Will Carruthers

Second gig of the year and second trip to The Holloway of 2026 for Dreamweapon: An Evening with Will Carruthers. Having gone along expecting a bit of talk about Carruthers’ (excellent) book “Playing The Bass With Three Left Hands”, some poetry and maybe a bit of music, it was something rather different….

Elenwen opened with a set of intriguing electronica. The tunes are very short and more like sketches than finished songs but there’s definitely something there that I like.

Former Spacemen 3, Spiritualized and Brian Jonestown Massacre bassist Carruthers then delivered a set of solo songs and poetry accompanying himself on a charity shop acoustic guitar. Not necessarily the best singer or guitarist but an interesting and appealingly self-effacing raconteur.

The highlight was the closing set: Elenwen on keys, Floral Image bassist Matt on guitar and another guitarist recreating the Spacemen 3 performance at Brentford Watermans Arts Centre recorded for the “Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music” album (when Carruthers (in)famously failed to turn his amp on for the whole performance) whilst Carruthers read extracts from his book, poetry and spoken word. This was - perhaps surprisingly - excellent, mind-bending stuff.