The Egg Café open mic/floor (by Ruth)

Every now and again a local music paper will claim that such and such an open mic event is "probably Liverpool's oldest". This is (usually) my reaction:










You see, I remember 1997, when I was a student at Liverpool Uni, and helped promote a poetry-only open mic event at Liverpool's veggie hangout, the Egg Café. The event changed hands shortly after I'd left university, and it started to welcome musicians, too; I moved to London shortly after that, and didn't attend for a good many years indeed, but it continued, changed hosts yet again, and by the time I started singing unaccompanied folk songs in 2011... it was still there. In fact, it was the scene for mine and Marc's first ever gig together, in 2012, when we were two people singing and playing some carols, rather than Moss & Jones.


It's still going now, 18 years since I first started going. (In fact, it isn't the longest running open mic in town; that honour goes to the Dead Good Poets, at least, as far as I'm aware. But it's probably the longest running open mic that isn't just poetry.) It's changed so much in those years. Even in the last four since I started going again, I've seen a turnover of 'regulars' several times; sometimes it's students who come and perform for a year or so and then leave town on graduating; sometimes it's musicians in the early stages of their career who use the Egg's welcoming open mic as a starting board, and when they get a little more well-known, they go less often to open mic events; sometimes people just decide they prefer a different open mic, maybe one with a microphone, and take their friends with them. But new people always come and take their place; keep things going and busy. 

And certainly since I've been part of Moss & Jones, Tony Kehoe has compèred the event, his idiosyncratic presenting skills including lyrics performed as poetry, in addition to performing his own songs. A friendly chap, Tony always encourages the audience to give performers - especially new performers - all their support. His exuberance might take a little getting used to for newbies but it's definitely worth it.

Last night, Monday 3rd August, included the usual mix of poetry and music; covers and originals; it's great to see Tony Kehoe's daughter continuing to develop her skills as a singer and musician; Tony had some new songs which we enjoyed; there were quite a few of us who'd travelled over from St. Helens so it felt like we had a bit of a gang there, though the atmosphere is always supportive anyway. 

We played a couple of songs too and people seemed to like them; friends played new songs too and read old poetry and it was all marvellous.

One of the things I love about performing at the Egg is that it's completely unamplified. It's open mic in name only; a more appropriate phrase might be 'open floor'. It's great for us; that's how we practise of course, so we're very used to it. There's also no stage as such; performers are on the same level as the rest of the audience; they are on the floor, standing just in front of the people listening. For me that's a wonderful thing; it emphasises the fact that performers, too, are audience; there's no getting up and nipping to the pub for a pint once we've done our set; we stay, and we listen. Sans microphone and sans stage there are no barriers between performer and audience and personally, I really like that freedom. 

On a practical level, not having to sing through a microphone means that I am able to move a little more too whilst singing and playing. There are no wires and cables to trip over, either, and the sound is solely determined by mine and Marc's performances, not partly by an engineer. That does, of course, mean that if performing at the Egg, it's wise to remember this, and if used to singing through a microphone, it might be wise to increase the volume a bit. 

We now go to a variety of open mics, and play various full gigs too (this Sunday, we'll be back at the Bombed Out Church), but the Egg was where we started, it's my favourite café in town (I've been going since my late teens, so it's always been the Egg for me, rather than the Acorn) and we'll always go back to play every now and again... as long as they'll have us!

The open mic at the Egg runs the first Monday of every month except if it's a bank holiday, in which case it's the first Monday after the bank holiday Monday. 

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. 

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.

Two reviews

We have been lucky enough to have received two lovely reviews of our three-track single, Ella Brown. 

The first is from music reviewer and folk aficionado Helen Gregory. She says:

It’s a rare and welcome thing to find artists who draw their inspiration from a wide range of music, particularly folk, and yet still manage to add their own individual stamp and avoid sounding derivatively homogeneous.

Read the whole review on her blog.

The second is from Liverpool reviewer Ian D. Hall over at Liverpool Sound and Vision. He says:

Ella Brown is an acoustic high, a tremble of variety, the huge wedge of sincerity and unabashed sense of the natural, Ruth Moss’ voice towers above the set scene and lifts the story up high. 

The whole review is over at his website. 

