It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable, musical week with lots of things happening, but here are the highlights:
Tuesday: John Sterry (pianist for The Sterrys) entertained guests and visitors to The Cottage Hotel with a relaxed evening of jazz piano.
Wednesday: Ben Carr hosted his first Blues Session in The Hideaway Speakeasy, which turned out to be an amazing success! The atmosphere was wonderful and it was good to see musicians who’d never met just getting up and joining in (at one point Ian Feetenby jumped in and provided us with some brilliantly spontaneous percussion on acoustic guitar). The next session is on Wednesday 8th August – Feel free to come along and enjoy the music or, better still, bring an instrument and join in! We’re all friendly, I promise!
Friday: Hamer & Isaacs played The B-Bar in Plymouth and were kind enough to ask me to step in as a guest musician on their second set. What followed was a foot-tapping extravaganza of swinging gypsy jazz with one of the liveliest audiences I’ve ever played to! I think everyone left that gig with a huge smile.
This is what my diary has looked like for the past few weeks:
7th May – Recorded some improvisations with Stephen Abrehart, just to see how the harp and baritone guitar worked together. The sounds mixed brilliantly and I hope we’ll be able to record a few more things together in the future.
10th May – Saw Ben Carr play at The Refectory Bar, sampled some delicious cocktails (the Apple Crumble cocktail was really good) and joined in with some jazz flute for the last few songs.
19th May – The Sterrys (John, Joe and I) played music for a surprise birthday party in Malborough Baptist Church.
That afternoon we also went to the Cottage Hotel to discuss their plans for music throughout the summer, which led to this:
I am delighted to say that from June 5th, The Sterrys will be playing at The Cottage Hotel every Tuesday throughout the summer. The line up will change week-to-week; one week might be solo piano, the next a jazz trio with flute and harp the week after that…
Anyway, we expect it’ll be a lot of fun and hope to see you there!
This week has been a wonderfully musical one. My to-do list has looked roughly like this:
URGENT: DRAW MORE CARTOONS!
Learn the flute part of Benjamin Godard’s “Suite De Trois Morceaux”.
Take some promotional photos for a friend’s band.
Teach myself clarinet and saxophone (ongoing).
Add a few more pieces to the harp repertoire.
Go over recordings and stop faffing about on the internet.
Obviously, I have spent some time faffing on the internet and the cartoons are still in sketch form, but I’m reasonably happy with some of the photographs I’ve taken this week and think I might start a big music photography project where I’ll try to photograph and review everyone I ever play music with under the tag #SouthHamsMusic. We’ll see how that goes!
Anyway, here are some of the music-related pictures that I’ve taken recently:
Benny Guitar Carr & The Hot Rats: Aly Day, Joe Sterry and Tom Carr.
These were from The Hot Rats gig at Kingsbridge’s Hideaway Speakeasy on May the 4th. It was a fairly quiet evening in Kingsbridge, so The Hot Rats livened the place up with an energetic bluesy set and wild improvisations.
On Wednesday there was another blues night at The Royal Oak. The highlight for me was a completely unexpected cover of Gay Pirates by Rob and Laura Williams. It’s a great tune, written by Cosmo Jarvis, with a brilliant video (good enough to be tweeted to thousands of followers by Stephen Fry) and here it is:
After that short round of musical insanity, here are few pictures from my ongoing “Fading Notes” photography series:
Hope to catch you at a gig in the South Hams at some point – I think I’m the only person around here who plays jazz flute!
Feel free to follow my twitter account and facebook page and I’ll try to keep you updated!
Hamer & Isaacs played a really energetic set at the Millbrook Inn earlier on Sunday afternoon. They play gypsy jazz with a sound reminiscent of Django Reinhardt and Hot Club of France and were kind enough to let me stand in as guest flautist on one or two tunes! When I wasn’t playing I found the time to take a few photos and videos. Here’s how they turned out:
The gig was brilliant!
Everyone had a lot of fun and there was smiling…
Singing…
Laughter…
And even some dancing (I’m attempting to upload the video now, but Devonian internet is a little bit temperamental).
The whole afternoon was a lot of fun and the atmosphere was really relaxed and welcoming. I thoroughly enjoyed playing and listening to the music and hope I have plenty of chances to see the band again!
Yesterday I rediscovered this (it’s a very silly poem that I’m currently calling “The Boyfriend Song” although that might change at a later date). There are a lot of ideas floating around in my head to do with the tune and how any artwork should look so now it’s just a process of elimination to get to something I’m happy with and run with it.
