James Combes
Sunday evenings are synonymous with boredom. After the excitement of the weekend there's little left except shoes to clean and the slow, painful ache that comes from knowing that you have to go to work tomorrow.
Now there's a better way to spend the dying hours of your weekend. A pub in Lye, in the West Midlands, is the showcase for a young guitarist and singer by the name of Jon Townley. Every week at The Windsor Castle, Jon, 24, takes to his stool at 7pm, with his acoustic guitar and kazoo, and plays a marathon three-hour acoustic set.
But don't expect the normal repertoire of covers. Or a predictable set-list. For Jon Townley is the King of the Random Medley. He says: "I just make it up. What I play depends on who comes in and what I feel like." Get a pint, find somewhere to stand. And try not to get in the way of the man feeding bits of cheese to his Scottie dog.
Prepare yourself for a brief history of pop / rock / dance and metal music in just 180 minutes.
Your mind will boggle as Jon jumps from Rage Against the Machine to Take That to Fleetwood Mac. With guitar playing this frantic, he should get through more strings in one night than the London Philharmonic Orchestra. But he doesn't break a single one.
The set closer is a brilliantly executed version of the "Cheers" theme tune. Except it isn't. Popular demand means that the set will last at least another 20 minutes, but that's part of the fun.
By this point, you will have forgotten about cleaning shoes and the painful ache of work. What could be better on a Sunday night?
The Windsor Castle is located at 7 Stourbridge Road, Lye, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY9 7DG.
Sunday evenings are synonymous with boredom. After the excitement of the weekend there's little left except shoes to clean and the slow, painful ache that comes from knowing that you have to go to work tomorrow.
Now there's a better way to spend the dying hours of your weekend. A pub in Lye, in the West Midlands, is the showcase for a young guitarist and singer by the name of Jon Townley. Every week at The Windsor Castle, Jon, 24, takes to his stool at 7pm, with his acoustic guitar and kazoo, and plays a marathon three-hour acoustic set.
But don't expect the normal repertoire of covers. Or a predictable set-list. For Jon Townley is the King of the Random Medley. He says: "I just make it up. What I play depends on who comes in and what I feel like." Get a pint, find somewhere to stand. And try not to get in the way of the man feeding bits of cheese to his Scottie dog.
Prepare yourself for a brief history of pop / rock / dance and metal music in just 180 minutes.
Your mind will boggle as Jon jumps from Rage Against the Machine to Take That to Fleetwood Mac. With guitar playing this frantic, he should get through more strings in one night than the London Philharmonic Orchestra. But he doesn't break a single one.
The set closer is a brilliantly executed version of the "Cheers" theme tune. Except it isn't. Popular demand means that the set will last at least another 20 minutes, but that's part of the fun.
By this point, you will have forgotten about cleaning shoes and the painful ache of work. What could be better on a Sunday night?
The Windsor Castle is located at 7 Stourbridge Road, Lye, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY9 7DG.
Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.
Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Mumbai, India. He is a correspondent for All Sports magazine, and a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Examiner. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional publications. Sumantra runs a blog at DailyWorldWatch.wordpress.com. He provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.
Brian Usher is photography consultant for The-Latest.Com. He is a highly experienced editorial and commercial photographer whose work has been published throughout the world, appearing in many well known magazines and newspapers. Brian has featured in several books and has been a writer for the Royal Photographic Society magazine.
Heidi Kingstone has spent time in Afghanistan reporting for a number of publications. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times and other international journals. She has also reported from places like Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya. Heidi is The-Latest's Editor at large.
latest comments