Louise Jordan, Chris Callander, Esme Bridie... and us! Liverpool Acoustic Live at View Two Gallery, Friday 24th July

We had an absolutely wonderful evening last night at the ever-relaxing View Two Gallery. It's always strange to think, when sat there in the chilled out environment, surrounded by art, that down a few flights of stairs and out of the door is Mathew Street, Liverpool's home for revellers and merry-makers.

We arrived a little early which gave us chance to soundcheck (and spend half an hour tuning our now-ancient mandolin, which slips out of tune with so much as a look), have a cup of tea, and just relax.

We got a little chance to talk to Chris Callander and Esme Bridie before the show began; Louise Jordan then arrived after having had an epic - and not particularly fun - journey up to Liverpool! After her soundcheck, the event started, first with Esme.

Esme immediately wowed the audience with her lilting voice and assured guitar playing. Our favourite of hers was a song called "Dirty Hands", with some captivating chord changes. We would really like to go and see Esme play again.

Next up it was our turn; we had brought along many of our instruments, but also made use of the gallery's wonderful grand piano. We played classic folk ballad Reynardine (Roud 397), b-side of our recent single, and then a selection of original songs, including a live version of (There's No Such Thing As) Wandering Stars, which we sat at the piano together to sing and play. Due to us both being sat at the piano, we went completely unamplified for this, but were told afterwards that our voices still carried.

We played a variety of songs from our début album, Amateur Astronomy, including the title track from the album, and a shorter live version of our epic mediaeval-themed song, Stars and Moon and Me and You, Love, for which we used the psaltery unamplified; the sound is pretty loud even without a mic! We finished with an a capella song, When I Was Your Age, which is not currently available for streaming but is a bonus track on our album.

We had a wonderful time performing but were glad to sit down and grab a coffee!

Next up was Chris Callander. Chris' songs are honest and passionate and his guitar playing is pretty much virtuoso! We especially loved his wonderful song Ghosts of the Old Casartelli, and spent a while racking our brains trying to work out where the landmark was! A wonderful set, and we've thoroughly enjoyed listening to his CD today too!

Finally came the headline act, Louise Jordan. Louise is a skilled musician; a lilting pianist and fluid guitarist. Her voice is a joy to hear; she makes it seem so effortless and weightless. She played beautiful, interesting songs, many in that folk tradition where the telling of the history behind the song is as much a part of the act as the song itself. Hard to pick a favourite, but her musical interpretation of the AA Milne song, Rice Pudding Again, was strangely haunting for a lullaby.

We bought her latest album, Veritas, and played it in the car on the way home. It's fantastic, and we would recommend it to all of you.

We hope she got back safely and that she returns to Liverpool again, soon.

Thanks to everyone who came; thanks to Graham for putting on such wonderful acoustic gigs; thanks Stuart for the sound, and Ken at the gallery for holding the event; finally thanks to Esme, Chris, and of course Louise for the wonderful music!

Review: Liverpool Sound and Vision review of Amateur Astronomy

We've been blessed with another wonderful review of our début album, Amateur Astronomy, this time from prolific music writer, and poet, Ian D. Hall, at Liverpool Sound and Vision.

"...ample splendour offered by Moss & Jones..."
"...captures the imagination and asks questions of the listener..."
"...deeply profound..."
"In Amateur Astronomy they have one eye on the music of the past but also one foot in amongst the stars."

If you'd like to hear the music for yourself to see if it matches up to the review, you can stream it for free from Soundcloud or Bandcamp, and it's available from Bandcamp as a CD for £5+postage (Royal Mail: 95p in the UK) or as a digital download for £4. Both CD and download contain a bonus track not available for free streaming. 

Debrief: launch gig, Sunday 28th June, The Ethical Glass

There seem to be two types of launch gig; those that are all-singing, all-dancing, a cracking line-up, a huge venue... and no CDs due to a miscalculation of the production time. I've been to more than one of these, and I think the problem is that to arrange something so huge, it has to be done months in advance, which means taking a guess at exactly when the CDs will be ready. I've always felt sorry for those musicians who've had this happen to them; arranged a magnificent gig only to have nothing to sell.

