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Steven Cooper and Joseph Porter
Red Wedding was the name settled
upon for the acoustic duo featuring Blyth Power's Joseph Porter and
Steven Cooper. It's nothing to do with Billy Idol. Wedding is a district
in Berlin, notable in the 1930s for being riddled with wild-eyed Trots,
so that's where we took the name from. The project was an extension
of Mr Porter's solo work, and was intended to add another dimension
to his interpretation of the chords A, D and E.
For those of you who know nothing about Blyth Power, and have come
straight to this page, Mr Porter has been ploughing that particular
furrow now for twenty years, as a crooning drummer. Mr Cooper is a
former member of Thanet's finest, The Maccabees. Both played together
briefly in The Whisky Priests, while Mr Cooper has latterly been acting
bass player for Goth supremos Dance on Glass. In fact between the
two of them they've been in more bands than they care to remember.
What a pair of old slags.
The music consists of Mr Porter's E-tuned Washburn, supplemented by
Mr Cooper's mandolin, harmonica and additional guitar, depending on
which three-chord effort they are dealing with.
Red Wedding, while being essentially a tuneful acoustic duo, such
as would not bring a wince to the face of even the most traditional
of folk club regulars, also carried on the great Blyth tradition
of being as outspoken and opinionated as its members deemed necessary.
What folk music did next has happened. This was what it did after that.