Something of the Nightlosers

When on summer holiday in Transylvania, while you might expect the occasional brush with the local folk music in one form or another, you certainly don't expect to discover a band playing the most bizarre combination of blues, R&B and eastern European gypsy music that you've ever encountered in all your days as a music critic. But that's what happened to me.

When on summer holiday in Transylvania, while you might expect the occasional brush with the local folk music in one form or another, you certainly don't expect to discover a band playing the most bizarre combination of blues, R&B and eastern European gypsy music that you've ever encountered in all your days as a music critic. But that's what happened to me.

It had all started so innocently, but then I guess Bram Stoker had thought that too, and look what happened to him. I was staying with my family at the guest houses of a genuine Transylvanian count - the young (just 35), charming and urbane Count Tibor Kalnoky - in the obscure hamlet of Miklosoara (that's Miklosvar to those of Hungarian descent), settled amid the rolling countryside of south-eastern Transylvania. I hastily assure you that we were paying for the privilege, and that the other guests (mostly from Central Europe) were as well. But the Count, deeply committed to restoring his family's estates to pre-Ceausescu glory and also to preserving the unique hybrid cultures of Transylvania, was a willing font of local knowledge.

Being a music-lover, he provided a large range of CDs to accompany his guests' evening meals when the weather was cool and we had to eat inside. The first track played that evening was Jimmy Reed's "Shame Shame Shame": it started fine, with solo bottleneck guitar worthy of Muddy Waters, but when the band came in there was a country fiddler playing jig patterns, a banjo plunking away and the bass and drums playing a country-mile two-step. Wild! And that was before the vocalist started (he had a troupe of backing female vocalists à la Bryan Ferry intoning "Shame On You" for a start). By the time the violin solo began I was anticipating more weirdness, but was then knocked off guard again by the accompaniment of a bunch of thigh-slappers doing a Transylvanian Morris Dance along with the band's electric guitars. The blues playing was superb, the singing completely authentic: these guys knew what they were doing. The recording quality was also impeccable.

The song ended and the CD carousel whirled, moving on to some more typical Transylvanian folk music. My attention wandered - it was feeding time, after all. About 20 minutes later, we were back to the same CD as the unmistakable strains of "Blue Suede Shoes" struck up, sung in a manner Hank Williams would have approved of, accompanied by suitably dirty electric guitar. But as the vocalist reached the refrain, the whole band broke into a fast polka. What?! This provoked me into laying down my knife and fork, picking up my glass of wine and stalking over to the CD player. There I discovered that the perpetrators of this madness were a group called Nightlosers. The name of the album was Plum Brandy Blues. Sounded like they were on the stuff at the time...

The next day, I asked our ornithologist guide, Bobby, what he knew about the group and it turned out he knew a bit. They were Transylvanian musicians from the University city of Cluj, around 100 miles away, and were very popular there. They played lots of gigs. "Come to think of it," he said, stopping in his tracks, 'they played at a huge outdoor barbecue here."

"How come?" I asked, feeling the presence of their mad music wrap itself around me as we stood in the grounds of the Count's deserted hunting-lodge.

"Well, an American stayed here a couple of years ago and heard their CD," (this is getting repetitive, I thought) "he liked it so much that he arranged through the Count to hire them to play here in the grounds of the Hunting Lodge. The guy flew his whole entourage over from America. The entire village came, plus other guests of the count." Bobby, standing on the porch of the lodge, gave a sweeping gesture with his arm. "All the village was grouped here, it was summer, and the band played for a long time."

"Did everyone enjoy it?" I asked. "Oh yes. It was good. Everyone danced and sang and the American was very pleased too." I stood there envisaging a whole village of people doing the Polka to "Blue Suede Shoes".

"Bobby I've got to buy a copy of that CD before I go back," I cried. "Where can I get one?"

It happened we were going to Cluj for a couple of days. Bobby said we'd be bound to find one in a shop in their home town. I scoured the place with my family on a boiling hot afternoon (my sons had now become similarly infected with Nightlosers fever) and eventually found a large record shop. No Nightlosers. I asked an assistant. "Sold out" was his off-hand remark. "Any more CD shops here?" I asked. "No."

Five days later, the quest was rewarded. In Bucharest, with a few hours to kill, we found a big music shop. They had five copies. I bought two. When we got back I hit the internet in the hope of contacting the band. To the strains of "Pretty Thing" (played with a rumba beat) and "Stormy Monday Blues" (given a slinky cowboy feel) I located a site that told me Nightlosers had hardly ever left Transylvania, just making it to a festival in Budapest once. Unfortunately their e-mail didn't work. So here am I with one of the weirdest, most beguiling CDs of music I've ever heard and I can't tell the group they've now made the papers in Britain.

But one thing I know for sure: put them on at the next Meltdown series and they'll steal the show.

'Nightlosers Present the Groove Distillery - Plum Brandy Blues' is a self-produced album (www.happyline.ro/nightlosers)

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