Live London: The Good Ship

289 Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR

As I've posted before, I currently live in Cricklewood, a North West district between Brent, Barnet and Camden borough.s Well, in fact, my place is located there... I do actually LIVE in Kilburn. Ten minutes walking down Cricklewood broadway, this originally Irish area begins, and... well, I have to say it was a nice success to select this place to live in! A multicultural feeling, but not just the pakistani and polish communities, but a quite appetizing melt including those and Irish, Spaniards, Brazilians, Italians... Plenty of shops, pubs, even some clubs and a cinema, you don't really feel like going to Central London that much once you've found out what's going on in here. And, of course, you can cash in on the beer lower prices you have in zone 2. And of course, you can enjoy The Good Ship.

First thing I did when I arrived here, I checked what kind of clubs we might have around. You know, sometimes you don't really want to get the bus to go to Central London, and you don't want to spend the huge money going out out there costs. Apart of that, you can feel cheerful a Tuesday night, and... well, you aren't going to go to Fabric a Tuesday night, are you? So I checked what we had in Kilburn, and The Good Ship, on the web, looked fine.

Yet, much better than fine, I have to say. We've been there a couple of times, and some facts surprised us. Gladly we discovered they have live bands every single day but Tuesday (Comedy Club) and Sunday (acoustic crap). Every other day you have 3-5 live bands playing between 8pm and 11.30 pm, for a 5 quid cover. 5 good bands in a cover for 5 quid is actually a good deal, depending the quality of the bands, of course... well, mate, you can be quite sure you won't be deceived. We have seen four different gigs by now (as Spanish, we never go there before 10 pm, so we systematically lose the first 2-3 bands), and three of them were awesome (in capitals). The other one was lousy, that's true, but it gives you a 75% chances to enjoy a great concert. Not that many in most venues in Madrid, I have to say...

Of those three bands, the best one, no doubt about it, was Cherri Prince (their space and songs here). A black soul singer performing absolutely great, I really can't understand why they don't have a proper contract with a big discography. Maybe their lyrics are stupid (my English is STILL not good enough to get'em :D), I can't find any other likely reason... I drop a video found in you tube, with the usual bad sound quality... nevertheless, it gives you a tip about how good they are (she is, if I'm fair).




Yesterday night the best one was Capisce? (their songs and space here), a pop-rock band with the best amateur drummer I have ever seen. That was very likely their only flaw... as the drums sounded so aloud it was pretty difficult to hear any other instrument, the singer neither. But still they were quite good, and helped us to enjoy a good nite. By the way, their songs in their space sound much better than live... they have a quite good producer, I guess.

Anything else to say? Well... they have a great site on myspace where you can check which bands are playing every night, and, going to their own spaces, decide yourself if you feel naughty enough to go there. Ah, yes... another thing I forgot... just a tiny one... they close at 4 pm every weekend, and at 2 pm every other day. Luckily I don't have much money to spend at the moment... if not I would be there every fucking single night, can be sure about that!

And beer is fairly priced (3 pounds per pint). Talking about beer prices... if you have a look on the earlier posts on this blog, don't give a shit for the prices I told you pubs had. They were ok at that time, but a recent booze tax rise (6 percent above current inflation this year and 2 further points in the following ones) has changed it everything. An average pint in the UK costs now 2.64 pounds in the pub... but that's another history to talk about (yeah, sure I'll find some V-for-Vendeta quote to stand my opinion there :D). The thing is the Good Ship charges 3 pounds per pint, whatever you have (Pride, Carlsberg, Stella or Guinness, the ones I remember now), and that's a fair price for a club closing at 4, particularly if they are served by barmaids as cute as they are. No idea about spirits or bottled beer prices, though.

Finally, the DJ. The live bands eventually finish, and after that you have a pretty good DJ playing a cool mixture of electronic/pop/rock cocktail, were Kaiser Chiefs or Chemical bro. are melted with stuff for sure you haven't heard before. And you'll enjoy it... promised.