Dec 2012: a good year of festivals, weddings & more
Thanks to everyone who came to our gigs, booked us, clapped and shouted, sang and danced. We've really had a good fun year, going all the way to the West Country for an Americana festival and again for an amazing wedding on the beach... playing new venues as well as old favourites, and on local radio, and for barn dances... supporting the fabulous Sweetback Sisters.... performing au naturel at various small festivals, weddings and folk clubs,. Looking forward to more in the new year! Our first recording, a five track EP entitled Take Your Fingers Off It, was released this summer and we've just had a second print run made. Okay, we're not talking huge numbers, but it's encouraging to have sold out.
Thanks to everyone who came to our gigs, booked us, clapped and shouted, sang and danced. We've really had a good fun year, going all the way to the West Country for an Americana festival and again for an amazing wedding on the beach... playing new venues as well as old favourites, and on local radio, and for barn dances... supporting the fabulous Sweetback Sisters.... performing au naturel at various small festivals, weddings and folk clubs,. Looking forward to more in the new year! Our first recording, a five track EP entitled Take Your Fingers Off It, was released this summer and we've just had a second print run made. Okay, we're not talking huge numbers, but it's encouraging to have sold out.
30 July: our first EP review
in the August Viva Lewes.
in the August Viva Lewes.
15 July 2012: Glynde
Fabulous weekend at the Food & English Wine Festival. Though if we'd realised we'd find ourselves playing for a champagne reception in the evening in the beautiful marble hall, perhaps we might have made different sartorial choices instead of the ready-for-anything apparel for the afternoon's playing both inside and outside the marquees! Couldn't help thinking a string quartet or a harp might've been more what the guests would've expected in such circumstances... But what a great way to spend a couple of afternoons, playing music you love, trying out pretty much the whole repertoire over nine or ten sets, all acoustic like it's meant to be, and being given some lovely food and drink by traders who really appreciated the music! All tired and happy.
Fabulous weekend at the Food & English Wine Festival. Though if we'd realised we'd find ourselves playing for a champagne reception in the evening in the beautiful marble hall, perhaps we might have made different sartorial choices instead of the ready-for-anything apparel for the afternoon's playing both inside and outside the marquees! Couldn't help thinking a string quartet or a harp might've been more what the guests would've expected in such circumstances... But what a great way to spend a couple of afternoons, playing music you love, trying out pretty much the whole repertoire over nine or ten sets, all acoustic like it's meant to be, and being given some lovely food and drink by traders who really appreciated the music! All tired and happy.
2 July 2012: almost going on tour...
Well it's going to be a busy three days, with gigs in Lewes, Bath and Hove on successive nights. First it's our EP launch at the lovely Snowdrop Inn, then we're at the Bath Americana Festival, then the Mariner, a new venue for us. Exciting!
Well it's going to be a busy three days, with gigs in Lewes, Bath and Hove on successive nights. First it's our EP launch at the lovely Snowdrop Inn, then we're at the Bath Americana Festival, then the Mariner, a new venue for us. Exciting!
3 June 2012: Railway Land Festival
Yesterday afternoon at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Railway Land nature reserve we were being wandering minstrels, as well as playing at the main marquee. The talented photographer Carlotta Luke spotted an opportunity for a really great series of photos in this picturesque location.
Yesterday afternoon at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Railway Land nature reserve we were being wandering minstrels, as well as playing at the main marquee. The talented photographer Carlotta Luke spotted an opportunity for a really great series of photos in this picturesque location.
28 May 2012: a really good weekend
This has been a pretty ideal weekend - played a lovely wedding all afternoon and evening on Saturday in Alfriston, with time between sets spent in a rather nice pub garden. Then it was a new venue in Brighton on Sunday evening which went down extremely well, and may become a regular gig. There's nothing so good as playing the music you love for people who love it!
This has been a pretty ideal weekend - played a lovely wedding all afternoon and evening on Saturday in Alfriston, with time between sets spent in a rather nice pub garden. Then it was a new venue in Brighton on Sunday evening which went down extremely well, and may become a regular gig. There's nothing so good as playing the music you love for people who love it!
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20 May 2012: playing for dancers
As part of the Brighton Fringe Festival, we played for the Crooked Moon Appalachian clog team performing at Emmaus, along with some of our songs and tunes which they flat-footed to. Then we were off to play for campers in the evening! |
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3 May 2012: Square & Compass, & Snowdrop
Just played two really packed pub gigs this week, lots of high energy and rowdiness, lots of fun. And now we're especially looking forward to something very different next week, purely acoustic at the Lewes Saturday Folk Club where the audience is listening intently to every word and every note, for better or worse!
