Mixing it up for Neve.

25th March 2019

Music for Team Neve Fundraising Night
Bar B at The Market Tavern, Sandbach

To many in music, Neve is the name of a classic mixing desk/console, and The Blue Yellows were certainly mixing it up with some very diverse acts for a special fundraising night for Neve, a young child with a number of very serious neurological conditions (please see the link at the bottom of the text) for which money is needed for support from specialist American medical institutions on top of the quality health care she is receiving through the NHS.

Typically, a musical evening might be of cover acts to provide easily accessible entertainment or original acts for a more discerning music-loving crowd with an ear for new sounds. However the mix seemed to work really well, with the audience lapping up the new music along with the classics. As well as my gang, acts included host for the evening as well as sound-engineer, stage manager and singer-songwriter Dayve Dean, Tim Lee, Luke Stephenson, Bitter and Twisted, and Footsteps who also kindly lent their cajon, thanks guys!

Although Monday-night gigging provides an incredibly tiring prospect, having not yet recovered from the weekend, and having to get back into my routine of working hours through the day and night through the week as well, I'm expecting to look back on this with fondness when (if) I recover.
Please see the Team Neve crowdfunding page at: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/teamneve

Fabulous turn-out of charitable music-goers for a Monday Night!

Thanks to Tim Lee for this pic of The BYs

Pre-soundcheck

Savage brilliance at Enzo.

October 14th, 2018

Grace Savage performing at Enzo, which was packed out for the whole event.

Festivals come and go throughout the Spring and Summer and nearly all of them are vibrant and special, not to mention really exciting and fun to play.

But the Words and Music Festival is really particularly close to my heart, and being my 'home' festival, gives me a chance to play a full-on part in promoting it and helping out as well as performing. 

Running a whole event such as this 'Enzo Acoustic Zone' which has over the last few years become a regular fixture at the festival can have it's own stresses, especially for someone with a natural shyness (or more specifically social anxiety) such as myself, and many artists in fact. Whereas in a recent gig, I allowed myself to shake off some of the pre-gig nerves in a run around a rainy car park, at this event I have to look after the other artists, help them to keep calm while getting anything they need done for them, liaise closely with the sound engineer (my good friend and regular music collaborator Dayve Dean in this case) and politely fielding any queries from members of the public, requiring me to suppress my own nervous energy and my natural desire really to get away from everyone, find a quiet space and maybe warm up on the guitar or dispel some nervous energy in some other way, in ways that I might normally do.

Anyway, any level of draining, nervous energy more than paid off by the bucket load both due to the incredible talent of my special guests, and the the wonderfully music-savvy, listening, attentive, music-mad audience that is a feature of this wonderful festival as a whole.

The soulful, earthy, gorgeous vocal tones of and wonderful new songs from Tiki Black, poignant, incisive, witty poetry of Oliver Lomax, the perfectly crafted songs of top producer Nigel Stonier and, well... what can I say about Grace Savage, a truly incredible talent, and a privilege to introduce her on stage at a point in her career when she has just been Radio One artist of the week, and with 4 titles of UK beatbox champion... just amazing.
Please do check these artists out.

So very privileged to have such huge talent at our #EnzoAcousticZone this afternoon @EnzoNantwich - every set was so different and so brilliant. pic.twitter.com/W1bCmKVL0D

— Words&Music Festival (@wordsnmusicfest) October 14, 2018

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I don't think anything quite this incredible has hit a cafe in Nantwich before. Live at @enzonantwich for the @wordsandmusicfestival earlier today - @_gracesavage - WHAT A TALENT! To my fellow rock-nerds, open your minds and check her stuff out!!! #Nantwich #beatbox #beatboxing #festival #musicfestival #cafe #pizza #espresso #artist #Radio1

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Oct 14, 2018 at 11:27am PDT

On the Offbeat, Off the Rails.

Many thanks to Tim Lee for this photo.

