STEREOPHONICS are to return to the Yorkshire coast this summer for a July 28 concert at Scarborough Open Air Theatre.
Kelly Jones’s Welsh four-piece last played Britain’s largest outdoor concert arena on a sold-out July 19 2018. Tickets go on sale via ticketmaster.co.uk at 9am on Friday, April 2.
Promoter Peter Taylor, of Scarborough OAT programmers Cuffe and Taylor, says: “Stereophonics’ show here in 2018 has to go down as one of the best-ever at the venue. Fans have been demanding their return ever since; we are absolutely delighted to be welcoming them back this summer for what is going to be another legendary night.”
Formed in 1992 in the village of Cwmaman in the Cynon Valley, Wales, Stereophonics have accrued seven number one albums, the latest being their 11th studio set, Kind, in 2019. Twenty-five Top 40 singles have been chalked up too, making the summit in 2004 with Dakota.
Kind added the likes of Fly Like An Eagle, Bust This Town, Don’t Let The Devil Take Another Day and Hungover For You to a back catalogue of such Jones gems as Local Boy In The Photograph, The Bartender And The Thief, Just Looking, Dakota, Have A Nice Day, Pick A Part That’s New, Maybe Tomorrow, Mr Writer and It Means Nothing.
At Scarborough OAT, founding members Kelly Jones, vocals and guitar, and Richard Jones, bass, will perform alongside Adam Zindani, guitar, Jamie Morrison, drums, and long-term touring keyboardist Tony Kirkham.
Jones last played a North Yorkshire gig at York Barbican in September 2019, introducing songs from Kind ahead of its October release on the Don’t Let The Devil Take Another Day tour. In Jones’s words at the time, “this tour is about overcoming things and moving on from obstacles and building strength from that”. Kind duly ascended to number one.
Kelly Jones playing York Barbican in September 2019. Picture: Simon Bartle
Anne-Marie: Scarborough Open Air Theatre debut this summer
ANNE-MARIE will head to the Yorkshire coast on August 29 for a headline concert at Scarborough Open Air Theatre.
The chart-topping Essex singer-songwriter will be joined at her Sunday show that August Bank Holiday weekend by Hrvy and Gracey. Tickets will go on general sale at 9am on Friday, April 2 via ticketmaster.co.uk.
Nine-time BRIT Award nominee Anne-Marie Rose Nicholson, from East Tilbury, near Thurrock, is a former West End child star who has notched four UK top ten singles and 4.5 billion global streams.
Her 2016 breakthrough, Alarm, has been followed by further lead-artist hits Ciao Adios and Friends, with Marshmello, in 2017; 2002, with Ed Sheeran, and Rewrite The Stars, with James Arthur, in 2018, Birthday in 2020 and Don’t Play, a number two success with KSI and Digital this year.
Hrvy: Singing Holiday in Scarborough over August Bank Holiday weekend
Anne-Marie, who will turn 30 on April 7, has been a featured artist, alongside Sean Paul, on Clean Bandit’s 2016 number one, Rockabye; Artists For Grenfell’s 2017 number one, Bridge Over Troubled Water; David Guetta’s Don’t Leave Me Alone in 2018, Live Lounge Allstars’ 2019 chart-topper Times Like These and Rudimental’s Come Over in 2020.
On March 20, millions tuned in to witness Anne-Marie’s debut Grand Final win on ITV’s The Voice UK as she mentored Scotsman Craig Eddie to victory.
Further buoyed last year by his cheeky-chappie performances with Janette Manrara on Strictly Come Dancing, Hrvy already had progressed from singing in his bedroom to signing his first record deal at 15 and achieving hits with Holiday, Phobia, Personal, Me Because Of You and Good Vibes.
After two sell-out British and European tours, Hrvy – real name Harvey Leigh Cantwell – has signed a new global record deal at 22 with BMG.
Gracey: Supporting Anne-Marie at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
Gracey, a platinum-selling songwriter since the age of 16, has written for Rita Ora, Olly Murs and Kylie Minogue and had a top ten smash with Don’t Need Love, her 2020 collaboration with 220 Kid.
Gracey – 23-year-old Grace Barker from Brighton – has since released Empty Love, a collaboration with Australian singer Ruel, and her second EP, The Art Of Closure.
Peter Taylor, of Scarborough Open Air Theatre (OAT) promoters, says: “We are absolutely delighted to announce a headline show this summer with Anne-Marie, supported by Hrvy and Gracey.
“Anne-Marie has had hits around the world, and we’ve had so many requests to bring her here to Scarborough OAT. This is not only going to be a very popular announcement but one of the must-see shows of the summer.”
Band and the banner: Bull take to the River Ouse on the album launch day for Discover Effortless Living as the artwork hangs from Millennium Bridge, York
BAND formed: 2011. Debut album released on major label: March 26 2021. No wonder York alt-rock dandies Bull rolled out a large banner of the cover artwork for Discover Effortless Living from Millennium Bridge today.
“It feels great. I’m really excited,” says songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Tom Beer, revelling in one of the most joyful stories in the history of York’s music scene, as the first buds of spring deliver Bull’s 13-track flourish on EMI Records, in conjunction with York promoters, producers and proponents of potent pop, Young Thugs.
“We’ve been working on bringing out the album all year [since signing to EMI last July] and it’s just exciting that it’s done and ready to go.”
Ten years to reach this zenith, and you thought elephants had a long gestation period. “We didn’t know we’d ever get to this point. We’d never bet on it,” admits Tom, after Bull became the first York act since Shed Seven in October 1993 to sign to a major label.
