SpideWriter

The Ice House Is Cool Again The Ice House in Great Yarmouth was once the most important building in the port, home to an immense herring fleet.  The Ice House enabled a voracious fishing fleet to operate.  It would have been the grease in the axle of a wheel of the industry, providing the ice for packing for fresh fish, enabling the catch to be transported to London and eastern Europe, where herring was much in demand.  Once a port serving close to a thousand boats, with all the ancillary work that thrived in its wake, Great Yarmouth was a prosperous town, employing all of its men, women and most of the able children in employment.  The critical importance of this ice house, prior to the invention of electric-powered freezers, must not be under-estimated.   Located on the seaward side of Haven Bridge, the Ice House was accessible to all boats, unrestricted by the ancient river crossing.  The building is just a brisk five-minute wa...

  Mama Oh No, Yer Blooze and Decent Wrestlers, Norwich 23 Jan 2026 I arrived at Voodoo Daddy’s in good time for the Mama Oh No set, while thankfully managing to catch Yer Blooze’s from the middle of their opening number.     Having missed the opening act, Decent Wrestlers , I heard from others that their debut gig went well.  I can report that a couple on my bus home were chatting enthusiastically about the Decent Wrestlers’ set.  With the encouragement of the Norwich scene, I hope that they keep working at their music, as their set went down well with the early evening Voodoo people. Yer Blooze play it wide at Voodoo Daddy's Showroom     Yer Blooze is the stage name of multi-instrumentalist Dylan Clarke , who frequently performs solo sets in small venues around the city.  However, Yer Blooze also performs as a band featuring  Harry Fisher  on viola, Rueben Claybourn  on guitar,  Matthew Walker  on key...

Hindustani Classical Psychedelic Rockers heading to SXSW March 2026 Dare you take yourself back to the immediate post-pandemic period?  The emotional toll, the losses, the systemic shock of lockdown, everyone doing what they knew was for the best for everyone?  I don’t want to drag it all back up, but what I do want to remind you about is how life returned and moments when you felt that first hug from a friend, shook hands, (or maybe fist-bumped) someone you were being introduced to, maybe a hug of welcome or on parting? I remember being close to tears, or tears spilling many times over as social contacts were re-established and I became acquainted with new faces within arms’ reach, not just blinking through an online video conference network.  I remember going to the Walnut Tree Shades , which is squeezed into the alleyway that is Old Post Office Court in Norwich and the elation of being in a crowded pub relishing live music.  The Norfolk Blues S...

New Single Proper Job on the divided state of Creative Britain   When The Clash recorded Career Opportunities for their first album, (when I was a teenager), my mates and I all knew what they were shouting about.  Unemployment was on its way past the three million mark, thanks to the implementation of Thatcher’s neo-liberal Chicago School of Economics shock doctrine experiment.   Nearly fifty years later, (yes, fifty years) the career opportunities have been re-shaped following another ten years of Tory misguided and divisive austerity policies.  Career opportunities are still not knocking and jobs are definitely only being offered for no much better reason than to keep youngsters off the dole, as Job Seekers’ Allowance was previously known colloquially.  So, bravo  Micko and The Mellotronics who are drawing attention to the increasing gap between the haves and have nots in the music and arts world in their new single ‘Proper Job’ released ...