LIVERPOOL ACOUSTIC LIVE PREVIEW
FRIDAY 24TH FEBRUARY 2012
‘Ever Being On Lark Lane’ is the latest offering from the band and regular shows in the Midlands are set to further grow their popularity.
China Club is the brand new single. The acoustic instrumentation is blended brilliantly with an infectious folk melody not easily forgotten. The lyrics explore ‘the fragility of personal relationships’ and for good reason, China Club has become a firm favourite for the ensemble to perform.
Leere are currently working with Sound Consultancy to develop their profile in 2012.
FRIDAY 24TH FEBRUARY 2012
Friday 24th February is Liverpool Acoustic Live’s 3rd birthday and it takes place in our regular home, the View Two Gallery on Mathew Street. To help us celebrate, we’ve got an extra helping of fantastic acoustic musicians.
- Stephen Langstaff (solo)
- Holly Taymar & Chris Bilton [York]
- Ratty Little Fingers
- Rob Rivieres (mini slot)
- Simon Madison – Silent Cities (mini slot)
Advance tickets are sold out. A limited number of £6 will be available when the doors open at 8pm on a strictly first-come, first-served basis.
Tickets for all Liverpool Acoustic shows are available from
wegottickets.com/liverpoolacoustic
Sign up to our event PR mailing list for access to tickets before they go on general sale.
Sign up to our event PR mailing list for access to tickets before they go on general sale.
Doors open at 8.00pm with music starting at 8.30pm sharp. The night finishes at 11.15pm
Join the facebook event here.
Liverpool Acoustic Spotlight #64
To play click here Spotlight #64
or right click the link to download for free
or right click the link to download for free
- Stephen Langstaff – Spires
from the Acoustic EP [no longer available] - Holly Taymar & Chris Bilton – Beautiful Days
buy the Never Winter Mind EP [here] - Ratty Little Fingers – Clove Hitch
buy the Eat With Your Fingers EP [Bandcamp] - Rob Rivieres – Before The Dawn
buy the Before The Dawn EP [Bandcamp] - Silent Cities (Simon Madison) – All These Winds
buy the Dream EP [Bandcamp]
BONUS TRACKS
- Rob Vincent – The Bomb
- Leere – China Club
download the single for free www.resoundmedia.co.uk/shop – use the code CHINACLUB, and buy the album Ever Being On Lark Lane [Amazon]
Stephen Langstaff has fast become our unofficial patron. He played at our first Liverpool Acoustic Live event in February 2009, and has returned every year since, playing our first and second birthdays, and judging the Liverpool Acoustic View Two Songwriting Challenge last year. More often found these days playing larger stages from the O2 Academy and the Liverpool Philharmonic, to Chester Rocks and the Echo Arena, Stephen is equally at home with only a guitar, his incredible voice, a bunch of memorable songs, an intimate venue, and an appreciative audience. Just how we like it!
Holly Taymar and Chris Bilton are two Yorkshire-bred twenty-somethings with a talent for writing and arranging beautiful acoustic originals, covering genres to suit almost everyone – acoustic, folk, country, jazz, doo-wop and a hint of hip hop. Frank, intimate but never anything less than stunningly delicate, these two Northerners invite you on a journey into their world. With ‘one of the most distinctive voices in the Yorkshire area’ and a naturally warm rapport with each other on stage, Holly & Christopher have truly earned their reputation as one of the North’s most respected acoustic duos. Delicate, finger picked acoustic & electric guitar, perfectly placed percussion and a repertoire of unpretentious songs – over the last few years, Holly & Christopher have honed their live show and performed extensively in the UK, which within the space of two weeks in March 2011 earned them national airplay from BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Lamacq and a prestigious place in the Glastonbury Emerging Talent 2011 longlist. There’s no substitute for good old fashioned hard work – and six years, thousands of miles and hundreds of gigs later, it’s about time the whole world knew about the best kept secret in York.
‘Endearingly lovely…an autotune-free zone, if you’ve ever seen them perform live, which I heartily recommend by the way, you’ll know they really are THAT good…’ Matt Seymour, BBC Raw Talent, Feb 2011
Ingredients
- A trio of selected musicians
- A medley of instruments
- 1 cup of folk
- 1 cup of pop
- 1 slice of quirkiness
- 2 spoons of imagination
- and a bouquet garnis of influences to taste
Preparation
- Season the musicians in a blend of pop, grunge and folk and leave to marinade for 12 months.
- Add the musicians to the instruments (guitar, banjo, fiddle, tea chest, 80’s casiog and flute) and coat them in the folk and pop.