“It definitely feels all the more significant because it’s not only a year’s work. Everything we’ve done has been incremental, learning as we go, for years.”
Are Bull the hardest working band in York, Tom? “I’m not sure we can be called that! I’ll give that to The Howl & The Hum. Not that we haven’t worked hard, but we’ve always just done what we wanted to do. When you work at something you love, it’s not work, is it?” he says. “I’ve only just started calling it ‘work’ in recent years.”
Going Green: The artwork for Bull’s first single for EMI, a song written as long ago as 2012
Bull have hit the roof, in the best way possible. “We’ve just played a gig on the EMI roof,” reveals Tom. When? “Um…I only remember dates in the future.”
Sometime in March, anyway, as Tom, guitarist Dan Lucas, drummer Tom Gabbatiss and bass player and artist Kai West followed in the London footsteps of The Beatles in their last public performance on the Apple offices rooftop at Savile Row on January 30 1969 and U2 in a not-so-secret gig atop BBC Broadcasting House on February 27 2009 to launch their 12th album, No Line On The Horizon.
The Beatles, U2, what esteemed company Bull are keeping. “We’ve actually been called The English Beatles, which we quite liked!” says Tom.
“We had a few meetings at The Golden Ball [York’s first community co-operative pub in Cromwell Road] and came up with a few whacky ideas, and originally we thought we’d just try to play on the roof without telling EMI, just doing it on the day, maybe with the help of the janitor.”
Instead, it developed into a full-blown performance, playing all 13 tracks from Discover Effortless Living. “It will be broadcast on Jericho Keys’ BBC Music Introducing show on BBC Radio York tomorrow [27/3/2021, from 8pm],” says Tom.
“As for actually releasing it, we’re pitching it to various sources, but it will be available to watch via our Facebook site on a date to be confirmed.”
“Everything we’ve done has been incremental, learning as we go, for years,” says Bull’s Tom Beer on the day their debut album arrives
Bull made their little piece of rock’n’roll history on that rooftop. “Apparently we’re the first band to play on EMI’s offices, at the Universal Music building next to King’s Cross [Four Pancras Square, to be precise],” says Tom.
“It was insane! Like, the food that day was better than anything we’d eaten in years! The roof must be 20 storeys up. Brilliant up there, but cold. It was bracing to say the least. We even had a drone photographing us that looked as big as a helicopter! We’re editing that now.”
No fewer than seven singles were released from Michael Jackson’s 1982 album, Thriller, and Bull are on his tail with Eugene this week becoming the fifth from Discover Effortless Living, in the wake of Green, Bonzo Please, Love Goo and Disco Living.
Tom’s mini-symphony of self-flagellation spans the various stages of feeling down on yourself – from lethargy and frustration to anger – using tempo changes to “paint an audio picture”. In its brief visit of only two minutes and 38 seconds, the idiosyncratic song manages to be both melancholy and spritely at the same time.
“It’s a real kick-yourself-when-you’re-down song,” says Tom. “I wrote Eugene when I was feeling dissatisfied with what I was doing. It’s kind of a self-hate song, you know when people talk about self-love? It’s not that. I’m slating myself; it moves through the key changes and different moods, and ends in a way that mocks the sadness, another form of self-deprecation!”
One of the red apples from Bull’s animated video for new single Eugene
Recalling penning Eugene, Tom says: “I felt rubbish at the time but I did feel better for writing it. The problem is singing it for ten years, still having to revisit that apathy, but hopefully it’s preventative to getting back to that state.”
Mulling over the kick-yourself-when-you’re-down subject matter: “I used to listen to a lot of Elliott Smith [the American singer-songwriter who took his own life with a knife in 2003],” says Tom. “There’s a line in High Fidelity: ‘What comes first? The music or the misery? I had a down year when I wrote Eugene…but I think the answer might be ‘music’, though…”.
Who’s Eugene, Tom? “We used to name a lot of our songs around our original drummer Louis’s friends, such as Eddie’s Cap. We like the idea of giving the song a name, as opposed to lifting it from a lyric.
“Eugene is named after Joe G, Joseph G. Louis used to call him Gorgeous G. So Eugene. My brother Paddy’s band are called Eugene Gorgeous after this guy too.”
The video is an animated gem in a collaboration with artist friends of the band that reflects the song’s different moods. Band members Dan and Kai set the ball rolling with a burst of DIY Claymation before handing over to artists Jack Iredale, Rory Welbrock, Roxy Linklater and Tom’s sister, Holly Beer, who each tackled a different animation style.
York band Bull pictured in….Scarborough. Picture: Amy D’Agorne Craghill
“With all those key changes, the song’s a bit of a rollercoaster, and we wanted to mirror that in the visuals, splitting it into animated sections, but we also thought: ‘Does it need something to tie it together?’, so we made the arbitrary decision, or maybe not, that all the animations had to feature a red apple,” says Tom. First Adam and Eve, then Snow White, now Bull!
Summing up the album as “13 songs written and rocked on between the years 2012 and 2020”, Tom elaborates on the origin of the title: “It’s taken from the opening lyric to the final track, Disco Living. We wanted to use a lyric from the album and felt like this was a good one.
” I first saw the words Discover Effortless Living in London, written on the side of a mansion being built and thought it was funny. It also ties in with ideas around class, new beginnings, a golden era of prosperity, and hoping to have life ‘in the bag’.”
What would constitute “effortless living”, Tom? “I just think it’s a contradiction in terms. That’s what was funny about it. Effortless living? I don’t think anyone would want to discover it. Effort is surely worth the effort?” he says.
