Gig alert: Yuletide Yarns

For those of you who are into Christmas carols and songs, this is a gig you won’t want to miss.

Set in the cosy surroundings of Liverpool’s longest running independent art gallery, the Domino, 11 Upper Newington (off Renshaw Street near Grand Central), Yuletide Yarns will consist of two sets; the first, Moss & Jones’ usual quirky, folk-inspired music, and the second, carols and Christmassy songs performed on a variety of instruments from bodhran to glockenspiel; from mandolin to accordion… and more.

They’ll also be performing their original carol, A Song for Mary, live at the event.

Between the pair, Ruth (Moss) and Marc (Jones) have over 10 years’ experience of performing carols, including in community orchestras and the Liverpool Philharmonic Choir! Christmas gigs last year saw people dancing around, glasses of mulled cider in hand, and clapping along, and the pair promise that this year’s gig will be even more fun!

Tickets are just £5 for adults and the event is free for under 16s. Ruth and Marc feel it is incredibly important to introduce the joy of live music to the next generation. As space is limited, if you are planning to attend, it would be helpful if you could email mossandjones[at]gmail[dot]com to reserve your spaces so the venue has an idea of numbers. Alternatively, tickets are available to buy in advance from the venue.

Festive refreshments will be available to purchase on the day.

There is a competition running on Facebook and twitter to win a pair of tickets, worth £5 each, to the event; the competition closes at 7pm on Wednesday 26th November.

Childwall Valley Music Festival

After we got married (we might have mentioned that) and went on our honeymoon (a weekend in Paris, where we stayed in a B&B with a piano and even had a little impromptu performance) we came back to Blighty and went straight back to gigging with a little set at Childwall Valley Community Theatre, as part of a festival organised by the lovely Andrew Hesford.

You may know Andrew as the chap who organises the last open mic night of the month at The Brink in Liverpool, and plays in band The Salty Seadogs. He put on this lovely event to raise funds for the community theatre and quite a few bands turned up to entertain people. We heard the gorgeous, soulful voice of Shirley Ellis with a band called the Kookie Ukies, and although we had to leave a little early due to a prior arrangement, had an enjoyable time.

The theatre is a lovely place; a really fab set up and even includes onsite recording facilities!

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!

The Beautiful Word, Baby Brave, Lisa Marie Glover... and us... lastnight at Sound Food and Drink. By Ruth.

Want to know a boring fact about me? Of course you don’t! But you’ll get one anyway: alcohol is sometimes a migraine trigger for me, so I mostly avoid it all together. The negative side is that I feel a bit of a party pooper ordering a lemonade when a venue is kind enough to offer free booze to performers. The positives, however, include “being able to remember stuff”, and I’m especially glad I’ll be remembering last night’s gig because it was AMAZING.



I was on twitter on Saturday and learned that one of my favourite bands ever, The Beautiful Word, were doing a last-minute gig in Liverpool, at Sound Food and Drink on Duke Street (by the way, we bought some pizzas there and they were DELICIOUS). I was just in the process of shouting to Marc, “oh my god Marc, The Beautiful Word are doing a gig in town, we have to go!” as I received a tweet asking if we’d open the night with a set ourselves!

Needless to say, I said YES PLEASE!

In fact, the night opened with a lovely surprise in the form of Lisa Marie Glover, the compère for the evening and a talented singer/songwriter, who played a couple of her witty, melodic songs in between sets. Needless to say, we bought a CD. Perhaps you should too?

Then it was our turn. We played a mix of originals (including Millbrook, the one about the ice cream van in Kirkby, and Shepherd’s Delight, which you can download for just 50p if you like), traditional music (including our uke/glockenspiel instrumental of Henry VIII’s Pastime With Good Company, and our acappella arrangement of Let No Man Steal Your Thyme) and covers, including our folky cover of Ebeneezer Goode, which a lot of people seemed to like.

Next up came Baby Brave. This lot call themselves “noise pop” and they’re right; foot-tapping, singalonging in-your-face wonderfully raucous songs with ludicrously catchy hooks. Of course, we bought their EP (on tape as well! TAPE!) which you too can own as a digital download! I especially liked Alone in Tokyo, and Colours (how can I not love a song with a verse in French?) - I’d definitely go and see these again; hopefully they’ll be up in town again at some point soon as Wrexham’s not a million miles away. You should go and see them too. They’re ace!

Finally it was time for The Beautiful Word. Now, I’ll admit, I’m biased. The first time I saw these live, a couple of years ago now, I texted Marc, “I’ve just found my new favourite band”. I own their album Particles, and it is gorgeous, but there’s nothing quite like seeing a band live, and The Beautiful Word are no exception. They started out with an adorable song called Starfish which they said was new, but I had the weirdest feeling I’d heard it before; maybe it was just so catchy that it made me want to sing along immediately? In fact, they played a couple of new songs during the evening, all of which I thought were fantastic and look forward to hearing when they’re able to record again. They also played a couple of songs from Particles, including one of my favourites (heck, they’re all my favourites, but you know what I mean), Emily.