And then there's the other type; a low-key gig at a small, cosy venue. In order to avoid having no CDs, we opted for the latter. We waited for our CDs to arrive, then quickly arranged a free gig at a new-to-us venue in Liverpool called The Ethical Glass via a lovely chap called John who saw our 'venue suggestions please' post on the Liverpool Bands noticeboard on Facebook. 

We invited everybody and were chuffed when a not insignificant number of people turned up to hear us. We appreciated people taking the time on a sunny Sunday afternoon to hear us play in a basement! That's dedication and we're tremendously grateful! There's nothing to quell the nerves like looking out and seeing friendly faces there in support. 

After the Ethical Glass regulars played a lovely mix of country covers, we took to the stage. It's always great to turn up to a venue that has 'regulars' and some of them genuinely seemed to enjoy our set. We played some traditional folk songs, followed by playing the songs from our album, Amateur Astronomy, and its bonus track, too, utilising a large cross-section of our instrumental panoply, including psaltry, mandolin and treble recorder... and more. 

Ebeneezer Goode: "it's a bit like a folk song in that it's
a narrative tale about a roguish anti-hero."

Finally, because quite a few people clapped for a good long while at the end, we came back on stage briefly to play an encore; our folky version of 90s rave classic, Ebeneezer Goode.

Thank you so much to Mark at The Ethical Glass for letting us grace your stage, thank you to John for sorting it all out, and huge, huge thanks to everyone who came along to hear us play, and bought our music! 

Our next gig is playing for Liverpool Acoustic in support of Louise Jordan, alongside Chris Callander and Esme Higgins, at View Two Gallery in Liverpool, in the evening of Friday 24th July. Tickets are available from WeGotTickets for £5.50 or on the door for £6. 

Amateur Astronomy: IT'S HERE!

We are absolutely delighted to be able to bring you our début CD, Amateur Astronomy. 

Our CD has been described by folk reviewer Helen Gregory as "the sound of the resilience of humanity, of all that is precious about our everyday lives which nevertheless knows full well that, although the world is too often a cruel and uncaring place, there is still respite to be found in making music and letting truth and beauty grow and bloom in their own time". 

When buying the CD online, the price includes an immediate download in case you cannot wait to listen; the download also includes a lyric sheet in case you wish to sing along. Please do tweet us @mossandjones when you've listened, and let us know what you think!

Lyrics to and influences on each track can be found on our scrapbook: Shepherd's Delight (It's Not Time To Go To Bed), (There's No Such Thing As) Wandering Stars, I See The Moon, Millbrook, Ella Brown, Amateur Astronomy, Stars And Moon And Me And You, Love, and our bonus track. 

All tracks are streamable for FREE on Bandcamp (with the exception of the bonus track, available on purchase). The CD, including immediate download of all tracks, is £5 to buy and is available from Bandcamp.

Ella Brown, our new three-track single

We were watching a documentary the other night about Brian Eno and he talked about the idea of releasing a song being akin to setting something free. Well, Ella Brown, our three-track single, has been free to roam for a week today. We thought we'd tell you all about it!

Ella Brown
The title track is a love song of sorts. It's about being young, and feeling that you're falling in love with someone who happily lets you admire, adore and even worship them, but doesn't give you much by way of return. Many of us have been there, and it's about learning from that, and moving on.

Ruth wrote the song and we arranged it together for our voices, and ukulele, violin, mandolin and melodica (the latter was a wedding present from one of Marc's musician friends; we married late in 2014). The middle eight, as some of you have worked out, is loosely based on Thomas Tallis' choral work, Why Fum'th in Fight (also famously magpied by Ralph Vaughan-Williams).

Recording
We recorded the song at Catalyst Studios, St. Helens. Andy Bowes is a fantastic producer and as we hadn't spent much time in a studio before, he helped us through the whole process. We actually paid for our time in the studio with vouchers we'd received as wedding gifts!

The cover art
Ruth's colleague and friend Michelle Quinn is a fine artist whose quirky, semi post-impressionist style first caught our eye when she painted us a TARDIS-themed card for our wedding. We asked how she'd feel about painting a picture for our single cover and she agreed! We were chuffed when she came up with three designs for us to choose from. Initially, we preferred one of her other designs, however, when it came time to put out the single, we unanimously changed our mind; how could Ella Brown be represented by anything other than this painting?

