With: Lady Caroline Mary

ICENI
Great pop songs have lives of their own. That’s why the best live on into the future, and get covered, deconstructed and rebuilt. They sound like they’re easy to write, and that makes them the hardest of all to compose.

But Iceni seem to do exactly that. They have a brain for pop that creates tunes that stay in your head, and that are radio AND dancefloor friendly. They’re the best chart band you’ve never heard of.

While the upbeat joyousness of Fleetwood Mac, Abba and 10cc runs like a spine through their music, there are other milestones. Bassist Lindsay works as a jazz singer, and Liz Corney as a singing teacher. “We’ve other influences” she says, but “we never pre-plan writing a pop song. The way we are as people means that everything we write seems to be up-tempo. There’s no navel gazing”

They headline a showcase gig in the Star & Shadow Cinema on July 15, playing in the screening room, where the intimate space creates an atmosphere unrivalled in Newcastle, and where Iceni are sure to be appreciated for their superb songwriting talent.
www.freshsoundproductions.co.uk

LADY CAROLINE MARY
Support comes from Lady Caroline Mary (“hilarious and highly accomplished” – Narc): www.myspace.com/ladycarolinemary

Tickets: £5 on the door.

Johnny Handle is a major influence on many of the younger guns of the UK folk scene.

A legend in his own lifetime, a singer whose voice, rhymes and rhythms were shaped by his experience of fifteen years in the mines.

Twenty-five years after the Great Miners’ Strike, Johnny’s performing a set of mining and work songs to help us gird our loins for the struggles to come.

Having now teamed up with Chris Hendry, their set will cover songs from that other defining aspect of the North East – our coast.

This will be Chris and Johnny’s first gig at the Star & Shadow, and they’re sure to benefit from the up close and personal feel of the cinema bar – very much a traditional style folk song space, and a great setting for the mix of performance, song, repartee and story that is their trademark.

In support will be the mighty Fire Maidens from Outer Space: five women with folk fury on their minds.

Tickets: £5 / £4 (concessions)

Tango ’til they’re sore: A night of Tom Waits songs for Oxjam

What could be better than a night of songs by Tom Waits to raise money for Oxjam?

Long the champion of the underdog, Waits has given voice to the street people, the little man, the ordinary Joe. Tonight his music will celebrate the giving spirit of Newcastle, as six of the City’s finest musical acts give their own take on a songbook unequalled in variety, wonder and mystery.

BRIDIE JACKSON
In 2010 Bridie became a fully fledged bandleader and arranger, and is now forging a reputation as a musician. The acoustic guitar still emerges from time to time, but her musical background is now more likely to be bassoon, harp and violin. Her recent musical experiments have extended to hip-hop, arranging songs like Let’s Get it On in Public (Kelis) and Survivor (Justin Timberlake) for a five piece choir, and Destiny’s Child’s Survivor for voice and cello. Tonight she tackles the Bard of the Bowery.

http://www.bridiejackson.com/

CHRISTI ANDROPOLIS
Hailing from New York State, Christi Andropolis is a singer and fiddler whose musical inspirations range from the Southern States of the US to the UK, exploring connections between traditional music on both sides of the Atlantic. From delta blues to Appalachian tunes, she combines the influence of her American roots with a flair for Scottish and Eng…lish fiddle, establishing a new voice for transatlantic folk music. Having already toured extensively in her native U.S., Christi is fast becoming acclaimed on the UK folk scene with expressive vocals, dynamic fiddling and on-stage charisma.

http://www.christi-andropolis.com/

LADY KOO and HER KOOKY KITCHENA combination of style, substance, tweed, banjolele and tea-drinking madness, Lady K and her Kooky Kitchen are a three-piece renowned for taking exuberant delight in salacious songwriting with all the joy and humour of old-time music, playing 1920s and 30s style Tin Pan Alley and ragtime in the spirit of Mae West, Ruth Etting and Fanny Brice.

plus MISS DANBY and GEORGE WELCH

Tango til they’re sore!

