The last time I did a gig in Battersea was at venues that do not exist anymore... Both have been pulled down; The Nags Head where Jimi Hendrix famously played, and The Old Swan? which had an oddly nautical theme in pre-stressed concrete which was a famous punk gig where the Damned and many others played. I reckon that I might have played the 101 club in Lavender Hill more recently (maybe 1982?) but then is that Battersea or Clapham ? The jury is out... either way I have missed Battersea for c 30 years...
However, what a nice gig; with great management, a good vibe and a nice audience... We had the rather odd experience of a local Battersea gentleman Charlton (and Squeeze) supporter asking us whether we knew a Charlton footie song 'Valley, Floyd Road' which funnily enough Dave knew only too well as he played on the recording - stranger than fiction.. sadly we couldn't compete here as the rest of us didn't know it...
Thanks to all of our friends who turned up, and our fabulous You Tube cinematographer Simon (see snipturn for great looking and sounding videos on you tube)..
Hopefully we will be back there soon...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Big Up to the Pied Pipers of Charlton and Musical Momentum and Mayhem......
Well we've had an amazing Kipper season... January and February is rarely a period of joyous music making, it rains, it snows, its cold and few people brave the elements - it doesn't tend to matter how fabulous the act is...
However.... Glenn Tilbrook with his usual flair decided to challenge these norms... he got his band the Fluffers, a group of local friends; Dennis Greaves, Mark Feltham, Siobhan Parr and Paris to join in his experiment on the river...
Glenn and Dennis also asked us to perform as part of the series of Tuesday nights, this is at The Anchor and Hope on the river in Charlton SE7, and it is an awesome evening.... hopefully this will continue as the Pub has a great vibe and is very musician friendly. tell your friends and keep it going...
To my mind this gig has galvanised the local musical atmosphere, we are slowly establishing the local scene, and I am certain we have been offered other gigs on the back of this...
Further to this, we have a gig at the Eagle in Battersea Park Road on Saturday 27 February and potentially a new gig at the Pelton Arms in Greenwich - were going places! well at least around the 'burbs...
However.... Glenn Tilbrook with his usual flair decided to challenge these norms... he got his band the Fluffers, a group of local friends; Dennis Greaves, Mark Feltham, Siobhan Parr and Paris to join in his experiment on the river...
Glenn and Dennis also asked us to perform as part of the series of Tuesday nights, this is at The Anchor and Hope on the river in Charlton SE7, and it is an awesome evening.... hopefully this will continue as the Pub has a great vibe and is very musician friendly. tell your friends and keep it going...
To my mind this gig has galvanised the local musical atmosphere, we are slowly establishing the local scene, and I am certain we have been offered other gigs on the back of this...
Further to this, we have a gig at the Eagle in Battersea Park Road on Saturday 27 February and potentially a new gig at the Pelton Arms in Greenwich - were going places! well at least around the 'burbs...
Friday, February 5, 2010
A busy old time.... and a new face
Id like to introduce a new member of the extended Los Dawson family; Dana Myzer drummed with us at the last two quartet gigs; the British Oak 30 January and Glenn Tilbrooks and Dennis Greaves special surprise gig last Tuesday at the Anchor and Hope. All our regular drummers were busy so that says something about good drummers and quality acts in the current musical market - they are distinctly at a premium...
Dana blew our socks off! Originally from Austin Texas, he is now resident in our fair borough. He has a tremendous musical heritage having been the drummer in the powerpop act Cotton Mather (who had a couple of big hits in the 1990s and supported Oasis round the world). He can play anything we threw at him (rather brilliantly) and the fellow didn’t have a rehearsal either... We were extremely pleased... Big UP for Dana..
On a completely different note - see whether you can catch Dave Burrluck (our illustrious classical guitarist) at the One day Cafe in Plumstead 5 February playing with the Dos Rosas trio, kicking off about 8pm http://www.onedaycafe.org.uk/events.htm
Dana blew our socks off! Originally from Austin Texas, he is now resident in our fair borough. He has a tremendous musical heritage having been the drummer in the powerpop act Cotton Mather (who had a couple of big hits in the 1990s and supported Oasis round the world). He can play anything we threw at him (rather brilliantly) and the fellow didn’t have a rehearsal either... We were extremely pleased... Big UP for Dana..
On a completely different note - see whether you can catch Dave Burrluck (our illustrious classical guitarist) at the One day Cafe in Plumstead 5 February playing with the Dos Rosas trio, kicking off about 8pm http://www.onedaycafe.org.uk/events.htm
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The last few Cattleya gigs, and the Oak this Saturday (30 January)
We have had a series of busy and successful gigs at Cattleyas, it has consistently been a fabulous vibe with some great guests; Dennis Greaves has graciously sat-in on more than one occasion as has Glenn Tilbrook; to have two professional musicians of this calibre playing with us is a joy.
