Stokefest

I am happy to announce that we have organized a collaboration with Core Arts to host the acoustic tent at the 2007 Stokefest, which is to be held on Sunday June 10th in Clissold Park.

We had a great response from all sorts of people, and have whittled it down to what we hope is a varied list of people who have performed at Fresh 'n' Live over the past 15 events. We did have to say no to some people, even some regulars, but we feel we wanted to give as varied and interesting a line up as possible, so we didn't just pick our favourites, mates and regulars, although you will see a few of them there !

We are still waiting for confirmation of who is playing when from the organizers. The line up is as follows, probably in order of appearance:

Al Neville – Singer-songwriter with poignant, heartfelt folky songs. 

Nadege - Singer/songwriter from France. I am developing my song-writing via a solo, stripped-down acoustic work. My objective is to create something great with just my voice, my guitar and my song-writing... More info on www.myspace.com/nadegemusic

 Miranda – Female pianist/vocals with an air of Kate Bush or Tori Amos 

 Blue House –  "Blue House are a female duo: Elizabeth and Rachael, plus a keyboard and drum machine. They've been gigging since last September and their songs sound like a poppier version of Portishead."

 Gary 'Slide Guitar' Lammin - The rock journalist Charles Shaar Murray ( mojo ) said of Gary: "He is as a very good slide guitar player indeed". Gary has an unreleased album in the pipeline that was produced by Joe Strummer of The Clash, which also contains tracks produced by the original Sex Pistols producer Dave Goodman.

 Graham Larkbey - Raggedy-arsed, multitalented guitarist with brilliant original songs, great covers and a charismatic up-beat stage presence. http://www.myspace.com/grahamlarkbey

 Steve White - "East End punky fireman who wraps dark and political observations in a layer of laughter, as evidenced by the barbed Summer In Sainsburys and Steve Is Dead". Blang! January 2007. http://www.myspace.com/realstevewhite

JJ Crash – East London acoustic punk poet JJ Crash is one of the original founders of the UK Antifolk scene which has spread beyond the 12 Bar Club in Soho London where the music festivals are held. His influences of late 70’s punk and early American folk & country music are evident in his songs which blend humour and social comment on subjects ranging from the skulduggery of the oil industry to the media circus hounding of Kate Moss and life in East London. Catch him solo or with veteran blues harpist Chris the Lips or with his new band Crash & The Disasters where he has teamed up with 80’s Pixies protégées The Perfect Disaster for a full on punky band sound.
www.myspace.com/jjthecrash - www.jjcrash.com - email: jules @ jjcrash . com

 Ellis Dunn - A Canadian singer/songwriter currently living in london. http://www.myspace.com/ellisdunn

 Joski and Jenty  - Joski is from London and makes rock music that is engaging, emotive, edgy, and dramatic.  Jenty writes quirky, personal songs and adds guitar, vocals and keyboards to the mix. Joski's MySpace

 Walking Wounded – Folky group.. more info soon.

Fresh 'n' Live monthly events

We are currently gearing up for this years festival season, and so are going to be ending our monthly night at the Castle. The May event was our last event there.

In the mean time we will be looking for a new venue for when we eventually re-launch Fresh 'n' Live in September or October, so if you know anywhere in E17 please let us know.

To bridge the gap bewtween May and September though, we are planning a garden party (or two) at ours, with performers, food and drinks.. more on that soon. The first of these will probably be the first Sunday in July and will be an open house scenario with bar and BBQ.

We will also hopefully, catch up with all the great video and fotos we have taken but not had the time to edit and post. To save you repeated disappointment, we will let you know by email as soon as it is all up.

Thank you all very much for your support.. it's all about you, your music, clapping and cheering.. and we look forward to it all again as soon as possible!

see you all soon

Gab and Ian

Top Video Tips

February's top video tips are:

Barry's 3rd track.. absolutely hilarious! the tape ran out before the applause but we can assure you it was loud and plentiful.

Dark Captain Light Captain (aka Dan and Neil) who, despite not being able to use the laptop, sorry about that guys, we will have the correct lead with us in future, performed an entrancing set for us.

Graham Larkby stormed it once again with one of his own numbers.. what a track.. and it really makes you think!

May

Well blimey gov.. 20 people managed, somehow, to cram into the busiest night we've had so far. WOW... and we must have had 200 people in there. It was rammed and a truly fantastic night, and a great send off for us and we launch into our summer break. Thanks to everyone for coming down and making it so special.

No surprise that all the video is still here in a pile (that's 3 months worth now).. which is partly why we are taking a break. We will be in touch by email to let you know when we have caught up with stuff. make sure you and people you know are on the email list.. you can join simply by clicking on the link below the main logo on any page.

Cheers people, and see you all at Stokefest!

April

Hi people.. April's event was a blast.. another great night of musical melangerie. Sorry to have kept you all in the dark recently, and we still have no video from even last month.. really rubbish I know, but we are so busy with stuff it's all on hold I'm afraid. All the material is here and waiting and I know many of you are too.. so as soon as we have a free weekend we will endeavor to get it all up there.

