Hamish Champ: Music in pubs; you can't beat it

I was pleased to see that my last blog effort - on the subject of music pubs threatened with closure thanks to high-minded local residents - stimulated some debate.

With this partly in mind, and with the wife and child off in Ireland for half term leaving me here in Blighty all on my lonesome, I suggested to a few mates that we visit a local pub possessed of a lengthy musical heritage in order to see what was 'going down with the kids'.

The south east London boozer in question has undergone some changes in recent years, but despite this it has a darn good track record of attracting burgeoning acts.

It boasts being the place where a very young Kate Bush played her first ever gig more than three decades ago and recently hosted a certain P. Doherty and his Babyshambles ensemble.

Yet the signs weren't exactly great. The audience was sparse, what clientele there was making me wonder if I'd wandered into a crèche, though it turned out these were relatives - presumably younger siblings - of the band.

The group itself was reasonably competent, musically, though trying a tad too hard to be a Cockney version of t'Arctic Monkeys for my taste. Much​ more impressive was their attitude. "If this is the London scene," snarled the barely pubescent frontman to the near-empty pub, "you can f**ing stick it!"

Not, perhaps, the ideal ploy to win friends and influence a future download-buying public. But all the same my companions and I gave the spotty young oiks full marks for having the balls to take on the fridge-like atmosphere of a south London boozer on the quietest night of the week.

We listened, we tapped our feet and we appreciated the youthful guile on display, but as we didn't want to be mistaken for teachers or undercover rozzers we decided not to overstay our welcome.

Sauntering along to an Irish pub a bit further down the road, one possessed of a fine juke box, we settled in, drank lots of Guinness, and talked absolute rubbish for a couple of hours - the highlight of said discussions being admissions of our respective musical guilty pleasures; mine being a secret love of the works of (whisper it) Celtic mood songstress Enya.

No matter. This past weekend has given me a salutary reminder of why music and pubs make such a potential and heady mix. And long may it continue.