January 2011: Liverpool Acoustic Live preview

Liverpool Acoustic Spotlight #37
January 2011


1. Zoe Mulford – Welcome In Another Year
2. Property of Nadya Shanab – Cairo’s Minarets
3. Ste Hedley – Love Gone Wrong
4. Northerndaze – Gypsy Girl  

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This month’s Liverpool Acoustic Live takes place one week earlier than normal on Friday 28th January 2011 at the View Two Gallery on Mathew Street and features

four very different acts performing at one of Liverpool’s best acoustic music venues.

  • Zoe Mulford is an award-winning American songwriter now based in Manchester, and performing across the UK and the USA. Zoe performed for us back in June in Lorelei Loveridge’s band The Harem, and impressed everyone when she performed two solo songs. Zoe’s music is a wonderful blend of American and English influences, and we’re looking to hearing her songs and her exquisite banjo playing.
  • Property of Nadya Shanab is a band envisioned by Nadya Shanab, who was born and raised in Egypt and remained in Liverpool after graduating from LIPA. Her music is a fine blend of Western acoustic, folk rock, and Arabic music, and her songs are laced with oriental vocals, heartfelt lyrics and resonating melodies.
  • Ste Hedley is also a LIPA graduate, and writes songs that are honest and clever, with catchy melodies and quirky lyrics.
  • Northern Daze are Helly and Andy, and they’re passionate about music. They’re influenced by all walks of life and use vocal harmonies, guitars, piano and harmonica to create music often reminiscent of the late 1960s San Francisco scene.
Tickets are available online for £4 in advance from wegottickets.com/liverpoolacoustic – tickets are £5 on the door.

Doors open at 8.00pm with music starting at 8.30pm sharp. The night finishes at 11.15pm

Join the facebook event here.


photo © Studio Lotus

A set by American songwriter Zoe Mulford is like a small volume of short stories – evocative, beautifully crafted, and endlessly varied. Whether her starting-point is Franklin’s doomed polar expedition or the neglected contents of her own refrigerator, her vivid storytelling and down-to-earth humor promise listeners an enjoyable journey. She backs her clear voice with guitar or claw-hammer banjo and intersperses her own songs with selections from the music that inspires them: American and British folk ballads, Appalachian banjo tunes, and the work of songwriters from George Gershwin to Richard Thompson.

Raised near Philadelphia, she now lives in Manchester, England and plays on both sides of the Atlantic.

Her latest release, “Bonfires”, celebrates the folk tradition from North Carolina to Liverpool. The album reached #3 on the Folk-DJ chart the month after its release and has continued to have airplay across the US and beyond.
In addition to music, Zoe likes farmer’s markets, children’s books, martial arts movies, and cooking with lots of garlic.

“Welcome In Another Year”
from Bonfires (Azalea City Recordings, 2009) which can be bought from here.


Property of Nadya Shanab

nadyashanab.com
myspace.com/nshanab
Property Of Nadya Shanab is a band envisioned by Nadya Shanab, an Egyptian Singer-Songwriter. Their sound is a fine blend of western acoustic, folk rock and Arabic music. Shanab’s often-haunting songs are laced with oriental vocals, spiced up with passionate, heartfelt lyrics and resonating melodies. Songs often yo-yo between both Arabic and English lyrics while being anchored down by traditional rock/pop song structure. 

They tend to leave their audience with a deep sense of melancholic satisfaction.
They have recently finished recording their debut album ‘El Mahrousa’ with Hamzet Wasl Records and are awaiting its release! The album ‘El Mahrousa’ will be available soon both online in digital form and in physical form at gigs or if in Egypt at Virgin megastores!

 

Ste Hedley is on course to become one of ‘Liverpool’s Finest’ musical exports, and that’s not something done easily when you think about the musical talent the city has produced – The Beatles, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Lightning Seeds and most recently The Zutons. Ste has written songs that are honest and clever, the songs are hallmarked with catchy melodies and quirky lyrics that seem to embed themselves within you.

Ste graduated with a music degree from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA), on his debut album ‘Doors’ Ste shows of his musical talent that includes, guitar, bass and trumpet as well as a natural singing voice that doesn’t hide his ‘Scouse’ roots. It’s these inner-city Liverpool roots that have caused Ste to write a memorable and clever first album. The album is a rollercoaster of emotions, there is a total honesty that some might even find awkward, with songs like ‘9 months’ telling the story of being abandoned as a child and placed into the care system, to ‘Polar Bears’ that has Ste looking at life and the way people take it for granted. We also here the softer side of Ste on ‘First Time’ a song that reminds two lovers of what it was like at the start of the romance, the
song features Sandi Thom whom Ste met whilst at LIPA.Ste promoted the album ‘Doors’ by performing 399 gigs in just 21 days. Ste is not only gigging in local music venues but also at peoples front doors, it’s about taking music back to the people, every gig is a chance for someone new to hear the songs.


Download the single First Time (feat Sandi Thom) – stehedley.bandcamp.com and CD Baby
Gig at your Door EP is released 1st February – register on facebook for more info.

Northerndaze
northerndaze.com
From Liverpool in the UK, Northerndaze are an experienced upbeat acoustic duo who are passionate and dedicated to music. There is Helly (Lead Vocals, Harmonica, Percussion) and Andy (Lead, Rhythm & Lead Guitar & Vocals) composing and performing their own music using guitars, harmonica, congas and vocal harmonies with a thirst for music and a passion to perform.Influenced by all walks of music and life, their performance and music has been described as folk rock with a combined mixture of enchanting vocals, hypnotising rhythms, killer melodies and fantastic musicianship.


After much hard work, determination and practice and a series of strange coincidences, Northerndaze were lucky enough to promote their CD to a Music Agent from Minnesota, USA. Since their coincidental meeting that night in The Cavern, Liverpool, followed by an after party at The Hard Day’s Night Hotel, Liverpool they secured a friendship and business relationship with the Agent who also happened to be a musician.Within 6 months they found themselves being flown out to perform their own material at the prestigious House of Blues in Chicago. They wowed and captivated their new American audience whilst performing on stage with fellow Scouser Badfingers Joey Molland and Mitch Ryder from the Detroit Wheels.

During their stay they had such a positive reaction the plan is for them to be flown back to Los Angeles in February this year for more musical adventures.

Amongst several live radio performances on Radio Merseyside, Dune FM & WFM, they have performed at many venues across their region including Liverpool’s top music spots Mathew Street Festival, Barfly, The Zanzibar, The Mocha Lounge, The Pilgrim, The Cavern, Magnet Bar, Korova Bar, Temple Bar and many more.Who knows this could be the start of something and could be the opportunity that Northerndaze have worked so hard for.


You can download Northerndaze’s music from iTunes.

Liverpool Acoustic Spotlight #37 – January 2011 

If you get the chance, please support your local artists by emailing them, joining their mailing lists, leaving them comments, going to their gigs, and buying their music direct from them where possible. 

The Liverpool Acoustic Spotlight is produced and presented by Graham Holland on behalf of the Liverpool Acoustic website. It is also available on the Internet courtesy of Art In Liverpool FM (Defnet Media), and is a proud member of the Association of Music Podcasting – supported by Libsyn 

The theme music is King of the Faeries by Andrew Ellis from his CD Midnight On The Water.