The Masons' 20th aniversary
Landlord of the Masons, Kristen Smith celebrates his 20th year at the pub this weekend by performing there with his rock ‘n’ roll covers band, The Wurlitzers on Saturday 25th November. Over those twenty years the pub has gained itself a reputation of being one of the best small music venues in Wales with touring bands from around the world playing there. However, it was not quite as professional when my band, Johnny Wishbone & the Voodoo Starfish, were the first band to gig there all those years ago.
Prior to running the Masons, Kris ran the Lamb & Flag on Swansea Road where we would occasionally have a Sunday night jamming session between some of the musicians who called there. Because of these jamming sessions, I decided to get together with another one of the regulars, Anthony James (stage name, Johnny Wishbone), and form a band. By the time we had written a few songs, Kris had moved to the Masons so we decided to try some of our tunes out there. Bands who play the Masons always comment on how good the sound is on stage and how much Kris looks after the bands but one thing I remember from our sound check was Kris telling me to turn the keyboards down. We didn’t have any keyboards in the band. You will all be thankful to know that he can now tell the difference between keyboards and a guitar. The other problem was that Kris didn’t have a music licence back then so we couldn’t have a full band which meant that we had to play as a three piece without a drummer but at least that meant that he didn’t have to move the pool table. To be honest, it was more like a two and a half piece band as our bass payer, Rich Davies (stage name Papa Midnight), didn’t know all the songs so he played half the set, then I switched from guitar to bass for the other half.
We couldn’t complain about the hospitality though; when I went to get a drink before we were on stage, I was told by Kris’ mam, who was working behind the bar, that it was free as we were playing. I told our bass player this and he also had his free pint of Felinfoel. Our singer, on the other hand, decided to get himself two turbo shandies, a double whisky and an alcho-pop. The free bar policy didn’t last, otherwise I’m sure Kris would not have been in the pub for twenty years. I told our singer to drink up as we were on stage in five minute and he proceeded to down everything he had just had from the bar. When he started the first song, myself (stage name Pablo El Diablo) and our bass player exchanged confused glances as we had never heard that song before. When he got to the chorus, we did realise that it was one of our songs but played in the wrong key and at the wrong tempo. The other problem that we had was that after almost every song, our singer would leave the stage and sit with his drink in the audience before realising that he was in the middle of a gig.
Thankfully the gigs have got far better since with many great bands playing there, although I have been back with Johnny Wishbone once or twice on open mic nights to lower the tone again.