The creative Crewe people at, well creativecrewe.co.uk put on a fab festival, The Big Event Festival, in the huge hanger-like former railway 'shed' that is now Crewe Heritage Center.
It was lovely that so many old friends turned up, not that I had much time to spend with them in my pre-gig tension or post-gig emotional exhaustion.
I did get to enjoy some fabulous artists before our set however including the jangly rockers with Beatlesque vocal harmonies The Continental Phase.
Good friends and brilliant songwriters Tim Lee and Dayve Dean both performed lots of as-yet unreleased material and it was great to hear their fine vocals in a place with such a huge, natural reverb.
You can also read Tim's experience of the occasion HERE (a blog-post within a blog-post I tell you, it's all here).
Raven's Way had a kind of post-folky retro thing going on and did an incredibly moving version of 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes', a wonderful Sandy Denny song. They were minus a (poorly) fiddle player but all sounded great, especially my fellow finger-picker guitarist Pete but then, I am biased.

A typical thing happened with me during our Blue Yellows set, and I should know better by now. A couple of songs in and I had lost so much of my vocal ability that I felt as if I was singing through a narrow straw, so wasn't able to go for the songs in the way that I wanted to, yet a few songs later and I had recovered... proof of lack of vocal warm-ups (again!). MUST DO. The gang did me proud, as always though, I'm very lucky to have you, thanks guys (and girl).

The Continental Phase opened the day.

Dayve Dean arrived in time to play a great set.

Me with drummist Dave, who'd had the
Purple Yellows treatment.

A very appreciative crowd, thanks all, and to all the friends I hardly got to speak to at all.
The Blitz team did a superlative job on the sound as we have come to expect and the Offbeat Beers were very nice indeed, I look forward to more of them when I have a few more pennies.

Tim Lee with great new songs.
(Sorry about my rubbish photo, Tim).

Exactly what it says here...

Chez @DayveDean working on an exciting musical project. pic.twitter.com/hwAQG7Bt0H

— Jonathan Tarplee (@JonnieGitAhhr) September 29, 2016

An evening of Songwriters at Ethical Artisans.

Introducing the last song of the evenng, I invited all up for a jammed rendition of No Tobacco.
L-R Martin Rivers, Dayve Dean, yours truly, Jaqui Kidd and Louise Mather who we persuaded onto the stage!
Many thanks to Deborah Edgeley for the photo.

May 31st, 2016

In the past couple of years, I've played several coffee shops, a book shop, private house parties and of course the infamous bike shop of the shop-sessions fame. Some of them have been among the best solo gigs I've played, and such was case with Ethical Artisans, a mini community arts hub and artisan shop outlet in Alsager.

As in the aforementioned cases, this venue involved an invested, listening audience, an intimate 'you could hear a pin drop' type of atmosphere and caring organisers who looked after the artists and public alike, in other words the perfect setting really for the singer songwriter.

I decided it must surely be more interesting to bring some talented songwriting friends along rather than hog the whole few hours for myself, so I had my special guests Rivers and Kidd and Dayve Dean. Martin Rivers confirmed he has completed his 'Different Skies' album to be released in July and Dayve is currently working on songs for a space-themed album, so both very much fitted the bill in terms of contemporary and songwriters, and Kidd, namely Jaqi Kidd, provided wonderfully ethereal backing vocals to Martin's tunes.

A lovely night, thanks so much to Alistair and Jo for organising things and to the lovely folk who turned up and made it special!

A cryptic instruction I noticed on one of Martin's song-sheets.

The Festival Spirit - Nantwich 'Jazz Fest Sunday'.

The gang set up.

March 27th, 2016

'Jazz Fest Sunday' as it's known is traditionally the busiest day of the festival where some 40,000 people pour in from surrounding areas to enjoy the music (and alcohol!). This was the most exciting day for me as there is nothing to beat the thrill of playing in a full band and the power, dynamics and emotion this can evoke.

We all seemed relaxed and played really well in the tiny stage area, though Simon said afterwards he couldn't hear the drums at all, many non-musicians are often surprised that hearing good 'on stage' levels for everyone in the band can be quite rare, especially in the often quick turn-arounds you have (an hour between acts in this case). 

It was great to play a full two hour set right through, you can really get into the zone and dig deep into the music, and have time to allow your set to make it's path and tell a musical story.

Tim Lee, whose brilliant solo performance I was lucky enough to catch, also took some great photos;

Me, in monocrome, photo by Tim Lee.

