Gather round children, let me tell you a tale. A tale of three men and their journey from rock bottom to an even rocker bottom. It’s the tale of the “band” they call Ham Pocket…
Ham Pocket formed in the winter of discontent and erratically exploded onto Sheffield’s live scene roughly 948 moons ago. Christopher Ham and Dominic Pocket performed a variety of tunes at the Green Room despite Dom’s crippling stage fright. Things were looking doubtful a few hours before the gig when Dom had downed 32 Stellas and chain smoked 3 packs of Lucky Strikes in an attempt to calm his nerves but he pulled it together in time. And the crowd were only mildly discomforted by his spontaneous vomiting throughout the set.
Their second outing saw them support Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer and The Grand Old Lukes of Porkshire at the Harley. A landmark event for all involved, it was especially notable for being the moment Dom and Chris realised they had both been playing completely different notes for all their songs, resulting in an almost unlistenable performance. The Star newspaper gave them a thrashing the next day, the headline ran “Ham Pocket? More like Sham Bolic!”
In the summer of discontent they gained a member, Mr. Andy Enchilada, and with him they gained a whole heap of charm, style and panache. After being asked to headline the main stage at Tramlines (they refused – not enough cash) they embarked on their first UK tour, hitting such towns as Grimsby, Swaton and Shaftsbury Upon Haven. But the strain of being away from their families, friends and love ones grew too great, it eventually all blew up one night. A heated disagreement over a pack of Starburst lead Dom to throw an iron (and ironing board) at Chris’s face. They had lost track of what they set out to do in the first place; play great music and get loads of cash, booze, drugs and women. It was the end of Ham Pocket.
Post break up, Dom returned to his former job as a farm hand/wolf herder in Ashby De La Zouche, Andy had a relatively successful career as a welsh crooner (he got to number 6 in the Wales Charts with his deeply disturbing single “Mucky maid”) and Chris became involved into the vicious and illegal world of otter wresting. Ham Pocket were pretty much dead. Well that’s what everyone thought. After Dom had a near death experience with a particularly broody female wolf (a wolfette to be precise) they all realised life was too short to hold a grudge.
They embarked on their first comeback tour. They then quickly realised that they still hated each other and broke up again. They then missed the cash so they embarked on a second comeback tour, playing sold out shows in a variety of car trunks and a few local establishments such as the Harley, The Great Gatsby and Steve Hunt’s back garden. They also garnered some air time on Slovenia pirate radio (2 plays amounting to a PRS cheque of £0.0000000000000000001 – they split it three ways). It’s been no fun whatsoever but the journey finally ends for Ham Pocket: last orders for denim hot pants/acoustic comedy bronze/saucy folk bangers/altercations with El Krazy Kat (in fact, what’s all that about?)/the finest in bavarian and tropical fashion shall be this Friday the 14th June at the Fox & Duck as part of Broomhill Festival 2013.
Bidding farewell to a band that have been so overwhelmingly underwhelming is always tough, so they’ve enlisted the talents of better musicians in attempt to fill the place with punters…
Set times
07:30 – Ben Webster
08:00 – Sam Lee
08:30 – Kid Conventional
09:00 – Andrew Duxfield
09:30 – Sophia Pettit
10:00 – Pro-Verb
10:30 – 1/2 of the Grand Old Ukes of Yorkshire
11:00 – Ham Pocket
11:40 – 50 Sniffs
They’ll be the standard fine ales as well as some other drinks available, you can bring your own food as well. No dogs. Facebook event here.
After the frivolities, many shall be heading down to The Harley for a raucous after-party in which we can further the celebrations of Ham Pocket’s achievements (in which the tally stands at 1 and a half, the aforementioned slovenian pirate radio plays (the 1) and a guy called Paul once said they were good (the half) but he then went on to say he thought was commenting on Abba). DJs playing at this are Clipboard, Jimmy the Gent, Arnivore, Danny Mager and the Quality Controllers. Facebook event for the afterparty is here.
This is certainly the end of the Ham Pocket live experience, they may re-surface on the internet at some point, perhaps as guest vocals on a breakcore track or as extras in a slovenian pornography film, we just can’t say for sure yet.
Goodbye from HP. Much love.