- Pre-heat the oven, add the quirkiness, imagination and influences and allow them to infuse.
- Add the rest of the mixture and cook until well done.
Serving suggestion
Best served live in 30-minute intervals or on record as single tracks, EPs or albums.
Ratty Little Fingers are Austin, Christian and Katy, inspired by bands like the Flaming Lips and Pixies, they sing raucous and chaotic pop songs whilst pushing the folk genre. In 2011 the band played over 100 shows and festivals throughout the UK and across Europe, attracting such luminaries as Johnny Marr to their performances.
therattylittlefingers.com
Rob Rivieres is a twenty-three year old acoustic singer-songwriter from the north west of England. Crafting conscious lyrics with soft vocals and simple melodies Rob creates a minimalist yet deeply soulful sound.
His debut EP, Before the Dawn, was released online in May 2011 and offered as a ‘name-your-price’ download. As well as building and managing his own website he regularly posts videos on Youtube and strives to maintain a direct relationship with his fans using several social networking sites.
Drawing on the ‘the delicate moments, dramas, dilemmas and dreams we all find ourselves drifting in and out of’, Rob writes conscious tales to inspire and intrigue. He is currently writing new material for a new EP whilst gigging in and around Liverpool. He plans to embark on a mini festival tour in the summer of 2012.
Rob won the Audience Favourite Award at the Liverpool Acoustic View Two Songwriting Challenge with his song Enough is Enough.
robrivieres.com
Silent Cities is the music project of singer-songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist Simon Madison. Simon won the Judges’ Award at the Liverpool Acoustic View Two Songwriting Challenge with his song Brother of Fur. His EP Dreams is available on a ‘name your price’ basis from the Lost at Sea Records bandcamp page.
BONUS TRACKS
If there’s a lot of half-finished, semi-fulfilled, vaguely unsatisfying music around these days – songs that say nothing to you about your life – then maybe it’s because the people who make it haven’t lived much of a life themselves.
Not so in the case of Robert Vincent, the searingly honest Liverpool singer-songwriter whose mix of folk, rock and country is like a Mersey Van Morrison or a Scouse Springsteen.
Born in 1981 into a house that rang to the sounds of Johnny Cash, The Beatles and Pink Floyd, Robert knew before he was five years old that he wanted to be a musician. When he became a father at 17 he had to balance the hard graft of life in a working band with the responsibility of providing for a family. He’s seen setbacks and false dawns, he’s come near to success only to have it snatched away, but he’s never lost his faith in his music. And now that faith is coming good.
“I’ve done the whole thing of trying to be what people want me to be,” Rob explains in his warm and good-humoured Scouse drawl, “And in the end I just thought I’ve had enough of this. The songs I’ve written now, some of them sound like Johnny Cash and some of them like 50s rock’n’roll – but they’re what *I* wanted to write. And the funny thing is, the more honest I am the better people like it.”
The result is Rob’s debut album ‘Life In Easy Steps’: a set of songs that are alternately as open and empathic as ‘Second Chance’, and as raw and righteous as ‘Riots Cry’ – all held together by a singular lyrical vision and a voice that can soothe, comfort or tear down a wall. In a sea of plastic pop, this is real rock and roll.
“There’s no smoke and mirrors about it,” Rob says with a smile. “It’s like a good old fashioned country record. Sing what you mean – and sing it like you mean it.”
“The record is about trying to be the best person you can possibly be,” he continues, “And I think that’s what most people want from themselves. You want to be a better human being. I write from the point of view of being a dad, and worrying about the world my kid is growing up in. The world focuses so much on the individual – iPhone, iPad, I, I, me, me all the time – and there’s something unhealthy about it. We feel cut off from other people. But if music is good at anything, it’s reconnecting us.”
Leere, fronted by Simon Monaghan, is a collective of musicians: a band that grows, changes and evolves. Their first album, Compassionate Ride, was created back in 2004, and since then they’ve released a number of singles, including Hazel, It’s My Morning and The Last Women.
‘Ever Being On Lark Lane’ is the latest offering from the band and regular shows in the Midlands are set to further grow their popularity.
China Club is the brand new single. The acoustic instrumentation is blended brilliantly with an infectious folk melody not easily forgotten. The lyrics explore ‘the fragility of personal relationships’ and for good reason, China Club has become a firm favourite for the ensemble to perform.
Leere are currently working with Sound Consultancy to develop their profile in 2012.
Liverpool Acoustic Spotlight #64 – February 2012
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, and is a proud member of the Association of Music Podcasting. The theme music is King of the Faeries by Andrew Ellis from his CD Midnight On The Water.