VIV ALBERTINE (ex-SLITS)
With: Ladies of Midnight Blue / Iceni
Star and Shadow
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Saturday, October 16 at 7:30pm

Earlier in the year, the Slits brought their whacked-out mix of punk, reggae and avant-funk to the Star and Shadow. As wonderful as they were, one crucial element was missing; main songwriter Viv Albertine.

“I was asked to rejoin the Slits about three or four years ago” she says. “I absolutely said no. No way. I didn’t feel that it was relevant at all”

In fact, it had been nearly twenty years since Albertine had even picked up a g…uitar, when she started to play solo shows again last year. Having felt that the Slits had become “Ari’s band”, she still acknowledges the profound impact that the band, and the punk movement, had on her life.

“Everything that I write really comes back to the Slits. We were very strict, as were a lot of punks, that every note that you played and every word that you wrote had to be true and I still hold to that maxim”. She says she can only write about love and sex, but her songs now reflect her experiences as a 55-year old artist and mother.

While less intensely “out there’ that Ari Up’s new Slits, Albertine’s solo work is still aggressively visceral, and none other than Courtney Love recently acknowledged Albertine’s place in the riot grrrl pantheon when she said “Viv established a place for women in the punk scene way before ‘girl’ became ‘grrrl’”

Albertine will play at the newly refurbished Star and Shadow, supported by Dominican / Jamaican / New Jersey funk duo Ladies of Midnight Blue [http://www.reverbnation.com/hannabiellmidnightblue], and Newcastle’s highly rated Iceni, on an all-female bill.

www.vivalbertine.com

Wednesday, May 12 at 8:00pm

Ever mused on the relationship between Test Cricket and hip-hop? Lapsang Souchong and NWA? A bowlful of Schermerhorn Flake and ‘busting a move’

These are the concerns of Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, a one-man mission to introduce hip-hop to the Queen’s English. He calls it Chap-Hop.

A bastard cross between Terry-Thomas, Chuck D and George Formby, Mr B has spent the best part of a decade in an attempt to bring some manners back into popular culture. This dopest of fellows takes to the stage with his banjolele and stiff upper lip to perform ditties about pipe-smoking, cricket and sexual misadventure, as well as some more well-known pieces from the world of hip-hop, re-worked in true Chap-Hop fashion.

With a handlebar moustache, boating blazer and cravat, Mr.B has played recitals across the UK and explored Johnny Continent in the past two years – from the Glastonbury Festival to Club NME in Paris. He’s been described by Tom Robinson as “pure genius” and his recent video ‘Chap-Hop history’ received over 100,000 hits in its first week on youtube.

He headlines a night of brandy drinking, good manners and phat beats at the Cafe de l’Arte on May 12 2010, supported by Newcastle’s own Dirty Diamonds, and Lady K and her Kooky Kitchen.

DIRTY DIAMONDS
Dirty Diamonds play ukulele, banjo, viola and stylophone and have appeared in grubby pubs, smart nightclubs and festivals across the North East. As queer and traditional as a ten-bob note, they’ll shock your maiden aunt, but she’ll know exactly what they’re referring to! Imagine Hinge and Brackett (plus Handle) appearing on League of Gentleman. Their debut EP, GAYDAR ALERT, was launched in late 2009.

LADY K and HER KOOKY KITCHEN
A combination of style, substance, tweed, banjolele and tea-drinking madness, Lady K and her Kooky Kitchen are a three-piece renowned for taking exuberant delight in salacious songwriting with all the joy and humour of old-time music, playing 1920s and 30s style Tin Pan Alley and ragtime in the spirit of Mae West, Ruth Etting and Fanny Brice.

Advance tickets are £6.50 (including booking fee) and available from Paypal

Pip-pip!

It’s been a big year for Bridie Jackson. Having started 2009 as a singer-songwriter with a guitar, she enters 2010 as a fully fledged bandleader and arranger, and is now forging a reputation as a musician. The acoustic guitar still emerges from time to time, but her musical background is now more likely to be bassoon, harp and violin.