“My idea of discovering how to live is to take things slowly; finding joy in the little things; having lots of different things on the go at the same time, and not worrying about any of them too much. Maybe lockdown has been a necessary change of pace. A nice change of pace. It’s the first time I’ve had a routine since school.”
Spread out: The artwork for Bull’s debut album, Discover Effortless Living
Tom finds joy in going for walks. “I love walking in suburbia; it’s my favourite thing. I’ve always loved it. You have really good conversations on walks, and I love discovering roads and parts of communities I’ve not seen before,” he says.
Now those discoveries are as much in Scarborough as elsewhere after moving from York with girlfriend Martha – band member Dan’s sister – a year and a half ago.
“Martha is a midwife and it was either Oxford or Scarborough that she would be working in. It was time we lived together; we both liked Scarborough; it’s close, so I can go to York, rehearse all day, then get back to Scarborough.”
Tom and Martha are living in Castle Road. “We’re south-facing, so out of the window we have incredible views of the South Bay,” he says.
“In fact, Castle Road is where we made the album cover, at St Mary’s Church. We knew we wanted somewhere with beautifully green grass, the greener the better. I called the church up on the phone, to ask if we could use the churchyard [where Haworth novelist Anne Bronte is buried, by the way].
Richard Hawley pictured at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, for the album cover for Coles Corner
“I said, ‘can we have it between 10am and 5pm, if we clean up afterwards ourselves?’, and this man very kindly said ‘yes’.”
To create the cover image, Bull combined items they found on the street with “lots of flowers we picked”. “I hope they’ve grown back,” says Tom. “A bunch of people came up to ask ‘what are you doing?’, and once we told them, they said, ‘oh, that’s nice’. Some people even sat and watched!”
And so, St Mary’s Church churchyard becomes the second Scarborough setting for a landmark album sleeve, after the Art Deco frontage of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, at the former Scarborough Odeon, graced the cover of Richard Hawley’s Coles Corner, released in September 2005.
The band portrait at the top of this interview was taken in Scarborough too by Amy D’Agorne Craghill. “There’s this amazing place on the North Bay. From the castle, you walk through the castle walls to woodland with all these orange-coloured rocks and that’s where Amy took it,” says Tom.
A further Bull image in Scarborough came about when they stumbled across 100 gnomes in a woman’s garden. Who could resist using gnomes for a picture? Not Bull. Permission was duly forthcoming.
What’s next? Bull in a china shop?
On the edge: “We didn’t know we’d ever get to this point. We’d never bet on it,” says Tom Beer of Bull’s progress to a major-label debut album
Track listing for Bull’s Discover Effortless Living: Bedroom Floor; Love Goo; Green; Shiny Bowl; Eugene; Eddie’s Cap; Serious Baby; Perfect Teeth; Find Myself A Job; Bonzo Please; In A Jar; Smoke and Disco Living.
“A whale is heavy to carry. It’s gonna hurt you to carry it, but it’s also beautiful, and it’s a miracle to be able to carry all that at all,” says Benjamin Francis Leftwich explaining his new album title
YORK singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich will release his fourth album, To Carry A Whale, on June 18.
The following month will mark the tenth anniversary of his debut, the 100,000-selling Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm, made at the age of 21 when he became the Dirty Hit label’s first signing.
The new album takes its name from Ben revealing it is the first he has written and recorded entirely sober, a state he has maintained since spending 28 days in rehab in January 2018. “To Carry A Whale is an observation on what it’s like to be a sober alcoholic addict a couple of years in,” he says.
“A whale is heavy to carry. It’s gonna hurt you to carry it, but it’s also beautiful, and it’s a miracle to be able to carry all that at all.
The artwork for Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s new album
“My gratitude is my acceptance of that flawed character and the peace that goes with that, and the title acknowledges that.”
Such is Ben’s confessional nature in his song-writing. “I think that’s the deal I made with myself a long time ago. There’s no distinction between my musical life and my personal life and I write with compulsion,” he says.
“I still consider myself a baby [as a writer]. Maybe I should hide, but I don’t. I just kind of choose it; this way of being. It’s what it is. I’ll still answer your questions! I’m not here to hide things: a problem shared is a problem halved.”
Take the song Slipping Through My Fingers: “It’s that feeling of ‘Where did he go?’. ‘Where did she go?’. ‘Where did the time go?’. I think that addicts and alcoholics do have that mindset, very, very intensely, and it’s a painful mindset,” says Ben. “I describe it as a ‘hole in the soul’.
“Song-writing is a really special thing, a privilege and a responsibility, and it’s something that I love, but it’s good to leave your ego at the door,” says Benjamin Francis Leftwich
“So, writing such a song is cathartic. Totally. Singing from the heart, sharing my experiences, my hopes, that’s one of the things that keeps me well.”
What has Ben learned in the decade since Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm? “I’d probably say, ‘Speak to people you love about your problems. Don’t try to carry everything’ – and ‘well done on signing to an independent label’,” he decides.
After Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm in 2011, After The Rain in 2016 and Gratitude in 2019, here comes To Carry A Whale, comprising ten tracks led off by lead single Cherry In Tacoma, out now.
The recordings were made over a restless four-month span last year, divided between Ben’s home in Tottenham, London, Urchin Studios in Hackney, a hotel room in Niagara and a Southend studio owned by Ben’s friend Sam Duckworth, alias the musician Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.
Lasting impact: Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s 100,000-selling debut album in 2011, Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm
Duckworth produced much of the record, sharing production duties with Eg White, noted for his collaborations with Adele, Florence + The Machine and Sam Smith.