The violin
The violin Ruth plays on Ella Brown was hired from Mike Phoenix Violins in Liverpool. Ruth does have her own violin but the tone isn't particularly mellifluous, and it's more for playing at home. In fact, it was while we were in the Bluecoat in Liverpool looking for an engagement ring that we chanced upon Mike Phoenix; he offered to let Ruth play one of his violins, and she remembered how much she loved to play the instrument. However, she put it out of her mind until a few months later. Noted St. Helens indie band, The Loungs, were looking for someone to play violin on one of the tracks on their new album, and Ruth said she would do it if they couldn't find anyone else, but pointed out she was hardly Vanessa Mae, and her violin was far from a Strad. They kindly offered to hire a violin for her; she contacted Mike Phoenix to see if he could advise on where to hire a violin... he said he could loan her one, but for a minimum of three months... and that's how we ended up with this gorgeous sound on our track!



The b-sides
Reynardine is a well-known folk ballad (Roud 397); depending on who you believe it's either a spooky tale of a charming werefox, or a song about a brigand who tricks a girl into doing his bidding. We've kept our arrangement simple, partly because we think it's the latter!

When researching the song, we wondered what the lyric '"oh no, no rake am I!" he cried, "brought up on Venus' train..."' meant, so we looked into it; apparently, it means that Reynardine exclaims that he cannot be a rake - a conman, a seducer - because he was brought up in the company of women. (Certainly some of us have heard something similar to that line before; it's as if he is protesting that he's not a misogynist; how can he be? He has a mother and sisters!)

Both of our b-sides were recorded by our friend Kerry Foster. Kerry has known Ruth since their children were babies, but recently, Kerry started doing a music degree at St. Helens College, and was looking for a band to record as part of her degree. We were delighted when she asked us, and these two tracks were the result. We think she's done an amazing job!

Molly is a jig based on Molly/Polly put the Kettle on, or Jennie's Baubie, which we play on violin and melodica. It's a simple tune but we love it partly because it starts cheerfully and breezily but as it progresses, it finds some depth. Plus, there's never a moment in our house when we don't have a brew in our hands. We played straight through this live in the studio while Kerry recorded it.


Reception
So far, we've had one amazing review of our single which called it "engaging and very listenable," and said lovely things about our voices and musicianship. We've also had some fantastic comments about it on twitter and Facebook:
... all your tracks are a "declaration d'amour"...
... brightens my day, causes me to hum along, and tap my toes!
EVERYONE SHOULD LISTEN
... cracking job on the tracks...
love these folky vibes! Beautiful vocal harmonies too :)
AWESOME! It's awesome! 
Lovely! I love the melodica on Ella Brown!
... haven't stopped chanting it for days...
Beautiful people need to hear beautiful things
Lovely couple pouring their hearts into some ... folk music
I just love this track...

and our favourite:

I've just listened to Ella Brown and whilst I'm not into folk music at all... I have to say I absolutely LOVE it.

So, what do YOU think? 

Pricing and licensing
We've decided to make this track Pay What You Like. This means that you enter whatever you'd like to pay - even nothing at all - into the Name Your Price box when you click Buy Now. Obviously, when our EP, Amateur Astronomy, comes out, we will have to charge for it (though nothing exorbitant), otherwise we'd be running at a loss and be unable to afford to make any more music. But for the single, we're happy for people to pay anything or nothing at all. We've also licensed it under Creative Commons; without going into too much detail, this means that the tracks aren't copyright; so for example, if you want to make a video and you're looking for a background track, you can use any of ours from the single without having to pay a penny, providing you credit us. It's another way we're saying thank you to people for supporting our music.

What can you do?
Well, if you've made your way through this blog post, you've already done something lovely for us! But if you'd like to help even more, we would love for people to share our song on Facebook. It's a very mysterious business, getting people to "share" content over there; there are myriad blog posts about it and a tonne of research but still no one seems to completely understand what makes people click the "share" button rather than the "like" button! So we're just going to ask; it would help us greatly if you could share our posts on Facebook. On twitter, mini reviews help us an awful lot. Even just a quick tweet to say "love the new single @mossandjones" or something similar will go a long way in persuading other people to have a listen.