At St. Ann’s Church she’ll be recording her first live album. “I’ve always been more comfortable with performing than recording. Making a live album is the compromise. It will be available as a free download from my website with artwork.”

Bridie’s recent musical experiments have extended to hip-hop, arranging songs like Let’s Get it On in Public (Kelis) and Survivor (Justin Timberlake) for a five piece choir, and Destiny’s Child’s Survivor for voice and cello. “I love arranging music” she says, and her new music is a reflection of this need to branch out and explore the possibilities of sound.

SUPPORT ACTS
Bridie has now confirmed Richard Dawson, and Andy Jackson & the Braguesa Ensemble, as support acts for the launch.

ANDY JACKSON & THE BRAGUESA ENSEMBLE
Enthnomusicologist Andy Jackson, playing guitar, guitarra portuguesa and viola braguesa, in accompanied by a string quartet in music which refuses to be pigeon-holed. It bridges centuries, cultures and genres with classical fandangos, latin boleros and contemporary arrangements of traditional Portuguese songs and dances.

RICHARD DAWSON
Cross eyed and reckless, Richard Dawson is the genius-savant of the Newcastle lo-fi community. His voice and his instrument will break your heart, as they often do his. Dawson is a man who wears his insides on the outside musically, and has built a huge following amongst local (and not so local) lovers of luminescent songsmithery. In years to come they’ll talk about Richard Dawson the way they talk about Ann Briggs or Karen Dalton! Believe it!

ST. ANN’S CHURCH
St Ann’s was built in 1767-1768 in a dignified English Renaissance manner from designs by William Newton, the most successful Newcastle architect of his day.

Stones from the nearby old Newcastle town wall were used in its construction, and the Church was consecrated by Bishop Trevor on Friday 2nd September 1768.

The Church then stood much as it now exists except that the interior was furnished with the usual three-decker pulpit and ‘box’ pews, and the windows were wider than at present.

THE CONCERT
Bridie Jackson, with a supporting cast of Richard Dawson, Andy Jackson and the Braguesa Ensemble, will launch Bridie’s website and will be recorded for her live album at St. Ann’s Church on City Road, Newcastle on April 17 2010.

Tickets: £6.00

Emily Portman’s album launch will be a very special occasion in a very special venue.

EMILY PORTMAN
An extraordinary musician from the tips of her English-concertina-playing fingers to her tapping-toes, Emily has the stamp of approval of Radio 2′s Mike Harding, Shirley Collins, and Louis Killen, possibly the most influential of the English folk-song revivalists of the sixties.

Her first solo album on the new Furrow label, The Glamoury (a ‘glamoury’ is described an “enchantment that may reveal beauty where before there was none”), is themed around “ballads and folk tales” says Portman.

Ballads (like fairy tales) are famously violent and unforgiving, and this is something that Portman has been keen to explore, with a uniquely feminist edge. “My songs are often about relationships between women, how they relate to each other, sisters, mothers and daughters” she says.

“A lot of my songs are about metamorphosis and shape changing. And also about voices, and their persistence, even when the body is transformed” explains Portman. “They’re about women, their voices and stories, even when they can’t speak or be heard”.

Portman’s songs are truly gothick, mysterious and otherworldly, and her influences are as likely to be the novels of Angela Carter and Marina Warner, as the ballads collected by Francis James Child in the 1880s.

CHRISTI ANDROPOLIS
Hailing from New York State, Christi Andropolis is a singer and fiddler whose musical inspirations range from the Southern States of the US to the UK, exploring connections between traditional music on both sides of the Atlantic. From delta blues to Appalachian tunes, she combines the influence of her American roots with a flair for Scottish and English fiddle, establishing a new voice for transatlantic folk music. Having already toured extensively in her native U.S., Christi is fast becoming acclaimed on the UK folk scene with expressive vocals, dynamic fiddling and on-stage charisma.

