Rock the Cap's Bar!

 Today we headed to our 1st festival of the year and our debut show at the Captain's Bar in Hanley. This was for BOGFEST - a festival with a very direct fundraising campaign to support this venue and increase its toilet capacity.

Along with the festival comes a compilation album my gang The Blue Yellows are a part of, which you can download at Rock the Cap's Bar

Unfortunately for Dave, it was his turn to epitomise the doctrine of "the show must go on" as he was playing with a migraine.

It was great to see so much musical variety in a one day festival with acts from the world's of electronica, folk, world music and more - fabulous!

 

A Nastee Night

A rare (these days) solo performance from me to play The Songwriter Sessions for the Opening Night of The Words & Music Festival

I had the pleasure of playing and also introducing special guests, top producer/Songwriter Nigel Stonier and barnstorming new folksters Nastee Chapel. 

Photos by Chris Davies

Alsager ON FIRE!

Alsager Music Festival 17th July 2022

*Updated 22/07/22

At risk of using not one but two overused words in this opening sentence, Alsager this year saw the start of a period of unprecedented levels of smothering heat opressing our usually fresh sumer weather, though I guess we will have to try to get used to this more and more as it becomes the "new normal". My train to the event was change to a rail-replacement bus due to a trackside fire (having gone through such a fire only on Friday on my train to rehearsals) Thank goodness for a strong breeze though to make things much more pleasant though.

Thank goodness too for the as-aways brilliant organisation, great sound which once again came from Mikey of Soundbites Creative on the desk but most of all to all of you who came along and sang along. You were just great, and gave us a fab time - thank you! x 

*Also - there was a frantic ant nest right beneath /around my pedalboard. 

*The Buggs joined us for "No Tobacco" after opening the day brilliantly earlier. 

Photos by Tim Lee

The Songwriter Sessions

October 11th, 2021 

Photo by Becky Evans.

As part of the opening night of the week-long festival of world class musical, poetry and spoken word; The Words and Music Festival, I performed along with a select few other singer songwriters from the North West, namely the brilliant Sam Lyon, Dayve Dean and Tiki Black who was also joined by top producer and tunesmith, Nigel Stonier.

A couple of the artists mentioned what a wonderful, listening audience we had (as I'm pleased to say is typical of this festival).

 

Not a bad start.

 

Phone video from The Words & Music Festival team.

Sam Lyon

Tiki Black accompanied by Nigel Stonier

Dayve Dean

 

LIVE... !

 Alsager Music Festival - Sunday at The Lodge

*Free Entry 

*Outdoors with cover

Broken, but a blast!

The Blue Yellows at the Alsager Music Festival.

Having had a weird virus giving me the strangest bunch of uncomfortable and exhausting   symptoms since May the 3rd on and off, it was nice, at last, to play a gig while feeling well (though the virus had ‘gone under’ for a couple of days at a time in the past before returning with renewed vigour so... touch wood!).

In an ideal world, bands would get an hour or so to sound check, and I’ve even worked with pro bands who have taken up to two and a half hours to perfect their sound to the venue and iron out any problems, so these festivals we often play where you get a really quick turnaround, it’s a big challenge to try and get it right for all involved, and our sound engineer Matt, stage manager and whole team did a great job!

However, I did manage to snap a string in the first few seconds of the opening song (first time in quite a while as I’ve been using these NY Elixir strings which have an extra carbon component, and so are extra strong ((and expensive!)) ). So while I ran off stage, grabbed the spare guitar and tuned it, Em played the intro to the next tune over and over for a bit, until I was ready.. such pros, this lot on The BYs. 

We also got a brand new song into the set, ‘Who put Bella in the Witch Elm?’ and the gang played it so well, sounded pretty raucous from where I was anyway, in fact the whole set did.

It was great to catch good friends in The Dying Lights who sounded more laid back and melodic than usual, but in a good and groovy way. Good friends were all around the seating areas in fact, so nice to see you all and have at least a tinsy catch-upette. 

The Dying Lights on flowering form.

It was a blast!

Spot the new song?

Telling 'em at Telfords

22nd September, 2018

You may have heard enough about Brexit and you may, or may not, be entrenched in your view on it, so I won't go on about the issue itself so much save to say that this was a wonderful event with a festival-feel calling not to re-run the referendum, but to have a referendum on whatever deal that our government makes (or fails to make) with the EU.

I've been feeling pretty down about the whole situation for a long time, and had practically given up on making political comments on social media because I had felt so despondent about the result, having argued continuously, vociferously and with such determination on the need to stay in the EU to preserve our rights and those of the environment and wildlife, before the vote. The EU is far from perfect, but much better than the right wing burning of rights and protective regulation that would result from leaving.

Anyway, this seemed a really well timed event, given the political circumstances of the last few hours, and it was a lovely optimistic and exciting event with some wonderful artists.

Many thanks to the folk at Chester for Europe and Rock for Europe of course as well as this wonderful venue, Telford's Warehouse.

