What's Kickin' Vol 3

Stovepony Records bring us What’s Kickin’ Vol 3, the latest compilation featuring bands who’ve played at the What’s Cookin’ club nights in Leytonstone. This enterprise run by Stephen Ferguson and his partner Ali, has been going for four years now in a series of venues in Walthamstow and Leytonstone and there have been many cracking nights along with a one-day festival last summer.
Stephen puts the compilations together along with Bucketfull contributor Gerry Ranson. They’re always good value and provide a good snapshot of the roots bands currently playing around the London pub circuit and beyond. There’s always some exclusive tracks and always some surprises.
This selection keeps up the good work, moving through the punked-up country of Some Dogs through the garage wildness of The Fabulous Penetrators to the differing bluegrass stylings of Southern Tenant Folk Union and Hayman Watkins Trout & Lee. There’s a trio of more pop-tinged tunes in The Epstein’s ‘Hudson’, The Shivers’ ‘Sweet Little Cheat’ and the Byrdsy ‘Friends Like Me’ from Cusack.
They had a launch party the other night over at the Sleepwalk and about seven of the bands played. That followed on from a similar night a couple of weeks back to raise money for Love Music Hate Racism. On that occasion Alan Tyler, Danny Wilson, and Pete Molinari all appeared but the stand-out set came from Steven Adams of the Broken Family Band. Steven played a set of covers from folk like Akron/Family, Clem Snide, Smog (‘Feather By Feather’), Will Oldham (‘No Gold Digger’) and the superb Knife In The Water (‘Nevada Spider’).