Dave 'The Groove' Coomer, lighting up the electronic kit.
Photo by Tim Lee.

Em, photo by Tim Lee.

Post gig, after loading up in Storm Kate's rain, I had a short break and something to eat before heading out again to catch Tim perform brilliantly in the Singer/Songwriter part of the festival hosted by The Cat Radio on the Blitz stage outdoors. I watched with Dayve Dean (whose set I had sadly, missed) while getting thoroughly drenched meaning I couldn't even feel my fingers when I was playing, luckily muscle memory played it's part but I'd definitely lost some intricacy in my playing.
A few brave (or tipsy) souls danced and sang along at times in the pouring rain, if that's not the festival spirit, I don't know what is!

Tim Lee Rocking the town center outdoor stage

I had cold hands!
Many thanks to Jonathan White for the photo.

Jonathan White, who took the above photo, also published an article about this year's festival at; http://thenantwichnews.co.uk/2016/03/26/nantwich-jazz-festival-packs-music-fans-into-town-venues/

Loving @TheBlueYellows with @Mattlj92 #Nantwichjazzfestival

— CharlotteBirch (@CharlotteyBirch) March 27, 2016

Now playing my favorite!!!! #NoTobaccoNoJesus @TheBlueYellows #MyJam 🌄🌄

— CharlotteBirch (@CharlotteyBirch) March 27, 2016

Watching the always awesome @TheBlueYellows at @nantwichjazz at @UnionNantwich BRILLIANT! pic.twitter.com/sPn5JvO9bt

— Tim Lee - Songwriter (@timleesongs) March 27, 2016

A local gig for me meant nipping home between gigs, Storm Katey making up for my soaking.

Alsager 2015

12/07/2015

Thanks to Redshift Radio for this photo.

Updated 20/07/2015
After last year's performance in the park, this year's was a little more intimate in the extended pub garden of probably the best pub in the area (described as 'a gem' of a place in one review), The Lodge.

It was a lovely experience as so many friends turned up in the crowds, I was only sorry I didn't get to chat to them all. Some good friends also performed & I was able to see the always superb Tim Lee and Dayve Dean, as well as the lovely sounds from the jazzy to prog-rock (and everything else in between)- influenced Rain before some familiar and not-so-familiar bands entertained us before it was time for the train home.

Hats off and big thanks once again to all the organisers, sound people, techies and everyone who made this all possible again, and of course to all of you who turned up.

A fair contingent of Redshift Radio people seemed to be there and I'll be guest of theirs when I perform at The Nantwich Show and The South Cheshire Big Day Out, coming up soon. 

Redshift's Matt Jackson has also blogged about/reviewed the festival HERE.

Update (20/07/2015); Here's a video of the 'special' moment I was joined by fellow musos Tim, Dayve & Abby. Dayve got his own back later, forcing me up to do backing vocals on 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight', I've never been sure of the backing vocals on that song!

Unusually Intimate.

Friday, April 17th.

A special evening of 4 songwriters at one of the best and most intimate music venues around, The Nag's Head in Crewe. 

Myself, Dayve Dean, Tim Lee and Martin Rivers all felt spirited enough to experiment and play some brand new songs. An enjoyable night! 

A highlight for me was when Abby (Human Condition & Five Leaves Left) added her superb backing vocals to Dayve on his beautiful song This Love.

I played There She Moves, Big Low Copper Moon, Toast The Night (debut), Wild Free Slaves (debut), Galleries and Love is the Answer (debut).

The Attachment Theories Launch Party!

Album launch cupcakes were made a special one-off appearance on the Merch table!
Photo (and more importantly CAKES, by Mel Brennan.

I was genuinely chuffed by all the people who made the effort to come along to the Attachment Theories Launch party!

I was also honoured by my special guests who not only performed on the night but had all played a part in the album as follows;

Dan Logan - Album producer plus drums on tracks 1, 3 & 6, percussion on tracks 2, 4 & 5, additional guitar on tracks 1 & 3, bass on track 4 and banjo on track 2. As I said on the night, it's as much his album!

Dayve Dean - Backing vocals on track 7.

