Venue…The Cherry Tree, Tonbridge Road, Maidstone
Show…Unlucky Fried Kitten with Andy Export and Andy White
Date…May 9th 2009
To co-incide with the above show there will be a competition to win this actual jar of Hartley’s Best Black Cherry Jam 340 gram…with a Best Before Date of February 2010.
This fantastic prize will be awarded to the person who takes the best photograph of Unlucky Fried Kitten at the show….so bring your cameras and don’t miss out on the chance to win this beautifully preserved food-stuff.
Suitable for vegetarians and vegans
On this topic…there was a music performance and recording group called The Jam.
….there was never one called Hartley’s
….nor Black Cherry….though we did have Black Grape…and Wild Cherry
….and Marmalade
………..so….let’s keep these bands preserved
So…don’t forget…best foto taken on May 9th at the Unlucky Fried Kitten gig wins this jar of Hartley’s Best Black Cherry Jam.
The use-by date is February 2010….so assuming you win it in May you will have 9 months to use it. Have jam on toast once a week. It should work out about right.
black-cherryAndy White will be playing some of his own songs and a selection of covers chosen specially for the evening.
Unlucky Fried Kitten will be playing some of their best-loved compositions and generally making a bit of a nuisance of themselves.
The whole event, should you be unlucky enough to miss out, will be filmed by Rio Fraser and preserved (there’s that word again) for all prosperity.
We have already mentioned The Jam and Marmalade…but the culture of popular music is littered with references to this type of food.
It is well documented that the word “jam”… as regards to a group of musicians getting together and playing…was first used by the jam-factory workers of the 18th century. After the jam was made up in batches it would sit in vast cauldrons where it had to stay for at least 4 hours before it could be bottled up or put into jars. This 4 hour period was enough time to enable the escape of the seed toxins….which would sometimes make the jams poisonous. The workers would bang on the jars and bottles to make crude music and would sing along to pass the time. Over the years the workers began bringing small musical instruments into the jam-plants…and the “jam” principle grew from there. Eventually this evolved into the brass band…with all jam- plants having their own bands….in the same way that the brass bands sprung up from the mines and collieries around Britain. Incidentally… the first brass band to come out of the land-working era did not come from the jam-plants nor did it come from the collieries. The honour goes to The Tovil Treacle Mine Big Brass Ensemble…formed in and around the confines of the Tovil Treacle Mine in the heart of the Weald of Kent…near Maidstone. Treacle had a toxin-release time too…and to pass the time in the “release-off” period the workers would sit around in the Bockingford Fields drinking Ice-Cold Oggies and perfecting their musical skills.
Other known preservative links to the world of popular music include:
Ken Dodd and his Diddymen….who worked down the jam-butty mines at Knotty Ash, Liverpool
The Keef Hartley Band….Keef was born in Preston on April 8th 1944 and was replacement drummer for Ringo Starr in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. It is widely believed that he took the name “Hartley” from his absolute love of berry-fruit jams.
The Lemon Pipers….named after Lemon Curd….definitely.
Mike Berry
Neneh Cherry
Gladys Knight and the Pips
Strawberry Switchblade (named after the knife used to cut the stalks off the strawberries)
Paul Melba
and one of the biggest preservative success stories of modern popular music…PEARL JAM.
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