Masks

At 7.30 this morning we received our first blow-out text... sadly, for various reasons, one of our bands couldn't make today's Belle et la Beat and neither could our lovely compere, Ashley Jarvis.
Delicious PR were wonderfully helpful and sent round an email asking for a last minute stand-in but we were already half-way through the day when the offers started arriving.
It didn't matter though.....

Lost Harbours played a beautiful, ethereal and sometimes chilling set. Their songs are a little like Gregorian chants overlaid on waves of flute, guitar and and other less identifiable noises.

We were thrilled to have The Abrahams play today. John Bennett writes warm, summery songs and his guitar playing appears effortless.

Sadly Facade couldn't make it along.

ArtGruppe played a variation on their usual set. We did our Bunnymen cover, Pictures on My Wall and seven of our own songs. The audience were fab and clapped in all the right places.

At 5pm, 10 minutes before they were due to go on, The West Brothers arrived. Whilst they set up we gave out prizes for the mask-making competition and drew the raffle.

The West Brothers brought along a full band line-up including drums, electric guitars, and a West Sister on acoustic and backing vocals. They were great, Steve Miller-y, bluesy, a little rocky..... not at all the acoustic, banjo, blue-grass combo that we'd seen so many times at the Preview!!!

Brilliant day!!! Ian did a cracking job on the sound desk and Christopher was wonderful with the children's arts and crafts.

We are really looking forward to the next one on Sunday 25th April.

The Abrahams......

We are delighted that the Railway Hotel love having us on their premises and so we have settled on doing these events every six weeks! Extra dates mean more room for local bands as well as out-of-towners, hoorah! We are just in the process of confirming the March line up and here's what's happening so far.....
The Abrahams is the brainchild of John Bennett, he plays beautifully crafted songs performed in a rich acoustic style. John played at Glastonbury Festival with Coal Porters in '93, he played guitar with Grand Drive in '94 and joined the High LLamas and signed to Sony Records shortly afterwards. High LLamas toured Britain, Europe and the USA. One of the highlights of their career was being Love for one night, Arthur Lee's backing band, at the Garage in Highbury!!! John supported Pavement on an 11 night tour and guested on guitar for them too. Radio appearances included sessions for Mark Radcliffe and Steve Lamaq. Recently John has been performing with The New Giants, a Neil Young, REM-esque vibe. John informs us that, 'with a little encouragement I can be lured into performing Love or High LLamas songs.' This is The Abraham's first date with us and we're really looking forward to it!..

7th March Belle et la Beat

I haven't been on here for a while, I've had my head turned by other things the last few weeks but it's all positive stuff. I've been to lots of gigs and have also been working on the ArtGruppe demo...

Our next Belle et la Beat event is on Sunday 7th March, 2.30 til 5.30. We tried to go quarterly but The Railway asked if we would do a few more so here goes....

7th March - ArtGruppe + Lost Harbours + The Abrahams (we are just waiting on confirmation of two other acts) - I'm trying to come up with a crafty theme for the kid's room, any suggestions welcome!

The year is unfolding quickly though, 6th June will be part of the Southend Fringe Festival, Bearcraft will be headlining. The Fringe is an alternative forum for arts/crafts/music anyone with an idea can register an event to be held in June.

September 5th will be our Family and Friends' End of Summer Party, featuring all local bands and a big blow out to celebrate the children going back to school after 7weeks off! (:

filling up the year!

We've made it mid-way through January - the sky was full of bright shiny sun today and the world was a good place to be!

January 31st - the line up has been confirmed for the next Belle et la Beat:
2pm - Blue in the Faith , our super compere Ashley Jarvis and Ray Charman play traditional folk songs but also a few more modern and unexpected surprises.
2.40 - New Subjects - are John Thorpe's brainchild - a funky-soul rap and guitar duo.
3.20 - Phillious Williams - Southend's favourite purveyors of Heavy Western, beautiful songs with an audible edge.
4.00 - ArtGruppe - harmonies, melodies and heartwarming tunes on a back drop of indie-pop beats.
4.40 - St Huck - play anything from the Stones to the Stooges, rocky-garage/punk - featuring Kim and his congas!!!

