<i>Mark the green-eyed yellow idol, on her mantelpiece, a-gloating</i>

My first Scarlet's Well rehearsal at The Moat studios in a snow-covered Stockwell, and I finally meet the reputably eccentric, mysterious Bid. He is short-haired, charming, handsome, sickeningly youthful for someone that was releasing records in 1978, and wears a black bowler hat to the session. It transpires he once made hats for Alice Cooper. In his presence, I at once feel at ease. Which for me is a rare sensation indeed. These Scarlet's Well performances will be the first time Bid's played live since the hibernation of the Monochrome Set some years ago.

<i>I see it now, I see that I must belong here
How many years, how long have I been away?</i>

The Moat Studios is a fairly large, joint rehearsal and recording complex deep in South London, with crisps, cakes and Connect Four at the disposal of its denizens.

<i>Lend me; lend me your body to cohort in Picardy
Don't let me stay a willy wisp
I want to have a funny lisp, like you, like you, like you</i>

I am equally delighted to learn that the mention of four candles in "Clop's Birthday" (from the second Scarlet's Well album) is, yes, a reference to the Two Ronnies sketch:

<i>From Goldenear, there came a box
Of many cogs and wheels and handles, with four candles
When he cranked it, it played Mozart
Ting!
And from a hatch, there hopped a monkey
Very toothless, deaf and dusty, slightly musty
Screeched thus, tunelessly, with gummy grin
Happy Birthday, Clop
We wish you many sorts of wild adventures
Happy Birthday, Clop
And when we're into port, I'll buy you dentures, 'cos
I've just nicked yours</i>

We begin, just Bid and myself on acoustic guitars and vocals (I deign to do a bit of backing singing), by trying out most of the 40-odd Scarlet's Well songs recorded so far, including the contents of the forthcoming fourth album, "The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse". It's a shame they'll have to be whittled down to a mere 40-60 mins' worth, including one or two Monochrome Set favourites (the audience would demand it, after all). But, then, SW was orginally designed to be a purely hermetically sealed, studio-bound affair, and it quickly becomes apparent which songs can survive the transition to the greasy concert world of soundchecks, bar table chatter, the need for immediacy and engagement, the need to communicate beauty, soul, magic and joy to a room of strangers. But the resulting shortlist is still not nearly short enough, and further agonising decisions over which tunes get the chop abound.

<i>Her sails were all a-puff-pride bloated
Sweet singing, were the bell-bottomed scurvy scum
And on the prow, the red-eyed captain, banging on a wolf-skin drum</i>

Soon, Toby Robinson, the genial, Santa-like in-house engineer, producer and owner of the studios enters, freed for a moment from the rigours of producing a Chinese rock band, and plugs in a bass guitar. For the moment, everything is open-ended. I refuse to use words like "organic" without feeling the need to go and stand in a dark cupboard for an hour afterwards, but for now Bid arranges things around who can make which rehearsals and concerts. Scarlet's Well is less a band, more a fictional world illustrated by Bid's songs. Journeying on the tube to Stockwell, and even trying to sleep the night before, my mind is convinced I am preparing to enter another world, not just rehearsing with a band. It's a truly exhilarating feeling.

<i>We leap down cobbled alleys
Catlike
We've come from battling many
Laden galleys
My heart's a flame inside a ring of jet</i>

When making music or creating any other kind of art, one must always strive to provide something one cannot find elsewhere in the world, rather than just Joining In and diluting instead of adding. Nowhere is this maxim more vehemently embraced than in the songs of Scarlet's Well. At no point is the group about to go into a sub-Stooges garage rock workout, the likes of which blares out from every other dank dark gig venue in London. O, sweet relief.

<i>This glade is full of purling strains
Some are sighs, some are sobs
Some are hunger pains
And when you take another trail
You hear a tiny throat bewail
Don't turn so quick, my frail
Don't you want to join me playing</i>

A second rehearsal a few days later, and the trio is joined by Mr Martin White (<lj user=martylog>) on accordion, and Ms Kate Dornan (<lj user=serious_k>) on keyboards. Instantly the songs come alive a thousandfold.

<i>Spin your dreams above our heads
Weave the tunes into the threads</i>

My acquaintance with Ms Dornan, a Fosca bandmate who manages to hold down positions in two other bands as well (Madam and Butterfly Stitch), stretches back to the days of Orlando. Mr White, however, I only met once before. It was at a gathering of mutual friends in a Tooting gay pub, a few days before Christmas. I had heard he was an accordion player, one whose arrangements of modern chart pop hits had garnered a level of attention elsewhere, not least in some new Men's Magazine list of Cool Things To Download.

It may not be the same publication, but I'm reminded of a current TV advert for a typically garish new men's journal, "Nuts". The commercial goes on to highlight four areas of interest, seemingly boiling down all male experience everywhere to this grimace-inducing quartet of selling points:

-"GIRLS!"

-"CARS!"

-"FOOTBALL!"

-"SHARKS!"

Modern Man entirely summed up, there.

I particularly like the idea that it's JUST sharks, out of all God's vivid and diverse animal kingdom, that's meant to appeal to men. Not penguins. Not lemurs. Not kakapos. Just sharks. They're a Man's Fish.

The Tooting pub in question was the most straight gay bar I've ever been in. Perhaps that's a sign of the times, as one can see men kissing in any kind of London bar these days. It's difficult to tell whether such conjunctions are a genuinely gay couple, or two heterosexual male TV producers greeting each other. The only vaguely Uranist evidence in sight at the Tooting hostelry was a modest, wall-mounted rack of issues of "Boyz". Which is an altogether different kind of mens' magazine.

I chatted with Mr White and found him engaging, friendly company, with a shared interest in the works of Neil Innes of Bonzo Dog and Rutles fame. Then, a few weeks later, when Bid nailed the blood-stained note to his Internet tree advertising for musicians, specifically an accordion player, the fact I was now newly acquainted with just such a fellow, and one who owned a Monochrome Set album at that, seemed too, too perfect. If there was a higher power involved here, I sincerely hope it looks like a shark playing football.

On top of this, at the rehearsal Mr White revealed he'd been to see the National Theatre production of Mr Pullman's His Dark Materials saga. With its talking animals, piratical voyages and brave girls travelling through the Underworld, it's a work that certainly comes in handy when describing the colourful, sprawling world of Scarlet's Well.

<i>And we say: "Row the boat ashore!"
And we say: "Tie him to the door!"
And then we'll "Nail him on the floor!"
O, bring him up, o, bring him up</i>

[All italicised lyrics in this entry are from Scarlet's Well songs currently being rehearsed]