frolics in south wales

Probably should have posted this a bit sooner (sorry…) but wanted to write to say what an amazing time we had in South Wales last Tuesday and Wednesday! Thanks to Alistair and the team at Dempseys in Cardiff and to Dave and everyone at Swansea Jazzland for having us, we really enjoyed ourselves and hope you and the audience did too – hopefully be back soon…

We spent the day in between the two gigs camping and hanging out in the countryside outside Carmarthen at Sam Andreae’s uncle’s amazing house (thanks again for hosting us Mike & Celia!), complete with ping-pong, pool, darts, bbq, campfire and lake – equipped with rowing boat and kayak. Hopefully more photos of our exploits to come, but these videos of Sam Healey (saxophone) and Paul Strachan (bass trombone) attempting to get to grips with the kayak should give you some idea of what we got up to!

Once again, cheers to everyone we met – can’t wait til we come back!

Posted by Ben on 16/06/2010 at 20:16 in gigs, misc, news and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Leave comments here.



tour update & ep shortage…

So we’ve now kicked off the tour with gigs in Manchester and Camden which were awesome, and are looking forward to the next leg of gigs beginning this weekend! We’ll be taking in the Groove on the Green festival in Liverpool (Saturday 5th June, onstage 2.15pm til 3pm), before setting off to Dempseys in Cardiff (Tuesday 8th) and Jazzland in Swansea (Wednesday 9th). It’d be great to see you at some of the gigs – if the last two were anything to go by they’ll be amazing nights!

Also we’ve now only got 12 copies left of the limited edition run of 100 handmade EPs so if you’ve still not got one make sure you order one asap or you’ll miss out! No more will be made once we’ve sold all 100, and the EP will also no longer be available for free download. Order now here.

gotg10

ps note that good friends Go Go Penguin (formally known as the Chris Illingworth Trio) will be playing at Groove on the Green on Sunday 6th so check that out too!

Posted by Ben on 02/06/2010 at 21:57 in gigs, news and tagged , , , , , , , . Leave comments here.



UK tour summer 2010

tour poster ben v1

If you’re a subscriber to the Beats & Pieces mailing list you’ll already have heard about this from the latest newsletter but if not, I hope you’ll be as excited as we are about our upcoming tour dates all over England and Wales! Dates as they stand are as follows:

Friday 21st May – The Forge, Camden (info & tickets)

Saturday 5th June – Groove on the Green, Liverpool (info)

Tuesday 8th June – Dempseys, Cardiff (info)

Wednesday 9th June – Jazzland, Swansea (info & tickets)

Thursday 1st July – Bridgewater Hall (bar), Manchester (free gig after RNCM Symphony Orchestra perform music by Jonny Greenwood & Stravinsky – info)

Saturday 10th July – Marlborough Jazz Festival (info & tickets)

For more information check out the individual venue websites as listed below or the gigs page. You can also join the facebook group for the tour here.

We’ll also be playing with the Jo McCallum & Alice Zawadski Orchestra at a secret venue in Manchester on Thursday 20th May… Location to be revealed a few days before on this site, twitter, myspace and facebook – keep those eyes peeled!

It’d be awesome to see you down the front at one (or more…) of the dates, do come and say hi! We’re all well excited and counting down the days, not long now…

p.s. thanks again to the amazing Angela Guyton for letting us use her artwork again for the poster!

Posted by Ben on 30/04/2010 at 11:54 in gigs, news and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave comments here.