Eg White, Ben? How come? “I’ve worked with a producer called Josh Grant for a while, a dear friend of mine, and one day he said, ‘would you like to go over and meet Eg?’. I thought. ‘yeah, I’d love to’, and on that day we wrote Every Time I See A Bird, which is on the new album,” he says.
“Then we worked on Cherry In Tacoma, which I started in America but then hit a wall with it, but then Ed helped to bring it to fruition.”
Ben thrives on co-writing, whether with fellow York songwriter Sam Griffiths, of The Howl & The Hum, or a couple of upcoming days with James Morrison. “It’s great to work with other people,” he reasons.
When he was 21: Benjamin Francis Leftwich in York a decade ago after releasing his debut album
“Song-writing is a really special thing, a privilege and a responsibility, and it’s something that I love, but it’s good to leave your ego at the door. The song exists above us and we’re here to catch it.
“Occasionally you get an artist that goes it alone, but Kanye West co-writes, Taylor Swift co-writes, Adele co-writes. Ninety five per cent of the time, resistance to collaboration is only fear.”
Ben has relished recording with Sam Duckworth. “It’s really important, when there’s an energy there, you just have to grab it. Sam stayed with me at my place for ages when we were making the album. Some people do that 9 to 5 thing with their song-writing, which I respect, but it’s not my way and it’s not Sam’s way,” he says.
“Sometimes I might be going to bed, and then I’ll playing the guitar, and a song starts developing and you don’t go to bed!”
Just as Ben enjoys working with myriad musicians, so he believes in the need to travel for inspiration. “I’m not into the idea of just staying in any one city. It’s very limiting,” he says. “Early on, sometimes people want to put a belt around you to stop you from travelling, but I say ‘fly’.” Or as Sam Duckworth would urge: Get cape. Wear cape. Fly.
Travel has led to such new compositions as Sydney, 2013, Tired In Niagara and Cherry In Tacoma. “Tacoma is close to the Pacific Ocean, near Seattle, and it’s a place I’ve spent a lot of time; my godmother lives out there and I love to stay there,” Ben says.
As for a different form of travelling, going on tour to play his news songs: “We do have tours pencilled in, and I’d imagine I’ll be announcing them within the next two months.” Watch this space.
Track listing for To Carry A Whale: Cherry In Tacoma; Oh My God Please; Canary In A Coalmine; Tired In Niagara; Every Time I See A Bird; Wide Eyed Wandering Child; Sydney, 2013; Slipping Through My Fingers; Talk To You Now and Full Full Colour.
New single: The artwork for Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s Cherry In Tacoma
Becky Gee, curator of Fine Art at York Art Gallery, with Michael Lyons’ 1993 sculpture Amphitrite in the Artists Garden in May 2019. Picture: Charlotte Graham
ONLINE entertainment is still ruling the Stay Home world, but more promoters are announcing shows for the summer as the recovery roadmap begins to twitch our cultural satnav. Charles Hutchinson reaches for his diary.
Last chance to see: Michael Lyons’ Ancient And Modern sculptures, York Art Gallery Artists Garden and Edible Wood
THE free display of large-scale works by late Cawood sculptor Michael Lyons behind York Art Gallery will close on April 11.
On show in his biggest ever exhibition on York soil are nine sculptures created between 1982 and 2000, inspired by nature, myth and ancient cultures, with the central space dominated by Amphitrite, a large painted steel structure evoking the sea that he fashioned in 1993.
Opened in late-May 2019, Ancient And Modern originally was booked to run until May 2020, but has remained in place through these pandemic times.
Caroline Gruber as Vashti in E M Forster’s The Machine Stops, now starting up again in a York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre webcast. Picture: Ben Bentley
Recommended resonant webcast of the week and beyond: The Machine Stops online
YORK Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre’s 2016 co-production of The Machine Stops can be watched at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/the-machine-stops-webcast/ until April 5.
Adapted for the stage by Neil Duffield, E M Forster’s 1909 short story is set in a futuristic, dystopian world where humans have retreated far underground and individuals live in isolation in “cells”, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine.
Director Juliet Forster says: “It’s even more striking today than it was at the time we staged it: things like human contact and human touch becoming something that’s almost taboo, things that didn’t seem relevant back in 2016 but are really, really striking and even more relevant now.”
Ensemble Augelletti: Recording for the Awaken online weekend at the National Centre for Early Music, York
Springtime celebration of music online: Awaken, National Centre for Early Music, York, Saturday and Sunday
THE NCEM’s Awaken weekend will present York countertenor Iestyn Davies and Fretwork, the all-male vocal group The Gesualdo Six, I Fagiolini and the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, Ensemble Augelletti and The Consone Quartet.
The six-pack of online festivities will celebrate the sublime sounds of spring, recorded in a range of historic venues to mark “the unique association between the City of York and the exquisite beauty of the music of the past”.
Among the architectural gems will be Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, St Olave’s Church, Marygate, the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall and the NCEM. Full details can be found at ncem.co.uk/awaken.
Becky Lennon and Jules Risingham: Ready to host Thunk-It Theatre’s online youth theatre sessions
Online youth theatre opportunity: Thunk-It Theatre sessions with Pocklington Arts Centre
POCKLINGTON Arts Centre’s youth theatre partnership with York company Thunk-It Theatre is to continue for a second series of online drama classes.
Becky Lennon and Jules Risingham’s all-levels drama sessions for children aged six to 11 will be held on Zoom every Sunday during term-time from April 25 to May 30.