March

Hi people.. thanks to you all for coming down to this month's Fresh 'n' Live. It was a fun night, a bit quieter than normal due to the cold, wind and rain doing a fine job at keeping people in front of their fires.. but despite that we had nice cosy night in the pub. A few newcomers and some regulars back for more of the usual..

Sorry we haven't managed to get the videos done.. we are really snowed under at the moment.. hopefully soon.

stay tuned..

February

This month's event featured the following artists (in order of appearance). Those underlined are links to their websites.

Gabrielle 1 - John T 1 - John T 2 - Steve and Matt 1 - Steve and Matt 2 - Blue House 1 -Blue House 2 - Barry 1 - Barry 2 - Barry 3 - Jo Bailey 1 - Jo Bailey 2 - Jac Swain 1 - Jac Swain 2 - Other Theresa 1 - Other Theresa 2 - Dark Captain Light Captain - Lynette 1 - Lynette 2 Helen 1 - Helen 2 - House Double 1 - House Double 2 - Claire - Al Neville 1 - Al Neville 2 - Graham Larkby - Steve White - Chris Hill

January

This months event featured the following artists (in order of appearance):

Matt Ellis - Matt Ellis and Lauren James - Steve Clear - Barry Goan - Steve White - Steve White 2 - Pete Nulty - Al - Andrew Pearce

December

This months event featured the following artists (in order of appearance):

Ahh what a great little night it turned out to be.. I use the word little in a kind of affectionate way, as it was much less manic than last time, and we had many regulars come and perform. I suppose calling it our Christmas party was a bit hopeful, especially seeing as I am one of those who derides early Christmasness in shops and on telly, but at least we had an excuse.. we're not back 'til next year !!

'Lorra' guitars this time.. which is not a bad thing.. Ross launched us into the night with some more electric accompaniment, more naughty poetry to make the prim amongst you wince from our cheeky Other Theresa, Steve White was back after some time with some great new material.. and with him came the great (I use that in the complimentary sense.. I dont think he is famous, yet) JJ Crash. Pete Clair and Byron gave us another fabulous ensemble, and newcomers Ben and Julian graced us with some great tunes.. see.. we need gab.. im a sound man.. great sound, rubbish at describing music, ha ha. Al and Sally teamed up with Keith and Llew for a drum-driven guitar duo.. I thought it was fab, but they werent so convinced, alas. Am i too easily pleased ? i dont think so, I think they're just being modest.

anyhow.

then, just when you thought things were becoming predictable, Graham camo on and totally changed direction from his normal rocking stuff.. then Al came back on for a festive verse about Santa.. I thought at that point I was home and dry and that Chris Hill would finish us off, as it were, with the usual piano finale, but oh no, he too decided to change direction with a rendition of a medieval poem about Christmas.. how brilliant..

so you see.. you never can tell!

cheers people, and have a great Christmas..

ian

Ben & Julian - Chris - Pete, Claire and Byron - Al, Sally, Keith & Llew - JJ Crash_1 - JJ Crash_2- Other Theresa - Steve White_1- Steve White_2 - Sally - Graham Larkby - Chris Hill - Al

(Nick and Pete will feature in January's videos - Keith's footage? Er, dunno, I'm looking for it).

November

This months event featured the following artists, in alphabetical order:

Well, it turned out fine again. Some ol' favourites, and lots of newcomers. Graham Larkby did the business again this time, and he remembered where his guitar was.. shame, 'cos we loved the dulcimer. Emma gave us a rendition of a lovely song in the way only she knows how, but we don't have the video for that for some reason. Karen and Gary returned with another great new song, and Al was back with more guitar melodies. Newcomer guitarists included Warren, Jason, Neil, Shannon and Nadege (and friends). On the ivory keys (ok plastic) we welcomed Danielle with vocals by Jo, and 'D' got all funk-jazz, with drum backing beats. And Adam and Rob performed some semi-unplugged versions of their band's rock songs. fab.  

All in a great, and very busy night. Sorry to those who didn’t get to play, we ran out of time. nature of the beast alas. Suffice to say lets all try and get there a bit earlier next time.

Video Links: click on links below to stream video clips. Windows Media Player for Broadband 512 or higher.

One of the lights was out again so video's a bit dark. sos. We may try and use a feed from the desk next time too, as the noise levels were very high this time, and we feel it kind of ruins the video a bit.

Hey, we lost the 'performers sheet', how rubbish is that? Which means we don’t know who some of the newcomers were, sorry people. Please mail us if you know :-)

Gosh.. what an interesting night. Not so many punters this time, but lots of great performers. Luckily our new stage piano got well and truly used, with the very welcome return of Jenty (and friends), and also by a lovely newcomer (whose name remains a mystery as we lost the 'performers sheet') and of course our most regular piano regular Chris Hill. By the way, on a piano note.. we have bought 2 music stands, so no more faffing about with music-on-the-lap (sorry Chris). We also welcomed a great new guy from California called James Hurley. I particularly liked his song; The Vampire s.. also a fantastic young girl called Tereza.. she was 12 !, but you would never have guessed. I have to say though that my favourite moment of the night was our old friend Graham Larkby who brought his Dulcimer in, after having apparently lost his guitar as the result of a skin-full, and graced us with a rendition of, well, just take a look.. superb.

