Some of you may remember a local band called Dansette Junior, who were signed to Columbia for a while and racked up a cool two million hits on YouTube with their biggest track, Paranoid.
Our favourite ditty by the group, however, led by longterm NW5 resident Will Hunt, was – what else? – the Kentish Town Song. A highlight of their regular sets at the much-missed Alma Street Fair, its immortal chorus is a simple but effective refrain: ‘Driving with the top down/ On the way home back to Kentish Town’.
The good news is that this upbeat summer festival-style anthem has just been re-released in a more pensive new version, an orchestral affair which builds to a crescendo, complete with mournful horn section.
“I[/dropcap] wrote The Kentish Town Song as a cap off to the area I’ve loved living the most in London,” says Will. “Although the record is coming out at Xmas it was written with a summery feel in a boy-meets-girl scenario. The guys at The Sundae Club are a talented bunch and we’ve given it a 70s Brummie feel along the vein of ELO’s 10538 overture.”
You what? Keep up, the ELO namecheck is because the release itself is what they’re calling a ‘double b-side’ to a track called El Original Brew by Will’s dad Bill Hunt. He was one of original line-up of both ELO and 1970s glam rock chart toppers Wizzard (the folk who used to wish it could be Christmas every day) and now records under the name The Ancient Order Of Froth Blowers, which includes another showbiz Hunt, Miles of Wonderstuff fame. Got it?
So it’s an intriguing double-header to counter the more obvious Xmas musical fayre, anyway. And if you’re into your craft beer, the enterprising gang have even teamed up with Birmingham-based brewery Froth Brewers to release two tie-in limited edition ales: EL Original Brew (ABV 5%) and The Kentish Town Song (4.2%).
You can try them, while stocks last, at excellent hostelries like The Pineapple, Rose and Crown and Southampton Arms over the holidays.
