I know it is not strictly on my beat but I got to Coco Blues Bar in Chaweng, Koh Samui on Monday night. Everything I had heard was good so I was sure I would enjoy myself. However there were a few surprises. The music was very good. It came from a highly talented group of musicians that have seemingly been recruited whilst they were on holiday in Samui. Martin (harps) and Mandy (saxophone) dropped into Koh Samui on route home from Aus. to the UK. Allan and Bruce the owners of Coco saw them jam and immediately recruited them. Similarly Flyn who plays a massive seven string base guitar was recruited that way and a very talented drummer has just joined the crew. The result is 2 regular bands The Steelers Blues Band and the Smokehouse. The Smokehouse has been formed around Mandy and Martin and has picked up some local talent to make up the numbers. Whereas Steelers Blues arrived intact from Switzerland. The Smokehouse play the first session and then in the Steelers Blues 2nd set the various Smokehouse members sit in.
I was impressed when I saw Steelers in action particularly their singer Viva Vincent. She was a highly emotive singer putting a great deal into it, none the least when she covered a ‘little piece of my heart’ á la Janis. But later with Mandy on sax, and Flyn really working those 7 strings the music was electric. I left before the end because I really could not face another hangover. Not to mention a tricky drive back to Lamai over the mountain!.
The bar itself is much smaller than I expected. The downstairs area was packed and the balcony bar was also doing good business. But with music like that it would be a travesty if they were not full.

On the down side I popped into one of the smarter bars around town who have a highly acclaimed (by their PR dept.) diva singing nightly. She was wearing one of those head microphones. Now I can understand that for people who also play instruments or even dance a lot. But for a girl singing basic jazz and contemporary numbers often while sitting down with a nice jazzy sounding backing group I thought it was uncalled for: particularly as she spent half the early numbers looking at the band and not the audience. Every other quality singer of that ilk I see uses the microphone by working it. It would, of course, be undiplomatic to say were this was!