Just played two really packed pub gigs this week, lots of high energy and rowdiness, lots of fun. And now we're especially looking forward to something very different next week, purely acoustic at the Lewes Saturday Folk Club where the audience is listening intently to every word and every note, for better or worse!
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16 February 2012: recording
An unusually quiet month after an unusually busy January! But we had a go at some recording yesterday, five songs, and with any luck might have an EP available soon... |
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8 January 2012: Lewes Barn Dance
Brilliant night. What fun playing for the terrific Crooked Moon dance team as they did their three set dances to enormous audience response from a tightly packed hall, people standing on chairs and everything. And to have people in the audience dancing to everything we played, even gospel numbers, was just great. Thanks to everyone involved in making this such a good event.
Brilliant night. What fun playing for the terrific Crooked Moon dance team as they did their three set dances to enormous audience response from a tightly packed hall, people standing on chairs and everything. And to have people in the audience dancing to everything we played, even gospel numbers, was just great. Thanks to everyone involved in making this such a good event.
5 January 2012: first gig of the new year
...at the delightful Snowdrop in Lewes was a fantastic start to January and it's a busy rest of the month to look forward to, what with two more pubs, two folk clubs, and a support spot with Appalachian cloggers at a big barn dance.
...at the delightful Snowdrop in Lewes was a fantastic start to January and it's a busy rest of the month to look forward to, what with two more pubs, two folk clubs, and a support spot with Appalachian cloggers at a big barn dance.
21 November 2011: double bass!
We are feeling fortunate to have found Alex, a brilliant bass player who will be joining us as a guest player for some of our gigs now. Having been perfectly happy as a threesome for over two years of weekly rehearsals and quite a few gigs, a band could've found it a bit difficult to adapt to a fourth person! But serendipity has struck again... We can't wait to play out together next week at the Snowdrop.
We are feeling fortunate to have found Alex, a brilliant bass player who will be joining us as a guest player for some of our gigs now. Having been perfectly happy as a threesome for over two years of weekly rehearsals and quite a few gigs, a band could've found it a bit difficult to adapt to a fourth person! But serendipity has struck again... We can't wait to play out together next week at the Snowdrop.
1 November 2011: RocketFM
Well that was a new experience! We've just done a two hour radio show on a local station, RocketFM, that runs evey year for a short while leading up to Bonfire Night, playing live in the studio as well as playing tracks from iPod and CD and laptop while trying not to bump iinto each other in the tiny space, and not leave dead airtime going from one thing to another, and keep our instruments in tune in the warm room, and not say stupid things.... It felt like we got better over the time, and felt pretty relaxed and comfortable. Thanks to Rocket for having us!
Well that was a new experience! We've just done a two hour radio show on a local station, RocketFM, that runs evey year for a short while leading up to Bonfire Night, playing live in the studio as well as playing tracks from iPod and CD and laptop while trying not to bump iinto each other in the tiny space, and not leave dead airtime going from one thing to another, and keep our instruments in tune in the warm room, and not say stupid things.... It felt like we got better over the time, and felt pretty relaxed and comfortable. Thanks to Rocket for having us!
27 October 2011:
As you may (or may not!) have noticed, we've more or less taken the month of October off. We're delighted to say Jaime is now the proud father of a beautiful baby boy.
adding bass? November's Snowdrop date will feature something new: our friend Rosie, who plays great old-time double bass amongst her many skills, will be joining us for this gig. We've been thinking for a while about the idea and are excited about giving iit a try. Do come and let us know what you think.
Crooked Moon Way back in about June, we were joined at a Brighton gig by a couple of terrific Appalachian dancers who completely stole the show. Now we're very happy to be playing for their clogging team's debut performance this weekend.
As you may (or may not!) have noticed, we've more or less taken the month of October off. We're delighted to say Jaime is now the proud father of a beautiful baby boy.
adding bass? November's Snowdrop date will feature something new: our friend Rosie, who plays great old-time double bass amongst her many skills, will be joining us for this gig. We've been thinking for a while about the idea and are excited about giving iit a try. Do come and let us know what you think.
Crooked Moon Way back in about June, we were joined at a Brighton gig by a couple of terrific Appalachian dancers who completely stole the show. Now we're very happy to be playing for their clogging team's debut performance this weekend.