It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it is that makes The Beautiful Word such a perfect band. The harmonies of Emily and Megan that are so utterly note perfect that they blend into one voice with two channels? The instrumentation and arrangements which segue from indiepop into folk and back again via prog? That when you watch them live they perform with cheer and infectious enthusiasm? That they’ve pulled off the amazing conjuring trick of setting even occasionally bleak subject matter (e.g. Pop It) to a sweet, catchy tune… without detracting from the lyrics? Whatever it is, if you get a chance to see this band you MUST GO. You can also download their music too, and I’d recommend you do. Oh, and I now have a Particles t-shirt. :D

Time for our usual, and admittedly slightly self-indulgent section of WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THIS GIG?

• Without going into too many embarrassing details, we need to be FASTIDIOUS about tuning. 


• We need to sort out our merch. 


• The ladies’ loo in Sound doesn’t have a sign on it … thus it’s easily mistaken for a unisex one. Oops, as Marc said on realising this!

Anyway, that’s all folks. Thank you to everyone who came, and to those who couldn’t come but helped get the message out. Our next full-length gig is at the Bombed Out Church in Liverpool on Sunday 31st August at 2pm, quid on the door (which goes to the church) and our special guests are the fabulous Laura&Claire.

Gig alert! Bombed Out Church, with Laura&Claire...

We said we wouldn’t do any gigs in August, what with preparing for our September wedding. But Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church is pretty special.

We’ll be there on Sunday 31st August at 2pm playing our usual mixture of melodious originals (including that one about the Kirkby ice cream vans selling - whatever it was, Ruth never did find out - in winter), traditional folk (we might get a bit mediaeval on you actually. Or at least, Tudor) and imaginative covers (yes, that includes Ebeneezer Goode).

We’re also really excited about our special guests. Laura&Claire are the kind of duo we absolutely love. Two young women with beautiful voices playing guitars and singing the kind of vocal harmonies that simply sweep right through you. We heard them at an open mic at the Brink, Liverpool, and were absolutely blown away; we reckon you will be, too.

Entry is just £1 on the door and all money goes to the day-to-day maintenance of the Bombed Out Church. Now, we know we go on about this but it’s really important. If you’d like to help secure a long-term future for the Bombed Out Church, rather than see paradise paved and a Starbucks put up, they really do need your help. There have been a lot of rumours lately about how apparently someone is going to give them a tonne of money, which has made people believe they don’t need to donate after all. Unfortunately, this is little more than political posturing; the Bombed Out Church really does need your help. Please give what you can; even for just £2 you’ll get a big thank you, plus the knowledge you’re doing something amazing.

Families are very welcome; we love to play whilst watching the kids - including our own - run about. Please bring friends, nans, grans, granddads, mums, dads, sisters, brothers, cousins, avuncular relatives, bezzies, mates, a posse, people you met on the ‘bus… and anyone else you can think of. We’re looking forward to it!

Last night, Sunday 8th December, at MelloMello

Last night we played at MelloMello for the first time. Having attended quite a few gigs there over the last year or so (and even having hazy memories of the time it was the venue of choice for a few bevvies pre-Cream, very different place back then mind you!) it was a wonderful feeling to take to the stage ourselves.

When we arrived, we found our name up in lights, which was a lovely touch!




The staff at MelloMello were all very lovely, and the sound man was brilliant, got on with sorting everything out for us and knew exactly what he was doing.

There were quite a few people in the bar we didn’t recognise, and quite a few who had come along especially to see and support us, so it was a lovely mix of people.

We played two sets; the first included some old favourites like Sally, Solemn Macramé Owl and The Stonecutter’s Boy, but also a gig exclusive; Learning a Language, a song written and played on the piano by Marc (Jones) and sung by the pair for one night only! After that, there was an interval during which the pair sampled MelloMello’s fantastic drinks (Fentiman’s Dandelion and Burdock, mmm)!




The second set was more Christmas focussed, and included our original song In the Bearable Winter, our original carol Something about Mary, and our cover of a Christmas classic. Again, there were a couple of gig exclusives; Adam Lay Ybounden and O Come O Come Emmanuel. We finished the set with our ukulele duet of Gaudete.




We gave out some free CDs containing a handful of tracks from the last year, so hopefully people will listen to and enjoy them.

We had an amazing time, and we hope those who attended enjoyed the gig too; everyone seemed to, and we certainly got some loud applause (and audience participation)! We would absolutely love to go back to perform again if MelloMello would like us to (childcare permitting, although we could always bring the little one with us; he’s dead good at gigs now, an old hand at it). We’ll be popping in now and again anyway (Anchor Porter, fentiman’s soft drinks, lady grey tea and lovely food too, mmmm!) so hopefully we might bump into one or two of you.

Our next gig is this Friday at the Kazimier Gardens in Liverpool; we’re not sure yet exactly what time we’re on but we’re one of three outfits playing and the whole evening looks like it will be brilliant, so get on down and come and hear some live music! This is probably our last gig of the year, so do try your best to get down and make it a good one!