Soon to be released on Furrow Records (www.furrowrecords.co.uk) is Christi’s new album ‘Rust & Holler’. A showcase of Christi’s own compositions alongside music from Appalachia and the UK, ‘Rust & Holler’ effortlessly blends the traditional with the contemporary, firmly establishing the breadth and diversity of Christi’s talent. Varying from sparse duets to seven-piece band arrangements, this album combines vocals, fiddle, piano and organ, guitar, bass, banjo, and drums for an individual and creative performance that still shows its roots.

http://www.christi-andropolis.com

THE HORSE LOOM
“Northumbrian guitarist and singer Steve Malley would doubtless be extremely embarrassed to read that anyone had called him a ‘genius’. That says a lot. It’s also one of the reasons why he might well be one” says a recent review.

Steve is a veteran of over 500 gigs over 3 decades. Has promoted and organised countless shows over the years – from the miner’s strike benefit festival in the early 80′s to the legendary 9×9 all dayers and beyond. All non-profit. All for love. Understands all the workings and what IS practical and what is NOT. Steve has recorded four  albums, six EPs, recorded two (that’s TWO!) John Peel sessions, and has shared a stage with Meat Puppets, Fugazi, Blur, Alasdair Roberts, Sir Richard Bishop, Stereolab and many, many more.

Steve describes himself as “self-effacing, friendly, non-egomaniac and with a desire to treat everyone with dignity, fairness and respect. He hopes that one day he is afforded the same courtesy”.

The Horse Loom debut album will be released in the Autumn of 2010.

http://www.myspace.com/horseloom

ST. ANN’S CHURCH
St Ann’s was built in 1767-1768 in a dignified English Renaissance manner from designs by William Newton, the most successful Newcastle architect of his day.

Stones from the nearby old Newcastle town wall were used in its construction, and the church was consecrated by Bishop Trevor on Friday 2nd September 1768.

The church then stood much as it now exists except that the interior was furnished with the usual three-decker pulpit and ‘box’ pews, and the windows were wider than at present.

THE CONCERT
Emily Portman, with a supporting cast of Lucy Farrell, Rachel Newton, Dave Newey and Christi Andropolis, will launch The Glamoury at St. Ann’s Church on City Road, Newcastle on March 11 2010.

Tickets: £6.50 / £5.00 concessions.

www.emilyportman.co.uk

With: Bridie Jackson / Emily Portman / Fire Maidens from Outer Space / Christi Andropolis / Monster Ceilidh Band / Dirty Diamonds
Arts Centre Washington
Washington, United Kingdom
Friday, November 27 at 7:30pm

Folk versus hip-hop? Two cultures with no common ground?

Judge for yourselves as the best young folk talent in the North East bridge the gap. If you want to hear Public Enemy played on the English concertina, and fiddlers tackling NWA, tonight is the time and place to do it.

STARRING

CHRISTI ANDROPOLIS & DAVE NEWEY
http://www.christi-andropolis.com
http://www.davidnewey.com

Hailing from New York State, Christi Andropolis is a singer and fiddler whose musical inspirations range from the Southern States of the US to the UK, exploring connections between traditional music on both sides of the Atlantic. From delta blues to Appalachian tunes, she combines the influence of her American roots with a flair for Scottish and English fiddle, establishing a new voice for transatlantic folk music. Christi regularly appears with her musical partner, Dave Newey, one of the finest young folk guitarists in the country.

EMILY PORTMAN
http://www.emilyportman.co.uk/

Emily Portman is a singer, writer and concertina player with a passion for traditional narratives. Best known for her interpretations of English folk ballads, Emily is one of the brightest young stars on the British folk scene, having worked with Waterson:Carthy, Shirley Collins and making regular appearances on BBC Radio 2 and Late Junction on Radio 3.

Her first album, Other Stories, will be released in early 2010.

BRIDIE JACKSON
http://www.myspace.com/bridiejackson

Durham born musician-composer Bridie Jackson has been described as “a powerful performer with an otherwordly voice”, and mixes elements of classical guitar with blues and fado influenced vocal improvisation. One of the most original female singers in the region, Bridie has released her first EP on Urban and Eastern this spring, and her album will follow in April 2010.