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14 September 2011: Sweet Sunny South old-time festival
It was an honour to share the stage at Sweet Sunny South festival this past weekend with the Whitetop Mountaineers from Virginia, and with the Kent Carters, and Davis, Locker & Winquist. As always, this was a small but perfectly formed festival, and as Michi had been to every single one since the beginning eleven years ago, it was particularly wonderful -- if a little daunting! -- to be performing there. There's nothing like playing to an audience of your peers, people who really know the music! Happily, such an audience also contains flatfoot dancers to come up and join in on some tunes. And the relatively small size and rapt quiet attention means everyone plays acoustically (there's never been a PA on site) and gets heard. We had such a good time and wish this festival all the success it deserves in future. |
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28 July 2011: What a wonderfully busy month of music, playing at the Maverick Festival, Uckfield Festival, and Glynde Food & Wine Festival as well as our Snowdrop residency and a Brighton pub and a birthday party so far! Thanks to everyone who's come and cheered us on. We have our first London gig this week,.and finish July with an in-store at our favourite local
country/folk/Americana shop the Union Music Store. (This was meant to be our EP release, but that's all delayed...) August is looking rather more relaxed, at least for now, giving us time to learn more new material and do some more recording.
country/folk/Americana shop the Union Music Store. (This was meant to be our EP release, but that's all delayed...) August is looking rather more relaxed, at least for now, giving us time to learn more new material and do some more recording.
16 & 17 July 2011: Rain Doesn't Stop Play
The weekend of the Glynde Festival of Food and English Wine was unfortunately predominately wet, sometimes very. The music stage was next to the wine-tasting marquee, with tables and chairs set out on the lawns looking out over the glorious views. But with no one sitting out and hardly anyone in sight when we were due to start playing, we were thinking maybe we could go and play in one of the marquees... when the organiser came and asked if we could do that very thing. So, off to the wine tent for an acoustic set, not too loud for traders to talk to people, but with enough oomph to draw a happy crowd of listeners. Then after a break for some lunch, it was over to the food-tasting marquee for another set of lively tunes and songs. We did manage to play on the stage late in the afternoon, and for the first set on Sunday when the sun was temporarily out and people had gathered to hear music, but otherwise back into the marquees. Which was hugely enjoyable, and much appreciated by both traders and customers. At the end of the Sunday, they had to throw us out of the pop-up Snowdrop bar tent where we were having such fun and being made to do encores by the ever-growing crowd in there. It's wonderful that we can be flexible, acoustic and highly mobile when circumstances require it!
The weekend of the Glynde Festival of Food and English Wine was unfortunately predominately wet, sometimes very. The music stage was next to the wine-tasting marquee, with tables and chairs set out on the lawns looking out over the glorious views. But with no one sitting out and hardly anyone in sight when we were due to start playing, we were thinking maybe we could go and play in one of the marquees... when the organiser came and asked if we could do that very thing. So, off to the wine tent for an acoustic set, not too loud for traders to talk to people, but with enough oomph to draw a happy crowd of listeners. Then after a break for some lunch, it was over to the food-tasting marquee for another set of lively tunes and songs. We did manage to play on the stage late in the afternoon, and for the first set on Sunday when the sun was temporarily out and people had gathered to hear music, but otherwise back into the marquees. Which was hugely enjoyable, and much appreciated by both traders and customers. At the end of the Sunday, they had to throw us out of the pop-up Snowdrop bar tent where we were having such fun and being made to do encores by the ever-growing crowd in there. It's wonderful that we can be flexible, acoustic and highly mobile when circumstances require it!
4 July 2011: Maverick Festival
Had a blast at our first-ever proper festival yesterday, the first time we've played on a stage with an actual back door through which to make our entrance and exit. Even had a lighting engineer looking at our set-list so he could plan different effects to match the mood of our various numbers.... he thought he might do some explosive red for Great Atomic Power! We were the first act on the Sunday morning, starting the Gospel Brunch at 10.30, and kind of wondered if people would turn up...
Well, some might consider it a bit of a problem if the sound man hasn't arrived yet at the time they're due to begin. But this turned out to our advantage. Standing on stage with instruments all ready for the sound check, we thought we'd play a tune while waiting, and more people kept drifting in and some were dancing and we just kept doing tunes and songs acoustically and getting cheers and applause for that! After a while, our microphone suddenly sprang to life, which served as the sound-check (using a single condenser mic does make things easy!), and we just shifted into the gospel set we were there to play. We'd had a great warm-up, had a good audience for the official start, and ended up getting to play for longer than the time allotted on the programme. The performance was very well-received and we had a really fun time. Even the new song we'd learnt five days previous---and we were still nailing down the lyrics and harmonies an hour before stage time---went wiithout a hitch and attracted compliments for our arrangement...whew! It's a lovely festival -- listed in the Guardian's Top Ten Small Festivals 2010 -- with a huge range of music under the 'Americana' umbrella, from solo singers with guitar to seven-piece bands with full drum kit and everything, even sax and accordion... www.maverickfestival.co.uk |
21 June 2011: We have a new websiite!
