One time, before the hideous mistake of its foreclosure, I was at a party at Lan Franchie’s. It was the height of summer, it was stuffy and hot and as usual there were far too many people there, so as a result the walls were almost slimy to the touch. Late in the evening, on what was that makeshift, old beat-up stage, a band of hatted, vested men who looked as though they had just walked in out of the California dustbowl circa 1930, took to it and started beating out an unholy racket.

A mixture of swamp blues, do-wop rhythms, spirituals and hillbilly rag time – what on earth was this? It was C.W. Stoneking, and he and his time travelling band turned that rundown warehouse space into a jumping, stomping revival tent. It was brilliant. I didn’t see CW again, apart from one time when I saw him at a bar one afternoon with a woman most definitely his wife. He was wearing a black suit and a wide brimmed black bowler hat and possibly, a cummerbund. They cut a fine and otherworldly pair.

A few years forward in time, and things are not quite ordinary at the Metro when we arrive to see seats in front of the stage. I will try and describe for you what it was like to be there, but sometimes these things are like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. However!

Anyway, Brownbird Rudy Relic is sitting on the stage in a chair, ready to bust out what he describes as “Anti-Stereo Acoustic Holler Blues” (the name of his record), and that is absolutely as close as I can get to describing it. But, thank you internet, at least there is video now, so here, check him out. Yes, it was hilarious, and his jokes were also hilarious, but under that the dexterity of his voice was astounding. Having honed his performance in the subways of New York, you can see why having to draw attention to yourself like he does, is a life-skill. “I want to thank the sound guys for trusting me with these real expensive microphones,” he quipped after walloping them with his guitar for the fifth time. It was over all too soon; I can’t remember the last time something was so gosh darn entertaining.

All those gathered to watch C.W. act sort of like a bunch of people in a secret society. The nearer the show draws, the more awed the hush, more anticipatory the murmurs. And if you are a casual acquaintance such as I am, it’s hard not to feel as though you’ve stumbled upon something wonderful and strange. I can only describe it as Lynchian -when the black shirted band took their seats before C.W. strode out, tall as hell and all in white (pressed briches!) in a bow tie (also white), and mumbled his helloes in that weird, weird accent of his.

And once the show was on I can say that as someone not in possession of a C.W. record (something I remedied right away), I was very much alone in that, as the crowd roared along to these ghostly tunes from another time and place.

It’s the stories, though, that C.W. tells, the yarns he spins between songs that make his show what it is: that true feeling of moving through space, the Metro suddenly inhabited by pygmies, monkeys, drunks and unfortunate lost, deadbeats. Of being in jail, in New Orleans, of waking up on a beach in Africa where spiders bite your face. In Tupelo, where a groom winds up wearing a dress in an alley now he’s an invalid with two black eyes. And if they’re true or not, who knows – who cares? – they seem real enough in the moment when we’re carried away.

C.W.’s wife Kirsty sings on Housebound Blues (“We were in Los Angeles recently all the women would ask me, ‘Oh my Gaaawd! What’s it like to be married to CW?’”), on Jailhouse Blues just as CW bemoans his lack of a harmonica player, someone in the audience strikes up with theirs to much whooping and hollering from the crowd.

With his weird mix of mythologies from bygone eras, the pre- and post-war blues intonations, the stories all told in that voice sometimes hard to decipher, C.W. Stoneking could be the bastard child of Jandek and Robert Johnson. When he next pulls through town with the Primitive Horn Orchestra, I’d try and be there. You won’t quite know what you’re seeing, but you won’t soon forget it either.