Hayley Strangelove & Paul Senior (Baxter) - Backing vocals on tracks 1, 4 & 6.

Tim Lee - Rhythm guitar on tracks 1 & 6 and Bass on tracks 1, 3 & 6.

Emma & Simon from The Blue Yellows - Track 7. 

Plenty of friends turned up to The Railway Inn, Alsager.

Great to see Dan perform with Dayve Dean again!

Hayley & Paul; Baxter were great.

Tim Lee perfomed his own version of
"Forget Her" as well as his own great songs.
Thanks Tim!

Photo of me  by great songster -Tim Lee.

The album is now also out on iTunes as well as bandcamp.

Jonathan Tarplee solo album, Attachment Theories - OUT NOW!

"..this observational journey, sometimes reflective, sometimes questioning and sometimes well, sometimes capable of taking you another place for a second or two..an appealing and engaging record."  - FATEA RECORDS MAGAZINE.

"Full of melody & honesty"  NIGEL STONIER.

Click on the image of the album above to download the album for as little as £4 or get the CD posted to you (plus the download) for £5.

The album also features the musical brilliance of Daniel J. Logan, Tim Lee, Hayley Strangleove, Paul Senior, Dayve Dean & The Blue Yellows.

Attachment Theories releases on Monday, October 20th... then on Friday 24th, THIS!

Orchard Jam

An unusual one as gigs go; A guest-set along with Dayve Dean and a public jam night. Orchard studios is a busy professional studio and perhaps Oakhanger's, nee Alsager's,  nee Cheshire's best kept secret. They work with the great and the good but a lot of musicians local to the area have never heard of them. They're currently working on some event ideas that may well change that.
Just to help spread the word, here's a great little promo;

Acoustic Alchemy II at the Vibe, the Vibe? Yeah actually.. the Vibe!

Not a dubious film but a rather wonderful night and another new venue for me, The Vine in Shavington. Funnily enough I keep miss-spelling it as "The Vibe", which would certainly have been an appropriate name on the night! All the bands & artists were "in the zone", great! With many thanks for Jonathan White for the photos and the many chums who turned up :) Jonathan was too late to photograph Sam Lyon who has the sweetest voice, catch her (JW) if you can. 

United Breaks Headlined. Photo; Jonathan White.

Me (well it is my blog). Photo; Jonathan White.

Great to see Dayve Dean back in musical action. Photo; Jonathan White.

Check out the great acts here;

United Breaksjoined by Tom Seals
Dayve Dean
John Macleod Band 
Sam Lyon

August 11th - Not just a House Concert...

House concerts seem to have taken off in many countries, particularly the States or so I'm told, but they don't seem to have quite caught on here yet. But, given that "staying in is the new going out" (much to the detriment of the live music scene I might say!) the idea is that instead of having a boring dinner party you have a really inspiring and heart-warming one by inviting your favourite musical artists into your home to do a gig there in your own home to you and your guests.

Now this was a particularly lovely occasion because Martin, whose house this one was, has a beautiful garden and it all took place in this gorgeous setting, whats more we had host of great talent performing (please check out the links below) including Guitar-George Borowski himself. Dayve Dean, as often recently was in dual-role as sound engineer and an as-always engaging performer.

Also, it wasn't all as entirely private as it could have been because highlights will be available on a podcast as part of The Backstage Pass radio show, and I will provide a link here when it is ready. Simon J. Newbury, who presents the show is also a renowned photographer and he brought along an exclusive copy of his Urban Portraits book which generated much interest.

A wonderful occasion, thanks Martin and all your guests.


P.S. I'm free to discuss terms for similar plus weddings, funerals, divorce parties, new pet arrivals etc ;) jtarplee@hotmail.com

Simon J. Newbury, as well as arranging for highlights to go on his radio podcast,
also brought in a special copy of his "Urban Portraits" book.

Links:

George Borowski with Gaynor Wilson
Angus McTwangstick
Dayve Dean
Paul Ellson
The Sladens
Simon J. Newbury - Urban Portraits.

July 31st - The Teenage Cancer Trust Benefit Concert.

