Ten Bells Rag Band

In the early years of the 20th century one of the hottest bands around the gin palaces and opium dens of East London was the legendary Ten Bells Rag Band. Word of mouth at Roman Road market and the oral histories recorded during the inter-war years hold that this band were playing a syncopated form of ragtime blues a clear two decades before the Hot Five discs. Sadly, no known recording exist of the band, though rumours persist of a wax cylinder last seen being eaten by the cornet player as he was being led away to one of his frequent incarcerations in Mile End Institution. The band were last heard from in 1913, two days before their guitar player mistakenly booked them onto Shackleton's disastrous Antarctic voyage, responding to the wrong newspaper advert whilst trying to obtain one of Harrington & Beaverstrong's new pneumatical beard trimmers. Having gambled all their money away on the train to Southampton, losing their final shilling to three nuns and a one armed Moldovan clairvoyant, they had to busk their passage to South Georgia. So annoyed were the rest of the Shackleton expedition with the trombones player's attempts to mimic the call of the Antarctic Humpback Whale, that they marooned the band on floating sea ice a clear seven weeks before Endurance itself became stuck. They were never heard from again. The emergence of a new band, bearing the same name, some three weeks after rumours that the move of the British Antarctic Survey base had disturbed the perfectly preserved remains of 5 men, some mangled brass, a double bass and a washboard, are purely coincidental.......