Thank you Helen and Ian for writing about our single. 

Kathryn Williams, Robert Vincent (and us) at Leaf, Liverpool, Wednesday 10th June

On Tuesday 9th June, all we had planned for Wednesday night was a quiet evening in.  However, we ended up opening for Kathryn Williams (supported by Robert Vincent) at Leaf in Liverpool City Centre.

Originally, The Coral's Lee Southall was due to open the gig, but unfortunately had to pull out at the last minute due to illness (hopefully he’s much better now). This left Kathryn Williams without an opening act, and a twitter call went out for a replacement.

(At that point we were sat in the back yard writing a shopping list.)

When we went back inside, Ruth’s ‘phone had multiple notifications flashing up. We wondered what had happened.  Then we checked our twitter, Facebook and email. It turned out that our friend Helen, writer for Folk Radio UK and generally lovely person, (and who recently reviewed our single, Ella Brown, on her blog) had suggested that we might be a good fit for an opener, and Liverpool Acoustic had agreed (thank you, Graham), and were we available?

Well, we were over the moon, and once we were told it was fine to bring along Ruth’s little boy on the night, we set to work, putting together a set list for the 25 minutes (including our single, Ella Brown, a few pieces from our forthcoming album, Amateur Astronomy, and some traditional folk songs), and rehearsing.

Thanks to Kev McCready for this picture of us playing our set.

The next day, we went straight from our separate workplaces to Leaf and when we arrived, we were lucky enough to catch the end of Kathryn’s soundcheck (which included a run through Mirrors, and involved loop pedals). After Rob Vincent’s soundcheck, then ours, we were raring to go; very excited, but somewhat daunted too. Kathryn and Robert were both lovely.

By eight o’clock a couple of friends had turned up to give us support, and the place was pretty full. It was probably the largest indoor crowd we’ve ever played to, and one minor finger-slip aside we thought we played a good, short, sweet set, and later that night, BBC Radio 2 DJ Janice Long (who was at the gig) seemed to agree; on her show, she said we were “amazing, absolutely mesmerising”.

Then, we could relax. Rob Vincent played a lovely set, full of mellow, tuneful songs, with lilting guitar and a wonderfully strong voice, ending with Demons, an incredibly honest song about overcoming fears. We'd definitely go and see him again. 

After that it was time for Kathryn Williams’ set. In addition to some earlier material, she played songs from her new album Hypoxia. As you might expect from an album based on Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, it got very intense at times (have you heard Cuckoo? Compellingly visceral and her performance was jaw-dropping) but Kathryn’s stage demeanour between songs added a light touch to it all. She ended by covering a Neil Young song with her sister on stage; a moving ending to a wonderful night. If you get chance to go and see her elsewhere on her tour you really must, and do buy her album!

We were so privileged to be able to open this gig, and we hope very much that people who attended to see Kathryn, and Rob, also enjoyed our set. A couple of people bought our album, Amateur Astronomy (it’s not out until 28^th June but we took some copies along to the gig) and if that was you, we’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Thank you so much to Ben, Helen, Graham, Kathryn, Rob, Dylan and all at Leaf for having us, and for such an amazing night, and thank you Janice for your kind words.

It's here! Ella Brown, a folk-inspired song of love, loss, and learning (with two b-sides!)

We're really happy to announce that our studio-recorded single, Ella Brown, is now available to download!

Ella Brown is an original song, written by Ruth and arranged, played and sung by both of us. It is about love, loss, and learning from both those things. It's played on the violin, the ukulele and the melodica, and there are lots of vocal harmonies! It was recorded and produced by Andy Bowes at Catalyst Studios, St. Helens, and will also appear on our forthcoming EP, Amateur Astronomy, out this summer.

On the b-side we have two tracks! Both were recorded by a talented student friend of ours, Kerry Foster, at St. Helens College. Reynardine is a classic folk song (which we play on the mandolin and accordion) about a trickster brigand (who may or may not also be a fox) and Molly, or Jennie's Baubie, is a jig, played on the violin and melodica, which most of you will recognise.

The single, with its a-side and b-sides, is totally free to download, though if you wish and are able, you can pay more to help support us in making future recordings.

You can download from mossandjones.bandcamp.com.

