RAGGED
UNION BLUEGRASS (Colorado, USA) 7 - 23 October 2016 Ragged Union's
hard-driving bluegrass, with a tinge of the traditional and a healthy dose
RAGGED UNION BLUEGRASS (Colorado, USA) 7 - 23 October
2016
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Ragged Union Bluegrass
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Ragged
Union's hard-driving bluegrass, with a tinge of the traditional and a
healthy dose of the blues is infectious and mesmerising. And since
their inception a couple of years ago are becoming a firm favourite
with music lovers up and down the land!
"This is your grandfather's bluegrass music but NOT
his lyrics or subject matter. These tunes are ?traditional' in their
approach and in RU's presentation, but the subject matter of the
lyrics is wholly modern; that is, they deal with modern angst,
problems, even fixations in both a literal and metaphorical way. And
this is the crux: that's entirely different than how bluegrass music
has been ?updated' to date. It is beyond appropriate; it is fresh and
innovative while preserving through their instruments the things one
likes about bluegrass music."
Some
pretty powerful words for a band who is just now releasing their
first album. The music coming from this six-piece Colorado based
ensemble, lead by husband and wife Geoff and Christina Union, is
memorable and provides a platform for players performing original
tunes and off-the-beaten path standards, winning fans in the process.
There
is an intimacy and tightness surrounding the vocals, with
award-winning instrumental work, a powerful rhythmic drive, and up
tempo arrangements giving way to the edgy, outsider songwriting that
has become an earmark of their style.
'Hard Row
to Hoe' was recorded in the fall/winter months of 2014 in
Ft. Collins, Colorado. Former Rebecca Frazier/Hit and Run banjoist,
and current player for Finnders and Youngberg, Aaron Youngberg,
engineered and mixed the project consisting of thirteen tunes, eleven
singers, two instrumentals, ten originals and three covers.
Band
members Christina Union (lead and tenor vocals), Jordan Ramsey
(mandolin, vocal), Chris C-Bob Elliot (Banjo), Pat Hoeper (fiddle),
and Michael Sivcovich (upright bass), have created a sound that is
masterful in the hands of seasoned musicians and with an appeal that
is infectious.
BOOKING NOW FOR A SHORT UK & IRELAND TOUR 7 - 23
OCTOBER 2016
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO
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MAIA (Leeds, UK) New album launch tour Spring 2016
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MAIA
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The
eagerly anticipated new album by MAIA will be out in the new year and
it's a corker as you'd imagine. MAIA are self-proclaimed sci-fi folk
evangelists and have spent the last 3 years touring and playing
festivals and as a result have morphed and matured into what has been
described as "Harmonic psychedelic sci-fi folk and disco
rock....". Winners of the Yorkshire Gig Guide award for
?Outstanding Live Band' in 2014, MAIA are taking a break from
recording to play a string of dates to showcase some of the new
material from their forthcoming album to be released in the Autumn.
Their genre busting mix glides easily from sweet stunning vocal
harmonies to complex blissed out grooves; punctuated by echoing
banjo, shimmering mandolin, spooky brass and captivating vocal
melodramas.
Tour dates available in Spring 2016
Click here for VIDEO
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GUY DAVIS & BROOKS WILLIAMS (USA) - 10 - 28
November 2016
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Guy Davis & Brooks Williams
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A
special debut and UK 'Inside the Delta' tour for New York blues
legend GUY
DAVIS and Statesboro, Georgia born roots and
americana singer-songwriter BROOKS
WILLIAMS, ranked one for the top Acoustic Guitarists
of all time.
Two
beautiful guitarists displaying a level of skill and humanity that
makes audiences smile wherever they perform.
GUY DAVIS
Whether
Guy Davis is appearing on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" or
nationally syndicated radio programs such as Garrison Keillor's, "A
Prairie Home Campanion", "Mountain Stage" or David Dye's,"World
Caf?"., in front of 15,000 people on the Main Stage of a major
festival, or teaching an intimate gathering of students at a Music
Camp, Guy feels the instinctive desire to give each listener his
?all'.