DIRTY DIAMONDS
http://www.myspace.com/dirtydiamondsnewcastle

Dirty Diamonds play ukulele, banjo, viola and stylophone and have appeared in grubby pubs, smart nightclubs and festivals across the North East. Songwriter Nicky Rushton was formerly a member of All Because the Lady Loves, and also plays in Mush with Sarah van Jellie. The line-up is completed by Richard Bliss on voice, strings and comedic banter. Their debut EP will be launched in late 2009.

MONSTER CEILIDH BAND
http://www.myspace.com/monsterceilidhband

Amy Thatcher, Carly Blain, Kieran Szifris and David de la Haye represent the hottest young Ceilidh band in the country, and have just released their first album, Make Me a Dancer. Their music is strong on tradition, but has elements of jazz, bluegrass and even the rave scene, with an audience that follows them across the north east and beyond.

FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE
http://www.myspace.com/firemaidensfromouterspace

Four young women with piercings, tattoos and dreadlocks, the Fire Maidens are steeped in folk tradition, but not hidebound by history. Joanna Lindsay-Dunn is a champion clog-dancer, while fiddler Cathy Geldard hails from the Shetland Isles. Singer Bethany Coyle is a local lass with a fine bluesy voice, and Lucy Coggle on bass and bodhran hails from Lincolnshire. They combine their local traditions with jazz, blues and pop influences, and are possibly the only folk quartet in the country to cover a Britney Spears song.

Tickets £7.50 / £5 (conc)
Call 0191 219 3455 for tickets

If you are travelling by public transport catch the M1 or M3 bus from Heworth Interchange or The Galleries

Star + Shadow Cinema
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Saturday, September 5 at 7.30pm

Tonight sees the return of two Star & Shadow favourites.

Joanna Newsom and Will Oldham collaborator Alasdair Roberts, now resident in Denmark, returns to the Cinema for a one-off special show.

He’s joined by the wonderful Bridie Jackson, recently described by Culture Magazine as “leaving audiences stunned and critics challenged”.

It will be a night of hard-focus folk and songs that tell stories you’ll never forget.

Alasdair Roberts
“While there are echoes of Incredible String Band’s motley eclecticism, the pained isolation of Nick Drake, and British traditional music, this music is original in every way” – BBC

Bridie Jackson
“A moving, decidedly dark strain of acoustic blues-tinged folk” – Metro

Alasdair Roberts: alasdairroberts.com
Bridie Jackson: bridiejackson.com

Tickets: £7 members / £8 non-members (and available in advance from alt.vinyl)

Star + Shadow Cinema
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Friday, July 17 at 7.30pm

The event centres around the invitation for bands, musicians, producers and DJs to perform covers, versions, remixes or interpretations of the 1920s and 30s out-of-copyright folk, blues, and jazz from the Open Music Archive. A series of live plugged and unplugged performances will be recorded and licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike, generating a new resource – free for use and reuse.

Ghost Trace Stellar will feature specially created sets of covers featuring amongst others: Fishery Commission, Les Coq Sportifs, Chip Tune Marching Band, Cathode and Nathalie Stern along with archive DJ sets and a discussion with Open Music Archive and Polytechnic examining the implications of Free/Libre and Open Source models of creative production and distribution.

“The music industry sees the public domain as a wasteland of material with no value. We on the other hand, see the potential in these collectively owned recordings. By activating this public resource we bring together a constellation of neglected melodies and lyrics to reanimate the ghosts in the archive and build a new resource – free for reuse in the future.”

Established by Simpson and White, Open Music Archive is a collaborative initiative to source and distribute music recordings whose copyright has expired. The project aims to share the existing resource and to build a larger archive in open collaboration with others. The archive aims to distribute this music freely, form a site of exchange of knowledge and material, and be a vehicle for future collaborations and distributed projects.

The event opens up a temporary channel for music, exchange and discussion that operates beyond individual proprietary and commercial interests.

For more information on Creative Commons please see- http://creativecommons.org

http://www.openmusicarchive.org/projects

ENTRY: Free!