There's one thing you can be sure of in 2009: Wilko Johnson, the Essex Assassin, will still be wowing audiences with the unique brand of Rhythm'n'Blues-based rock he pioneered with his band, Dr. Feelgood in the early seventies.

The man who put Canvey Island on the cultural map has, since then, been making some of the most influential music this country has produced since the Rock'n'Roll era began, when the original Feelgoods, radiating violence and neurosis, ripped a stagnant UK music scene asunder in a torrent of hitherto unimagined switchblade-slick, stripped-bare, feral, three-chord R'n'B.

The perfect onstage foil for Wilko is bassist Norman Watt-Roy: widely regarded as one of the most accomplished bass players in the country, Norman shot to fame in Ian Dury & The Blockheads, and has contributed his considerable talents to recordings by artists as diverse as The Clash and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. This powerhouse trio is completed by another ex-Blockhead, Monti. He has played drums with many cutting-edge bands including the Cocteau Twins, the Jesus and Mary Chain and Curve.

Support:
Peoples Republic of Mercia


Presented by The Old Market




Tickets Also Available at:
Rounder Records 01273 325440
Resident Records 01273 606312
SeeTickets.com

Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1985 for a change of scene from his native Belfast. He became headline news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburbs of Beirut for the next four and a half years. For much of that time he was shut off from all news and contact with anyone other than his jailers and, later, his fellow hostages, amongst them John McCarthy. He went on to become the author of the extraordinary testimony of imprisonment and survival that was ‘An Evil Cradling’.

Brian Keenan’s new book ‘I’ll Tell Me Ma’ is the story of a boy growing up in Belfast after the war; an ordinary boy who would go on to become world-famous. Rich in detail and atmosphere, it is an affectionate story of a disaffected childhood. At the centre is a shy, self-conscious boy of unusual moral integrity; a boy puzzled by religion and sectarianism, in love with books and music and full of curiosity about the world outside. A book of reclamation, it is also a coming-to-terms with the past: a resounding, thrilling record of redemption.

Presented by City books at The Old Market

Jah Wobble presents his new book Memoirs of a Geezer: Music, Life, Mayhem at The Old Market.

Written in his own unmistakable voice, this is a frank and fascinating account of a geezer’s life in the music business.

Jah Wobble begins by offering the most authentic insider’s account of the beginning of punk rock yet written, but there's much more to him than that. His is an eventful life, as the celebrated ups – PiL’s The Metal Box, 90s hit Visions Of You with Sinead O’Connor – are balanced by major downs – chronic alcoholism and marital breakdown. It begins with an East End childhood in a London barely recovered from the War and ends with Wobble finally turning his back on London that no longer feels like home.

Through the book Wobble tell it like he sees it: his opinions of the great and good from Malcolm Mcclaren to Peter Gabriel to Brian Eno to Iain Sinclair are refreshingly disrespectful. Oh and if you ever wondered how got his name, the answer is here: his teenage pal Sid Vicious gave it to him when he drunkenly slurred Wobble’s real name, John Wardle.


Presented by City books at The Old Market

BRITTEN Three Divertimenti
SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.10
DVORAK Quartet Op.106 in G

Ian Stewart, author of the bestselling Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, presents a new and magical mix of games, puzzles, paradoxes, brainteasers and riddles - Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasures.

He mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, appallingly hilarious mathemantical jokes, and enquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present and past.

Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational or imaginary to complex or cuneiform, we find out: how to organise chaos, how matter balances anti-matter, how to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it…), why you can’t comb a hairy ball, how to calculate pi by observing the stars  - and we get some tantalising glimpses of the maths of life and the universe.

Mind-stretching, enlightening and endlessly amusing, Professor Stewart’s new entertainment will stimulate, delight, and enthrall.


Presented by City books at The Old Market

Terry Callier, one of America’s foremost Jazz, Soul and Folk guitarists and singer-songwriters from Chicago, plays a seminal gig at The Old Market.

A childhood friend of Curtis Mayfield, Callier began recording in 1963, but stardom remained out of reach despite a series of regional hits in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 90’s he began his comeback to recorded music, contributing to Beth Orton’s Best Bit EP in 1997 and releasing the album Timepeace in 1998, which won the United Nations’ Time For Peace Award for outstanding artistic achievement contributing to world peace.
Callier today has currently released five albums since Timepeace, four of which are on Mr Bongo Records, and has recently recorded with Massive Attack.

www.myspace.com/terrycallier


Presented by Family Entertainments

We are sorry to announce that this event has unfortunately been cancelled.
We apologise for any disappointment or inconvenience this may cause. Please contact your ticket provider for refunds.

DJ Flicks is a movie and a party rolled into one, showing new, rare and unseen films covering dance music in all its guises, each followed by a unique club night that connects history’s pioneer DJs to the exciting scenes they inspired.

Taking a different genre each time, DJ Flicks examines the history of a particular sound or scene, and transports you back to its heyday. There’s a main feature, shorts and TV clips, as well as B-movies through the night.

Presented by DJ History

Creative taster sessions for everyone 19+

An open invitation to the public, participatory artists, and organisations engaged with informal adult learning.


Presented by Voluntary Arts England