BROOKS WILLIAMS
Brooks
writes groove-laden songs and delivers them with an easy-going vocal
style and monstrous guitar chops. Walking the line between blues and
Americana, Williams has worked stages worldwide for over 25 years,
amassing a staggering back-catalogue of songs, recordings and tales.
With nearly 20 CDs to his name - and more on the way - this
Statesboro Georgia native is, according to americanaUK, "impossible not to
like."
Click here to see Brooks performing 'Top of the World' on his
cigar box guitar at The Ram Club, Thames Ditton, England (November
2014).
Click here to see Guy performing 'Shaky Pudding'
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CURTIS ELLER (USA) - April 2016
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Curtis Eller
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Lace
up your dancing shoes here comes Curtis Eller! Banjo player,
songwriter and rock & roll singer..after beginning his show
business career at the age of seven as a juggler and acrobat, the
Detroit native turned to the banjo and headed for New York City where
he rose to obscurity as "New York's angriest yodeling banjo
player". Siting Buster Keaton, Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley
as his primary musical influences, Eller became a staple of the beer
halls, burlesque houses and underground theaters of the eastern
seaboard. Fame proved elusive.
?
Having spent years toiling in the musical sweatshops of the
industrial north, Eller uprooted his family and resettled in some
faded, tobacco town in the North Carolina Piedmont to begin the
arduous task of assembling a new version of his band, The American
Circus. The latest version of the ensemble is a brutish and inelegant
rock & roll outfit specializing in banjo music for funerals,
gospel tunes for atheists and novelty dance fads for amputees. A
lavish, Hollywood, dance sequence unfolding on the floor of a Chicago
meatpacking plant in 1894.
Eller's
numerous compositions describe a dreamlike vision of American history
where all points in time have collapsed into one. Past recordings
have seen a ghastly parade of historical luminaries, from Abraham
Lincoln and Buster Keaton to Amelia Earhart and Joe Louis, sharing
the spotlight with a host of Civil War generals and corrupt 19th
century politicians.
The
group's latest phonographic recording, "How to Make It in
Hollywood", is a compact collection of glittery show tunes,
sentimental tear-jerkers and rock & roll rave-ups whose lyrics
are populated with two-bit prize fighters, Hollywood has-beens,
lapsed gospel singers and forgotten pop stars. Eller relentlessly
tours the US and Europe with an expanding and contracting cast of
misfits. Coming to a UK town near you in April 2016 for 10 days only!
Click here for VIDEO
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DAVE FORMULA & THE FINKS (UK) - Autumn / Winter
2015
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Dave Formula & The Finks
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Keith
& Dave Angel, Andy Seward and Dave Formula have formidable
individual and collective musical backgrounds that they have brought
together to form their classic, groove organ outfit - Dave Formula
& The Finks.
Influences
on the band from New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago & Philadelphia,
are re-interpreted through the music of genuinely legendary artists:
The Meters, Booker T & The Mg's, Curtis Mayfield & Jimmy
Smith.
When
all this is mixed in together & combined with their storming
original tunes, they create uniquely exciting music & a
psychedelic soul-sound like no other band playing on the planet
today. At a recent club show the promoter had to ask the packed crowd
to stop dancing and sit down, as the whole floor of the Victorian
warehouse-venue was moving so much he was afraid it would fall
through to the storey below.
Dave
Formula is the keyboard player, songwriter and soundtrack composer
from Manchester, who is perhaps best known for his work with
Magazine, long regarded as one of the most significant & influential
British bands. He also played & wrote for New Romantic ensemble
Visage as well as world music band, The Angel Brothers. It was during
the 1960's in his first band, The St Louis Union, that he developed
his love for the Hammond organ and a great dance groove.
Dave rejoined his Magazine colleagues for a run of sold-out shows in
February 2009 to great critical response and in summer 2009 Magazine
played European festivals and a sell- out show at London's Royal
Festival Hall. The band closed the year with a headline appearance on
Later with Jools Holland and BBC's Electric Proms. They released an
acclaimed new album & toured again in 2011.
Live dates available in October / November / December
2015
Click here or VIDEO
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