As yesterday was also Wednesday, it was Ben Carr’s blues night at the Royal Oak again and I remembered the camera this time! I only got a few photos, because I was playing flute some of the time too, but was quite pleased with this one:
One of Ben Carr's Blues Nights at the Royal Oak
I mentioned it at the top of the page, but for those of you who, like me, have a horrible internet connection and don’t want to open a new tab because it will take about 40 years to load… here’s “The Boyfriend Song”.
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The Boyfriend Song
Do you mind conversations about zombie ninja pirates?
How about debates about the newest things in science?
Do you like Monty Python? Are you musical at all?
Can you manage to be lewd without losing your class at all?
Because…
I’d like a boyfriend please!
I’d like a boyfriend please!
It’s mostly for great company and not those birds and bees,
So I’d like a boyfriend please!
(Y’know, if it’s not too much trouble)
Are you fussy about food?
Are you considerate or rude?
Do you like cats (no, not for dinner)?
Are you taller? Fatter? Thinner?
(Could you possibly put up with my ridiculous ideas?)
Do you think this drawing’s great?
What kinds of people do you hate?
Are you kind and are you stable?
Are your hands above the table?
Because…
I’d like a boyfriend please!
I’d like a boyfriend please!
I’m obviously too fussy, but I’d like one that’s a tease.
Yep, I’d like a boyfriend please!
(Or maybe I’m closing my mind too much)
I shouldn’t be so picky about gender.
But instincts have a stranglehold on me.
It shouldn’t be my fate, to pro-cre-ate;
There are already too many fish in the sea.
Anyway…
If we’re going to be so ridiculously politically correct about it…
Might as well include everybody…
I’d like a girlfriend please!
I’d like a girlfriend please!
And if you’re unsure, it doesn’t matter anymore.
Leave judgements and criticisms at the door.
You could be hetero- or homo-
It’s no problem; I’m no phobe- Oh.
I just have one more thing to say:
Though, theoretically, I’ve no preference,
Logic didn’t get the reference.
So… I’d still probably like a boyfriend please.
(Apply now with your CVs.)
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I feel I should point out that I have a lovely boyfriend (and a ridiculous sense of humour), so please don’t take this seriously – it’s just a bit of fun! It’s something I’d forgotten about and unearthed as I was trying to clear up the mess of files on my computer with names like “idea”, “another thing” and “messing about”.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this post anyway! Let me know what you think in the comments!
This is the best week I’ve had in such a long time! Mainly because lots of interesting things are happening:
Monday – Lovely walk around Mount Edgcumbe and Kingsand with great company (the image above was taken from the Amphitheatre woods at Mount Edgcumbe).
Tuesday – Meeting people, helping out and my first experience of attempting to play harmonium.
Wednesday (today) – Caught up with Laura and Charlotte from the The Carrivick Sisters (a brilliant folk/bluegrass duo), great flute lesson this afternoon (I have an exam next week!) and this evening I’ll be going to Ben Carr’s Blues Night at The Royal Oak in Malborough (I’ll be bringing my flute, but have no idea who I’ll be playing music with – it’s great fun)!
Thursday – Going to see Enter Shikari in Plymouth (and might see some other nice people along the way)!
Friday – Work and hopefully catching up with a wonderful friend!
Basically, it’s an amazing week (I’ll try to get some decent photos of all of these things)! If you’re free to come to the Royal Oak this evening, or The Hermitage on Saturday (or both), it’ll be great to see you there!
I’ve been meaning to post something about this hypnotic folk-rock duo for ages. Powerful vocals are provided by Kate Young and hark back to a time of smugglers and highwaymen, while Mako weaves the pieces together with sensitive guitar harmonies. By chance, I met them at a blues night at the pub and they were kind enough to let me play flute on a few of the songs in their set (despite the fact that we’d only just met) and asked me if I’d like to play at their next gig too.
Here’s the video for their track “Sleeping Stones”:
If you like them and want to know more, the latest news will be up on their facebook page. Kate’s done some rather nice artwork featuring a raven called Edris and it sounds like there’s plenty more to come. I know a website is in the works and will let you know when it’s ready.
I’d jump at any chance to see or play with this duo again – the atmosphere they create is completely magical. I wish them all the best for the future and hope they go far!
At the moment it’s just bare bones, but I’m really glad we’ve finally got something up! I’m hoping to get some good images from a photoshoot on Thursday, so it should be updated fairly soon.
I should probably mention that John (in the middle in the picture above) isn’t really that short, he’s just sat down at the piano. We really need some better pictures!
Anyway, here are a few of the tracks from the site:
Hope you like them and feel free to let us know what you think!
Hannah Sterry 