bar' reinvigorated my love not only for Back to the Future, but live music, specifically blues. I want to go home and start a blues band, get a wife, a dog, a drinking problem, just so they can leave me and I can sing about it.