Dean Powell gave his all singing on a couple of songs, and Paris a new fellow on our scene gave us his interpretations of a few of our offerings... These have been well received; to such an extent that we have asked him to come and sing with us at the British Oak this Saturday..
Heres some food for thought; Paris sang on the TV so he has sung to more people in one shot than I have sung to in my whole life... amazing..
Dean Powell gave his all singing on a couple of songs, and Paris a new fellow on our scene gave us his interpretations of a few of our offerings... These have been well received; to such an extent that we have asked him to come and sing with us at the British Oak this Saturday..
Heres some food for thought; Paris sang on the TV so he has sung to more people in one shot than I have sung to in my whole life... amazing..
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Recent Gigs Reviewed & Local Momentum!
We have just done a couple of gigs where we have had the good luck of working with Glenn Tilbrook, Dennis Greaves, Janny Ballard and Paris (the Voice).... We have experienced much joy; the guests have been so thoroughly musical and have knocked the socks off everyone who was there. The evenings have been extremely busy as well, reflecting that class music can happen locally... as ever you just have to know where its going down...
Coupled with this there also seems to be a bit of momentum happenning locally with Glenn Tilbrrok and the Fluffers pushing a series of surprise gigs at the Anchor and Hope which have been sublime, and the British Oak is offering some really great acts this month
Coupled with this there also seems to be a bit of momentum happenning locally with Glenn Tilbrrok and the Fluffers pushing a series of surprise gigs at the Anchor and Hope which have been sublime, and the British Oak is offering some really great acts this month
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Gluttons for punishment; Powercuts, Juke Boxing and Frozen Hands...
After nearly being booked for a couple of function gigs, and a sonically wondrous gig at the old library in Charlton house for the Picnic in Greenwich Parks Movement, we had some gigs that became more of a challenge than we expected.
An old college friend arranged a special evening for her significant other halfs' half century celebration, intitially we were going to try and fit in a rustic snug bar when the power gave up, whilst it meant that we had to break set in the pitch black (exciting!) we then had to move everything upstairs into a large rather bland conference room, as one can imagine the organisers were fraught.... We got on with rigging the band and thought at one point we may have to play totally acoustically - but we rigged the power from the pub kitchen got on with it turned the lights down and created the vibe - it went down very well and a big thank you for Jim Kimberley who covered percussion and drums beautifully... I also had the added frisson of us performing one of my songs from college days - crikey...
Then Sunday at Catteleyas with the Juke Box second set - where we get the audience to shout out numbers from the Juke Box flyer - this is very tricky as they tend to chose songs we don't always play, whilst this keeps us very much on our toes it can be a bit difficult...
Then Frozen toes, fingers, noses etc, back at the East Greenwich Pleasaunce for the Christmas Open Air party - Carols, Choirs, Santa, Mulled Wine, Mince Pies and an aptly chilled Los Dawsons..
But we brought the sun with us again (in the summer it poured with rain and then was fine for the rest of the day) and similarly the inclement weather disappeared for our two rather chill(y) sets.. I found that if I wore cycle mitts it kept my hands warm enough to start playing.. Ben and Dave were not so lucky, but Kate from the committee thought we kept the audience happy and a lot of people came up to express their amazement that we were to prepared to play outside in December, a record I reckon... So as usual we are trying to keep the gigs diverse.. Im currently trying to sort out a charity gig for Crisis in Smithfield for mid January and I reckon that could be interesting too...
An old college friend arranged a special evening for her significant other halfs' half century celebration, intitially we were going to try and fit in a rustic snug bar when the power gave up, whilst it meant that we had to break set in the pitch black (exciting!) we then had to move everything upstairs into a large rather bland conference room, as one can imagine the organisers were fraught.... We got on with rigging the band and thought at one point we may have to play totally acoustically - but we rigged the power from the pub kitchen got on with it turned the lights down and created the vibe - it went down very well and a big thank you for Jim Kimberley who covered percussion and drums beautifully... I also had the added frisson of us performing one of my songs from college days - crikey...
Then Sunday at Catteleyas with the Juke Box second set - where we get the audience to shout out numbers from the Juke Box flyer - this is very tricky as they tend to chose songs we don't always play, whilst this keeps us very much on our toes it can be a bit difficult...
Then Frozen toes, fingers, noses etc, back at the East Greenwich Pleasaunce for the Christmas Open Air party - Carols, Choirs, Santa, Mulled Wine, Mince Pies and an aptly chilled Los Dawsons..
