There aren't many gigs in London in the first week of January. In fact, along with August (when some of the bands over to play the festivals will also slot in a London show), it's the quietest time of the year, with hardly anything going on. But the Track and Field organisation put on a series of two or three gigs in that week called the 'Winter Sprinter'. Lucy and I went there for the first time on 7 January 2004 to see James William Hindle, St. Thomas, Herman Düne and the Essex Green. It was just one of those evenings where everything goes right, and even those things that don't go right don't seem to matter (despite being early January, we had to strip to t-shirts and were still sweltering inside the Water Rats on Grays Inn Road). Even the music between the acts was brilliant. It was a compilation of indie bands doing Dylan covers, which sounds like it might be awful, but wasn't — unfortunately I couldn't get any details from the sound man.
I think Lucy and I felt Herman Düne stole the honours that evening, but St. Thomas was pretty damn good too, and I bought this limited edition (of 500) 7" white vinyl EP at the end of the evening. I assume the title song was named in honour of the Track and Field nights, though there's no direct connection in the lyrics.
Time Out always used to describe St. Thomas as a Scandinavian Neil Young in their listings, but, aside from a vague similarity between their voices, they don't have a lot in common. These four songs are all acoustic, and recorded by St Thomas at home.
As you can see from these photos from the evening, St. Thomas was wearing a jacket, tie and tame hair. A year later (as you can see via the same link), he was looking like a grunge Bjorn Borg. But that's a story for another time.
I see from St. Thomas's fan site and official site that he's spent a fair chunk of this year recovering from drink and drug problems, and hasn't played live for a while. I hope the recovery is going well, because he's a lot of fun when he's on form.
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