At the end of the day, we aren't doing this to make money (if we wanted to make money from music we'd stick with cover songs and do wedding after wedding) but at the same time, we do want people to listen to our songs, otherwise we might as well just stay at home and play them to each other and to Ruth's eight year old child. (Obviously, we do that anyway!) So if you like our music, and want us to keep making it, it's as simple as this... download it, and tell your friends about it!

Thanks for reading!
Ruth & Marc xx
(Moss & Jones)

Ruth on: releasing a single the weekend after a General Election

I'm going to try not to be too political here (I've already done all that on Facebook, and twitter) but I think most people who know me know I could hardly be described as "over the moon" about the thought of five years of majority Tory government. I think many - possibly not all, but most - of our lovely macramist fans feel similarly.

The trouble is, that for various reasons, our single was ready to release just days after the UK's general election result, and in the end, we decided to go ahead with it.

Ella Brown, the a-side (if you can say a digital download has an a-side) of our single, was in the pipeline for a very long time. In fact, the tune came to me about three years ago, before Moss & Jones even existed! I was singing traditional folk songs unaccompanied at open mic events around Liverpool, but had decided I wanted to try my hand at writing my own songs, and this was the tune I had. The new lyrics are totally different to what I had in mind at the time, and the bridge (heavily based upon Thomas Tallis' Why Fum'th in Fight?) is new, and of course, it's no longer unaccompanied. Obviously, three years is a long genesis for a song, and it's one of those songs that I've put aside and then returned to, fiddled with, arranged (with Marc) for various different instruments to see which worked best (on our recording there is melodica, ukulele and violin). We've agonised over the harmonies (was Marc's harmony too low to be loud?) and worked out which instrument to ditch when we play it live.

Not all our songs have been three years in the making, of course, but given that this one was, there was no way we were going to delay it once we had our b-sides ready.

However, we're also very aware that at the moment, the mood in many people's homes doesn't really suit a sweet but melancholy song, and more something angrily upset; a protest. Now, Ella Brown isn't a protest song at all; it's a sweet, melodic, wistful air about youthful love, and astronomy (sort of). However, Ella Brown is the song we've worked on and recorded, and to drop it at the last minute in favour of trying to quickly pen some kind of angry response to recent events would at best be a shame, at worst, seen as a cynical attempt to cash in on the recent election result in order to get new fans.

One thing we have done in the wake of the election is think about our pricing for this single. We've decided that we are going to stick with Pay What You Like, and license it under creative commons, so it can be shared around without the need for money to change hands. We're very conscious that people are skint already, and most are scared they'll be even more skint, so for the single release, we chose to make it possible for people to download it free of charge, should they so wish. Unfortunately, for the EP, we simply can't afford to do this (or we'd end up never being able to make music again) but we're still going to price it as cheaply as possible, and make streaming unlimited on Bandcamp rather than limit it to three plays before a fan has to pay.

In an odd way, releasing our single now, as planned, feels like a very small act of defiance. I'm not going to say "it's a protest in its own way" because it's not, and that's a bit insulting to those people who are protesting right now, but it certainly feels like we aren't going to let the current situation change our plans and change our music (though it may change anyway, organically, over time).

However, it's hard, because I don't think many macramists are in the mood to be particularly ebullient about music at the moment, which means fewer downloads, retweets, shares and so on. It's completely understandable too, and I'm not sure there's any way around it; we have to just accept that this isn't really a happy time in many people's lives, and people are obviously more interested in discussing politics right now than music. That said, I'm still glad we released it now, rather than waiting. Because if we'd waited, we could be waiting for five years, or even more.

And we're not going to stop making music just because of the Tories. ;)

If you'd like to listen to/download our single, it's on Bandcamp.

Moss & Jones at Sound Food and Drink, 24th October 2014

Our gigging continued last month with a set at the lovely Sound Food & Drink on Duke Street in Liverpool. We arrived early, had a pumpkin spice latte (get us; next thing you know we’ll be calling fairycakes “cupcakes”!) and got set up, with help from Jules, who showed us all the various dials and levers on the sound desk and what we needed to do.

We played for about half an hour, and included our new song, Ella Brown (coming soon to a soundcloud near you…) and although quite a few of the crowd had come for the book launch right after our set, we seemed to go down okay.

