STARS AND TRIPE;
Last weekend's Phoenix Festival was filled with big names, but it was the smaller ones who shined by John Peel
 

 
SINGING and drumming at the same time has always seemed to me a pretty neat trick, one that Sam Marsh of the Bury St Edmunds trio Jacob's Mouse has off to a T. Sam's trio was the first band to strut its stuff on the main stage at last weekend's Phoenix Festival, held in the featureless, windswept grounds of the Avon Park Raceway near
Stratford-upon-Avon, and the Mouse's no-nonsense, post-grunge rock was just the ticket.
 
I had been hired to play records betwixt performances at the Raceway and to introduce the bands, so I next summoned up the God Machine and then Fatima Mansions, both of whom offered workmanlike if unremarkable sets. Sadly, the amusing remarks I had polished to a diamond brilliance to introduce Hole, fourth on the race card, went unheard, as I had forgotten to open my microphone. With an agility born of years of experience, I blamed this on the sound crew, thus guaranteeing myself a weekend of apologetic tea and stale biscuits. There has been much recent interest in Hole, principally due to singer Courtney Love's keenness for winding-up the press. Courtney is also, it must be said, married to that Kurt out of Nirvana. Happily, this latter counted for little, despite some bonehead in the audience punctuating every pause with "Where's Kurt?". Hole turned in a fervent 40-minutes which our party of 10 voted the best of the weekend. This is a serious band and no one woman show...[snip]