The cover art for the single was drawn by another talented friend of ours, an artist called Michelle Quinn.

We hope you enjoy the music and would love to hear from you about what you think!

Ruth & Marc xx

Our folk music special: now available as a podcast!

Last Sunday, we sat down at half past eight with the internet radio tuned to Studio 109 Live and Online, ready to hear our very own radio show, full of a diverse range of talent from mostly local (one or two not-so-local) folk and folk inspired musicians. We live-tweeted the whole thing for anyone who was listening, and it was wonderful to see many of the artists featured tweeting to each other, and checking out each other's oeuvre. It's heart-warming to think that perhaps we've introduced some talented musicians to others, and possibly even helped people make new friends!

It was such a fun thing to put together, and we like to think that perhaps some people have a few new favourites now as a result!

If you missed it, the good folks at Studio 109 have kindly put it online as a podcast so you can listen to our show again in its entirety! We'd love to know what you think, especially of the first track, Ella Brown, which will be the lead single from our forthcoming album, Amateur Astronomy, out later this spring.

Studio 109 Live and Online - Folk Music Special - Moss and Jones by Studio109 Live And Online on Mixcloud

We have finished recording... now for the rest of the to-do list!

Yesterday we went to Catalyst Studios, St. Helens, for our final recording session for our mini album, Amateur Astronomy.

We started with our version of Schiarazula Marazula, a mediaeval dance which probably originates in the Friuli area of Italy. Ruth discovered this tune last year and immediately thought it was perfect for us to cover. Our version stays the same tempo throughout, and we've added lyrics to one of the repeated phrases. As Marc bought Ruth a psaltery for Christmas, it seemed a shame not to use it; we also added bodhran, ukulele (plucked), descant recorder and some backing ahhs and oohs.

Ruth arranged it to have an additive nature; due to this and the way it builds, organising the different parts on the mixing desk was a bit of a challenge, so once Andy (the producer) had the basic structure down we moved onto the next song.

Our next song, Frosty Nights (When I Was Your Age), is a-cappella, with just two parts, one for each of us. Ruth wrote it for her son, and we've been singing it around the house so much that before we set off for the studio, Ruth's son was singing snippets of it himself! We hadn't originally intended to put this on the mini-album as Ruth composed it in mid-January this year, after we'd already planned a rough track listing, however, it fitted so well with the theme that we couldn't leave it off. You might have to look that bit harder for it as a result. We'll be giving away the sheet music free with our album so you can have a bash at singing it yourselves.


Last up was Marc's composition, the title track of the album, Amateur Astronomy. Over a year in the writing, the song has three distinct sections coming together to tell a simple story. Its lengthy gestation means it's ended up nothing like the song he started out with, but it's all the better for that. Utilising the tenor ukulele Ruth bought Marc for Christmas, in addition to piano, some soaring strings and backing vocals from Ruth, Marc handles lead vocal duties on this one.

After recording all three songs, that was it for the day; we've arranged to go back to mix everything on Saturday 14th February (yes, Valentine's Day; is there anything more romantic than spending time together in the studio?)

As usual, Andy was fantastic; he doesn't shy away from telling us, diplomatically, if we could go back in the booth and record something again better; he also makes an excellent brew.

Whilst we were in the studio, we finalised the track-listing for the mini-album. It has a loose concept running through it, so we had to think carefully about where everything goes. We've already designed the front cover of the CD; once everything is mixed, we have to sort out CDs, a launch, reviews, radio play, and the back cover of the CD, too. A friend of Ruth's is also recording us performing folk staple Reynardine as b-side for our first single from the album, which will be our folk-inspired song Ella Brown (you can watch us playing it live here).

We're very excited about having finished recording, but in some ways, that's only the beginning. Watch this space!

Welcome to our website!

One of our New Year Resolutions was to create and maintain a more professional-looking website  (and keep tumblr as a kind of scrapbook). Well, here we are. At any rate, here we start, as we'll be tweaking this thing regularly to make sure it looks nice, stays relevant and is easy to get around. We'll be adding various bits and bobs; a form for people to subscribe to our newsletter, an order form for people who want to buy CDs (when we have CDs) and other merchandise, and so on.

But for now, it's at least ready enough to show you all. What do you think?