The 10am to 11am sessions for Years 2 to 6 children will include fun games, exercises and storytelling, aiming to encourage confidence building, life and social skills, creativity and positivity. Participants will work collaboratively to create a short performance that will explore storytelling. To book, go to pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Abba Mania: Booked for Sounds In The Grounds at York Racecourse
Live music returns to Knavesmire: Sounds In The Grounds at Clocktower Enclosure, York Racecourse, June 25 to 27
NORTH Yorkshire impresario James Cundall’s Sounds In The Grounds is adding a new location to its picnic-concert portfolio for summer 2021.
Complying with Covid-19 guidelines, the Clocktower Enclosure of York Racecourse will play host to the Beyond The Barricade celebration of musicals on June 25, Abba Mania on June 26 and A Country Night In Nashville on June 27.
The capacity will be capped at 1,400 for the fully staged productions with LED screens on either side of the stage. Tickets are on sale at: soundsinthegrounds.seetickets.com.
Paul Winn: Co-organiser of the 2nd York Blues Festival in July
Here comes a dose of the blues: York Blues Festival, July 24, 12.30pm to 11pm
THE 2nd York Blues Festival will be held on Saturday, July 24 at The Crescent Community Venue, York, organised by Paul Winn and Ben Darwin.
No strangers to the British Blues scene, they present Blues From The Ouse on Jorvik Radio and are members of York band DC Blues.
Winn and Darwin have booked a bill of Robbie Reay; The Swamp Hoppers; Dori & The Outlaws; John Carroll; Dr Bob & The Bluesmakers; DC Blues and Nick Steed Five. Tickets are on sale at yorkbluesfestival.co.uk, thecrescentyork.com and earwormrecords.co.uk.
Racing cert: Shed Seven will ride out at Doncaster Racecourse next May after moving post-racing gig…again
Sheds on the move…again: Shed Seven, Live After Racing, Doncaster Racecourse, May 14 2022
YORK heroes Shed Seven’s twice-postponed post-racing gig at Doncaster Racecourse will come under starter’s orders on May 14 202.
First diarised for August 15 2020, then May 15 this spring, each show was declared a non-runner under the Government’s pandemic lockdown restrictions.
Let Donny Races wax lyrical: “So don’t have your friends asking ‘where have you been tonight?’ We have ‘high hopes’ that ‘the heroes’ Shed Seven will deliver an outstanding night of music. ‘It’s not easy’ but you’d be stuck to find a ‘better days’ entertainment in Doncaster next summer.” To book raceday tickets, go to: doncaster-racecourse.co.uk/whats-on/
Graham Gouldman, second from left, will be returning to York Barbican with 10cc
Gig announcement of the week: 10cc, York Barbican, March 26 2022
10cc will play York Barbican next spring in the only Yorkshire show of their 13-date Ultimate Greatest Hits Tour.
“It’s difficult to express just how much we have missed playing live and how much we want to be back playing concerts for you,” says Graham Gouldman, the one group founder still in the touring line-up. “We look forward to seeing you all again in 2022.”
Tickets are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk and ticketline.co.uk.
Shed Seven: New day at the races confirmed for Doncaster show
SHED Seven’s Live After Racing gig at Doncaster Racecourse will come under starter’s orders for a third time on May 14 2022 after two false starts.
The York band’s outdoor Donny debut had to be scrapped twice, first booked for August 15 2020, then May 15 this spring, but each show was declared a non-runner under the Government’s pandemic lockdown restrictions.
The Sheds will now be chasing winners as well as Chasing Rainbows in the first post-racing Music Live event of the 2022 Doncaster Racecourse season.
Let Donny Races wax lyrical: “Enjoy a day out at the races, soaking up the British summertime [albeit in May] with a glass of something refreshing watching the horses race by, before the night sweeps in and the music kicks off.
“Finding fame within the Britpop scene in the ’90s, Shed Seven hit dizzying heights with their single Chasing Rainbows and their debut album Change Giver. They have released several albums since then, with Going for Gold – The Greatest Hits the latest release. [Not true, fact pedants. Live album Another Night, Another Night came out on December 18 2020. Going For Gold’s reissue on gold vinyl glistened in September 2019].”
Shed Seven’s latest album: Another Night, Another Town
Anyway, you were saying, Donny? “So don’t have your friends asking ‘where have you been tonight?’ We have ‘high hopes’ that ‘the heroes’ Shed Seven will deliver an outstanding night of music. ‘It’s not easy’ but you’d be stuck to find a ‘better days’ entertainment in Doncaster this summer.”
After that glut of Sheds’ song titles, here comes the tickets advice: “Secure your ticket early to guarantee entry as we are expecting huge sales for this massive band!” To book, go to: doncaster-racecourse.co.uk/whats-on/music-live-featuring-shed-seven.
Oh, and should Sheds fans be wondering what to wear, this is the official Donny Dress Code: “Most racegoers choose a smart casual outfit when attending the races and we discourage sportswear and ripped jeans. There are more formal dress codes in place for some of our premier ticket options as well as hospitality and restaurant packages.” Going for gold, maybe?
Shed Seven Live After Racing is the second Sheds’ open-air gig in Yorkshire to have a new date confirmed. Their all-Yorkshire bill at The Piece Hall, Halifax, has moved from June 26 to August 28 this summer.
Joining the Sheds that West Yorkshire day will be Leeds bands The Pigeon Detectives and The Wedding Present and Leeds United-supporting York group Skylights, plus the Brighton Beach DJs. Tickets for this Futuresounds Events concert are on sale at £42.50, premium seats £55, at lunatickets.co.uk, seetickets.com and gigantic.com.