We finished off the evening with one of Sound’s amazing pizzas each. Goat cheese and pesto, mmmm!

So we got married...

Hello friends! We haven’t updated this blog in a while because we have been so, so, SO busy!

On the 14th September 2014, we got married.



It was a magical day; we got married in Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church and the weather managed to stay clear! We also played the hymns and songs at our own wedding, and a set at the end (though the bulk of the music was provided by Maranella, who are amazing). We plan to record the original song we wrote for the wedding, too, as a lot of people seemed to enjoy it.

We received some wonderful wedding presents, from a DVD of eighties children’s cartoons to a hamper full of goodies which included a tin of fancy food for the cats; from a donation to the Bombed Out Church in our name, to a hand-painted TARDIS-themed wedding card… and many many more fantastic and thoughtful gifts for which we are incredibly grateful, and feel lucky to have such lovely friends. Included in our gifts were many vouchers for Catalyst Studios, a recording studio in our town of residence, St. Helens!

We spent the weekend after our wedding in Paris and had a lovely time in a B&B with a grand piano of which we made full use. That said, we missed the little one loads (he spent the weekend at his dad’s) and were glad to be reunited with him on our return. Here he is, dressed as Robin Hood at our folklore and mediaeval themed wedding:



And since then, we’ve been doing loads of stuff, musically speaking… more updates to come, so watch this space!

Free music!

FREE MUSIC! 

We used “”cutting edge technology”” to record a six-song set we performed earlier this year at Liverpool’s View Two Gallery for the wonderful Liverpool Acoustic. We’ve since had that recording professionally tidied up so it sounds much nicer (less hiss, for starters). As a result, we can now bring you this; a free download of that gig!

In order to get your free download, click “buy now” and put a big fat zero in the “name your price” box. You’ll get a link to your free download emailed to you pretty much immediately!

Enjoy!

And that's a wrap: Ruth writes about the Big Busk in St. Helens' Victoria Park

We’ve done lots of gigs in Liverpool in our time, in some gorgeous venues, but not much in the town in which we reside, St. Helens (for no reason except that they just haven’t come up in the same way). This summer we’ve managed to do two, in quick succession; the first in Rainhill and this, the second, and the last of our summer gigs (we’re taking August off gigging to organise our September wedding) even closer to home, in the newly refurbished bandstand in St. Helens’ Victoria Park.

We arrived just as the afternoon was starting. There were two stages; the other was more of a rock/indie orientated stage, and as the action on both stages took place simultaneously, we took the decision to stick around the bandstand for the more folky/acoustic side of things.

The lady compèring the bandstand’s events was called Diane and she introduced each act with a mix of humour, professionalism and good cheer.

We caught a little bit of dance troupe Paparazzi; my son’s more knowledgeable about that sort of thing than I and he seemed to enjoy it, but then we went off to the Lodge to drop off our instruments. When we got back a chap in an Iron Maiden T-shirt (I did ask him his name but to my shame I have forgotten, and he isn’t one of the people on the bill, so if anyone knows who he is please do let me know, as he was great and I’d like to hear more) was playing some folky, melodic stuff which we enjoyed. We also caught some of Cesar Bodey, who carried on like a trouper despite some technical issues (which sound man Steve did his best to remedy) and a sore arm!

Then we heard Shaun Brussels’ set. This young man is already practically a guitar virtuoso… and he’s just fourteen! If there’s any fairness in the music industry you’ll be hearing this young man’s name quite a bit in future.

Then it was us! This was the first gig this summer for which we’d decided to go piano-less. We do open mics sans piano, of course, as lugging around a keyboard on the ‘bus is a pretty hefty task if you’re only going to be playing two or three songs, but this was a full set. As such, we took the decision not to play our piano ballad Sally, to change Millbrook to ukulele and glockenspiel, and not to add in any of our “oldie” type piano covers.

We started with Bad Sitcom, then played our cover of 80s kids’ TV cartoon Mysterious Cities of Gold (and segued it into Gaudete). We followed with three folk songs in our own arrangements back to back; Scarborough Fair, The Stonecutter’s Boy and Let No Man Steal Your Thyme. After that, we played the first of two 90s dance songs in a folky style; Set You Free. There followed two originals; Millbrook and Shepherd’s Delight (It’s Not Time To Go To Bed).

