The Sound Of The Sea

When I was but a wee nipper, Mrs White would often tell me that if you put a sea-shell to your ear, you can hear the sea. I believed her, as any honest young boy would. But now, I realise she was lying to me. My very own mother.

I now know Mrs White was lying, because I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and I've heard Captain Blood Blood And The Seadogs - and now I know that they are the sound of the sea. Well, the Thames Estuary anyway.

The British seaside can be split between two types of treat - either a quaint, well kept haven, scented with the whiff of the old and the infirm, or a desperation fuelled, end-of-the-line nonce-hole, reeking of meths. And to my mind, the second type is generally preferable.

I've spent many a happy hour wandering around such barren wastelands as Blackpool, Margate and Hastings. When I was little, it was all a bit dazzling and exciting, but as you get a bit older, you start seeing the cracks, the filth swept into the corners, and the grotesques that congregate there, because there's no-where else to go, apart from the cold salty embrace of the sea. Loving it.

And Southend is my favourite nonce-hole of them all. It's probably not the most horrific in all honesty, but I've got fond memories. When I was still at school, and we weren't old enough to get into the local hostelries, Phil Strickland would sometimes borrow his dad's company car, and we'd drive to Southend to spend an evening 'cruising' along the seafront, whilst idly sipping Super Strongbow. We stuck out like a tricky kipper, because in amongst the Max Powered simple-mobiles blasting out tawdry house, we would play a nice bit of Dionne Warwick, or whatever else Mr Strickland had left to hand in the glovebox. Surprisingly, we never got stabbed.

In the most tenuous of links, the good Captain and his 'Dogs don't come from Southend, but they do hail from Leigh-On-Sea, which is just up the road. So it's no surprise that they've captured the true sound of the sea, and proven my good mother wrong. The Swamp gets this best, with the timeless couplet The skinny eyed, bug eyed, one eyed with five teeth / She was my favourite - then she died. Beautiful.

More songs and links to videos are on their Myspace, but I imagine the true beauty of the Captain will only come through in person - so see them on a boat in Falmouth on the 17th of June (apparently), the 12 Bar Club on the 1st of July and The New Cross Inn on the 3rd of July, and hear them on Dexter Bentley's Resonance show on the 24th of June. Ooh. Arr.

Captain Blood Blood And The Seadogs - Back Into The Sea

Captain Blood Blood And The Seadogs - The Swamp