Who warranted a doffing of the Hutchinson cap in a year when the arts world faced an unparalleled struggle? Here comes the flood of recipients…
TODAY marks the first anniversary of the imposition of Lockdown, a year when killjoy Covid has cast the arts into darkness, but the artbeat refused to stop.
Here CharlesHutchPress doffs its cap to those who kept the flame alive in the 2020-2021 Hutch Awards, while scowling at a few irritations too.
Uplifting experience of the year? The first socially distanced live theatre enterprise, Park Bench Theatre, mounted by Matt Aston’s Engine House company in the Friends Garden at Rowntree Park, York.
On the bench: Matt Aston, director of the Park Bench Theatre season at Rowntree Park. Picture: Livy Potter
Three solo shows, Chris Hannon in Samuel Beckett’s First Love, Cassie Vallance in Teddy Bears’ Picnic and Lisa Howard in Aston’s lockdown play Every Time A Bell Rings, were all first class, and this venture surely will be rolled out again in Summer 2021.
Summer ventures that reminded you why culture matters, dear Rishi: Badapple Theatre’s tour of back gardens with Danny Mellor’s Suffer Fools Gladly; Alexander Flanagan Wright and Phil Grainger’s week of two-handers, full of music and poetic magic at Stillington Mill; the collaboration between the NCEM, Fulford Arms and The Crescent for a series of acoustic double bills in St Margaret’s churchyard in Walmgate; York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate.
Phil Grainger and Alexander Flanagan Wright at Stillington Mill . Picture: Charlotte Graham
York is still the home of pantomime, part one: Dame Berwick Kaler’s comeback in Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House had to be stabled for a year, but his former home, York Theatre Royal, took panto to the people with the Travelling Pantomime, the first venture with new partners Evolution Productions, full of wit, energy, fun and mischief.
York is still the home of pantomime, part two: York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @41 Monkgate. Nik Briggs, director turned debutant writer, assembled a cast of fabulous Yorkshire talents and West End choreographer Gary Lloyd for a slick slice of “musical theatre with pantomime braces on”. The Biles Beanstalk publicity campaign was a gem too.
Josh Benson as the comic turn in York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime
Family show of the year: John Godber and his family bubble of wife Jane, actress daughter Martha and stage manager daughter Elizabeth staged his Sunny Side Up! premiere at the socially distanced Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. “Seeing all those masks, at first it felt more like being in an operating theatre, not a theatre,” said John.
Solo stage performance of the year outside York: Polymath Polly Lister, playing everyone and everything, from Gerda and Kai and a “silly Sorceress” to a Goth raven poet and a grumpy Brummie deer, in Nick Lane’s Christmas show for the SJT, The Snow Queen, transformed from a five-hander to a one-woman show under Covid restrictions and all the better for it.
Polly Lister in one of eight roles in The Snow Queen at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Lockdown audio show of the year: Alan Ayckbourn x 2, first recording new play Anno Domino with his wife, Heather Stoney, for the summer and then continuing the multiple role-playing in a ghost story for winter nights as he revisited his 1994 play Haunting Julia, both for the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. His master’s voice, as you have not heard him before, at 81.
Television art show of the year: Grayson Perry and wife Philippa hosting Grayson’s Art Club on Channel 4, championing people’s art with such empathy, wisdom, wit and love.
For your lockdown listening pleasure: Alan Ayckbourn recorded two plays at his Scarborough home. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Festivals that would not lie down but embraced the virtual instead: York Early Music Festival and Christmas Festival; York Festival of Ideas; Aesthetica Short Film Festival, much lengthened online.
Reinvention of a festival at short notice for Covid times: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, revamped by artistic director Jamie Walton to still go ahead with socially distanced audiences in a Welburn Abbey marquee with the apt theme of Revolution in August.
Comedy innovation of the year: Your Place Comedy livestreams, wherein a monthly double bill of comedians performed from their living rooms into yours.
Justin Moorhouse and Shappi Khorsandi: one of the double bills for Your Place Comedy
Organiser Chris Jones, Selby Town Council’s arts officer, rounded up ten, then a dozen, independent Yorkshire and Humber venues to support three series of remote gigs by the likes of Mark Watson & Lucy Beaumont, Shappi Khorsandi & Justin Moorhouse and Hal Cruttenden & Rosie Jones.
Resilient spirits of the year: Chris Sherrington, Fulford Arms; Delma Tomlin, NCEM; Joe Coates and Harkirit Boparai, The Crescent; Cherie Federico, Aesthetica; Greg and Ails McGee, According To McGee; Kate Bramley, Badapple Theatre.
Samantha, with the marks from her PPE mask still visible after a shift, by Karen Winship
Statement-of-pandemic-times exhibition of the year: Karen Winship’s portraits of NHS frontline workers, first at York Art Gallery, then on the railings at All Saints Church, Pocklington. Harrowing yet life-affirming too.
Gallery launch of the year: Photographer Duncan Lomax’s Holgate Gallery in his front room in York.
Kitchen-synch drama of the year: York drag diva Velma Celli’s chic cabaret shows online from a Bishopthorpe kitchen and a riverside abode with flood water lapping at the door. Alter ego Ian Stroughair also had a ball as Flesh Creep in York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk.