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More from yesterday's/last night's @rockforeurope event at @telfordswarehouse Great times, and a rare moment of optimism on #Brexit #peoplesvote #musicians #Chester #Cheshire #newmusic #livemusic #musicvenue #politics #protest #referendum #EU #protestsongs #bands #singersongwriter #guitarist #acousticguitar #musicfestival #festival

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Sep 23, 2018 at 7:08am PDT

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Fantastically fun and hopeful afternoon and night at @telfordswarehouse hosting the @rockforeurope event. Seems really well timed as the call for urges for a #peoplesvote on the #Brexit deal get louder! More soon.. #livemusic #newmusic #musicians #festival #musicfestival #remain #referendum #bands #singersongwriter #protestsongs #poetry #rap #speaches #protest #songs #bands

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Sep 23, 2018 at 5:33am PDT

F-A-B ... 'Thunderbirds are GO!'

"FAB Fest" is an obvious reference to the heritage of this great event (as the Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival) as well as being a decisive break from it, such that it will never please everyone, as change never does.

In some ways, the kind of weirdness factor of all the different types of bizarre and wonderful morris dancers around this town at festival time, along with many dyed-in-the-wool folkies who would appear en masse from all over the country, with feathers in hats and other quirks that set them out as 'trad-folkies' is to be missed, although there were still a few to be seen, just not in the great numbers that there used to be when this was more of an out and out folk festival with just a few other types of acts that were perhaps more on the contemporary side of things.

On the other hand, a huge fan of folk music who used to run a record shop in Chester used to say to me "What is 'folk music' anyway?.. It's music for folks, it encompasses all kinds of music".

Nevertheless, plenty of the same vibrancy and excitement in the crowds remain as does plenty of quality music from all kinds of acts, from folk to rock and even pure pop, such that this is one of the key music festivals of the whole region, ranked in the Top 10 of the smaller festivals by The Guardian a few years ago.

This year's event was headlined by Peter Hook and The Light, and our fringe event by the enthusiastic hardworking and talented (not to mention award-winning) bunch that are Middlewich Music. Our set went a bit off piste in places a few times in the first half, we are still pretty under-rehearsed for lots of new songs and sounds we are putting in the set at the moment, though things improved through the set and by the second half we seem to have found our form (which is definitely the right way round to do things if you're going to have a couple of dodgy moments!), but our finding ourselves back in the flow again was not least in thanks to an enthusiastic crowd, good friends and new ones who turned up and gave us a good time.
Thank you all! XX

Set list FabFest 18

Venue Poster

Our Poster

Pic by Adam Roberts

This was during a #Rehearsal break with #TheBlueYellows for tomorrow's @fabfestival. We're on at @narrowboatinn #Middlewich at 4pm! Be there! #BeFab #FABFest @middlewichmusic #Newmusic #livemusic #bandsofinstagram #band #altrock #folkrock #folkrockmusic #musicians #rehearsals #festival #Festivals #musicfestival #northwest #Cheshire #socheshire

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Jun 16, 2018 at 1:46pm PDT

Mind over Matter.

For some reason I felt more relaxed than usual before taking to the stage for MindFest 3.
I, along with my fellow band-family The Blue Yellows seemed focused and relaxed enough to take some big musical risks, some of which payed off. It's something I really love about live music, the chance to go for completely playing with your gut instincts, surrendering to the groove that you and your fellow bandees are creating with it's inherent, overpowering emotion, and simply going for it, all out! Drummer Dave for instance spontaneously came up with a whole new drum pattern/rhythm for the final chorus of No Tobacco and it was great from where I was standing.

Many thanks to Rona, from awesome prog/folk band We Are Nomad for this shot of The Blue Yellows

The whole festival was for the important mental health charity MIND. Mental Health issues are close to the heart of most (if not all?) creatives (note, for instance, some previous witterings on my Social Anxiety) and I think part of the reason for the supportive feeling in the room might have been down to this. It was also great to see some really good friends, though again, as usual at a gig, I hardly get to speak with them
I was lucky enough to catch some great acts including Rivers and Kidd, Hayley Stangelove and Tim Lee, who all seemed on especially good form (sorry about the crappy pics, guys, see below!). It was fantastic to hear, for instance, 'Chains' by Hayley, one of my favourite songs, not just by Hayley, but one of my favourite songs of all, by anyone.
The whole weekend is a great testament to the hard work of Glyn,  Tess and all the team at Colossus Productions putting on such a huge two-day event for the important work of this charity. Well done folks, and thanks!

Drummer Dave managed to get back from his hols in time to make
rehearsals the night before, plus a bit of impromptu football!

Back stage at The Box, Crewe where it all happened.

Rivers & Kidd brought their quirky songs and were on great form.

Cathartic new songs from Tim Lee's much anticipated 'Into the Woods' album.

The hugely powerful and beautiful voice of Hayley
Strangelove.