Finally, for the first time live, we played the second folky-cover-of-a-90s-dance-tune of the day, our take on Ebeneezer Goode, on mandolin and ukulele with me singing the rap rubato, and Marc joining me on vocal harmonies for the chorus. We can honestly say without boasting that it seemed to go down an absolute treat. And then that was that, it was a wrap from us. Diane had some nice words for us about our forthcoming wedding and we left the stage.

It was interesting that about half way through our set, the crowd suddenly doubled in size. Much as I’d like to tell you it was all our fans coming to see us, it seemed what had happened was that over on the rock stage there was a big break while a band with a huge set up got ready, and so people drifted over towards the bandstand. However, the majority of them seemed to stay, so we must have been tuneful enough to keep at least part of a more rock-oriented crowd, which is quite pleasing.

After us was our friend Will Barnes who played a fantastic set. I’ve seen many of Will’s gigs over the past couple of years; Will’s always been a talented musician but more recently his intra-set banter has become an integral part of his set too. Also he opened one of his songs with the first lines of one of our songs, and another of his songs with a bit of REM. Basically, Will was great, and he’s always gigging around St. Helens and Liverpool, and you should make an effort to go and see him.

Then came Billy & John, acoustic folk duo, with a set consisting mainly of originals … and the second mandolin of the day! Fantastic stuff. Following them was Paul Atherton, who’d brought an exuberant crowd with him. Who knew Amy McDonald’s Mr Rock and Roll could still work in such an anthemic style?

The day wound down with a very syncronised dance troupe, Connect (my son, who likes that sort of thing, was mesmerised), and then a set from Diane’s partner (who’s name I’ve forgotten - sorry ) who included a cover of Leadbelly’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night in his set. There was a little boy dancing on the bandstand throughout his set - I don’t think it was staged - pure spontaneity like that can’t be!

As we were packing up, performance poets The MadLads (formerly The Amigos) got up for an impromptu set which seemed to go down well with what was left of the crowd. They used to attend a poetry night I and a friend of mine put on in St. Helens a couple of years ago. I’d like to see them take a leaf out of the book of some other comedy poets now, and really perform their rhymes. Stuart Kenyon in particular has some wistful, intelligent verse and it’s great to see his delivery catching up with that.

All in all it was a fantastic day. Once again we got to meet up with some people who we’d only known previously on twitter, including Mike Ashworth and Lynn Gerrard. We also saw Andy Bowden, one time mayor of St. Helens, watching our set; later he said on twitter that it was (Ebeneezer) Good(e). A chap from the paper came to take our picture, so you never know, we could be in there this Thursday, although I imagine he took pretty much everyone’s picture so who knows.

Whatever happens though, it was a great gig; we loved all the music and performances going on at the bandstand. In some ways it’s a shame we couldn’t get to the other stage to have a listen but you can’t be in two places at once, and where we were had such a lot to offer.

Huge thanks to all the organisers, especially Vikki who had put a herculean amount of effort into ensuring this was such a fantastic event despite adverse weather (there was a storm the night before the Big Busk, and the morning saw heavy, pelting rain) and being poorly herself. I really hope she manages to get some rest now; there’s no one deserves it more right now!

Anyway, officially at any rate, that was our last gig of the summer; we hope you enjoyed it! We’ll probably do an open mic or two between now and September but aside from that we’re concentrating on organising our biggest gig ever; our wedding! Watch out for us in autumn though…



[Our “what have we learned from this gig?” feature will have a post all of its own! Keep an eye out on the blog…]

Yesterday at the Bombed Out Church, and a plea.

Yesterday we had our second gig at Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church, also known as St. Luke’s. Our first had been wonderful, but the weather not so much. This time, we had glorious sunshine.



We also had a very special guest this time in the form of Tom George. Ruth worked out that she first met Tom when she was about half way through her first year of university, so, in 1997; 17 years ago. Talk about way back when! Back then his wry and poetic observations on life took him around various open mic events; he was a singer/songwriter even back then, too, and ran his own open mic event at the now long gone and much lamented Hub Café on Berry Street. Tom opened the event with a wonderful set including one of our personal favourites, Drifter.