A message to you, Rishi: York Theatre Royal pledges that York will pull together in lockdown
Sign of the times: York Theatre Royal’s morale-boosting, we’re-all-in-this-together retro lockdown poster, in Keep Calm And Carry On wartime mode, designed by marketing manager Olivia Potter
Most irritating words of the year: Ramp up; pivot; baked-in; granular; lockdown…again; uptick; Stay Alert; postponed; cancelled; closed; non-viable.
Song of the year: Bird song, although Bonnie & The Bailers’ Baby Drive ran it close.
The Howl & The Hum: album of the year
Album of the year: the always-touched-by-your-prescience-dear Human Contact by The Howl & The Hum.
Good news of the year: The ebullient Bull becoming the first York band to sign to a major record label since Shed Seven. Raise a glass to Tom Beer and co, whose album, Discover Effortless Living, will be out on Virgin EMI Records on Friday (26/3/2021).
Frustration of the year: The much improved second iteration of the York Mediale, the festival of digital media arts, defied budget cuts only to be cut short by Lockdown 2, meaning many missed out on the Kit Monkman-led art installation People We Love at York Minster and the Human Nature triptych of installations at York Art Gallery. It must be hoped People We Love can be revived.
People We Love: Kit Monkman’s Covid-curtailed installation at York Minster
Missed most: Interaction; connection; communication; banter; bursts of cheers and applause and…spontaneity.
Gone but not forgotten: Martin Witts’s Great Yorkshire Fringe; poet, writer, storyteller, blogger and performer Adrian Spendlow; Café Concerto, in High Petergate, York; York City at Bootham Crescent.
Graham Gouldman, second from left, with his fellow 10cc members
10cc will play York Barbican on March 26 2022 in the only Yorkshire show of their 13-date Ultimate Greatest Hits Tour.
“It’s difficult to express just how much we have missed playing live and how much we want to be back playing concerts for you,” says Graham Gouldman, the one group founder still in the touring line-up. “We look forward to seeing you all again in 2022.”
Joining bass player, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Gouldman, 74, on stage will be Rick Fenn, lead guitar, bass and vocals, Paul Burgess, drums and percussion, Keith Hayman, keyboards, guitars, bass and vocals, and Iain Hornal, vocals, percussion, guitar and keyboards.
The inventive, influential 10cc – Stockport four-piece Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley – attained 11 Top Ten hits and more than 15 million album sales in the UK alone, topped off by three number ones, Rubber Bullets, Dreadlock Holiday and the ubiquitous I’m Not In Love.
Over recent years, Gouldman’s 10cc have toured worldwide, gigging in Australia, Canada, Japan, Iceland, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, the USA, across Europe and throughout the UK, not least performing to 60,000 people at British Summer Time (BST) Festival in Hyde Park, London. They last played York Barbican in March 2019.
Tickets for March 26 2022 are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk and ticketline.co.uk.
Graham Gouldman, left, leading 10cc at York Barbican in March 2019. Picture: Paul Rhodes
Olwen Foulkes at Ensemble Augelletti’s recording of A Spring In Lockdown for the National Centre of Early Music’s Awaken online weekend. Picture: Ben Pugh
ENSEMBLE Augelletti will make their York debut on Saturday at the National Centre for Music’s online weekend celebration of the rise of spring, Awaken.
Founded and directed by recorder specialist Olwen Foulkes, the young, up-and-coming ensemble will perform A Spring In Lockdown, an intriguing tale of 18th century music-making from an English debtors’ prison.
Premiered at 3pm on Saturday (27/3/2021), on sale until April 23 and available to watch on demand until April 30, the concert will feature Olwen, recorders; Ellen Bundy and Alice Earll, violins; Elitsa Bogdanova, viola; Carina Drury, cello; Harry Buckoke, double bass; Toby Carr, theorbo, and Benedict Williams, chamber organ.
Winner of the FBAS Young Artists Competition in Italy in 2019, the ensemble explores the chamber music and concertos performed on the London theatre stages in the first decades of the 18th century.
Ensemble Augelletti members, led by recorder player Olwen Foulkes, front, centre
Hence Olwen’s focus on trumpeter John Grano in A Spring In Lockdown: “In the spring of 1729, Grano, dubbed ‘Handel’s trumpeter’, was serving the end of a sentence, incarcerated in the infamous Marshalsea debtors’ prison,” she says.
“The prisoner kept a diary detailing his musical exploits as he composed, taught, organised concerts, and tried to maintain a performance schedule from the ‘home’ of his cell.
“Our concert will explore some of his fascinating diary entries from a very different kind of lockdown and will include music that he was performing, writing, and listening to, by Francesco Geminiani, Grano, William Corbett, John Baston and of course Mr Handel.”
Ensemble Augelletti recorded the concert at the NCEM’s home of St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, on March 15. “I’d been there in the past, performing Shepherds Of Bethlehem with Fieri Consort at the York Early Music Christmas Festival in December 2019,” says Olwen.
“The one thing we found strange was taking a bow to an empty room, which made us realise how much we miss playing to an audience,” says Olwen Foulkes of Ensemble Augelletti’s performance for Awaken
“But this is the first time the ensemble has played there. Since lockdown started last March, it was one of the few times we could play together because the NCEM is such a big space.”
How did Olwen settle on A Spring In Lockdown for Saturday’s concert? “Delma [NCEM director Delma Tomlin] offered us some proposals, giving me the chance to propose this programme, which is completely bespoke for the Awaken festival,” she says.
“I’d been reading the diary of John Grano, a trumpeter, flautist and recorder player, written in 1728, when, in some ways, London was very similar to now. So much of the musician’s experience resonated with us today, reading of when he was working in West End theatres, at the Haymarket and the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
“Grano was the principal trumpeter in Handel’s orchestra for 15 years and is likely to have played in the premiere of Handel’s Water Music.