Louise Gibson was once again the instigator for a wonderful evening of music which as well as myself included the talented artists Oli Ng, Nigel Kurtis Blonde, Dayve Dean, Connor Thackery, Neil Smith and Ben & Aaron. 
To be honest I was absolutely cream crackered from all i was involved with over the previous days and nights but still enjoyed a great night in Sandbach.

Photo by Dayve Dean. Thanks Dayve!

Oli Ng, who is also the frontman for The Eyres,
giving it some solo goodness!
Sorry for the poor pic quality.

March 27th - Easter Mini Tour 1. A night of music for The Teenage Cancer Trust

Dayve Dean opens and hosts the night.

A superb evening at a little place with happy memories for me as the launch site for All These Things Right Now. Most importantly, lots of money raised for this great cause. Well done indeed to Louise for organising. All of the artists involved were a joy & it was a pleasure to play my set to the lovely gatherers.

Links to the web pages of the other artists involved (you're on my website!);
Dayve Dean
Geoff Mather
Eddie Fendertelecaster Ogle
Dave Dove
Phil Maddocks
Nick Bayes
United Breaks
Nigel-Kurtis Blonde

An article by Jonathan White was published here at Crewe News.

United Breaks: Tim Kirwin on Sax, Neil David Smith on Guitar/vox. Nick Bayes on Bass

Phil Maddocks was "in the zone" with Nick Bayes.

Recording Day 4. Done! (but not dusted).

The main desk at Orchard.

Well on the 4th day (strictly the 4th session which was also the 2nd Thursday evening) session. I sang my lead vocal on 2 songs, Hayley and Emma worked on their last few backing vocal sections and I put on one extra dinky little guitar line behind the backing vocal sub-melody. Simon, though he had finished all his parts, made an appearance with Dorota (our "biscuit manager") to catch up with what was going on and add some opinions... And suddenly it's all over so soon. Next, the magical black art of mixing, leaving it to Dan Logan for the initial listen, then I'll join him next week for my input.

As this was the last session, I want to take this opportunity to really thank everyone at Orchard Studios, and especially Dan Logan for being not only being fantastically talented but also immensely patient and making the whole process a really friendly, enjoyable experience. Also to Mr Dayve Dean who has done so much for me and the band since "part 2" of  my career began, here doing us the honour of a guest backing vocal on one of the tracks.  The good really good photos from these recording posts are by Jamie Waddington, another fabulous, friendly & talented chap. I always try to put relevant links within the texts of this blog but lately this isn't obvious as they don't appear as highlighted as an obvious link (anyone know how to correct this??), so in the absence of this, please check out the links below;

Orchard Studios - http://www.orchard-studios.co.uk/

Dan J. Logan - http://www.facebook.com/danieljloganmusician

Dayve Dean - http://www.dayve.co.uk/

Jamie Waddington Photography - http://www.jamiewaddington.co.uk/

Also big thanks to the lovely Radley, who as far as I know doesn't have a website.

A couple of lyric sheets printed out in advance of the evening session

A complicated-looking part of Orchard

Recording Diary Day 3: "Widget Poobid Fapside"

"Widget Poobid Fapside" is a possible working title for the EP which Hayley came up with based on something her laptop “said” to her. Perhaps it makes sense to someone out there, perhaps it’s some sort of computerspeak/code. It won’t get past the status of working title though so don’t go looking for an album of this name!

So day 3 was really a Thursday evening session, I got lead vocals down for 2 songs and quite a lot a backing vocal work went on. In fact one song could just about work A Cappella when we heard all the vocal parts played back at once. Emma also put some extra keyboard parts down on a couple of tracks. Dayve Dean, who has done so much for us before, continued the tradition by adding his emotive vocal sound onto a backing track too. Dayve had been working in another room at Orchard, while we worked with Dan, preparing his new radio show The Cat Sessions (& you can "listen again" of course)which featured us “live” from a gig the weekend before – weirdness squared.

A relaxed atmosphere while Dan, our sound wizz beavers away at the desk.

So another evening session beckons with more lead and backing vocals to do this week, stay tuned.

Dayve Dean, putting a show for "The Cat Sessions" together.

Nice things to look at and play :)



Dayve giving it some backing vox