Tom also introduced his friend George Roberts to us; an incredibly talented flautist, we spent a while trying to work out if his performance, in perfect harmony with Tom’s songs, was rehearsed, improvised, or a bit of both, before deciding it didn’t matter and just sitting back and enjoying it.



It was wonderful to listen to Tom on his own, and Tom & George, whilst sat on the grass amongst the sunflowers (part of the Flores de Mayo exhibition) with a group of friends. The music was laid back and chilled out, though like a swan’s grace is powered by its legs going ten to the dozen underwater, it’s obvious that Tom & George have put the hours in to become this good; they make it look a lot easier than it is!

Then it was our turn. We were lucky to have a sound man this time around; Jake, a new addition to the Bombed Out Church’s coterie of helpers, was wonderful, setting everything up and being on hand to make sure that everything went smoothly during the various instrument changes! We opened with our mash up of Sumer Is Icumen In and Miri It Is, and took it from there.



We included our single, Shepherd’s Delight (It’s Not Time To Go To Bed) and were touched to see that many of the audience, who’d bought or heard our single, were singing along! We also threw in a cover or two, including our a-cappella take on the Prodigy’s 1994 hit Poison, and folky version of the theme from 1980s kids’ cartoon, Mysterious Cities of Gold (but with a surprise ending. You’ll Never Believe What Happene… okay we’ll tell you. We played an instrumental version of Gaudete for about two bars).

What was especially lovely was seeing many of our friends come along to see us, but also that those who’d come to see Tom George had stuck around, and that people came into the Bombed Out Church after hearing the music from outside… and stayed. We sent a little helper (Ruth’s 7-year-old son, who we must say is amazing at our gigs; not only does he sit and watch, or read a book if he’s bored, but he’s even answered queries before now, and never makes a fuss about having to share our table on the train with more than half a dozen musical instruments) to give out badges to anyone who wanted one.




So, if you came, thanks for coming, and if you didn’t, but helped spread the word, thank you, too. But there will be other opportunities to hear us this summer!




But now, a plea. We’ll write more about this at some point in the future, too, but for now, we’ll just say this. If you want to make sure that you can continue to hear live music in the Bombed Out Church, please, please consider giving what you can to their crowdfunder. In fact, it’s a lot more than just live music on sunny afternoons, but don’t fear, there will be blog posts coming on exactly why the Bombed Out Church is so important.

For now, though, just ask yourself these two questions:

1. Do you want to support one of the most amazing live music venues in Liverpool?

2. Do you have just £2?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, please give that £2 to the Bombed Out Church’s crowdfunding appeal. Of course, you can donate more than that if you like. You get various reward options depending on what you pledge. (We now ‘own’ a brick!)

Thank you!

Moss & Jones
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Our gig at Liverpool's Bombed Out Church (St. Luke's), Sunday 25th May

Well, this was the moment we’d been waiting for. Pretty much since we started making music as Moss & Jones about 18 months ago, we’d thought to ourselves, “imagine what it would be like doing a gig in the Bombed Out Church?”

… then, after asking, and emailing with, the good folk at St. Luke’s, we got the gig.

We practised like folk possessed, obsessed over our running order (“let’s not have those next to each other. Three ukulele duets one after the other? It’s a bit much for people.” “Two traditional folk songs in a minor key? Nah, let’s break that up a bit”) and pontificated over posters, invited everyone we knew, people we’d never met, and people in-between, encouraged people to share our posters and thanked so many lovely people for promoting our gig.

Finally the week came, and the weather forecast looked bad. As the week went on, it looked worse. On the night before our gig, we updated every bit of social media we’re on to say BRING WELLIES AND BROLLIES. Still, we visited poundland to buy some spare ponchos in case anyone had need (they did).

Then it was the big day! We, and the kid, set off for Liverpool on the train with eight, yes eight different instruments in various bags and cases. The weather was glorious, but we weren’t fooled, and as the morning turned into afternoon there was a distinct change in the air and we could almost smell the rain.

With help from Ambrose, Adam and Ash at St. Luke’s we set up. Marc had a very steep learning curve in “how to be a soundman” as we figured out which lead was plugged in where and what was for which volume and so on, but the ukulele pickups really helped the sound and our set up, two vocal mics and an ambient mic, was perfect.