A socially distanced line-up of Ensemble Augelletti in pandemic times
“For our concert, one of the pieces we’ll play will be the only surviving publication of Grano’s music.”
Ensemble Augelletti made the recording with Ben Pugh, omnipresent at the NCEM’s online recordings for the 2020 York Early Music Festival and Early Music Christmas Festival.
“The one thing we found strange was taking a bow to an empty room, which made us realise how much we miss playing to an audience,” says Olwen.
“I last played to a full audience a year ago, on March 15, with Dramma Per Musica at the Barnes Festival, and the last performance by Ensemble Augelletti was to a very, very small audience in the London Sound Galler, for an online festival with The Gesualdo Six in September.”
Olwen Foulkes and Ensemble Augelletti released their debut album, Indoor Fireworks, in November 2019, taking the name Augelletti [little birds] from the aria Augelletti Che Cantate from the first act of Handel’s opera Rinaldo.
The artwork for Indoor Fireworks, the album by Olwen Foulkes and Ensemble Augelletti released on Barn Cottage Records in 2019
“We’d been playing together for a while, and when I did that CD, I was thinking about where I wanted the group to progress, and I thought it would be lovely to have a new identity for the group, so I said, ‘Can we call ourselves an ‘ensemble’?’ and that’s when we became Ensemble Augelletti,” says Olwen.
Her ensemble has plans to make a new recording this year, but Olwen will remain quiet on its exact nature, subject to the outcome of a “big funding application”. “But I can say it’s really exciting and will be another project celebrating musicians that we don’t necessarily know of as a composer,” she says.
Unlike so many of us whose first encounter with playing music is a forlorn blow on a recorder, Olwen’s journey was different. “I actually started playing the recorder second! I started with the violin when I was five,” she recalls. “I didn’t start the recorder till I was 11 and that was to keep my sister Ethnie – now an acoustic and electronic composer – company in a recorder group.
“I just fell in love with the recorder at the point, but I’d found that love in the opposite way to the usual graduation to another instrument!”
Olwen Foulkes played violin first before discovering the recorder at the age of 11
Olwen went on to study at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London from the age of 13 to 18, and later as the Christopher Hogwood Scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, and a career specialising in recorders has ensued.
Once the easing of pandemic strictures allows, she would love to perform to an audience in York, taking a bow in more familiar fashion. “It is such a lovely place to play,” she says.
The Awaken weekend will run online on Saturday and Sunday, March 27 and 28. The full programme and ticket details can be found at ncem.co.uk.
How to view The Awaken weekend of concerts will be shown on ncem.co.uk. On the day before the festival starts, all bookers will be emailed the viewing links and clear navigation to the concerts from the home page will be added.
The NCEM advises: “Please ensure that you have a strong broadband connection, and you may want to use external speakers or headphones to maximise your experience. If you experience any difficulties with the concerts, please contact us and we will do our best to help you via ncem.co.uk.”
Back on the Chain Gang: Miles Salter and his band have a new single out on Sunday
YORK band Miles And The Chain Gang release their third digital single, All Of Our Lives, on Sunday (28/3/2021).
The acoustic song was written in the late-1990s by Syd Egan, a friend of frontman Miles Salter, the group’s regular songwriter.
Joining Miles and band members Billy Hickling (drums) and Tim Bruce (bass) on the recording are fellow York musicians Karl Mullen, guesting on piano, and Holly Taymar-Bilton on backing vocals.
The Chain Gang’s lead guitarist, Alan Dawson, lives in Scotland, while guest accordion player Sam Pirt resides in East Yorkshire.
All Of Our Lives was recorded and mixed in January and February by Jonny Hooker at York’s Young Thugs Studios, above the South Bank Social Club in Ovington Terrace, and filmed by Dave Thorp during Lockdown 3.
“I’ve been singing the song for 20 years,” says Miles. “Lee Heir, a friend of the band who has been helping with PR, said we should put it out, and he kept asking me to do so. In the end, I relented. I was a bit wary because it’s quieter than our first two releases, but everybody who has heard the song loves it.”
Set in Manchester, with references to St Peter’s Square and Oxford Road, All Of Our Lives tells the story of an ambiguous relationship. “I wanted to film in Manchester, but lockdown made everything problematic, so in the end we did it in York,” says Miles.
The resulting video features shots of Miles playing guitar, Leeds-based actor Lucy Marshall and cameraman Dave Thorp in the role of Big Issue Salesman.
Miles And The Chain Gang have picked up airplay on Jorvik Radio and YO1 Radio, as well as on several internet radio stations, and they also have been working on social media, with content spread across numerous platforms and sites, drawing 20,000 YouTube views of their second release, Drag Me To The Light.
“Two years ago, we didn’t have anything, but now we have a presence on Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It feels like things are building,” says polymath Miles, who is also a published poet, storyteller, presenter of Jorvik Radio’s weekly arts show and former organiser of the York Literature Festival.
One frustration for Miles And The Chain Gang has been a lack of concerts. “The last time we played a gig was at the end of 2019,’ says Miles. “Anybody involved in live music has felt the disappointment over the last year. We’ll get back to gigs as soon as we can.”
Miles and the band have been recording songs at Young Thugs, and plans are shaping up for more releases. “We’ve got some really good songs,” he promises.
All Of Our Lives will be released on Spotify, iTunes and YouTtube on March 28. A trailer for the track and the video can be viewed at: youtube.com/watch?v=cgJxCk5xxw8.
