Seph Ong (2010 - 2018)

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I moved into a house share in 2007 and met Ste Fleming in the middle of the recording of '... And I was Sore Afraid' back when it was still known as 'The Doomed Album'. It was at this point that Ste talked about taking LET on the road and practices commenced in the dining room/rabbit's bedroom with me on a borrowed bass. Needless to say these practice sessions didn’t come to much and we parted ways. 

A few years later the idea of taking LET on the road resurfaced, but this time in a stripped down acoustic/electronica format,  with me as computer operator and tambourine player. Practices took place in Ste’s flat, and needless to say things didn’t get too far until the idea of fusing a more conventional idea of a guitar band setup with electro bass and drums was stumbled upon, this time with me on guitar. Practices in this new format continued in Ste’s flat until the arrival of LET’s next new member . ..

The most LET thing was the show at the Lomax in 2013 that had to be abandoned half way through due to ‘technical difficulties’ with the backing track - ie the monitors not working and none of us being able to hear a thing on stage.

Or it may have been 2012 - our second time playing there anyhow.

We did battle on valiantly though.

Upon reuniting with Ste after about 20 years give or take a couple of decades, I was asked to be a part of Le Emu Tavern.

At that point it was Ste, Seph and a mysterious space robot that lived in Ste’s Laptop. The problem was that the laptop had a dodgy power cable connection and the space robot was in serious danger if the lead fell out mid-gig.

Ste obviously remembered me as a steady hand and asked if I could stand on stage and hold the cable still. I stepped up. Onto the stage.

Soon, Seph pointed out that as I had a hand free most of the time, I may as well try hitting a cymbal.

After a few weeks practice, I finally did hit that cymbal, and the wheels began to turn... a bit more than they were (coz Ste had already done the album).

Many very Le Emu Tavern moments happened during my tenure; the sound guy popping up pulling pints mid-set just when we needed him most was one, the one and only time I ever heard a  cry of ‘You’s are s**t’ from the audience. A half decent sound tech would have had the volume cranked up enough to drown that out - we were generally lucky with that.

I think the most Le Emu Tavern thing that ever happened, though, was after a gig at the dear old Lomax. It was a wash-out bank holiday, this led to the crowd being poor, and in all fairness we were even poorer.

It just wasn’t happening, and we quit mid-set.

It’s a bit heartbreaking when that happens, we always practised well but sometimes it doesn’t spark.

Ste and me jumped a black cab home which stopped at the lights outside the Phil pub on Hardman Street... and then also failed to spark.

‘Sorry lads, not sure what’s happening - any chance you could give us a quick push over the junction?’

We got out onto the gloomy, rainy street, put our hands on the back of the cab and exchanged a look.

I can still picture Ste’s face and I now realise that ‘look’ was the reason I joined a band, and the reason I loved it so much.

Thank you Ste, Seph and Sanjoy. xx

It was Valentine’s Day, and I was staying in a cheap hotel on a business trip (alone I should probably add!) when I got The Call. I had been friend and near-constant drinking buddy of Ste and Mol for ten years, give or take, and had first picked up a guitar at the age of eight, yet it was still a curious choice, since up to that point I had never owned an electric guitar worthy of the name. The release of the new album had been earmarked for May, with a launch gig pencilled in as my on-stage debut, which required a demonic work ethic to get the songs under my belt. Some were more straightforward than others. Learning to use a whammy bar to bend the notes for Lando Calrissian was particularly fiendish, but by the time it came to the gig, we were all set.  The day before, Mol and I had gone to town to shop for clothes, which led more than one shop assistant to assume we were gay lovers. 

Looking back, the gig at the Pilgrim was the absolute apogee of my relatively brief time in Le Tav. People actually came to watch. Some even paid. After that, we took the stage a few more times, most memorably at Truck Festival in Oxfordshire, before circumstances decreed that that brief and heady time was at an end. It was the time spent in the company of two of my best friends that I remember and enjoyed the most. Whether it was wandering around Delamere Forest with three glove puppets (all called David) to record the video for “Money My Mum Has Not Got” or the times in the  practice studio, stopping for long chats in between songs, or probably the other way around. Resplendent in cape, Le Emu Tavern is like a superhero movie, constantly evolving to meet the demands of art and the public. My career in the band lasted probably no more than eighteen months, but what a journey it was!