People started to arrive, and we played our first song, a mashup of “Sumer Is Icumen In” and “Miri It Is”, two mediaeval songs about how summer is wonderful… while it lasts.



… and in fact, the “Sumer” lasted right until the end of the first half, through the interval, and until the start of the second half, at which point the heavens opened. Hard, full-on rain. But people who come to see Moss & Jones seem to be made of some pretty stern stuff! Very few got up and left and in fact, some of the little kids seemed to take great delight in running around, dancing in the rain.

For all our running order plans, because of the rain we skipped two songs from our second half (one cover, Moonlight Serenade, and one original, Solemn Macramé Owl) so as to finish that little bit sooner.

The awful thing was that about ten minutes after we’d finished, the rain stopped, and didn’t start again until about six o’clock that evening! Ah well!

We thoroughly enjoyed that gig. We had a chat with Ambrose after, the curator of the Bombed Out Church, and he said he’d love to have us back as our peaceful, folky vibe fitted in well with the surroundings and we did seem to draw people in. We’d love to come back too, possibly with support from a few other musicians, perhaps those with that same kind of quirky, family-friendly, festival-ish folk music vibe that you don’t tend to hear all that often on the local (indoor, evening) acoustic music scene. But as yet, there isn’t anything planned, and we’ll be sure to let people know if and when there is.

What we’ve learned from this gig, because we think you always learn something from your gigs, is that we need to ask a friend to hand out flyers and the like during the performance, and ask another (or the same) friend to take some photographs. We’re also wondering if it’s worth actually asking people something along the lines of “if you’re enjoying the gig, why not tweet about it?” because lots of people said how much they’d loved our music, but with nothing online it’s hard for us to give that feedback to others. We also learned that the new setup with the ukulele pickups works wonders, and that with a bit of practice, we can certainly add the mandolin to our repertoire more often as it went down a storm. We’ve also realised that although we are a bit offbeat and quirky with it (and use ukuleles rather than guitars), we’re definitely more ‘folk’ than ‘indie’ or ‘pop’ or ‘oldie’ or ‘swing’. So many people there thought of us as a ‘folk duo’ that we might as well embrace it.

We’d like to say, once again, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. To all at the Bombed Out Church, and to everyone who came to support us. Also, to all the people who helped us promote our gig on twitter and on Facebook, even though some of you weren’t coming and even live miles away! It means so much to us to have all this help and support.

Gig alert! We play LIverpool's Bombed Out Church on Sunday 25th May

Do you like any, all, or a combination of these? 

• Warm, cheerful, quirky original songs


• Folk music


• Imaginative covers that put a new spin on the original


• A variety of instruments, including (but not solely): piano, glockenspiel, ukulele


• Two singers; a lady and a chap


• Family-friendly outdoor(ish) events


• Bringing a picnic 


• Paying just a quid to get in (on the door; no ticket required)


• Knowing that quid is going to Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church?

Well, if so, why not come to our gig? It’s on Sunday 25th May at 2.30 p.m. and we are playing two sets of about twenty minutes each with a break in-between for chatting, wandering, playing, snacking and contemplating.

If you’re bringing kids, be aware that they will need some supervision (especially crawling babies and toddlers) as there is a little pond in the middle. However, please don’t worry about them having to be quiet or sit still during performances. If they’re in school, they’ll have enough of that there! We don’t want kids to associate music with “boring”; if they want to run around (provided someone’s keeping an eye on them so they’re safe, as it is, after all, a ruin!) and make a bit of noise, that’s absolutely fine. We’ll even sing a lullaby if any of them are tired!

There are steps (as you’ll probably know if you’ve had Silent Sleep’s “meet me on the steps of the Bombed Out Church” as an earworm), so if you’re struggling to get up them, let us know and we’ll see if we can assist. (That said, we’re not insured to carry prams up stairs, we just like to be helpful. It’d be “at your own risk”.)

If you’d like any more information about the gig, you can see our Facebook page, follow us on twitter, or email us: mossandjones [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you want an idea of the kind of music we do, have a listen to our soundcloud or bandcamp pages.

Please reblog, retweet and share away! Thank you very much!

Moss & Jones (Ruth & Marc)

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