I have obtained some silver card and glitter glue from a local outlet and am looking forward to making some rocket and space-based pictures with the children in the little room. I am in the process of trying to persuade my daughter and Rai Rai to do some face painting - watch this space!

The 1st birthday, the future and beyond...

We are in the process of confirming the line-up for January's B&B, our 1st birthday.

I really enjoyed co- organising and performing at the events last year. We put on the first B&B last January at The Ship in Leigh, I did a duet with Wendy and celebrated my 40th birthday the same evening. Tumbledryer Babies opened the night and Phillious Williams and his daughters concluded it.

After a couple of Saturday night do's at the Ship, we tried the piano bar upstairs at The Railway Hotel in the Spring. In the summer we experimented with a B&B at the Cobham Lodge in Westcliff, Ashley Jarvis compered and 52pound test did a solo acoustic set, it was great to see Becky singing again after so many years. The gig went well but the venue wasn't quite right. We had a long hard think over the summer hols and came up with the idea of Sunday afternoon gigs where we could take our children and the audience could also bring theirs.

So far the Sunday afternoon B&Bs have been brilliant, well-attended, no injuries so far - hightlights include... Liz Bentley, Columbo, The Phrogs and of course, Artgruppe, but all the acts have been fab.

Dates for 2010 -
Jan 31st-StHuck (acoustic), Artgruppe
April 25th - Carterhaugh
July 25th
October 31st

Hope to see you all soon xx

Beat VI (cont.)

Yes, so after man-handling the playdough, I decorated stars and angels with the gang in the small room and we hung them on the fireplace. Flam Jam provided a perfect flamenco-ey backdrop, mellow and cleverer than anything I could ever play.
Our childroom supervisor (and my lovely daughter) Hayley had to be rushed to A&E with a shocking asthma attack, may be it was induced by all the excitement of the Belle et la Beat, or possibly brought on by cat fur and fags. She is on the mend now, thankfully. Super Jo took over and I was able to pop my head in the door to watch...
Richard Moore (aka Bearcraft). He did clever things with an electric guitar and keyboard. He made a fabulous sound, so much going on for just one man - I really enjoyed the songs, more intricate than pop but groovy too.
After taking the spotlight and drawing the raffle (hightlight of my day) we made room on the stage for Southend's finest garage and soul band, The Phrogs. It was a rare treat to have them play as their last gig was almost exactly a year ago at a private party and prior to that, about ten years ago. I love the Phrogs and Dave Dulake is probably my favourite live drummer of all time - I could watch him play for hours. The Phrogs brougbt back happy memories and they went down a storm.
Andrew Holley took over on the sound desk, setting up the PA and running it all afternoon and for that we are extremely grateful, Wendy played some vibey sounds between the bands and Rachel Holley did a fantastic job passing the Solomon heirloom, Horrace the hedgehog - we managed to collect enough £s through donations to pay for the flyers and the arts and crafts in the children's room, thank you everyone for being so generous.
Can't wait til the next one on the 31st Jan - just sorting out the line-up now...... watch this space.

La Belle et la Beat blog virgin

Here goes....
ooh, I like it...it feels good!
My first blog!
Sunday 27th December 2009 - was the final Belle et la Beat of the year - six acts were booked and five played, not bad! Our lovely compere Ashley was too poorly to perform and was sadly but also happily replaced by DJ StHuck at very short notice - he did a grand job, informative, entertaining and non violence-inciting, which is always a good thing in my book!
Tumbledryer Babies kicked off the afternoon - after a few technical issues with disappearing bass volume, Daryl and Andrew got it together and played a wonderful set, no song more than a couple of minutes long.
The Optic Nerves had an injury and were unable to play. Boo!
Wendy Solomon was sporting a lovely shiny new uke and festive feathers and played her heartwarming and heartbreaking storysongs set to music. She was accompanied by her very talented nephew Chris on keyboards.
I heard Flam Jam from the small room - at this point I was on my knees and covered in playdough and glitter glue - we made angels and stars in the small room and hung them on the fireplace. One young lad threatened me with playdough but a disaster was averted with the clever suggestion of snail modelling.
.....I will return to blog tomorrow...this is fun!