James Hurley 1 - James Hurley 2 - Mystery Guitar Man - Mystery Piano Girl - Ross - Tereza - Jenty, Joski and Penny - Joski and Penny - Blue House - Chris Hill - Matt - Graham Larkby - James Hurley 3

Gabrielle - Matt - Byron and Claire - Karen - Karen and Steve - Gabrielle - Steve White

Sorry about the lack of info for this one. We moved house and had much confusion in our minds, hence all this got a bit lost in stuff. We are trying to find the sheets and video.

Nic

Hot hot hot! The weather may have been sultry, but the acts on the Fresh n Live stage were smokin'! Yet more new people came to entertain us, as well as some old favourites - it's growing, by gosh. Highlights included Steve White's new song "It's Always Summer in Sainsbury's"; Other Theresa, our very first, hilarious (and rather splendidly rude) performance poet; Al and Dan Neville, a father and son team with very different styles; the Tom Waites-esque Matt; David's mellow sound and not one but two superb all-girl groups, Little Miss and Ask, featuring the soulful Alicia. Chris got everyone singing along to his piano tunes ("Bumpety bump, bumpety bump"), and even the wonderful Emma stopped serving pints for a while to treat us to a song - it's a family affair here, you know. We're looking forward to August 4th and some other musical or spoken word surprises - come along and join in!

It just gets better and better. This was an absolutely rocking night, so much that Roger allowed us to extend the bar so we could fit in the last performers. Many, many thanks to all our returning performers, some of whom can now officially be classed as regulars (and very happy about it we are, too) - Rob, Sal, Steve White, Jenty, Joski, Gary the Slide, Gary the Joker and Chris Hill. As always, an extra frisson was added in the shape of brand new performers, all excellent - Stephen A Chin, Graham, Melanie, Tam and Graham Larkby - who also teamed up with Gary the Slide for an awesome race through the back catalogue of blues/r&b/rock. What a crescendo!

Check out the video links to experience it for yourselves..

Gab x

Stephen A Chin 1 - Stephen A Chin 2 - Graham - Gary 'The Slide' Lammin 1 - Gary Slide 2 - Graham, Jenty and Joski - Tam -

Tam and Gary 1 - Tam and Gary 2 - Graham Larkby - Graham Larkby and Gary Slide

Another corker of an evening. More new faces and a couple of old favourites (can we say that yet, after only three shows?). Many thanks to all of our performers: Rob and Sally doing rock and blues; the wonderful Jenty blowing the dust off the keyboard (at last!) with some jaunty songs, and Joski treating us to soulful self-penned tunes; Noors, back with his wicked low-fi reggae-rap (accompanied by the most up-for-it crowd we've had so far); Steve White leading us back through the Golden Arches for a third time (we all know the words now); Angelica whooping up some pop tunes and Chris, finally, making the keyboard feel positively loved after weeks of neglect with some hilarious old army songs. There was even a would-be stand-up with a couple of jokes.

Ahh, the fun to be had in The 'Stow of an evening...

One thing - with the hot weather keeping people in the parks, the night was slow to start again, so it's been decided to put back the start time a wee bit. From now on, we'll be opening at 6pm and starting the music around 7-7.30pm.

Thanks to all who played and those who drank and clapped - you all made the evening special. Come back again!

x Gab

Just got back from the April 2nd gig and I'm so excited - what a night! We had Paul Chi and Barnaby O'Rourke, on geetar and cello, all the way from Brighton - they made us swoon and chuckle in equal amounts - my friend Jen is in love... Book them to play in your very own living room at the link above. Then we had cockney-country protest singer Steve White and old-style r&b/blues man Ken, who fell in love with the dulcet-toned Emma - it all happens here, folks, fuck dating.com. And then a wild card - Keith Adams, who borrowed my guitar on a whim and blew the place away - check out his website (link above). And then (as if all that wasn't enough), Danny came along with his blues harp and whistled us all down to Dixie on that big ol' freight train. Marvellous.

So, the locals are all in love with us and the musos are coming back next month for some more Fresh'n'Live - it's just blummin lovely. As Steve said to me tonight, "What other open mic can you go to where people come just to listen, not to play?" He's right - it's a great mix. If only we could get someone to play that bloody keyboard!

x Gabrielle

We finally have Paul Chi's fantastic set from April - sorry it took so long, we messed about trying to get the audio and video together but gave up.. just wasn't working.. enjoy.

Barnaby O'Rourke - Keith John Adam

The show on March 4th was a great success, with 12 performers playing virtually back to back for 5 hours. Despite nobody playing keyboards, which was a shame, we still had a great variety of people and styles from acapela to slide guitar, to some great soul rapping as well as lots of great acoustic guitarists.

The important thing is that we managed to do what we set out to, which was create a very relaxed Sunday evening with lots of good music, where people can chill out with a drink.