But we brought the sun with us again (in the summer it poured with rain and then was fine for the rest of the day) and similarly the inclement weather disappeared for our two rather chill(y) sets.. I found that if I wore cycle mitts it kept my hands warm enough to start playing.. Ben and Dave were not so lucky, but Kate from the committee thought we kept the audience happy and a lot of people came up to express their amazement that we were to prepared to play outside in December, a record I reckon... So as usual we are trying to keep the gigs diverse.. Im currently trying to sort out a charity gig for Crisis in Smithfield for mid January and I reckon that could be interesting too...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Oh what a night!
The LD’s rock Plumstead’s One Day Café
We can quite understand why you wouldn’t want to turn out on a dark, cold October evening, especially to the depths of Plumstead, but, we’re sorry to say, you missed a cracker.
The gig was for the One Day Café, an enterprising group in Plumstead headed by Jane Fenton, that is trying to establish a community café/venue an area that’s full of artists, musicians, actors etc. but completely lacking in any decent venue or indeed café. Seeking council funding to secure a permanent venue, the One Day Café organisation has been putting on gigs in various Plumstead locations and Friday 16th October’s event was an imposing brick sh*thouse-like building nominally titled the Greenwich Rugby Club Pavilion. But with a little bit of TLC by Jane and her crew it was turned into one of the cosiest, intimate venues we’ve ever had the pleasure to play in. Attendance was very good too. So a very big thank-you to all the One Day Café-ists who turned out — not to mention a few Los Dawson ‘groupies’ (you know who you are!) and shame on you other Los Dawson-ists who couldn’t summon the courage to venture to Plumstead (and no, you don’t need a passport to leave Charlton!). Seriously, we really appreciate all your support.
Actually there was a bit of Blitz spirit to the evening. Ben was otherwise engaged so bass duties fell to our old buddy Nigel ‘Reggie’ Pierce who’d been working away leaning some 30 songs at very short notice. Paired with his old drumming partner Mark Walker, however, Reggie fitted like the proverbial glove. Handy too that he was playing an acoustic bass, not an upright double bass like Ben — the ‘stage’ was on the small side, barely room for Mark’s kit and our egos let alone Ben’s huge bass. And mid-way through our second set the power went off plunging the venue into darkness and muting our PA and amps. While the organisers hurriedly re-lit candles and ventured to find the problem, Mike serenaded the audience as only he can — the power came back on and we didn’t miss a beat. See, we said it was a special night.
So, a big thank-you to the One Day Café for putting us on. Their next gig is on 4th December (www.onedaycafe.org.uk) featuring the Steve Pringle Trio, a Greenwich-based trio of some of the UK's best up-and-come jazz musicians from Trinity College of Music.
If you want music in your area this is exactly the sort of event you should come along and support. We won’t be playing that one but some of us will definitely be propping up the bar — please join us!
We can quite understand why you wouldn’t want to turn out on a dark, cold October evening, especially to the depths of Plumstead, but, we’re sorry to say, you missed a cracker.
The gig was for the One Day Café, an enterprising group in Plumstead headed by Jane Fenton, that is trying to establish a community café/venue an area that’s full of artists, musicians, actors etc. but completely lacking in any decent venue or indeed café. Seeking council funding to secure a permanent venue, the One Day Café organisation has been putting on gigs in various Plumstead locations and Friday 16th October’s event was an imposing brick sh*thouse-like building nominally titled the Greenwich Rugby Club Pavilion. But with a little bit of TLC by Jane and her crew it was turned into one of the cosiest, intimate venues we’ve ever had the pleasure to play in. Attendance was very good too. So a very big thank-you to all the One Day Café-ists who turned out — not to mention a few Los Dawson ‘groupies’ (you know who you are!) and shame on you other Los Dawson-ists who couldn’t summon the courage to venture to Plumstead (and no, you don’t need a passport to leave Charlton!). Seriously, we really appreciate all your support.
Actually there was a bit of Blitz spirit to the evening. Ben was otherwise engaged so bass duties fell to our old buddy Nigel ‘Reggie’ Pierce who’d been working away leaning some 30 songs at very short notice. Paired with his old drumming partner Mark Walker, however, Reggie fitted like the proverbial glove. Handy too that he was playing an acoustic bass, not an upright double bass like Ben — the ‘stage’ was on the small side, barely room for Mark’s kit and our egos let alone Ben’s huge bass. And mid-way through our second set the power went off plunging the venue into darkness and muting our PA and amps. While the organisers hurriedly re-lit candles and ventured to find the problem, Mike serenaded the audience as only he can — the power came back on and we didn’t miss a beat. See, we said it was a special night.
So, a big thank-you to the One Day Café for putting us on. Their next gig is on 4th December (www.onedaycafe.org.uk) featuring the Steve Pringle Trio, a Greenwich-based trio of some of the UK's best up-and-come jazz musicians from Trinity College of Music.
If you want music in your area this is exactly the sort of event you should come along and support. We won’t be playing that one but some of us will definitely be propping up the bar — please join us!
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