kick the plug

A bit later notice than usual eh? For this I wholeheartedly blame booking agents and politicians in that order.

However, as excellent a line-up as you’ll have come to expect at Kick The Plug this month. We have the return of Catriona Irving, the incredible Fránçois (or you might know him as Fránçois & the Atlas Mountains) and the rather wonderful Stairs to Korea.

This Frontier Needs Heroes have had to pull out of the show.

No Ice Cream cakes this time, but who knows what treats will replace them. As usual Mark and Tom will be playing songs between sets, this month with the help of Dale Grundle of The Sleeping Years.

Catriona Irving
http://www.myspace.com/catrionairvingmusic

Fránçois
http://www.myspace.com/francoisinbristol

Stairs to Korea
http://www.myspace.com/stairstokorea

Kick the Plug returns once again to Clerkenwell’s Wilmington Arms. This time around we present the epic folk 12-piece Sons of Noel and Adrian, who are going to be making some big noise in 2009 and really have to be seen to be believed, with support from Stars of Sunday League and My First Tooth.
Expect musical brilliance, with culinary treats and badges aplenty, with musical interludes provided by Mark and Tom of Neednowater.

Sons of Noel and Adrian
Closely resembling a giant centipede in motion Sons of Noel and Adrian grew up in the midlands with many like-minded musical folk. A couple of years ago they moved to Brighton to gather more legs and are now a fully formed outfit with sometimes as many as eleven members or as few as five.

The music is acoustic and falls loosely into the progressive folk niche. At the core are Jacob and Toms tumbling guitars, joined by a colourful host of other instruments to create music that ranges from Shanty to Schoenburg, from deep underground to just above the surface and muses on whether excess can make you a better person and what’s to do when your credit’s all used up and there’s nowhere to go.

“It’s all in Jacob Richardson’s bowel rupturing baritone, the kind of low end that can level entire cities and bring grown men to tears.” (FACT Magazine, 10th December ’08)

Stars of Sunday League

Stars of Sunday League is the constituent parts of Euan Robinson. Liberated by a lack of real musicianship he writes simple uncluttered songs about how the biggest things are wrapped up in the smallest.

He has been treading the musical boards around London since summer 07 and has found himself standing on stages at Bestival, End of the Road, New York’s Sidewalk cafe, sxsw and bandstands across London and beyond.

Live, Stars of Sunday League adds the various musical talents of Sarah Triggs to the mix while Emmy the Great adds a sometime vocal gloss to proceedings.

Thus far they have been fortunate enough to play alongside such luminaries as the Wave Pictures, Stornoway, Emmy the Great, Chris Wood and many others.

EP in the new year – look out!

My First Tooth

My First Tooth’s Ross writes in his bedroom, other people’s bedrooms and sometimes in the garden. Ross plays live with Sophie who sings, plays the violin and bouzouki. Ross records with Sophie, Joel and Rob.

“…recommendations…My First Tooth” – Huw Stephens, Radio 1

“Simultaneously rough and delicate, MFT
make music that’ll quietly ravage your
heart, then give it a gentle stroke better.
Killer pretty stuff” – Marsha Shandur, XFM

myspace links:
http://www.myspace.com/sonsofnoelandadrian
http://www.myspace.com/thestarsofsundayleague
http://www.myspace.com/myfirsttooth

Following on from the oddity that was the January show (two bands canceled on the day, but we still put on a good show!) Kick the Plug returns triumphantly to Clerkenwell’s Wilmington Arms. This time around we present sparse nu-folk from the excellent Birdengine with Rodney Fisher & his band, and Blacklands performing material from their brand new EP recorded in a shed in the North Yorkshire Moors,
Expect musical brilliance, with culinary treats and badges aplenty, with musical interludes provided by Mark and Tom of Neednowater.

Here’s some additional info on the acts:

Birdengine
Birdengine is Lawry Joseph Tilbury who comes from a tiny village in Dorset called Winterbourne Steepleton. This is dark and sinister nu-folk from the backwoods of deepest Dorest. Accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, tape crackle and the occasional snatch of birdsong, Birdengine’s murmured vocals tell tales of strangeness and charm, darkness and mystery.

“Tilbury displays the same quiet understatement and backwards weirdness as Bonnie ‘prince’ Billy, but transposed to Dorset. Listening to I fed Three Rabbit Water is like visiting a museum of curiosities packed with shelves of malformed foetuses and two-headed dogs pickled in jars; the songs are full of rustic-mythic weirdness, with Tilbury singing about dead mermaids, feral children, “beast folk” and sewing his eyelids shut”
Andy Gill, The Independent

“nervy pastoral loneliness and recorded entirely on 4-track cassette – is a reminder of how much of an intrusion digital meddling with music can be; the birdsong on *The Evil Twin* sounds as far from affectation as it could be. There’s a witchy weirdness to this all – titles like *You Gave Birth To A Horse* give that away – but it’s a very beautiful record”
Joe Muggs, Word Magazine

Blacklands
Blacklands  is Al Murphy & his revolving roster of musicians: James Knowles (guitar, engineering), Ed Shipley (Bass), Jamie Bridson (Drums), Jonny Ogle (Vocals and harmonica) and Tom Syson (guitar). Al has been making music on the side since 2000 whilst carving out an incredibly successful career as an illustrator, finally producing the delightful first official release The Wytchwood EP.

Under their former moniker Murphy Kid & The Bad Luck Band they’ve shared the same bill as Bob Dylan, Athlete, and Tunng. On re-launching as Blacklands last year they played a triumphant come back show with Sons of Noel and Adrian, to be followed by more live shows in the upcoming months with artists including Alessi’s Ark and Birdengine amongst others.

Traditionally Al would self-record in the garden shed of his sister’s house. These new tracks, however, were written in Berlin (where Al went for 3 months and came back a year later) and recorded on the North Yorkshire Moors, in an old farmhouse where Al got to live out his American Werewolf In London fantasies. Ever the nomad, Al is soon to be packing up and roaming again, this time returning to New York to pedal his wears and sing for his supper.

Rodney Fisher

Its almost as if Johnny Cash met Don Henley in an alleyway one dark night, they both cut their thumbs with boy scout penknives and made a lifetime commitment to writing tunes together in the lyrical style of Smogs Bill Callahan. For all the lyrical and musical turnings Rodney takes you never once lose interest because you feel you are in safe hands and that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow will be full. This is because Rodney serves the songs, finding out how they want to be presented and then doing just that. To put it simply, hes in it for the long haul, in the business of turning out instant classics.

“a gentle brand of folk music-gossamer-like songs lifted by a sympathetic five-piece combo and Mr. Fisher’s fragile voice…
… Mr. Fisher and his troupe have a humble, winning presence. At one point, he tried to move across the stage and inadvertently bumped into a trumpet at its player’s lips. At the song’s end, he shook the trumpet player’s hand. ‘We’re having fun,’ he said to the audience. ‘Thanks for being so quiet.’ ”
– Jim Fusilli (The Wall Street Journal)