A-line band

Well the gig last week was really fun actually. Leon and I were surprisingly nervous considering we only had one song to play but i think it was the fact that i’ve never sung backing before, it’s a whole new experience and Leon hasn’t played live for about a thousand years. I don’t know how many records were sold but it was nicely buzzing and as expected everyone there was very enthusiastic. Fancy Chance and I donned animal heads and danced about in unison for one of the songs and i stayed far too late and bonded with a woman called Brandy, which isn’t a metaphor but drink was also imbibed a little too enthusiastically. Here’s a picture, no Leon i’m afraid.

Wow! Last night was SO much fun. I won’t go on about it but suffice to say that our version of the jazzercise workout below was the most fun i have had in ages and couldn’t believe how many people got up and joined in with us. Feel the burn!

I also wanted to mention the gig i went to see on wednesday at The Magpie’s Nest folk club. Peggy Seeger is a folk legend and we were lucky to see her in such an intimate venue. Totally charming and beautiful songs, old bluegrass tunes, political songs lots of good humour and really intelligent lyrics. She was so inspiring and reminded me of how wonderful story telling can be in songs. Below is my favourite song, if you have a few minutes please give this a proper listen, it’s worth it. It’s based on the words of a http://www.jimmymassey.com/ among the first to report the human rights abuses in Iraq. It’s not as worthy as it sounds, just a good song.

Yes it’s been ages since i’ve done any burlesque performance and we’re all really looking forward to this Friday, permiering new acts and working together again. Two of the Burly Q gals left for San Francisco last year but we’ve found some new team mates and are feeling fresh and excited! Less of a sit down show and more of a club night it should be a right old knees up. Come along!

This Friday the 30th of May
Led through space and time by Ginger Roger, BurlyQ has come back to earth and
more importantly London to tell you their tales of
intergalactic glamourific travels through space and time.

Come to the wormhole and shake a tail feather between shows and into the night while

Miss Anna Kronist,

Fancy Chance,

Luke Warm,

Mimi,

Blanche Dubois

and special guests

Simon Bear (bearlesque) and Mat Frasier

rattle the cages of the time/space continuum.

Dress: To Dance, Metropolis, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Flash Gordon, Space Vixens,
Time Lord Lovers, Interstellar Cads, Mutant Martians, Cross Dressing Robots

Bethnal Green Workingmen’s Club
44-46 Pollard Row,Bethnal Green E2 6NB
£7
Door’s open at 9pm
Shows throughout the night and dancing until 2am!

Perfect! After the Bill Drummond performance, this week I was lucky enough to take part in another art/vocal event that was amazing and much more how I had imagined Drummond’s project would be. The Institute of Contemporary Art (where i work) is putting on a 6 month emerging art extrvaganza with new artists getting 1 week solo shows and a series of one off performances too. Last Monday 19th I participated in Aileen Campbell’s audience participation piece.

Two rooms were filled with 40 people each, seated facing a screen and speakers. In the room i was in there were also two mics and two cameras filming us. We were asked to follow the set of instructions on the screen which involved following either a red or purple dot with your voice depending on the colour of the badge you were given. There was lots of laughter but at times we also sounded amazing as we followed the dots up and down the screen creating harmonies and sounding like a contemporary music choir! Then we swapped rooms.

This room was darkened and we watched images to the sound track from the next room, it became apparent that they had been listening to us the whole time and now we were listening to them. The sounds we had made which had seemed random now correlated to the images we saw. A cello being bowed, feet jumping up stone steps. It was beautiful and funny and playful - amazing!

It makes me want to try something similar… below is Aileen telling us what we were about to do.

Pictures by Benedict Johnson.

I guess it’s like cat nip but for frogs? We’re playing Bristol tonight and we are well excited!!! Well I am, Sam likes to play his cards close to his chest but I’m pretty sure he’s looking forward to it.

Last Thursday a few of A-Line plus Gemma Court who’s our spiritual advisor and vocal coach all went along to participate in Bill Drummond’s The 17 project.  I’d heard about it a while ago and was pretty excited to be involved as I knew that only seventeen people can participate in what is a one off event that involves no audience and what is recorded is listened to once by the participants and then deleted.

There was a certain amount of drama to the whole event which I enjoyed.  We were sat in a darkened studio, Bill came in and said in his craggy Scottish accented voice “Hello, I’m Bill Drummond… and you are The 17″.  He went on to tell us the history of the project starting with the first record he ever bought (The Beatles, Penny Lane) and ending with him being more excited by the sounds his Landrover makes than any recently released record. The idea of The 17 was to reinvigorate his enthusiasm for music by making something that is ephemeral and unshackled from musical convention.  In this he succeeds but how much we all got out of it as participants I’m not sure yet.

Sam and Leon really liked the final piece we made when we heard it back but I wasn’t convinced. After all his banging on about the act of recording ruining music what we were doing was recording a song and what we recorded was basically one long chord with voices which didn’t excite me all that much.  I guess the great thing is that it inspired me to do something similar, I would love to to put together some people for a live singing experience.  I imagine a circle of singers also in the dark and us all singing long held notes but listening to eachother we would slowly make an improvised piece that we would perform for eachother, no recording at all and allowing for more variation in melody.  Free choral singing?  I’m sure there’s loads of stuff been done along these lines already but I liked Bill’s punk attitude to all that, doesn’t matter if it’s been done just have a go and see what happens… anyone?

Gemma Court and I are DJing here tonight.  Having done some backing vocals and generally good advice on harmonies etc she counts as a member of A-Line.  We’ve lined up some truly silly records (and good ones too of course). Come if you dare!

Oh it feels good! Our remix of Calendar Songs December song has been picked up by 6Music and played on the Tom Robinson show. You can hear it in our Listen section or click on his name and it’ll take you to the show. Calendar Songs has also been chosen as website of the week so all juicey good news.

Tom Robinson as i was reminded by Leon is the man who wrote “Sing If You’re GladTo Be Gay” and is an all round top guy. In the spirit of that track, below is Bronski Beat’s “Small Town Boy”. It’s pretty depressing to think that this video would still be shocking now, even if just for the reason that any kind of political statement is pretty much unacceptable/ uncool on TV these days.