www.theuntiedartists.co.uk

Cheers, J

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tEIiLN1U6w

It's in 4 parts for youtube so get searching

Roll up the carpet and push back the chairs. Untied Artists in collaboration with The Gramophone Party bring you a rip-roaring evening of music, theatre and dance in
'Al Bowlly's Croon Manifesto'.

A celebration of Britain's greatest singer of the dance band era, this show offers an insight into a pre-pop pioneer, delves into the seamier side of between the wars hedonism, and then gives the audience a chance to put on their dancing shoes and get their rocks off ballroom-style.

The title of the show is inspired by Bowlly's book "Modern Style Singing" in which he issues a rallying call to embrace the new media of his day, the microphone. The tender, expressive and intimate vocal style he championed marked a turning point in musical history and brought about an entire change of focus from bandleader to singer.

Arguably the first ever ‘pop star’, his life is ripe for revisiting. He had a rock and roll lifestyle before rock was invented, a fiery temper, a penchant for globe-trotting, a rollercoaster career, tried to make it Stateside, and psychosomatically lost his voice. Like so many pop icons he lived fast and died young.

An inspiration to generations of singers and artists, Al Bowlly’s songs are the type of tunes you’ve heard hundreds of times but just can’t place. The voice that really did make ‘a hundred lonely housewives clutch a milk bottle to their hearts’ has featured in cult films like Amelie, The Shining and Dennis Potter’s seminal Pennies From Heaven.

Featuring hits like ‘The Very Thought Of You’, ‘My Woman’, ‘Guilty’ and ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’, we promise an evening to remember. Wear the gladdest of your gladrags, and once you’ve listened to the finer points of 'Al Bowlly's Croon Manifesto', put it to the test on the dancefloor.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2008/0715/1215940928809.html

Elsewhere, the programme gave rise to more personal than public moments of reflection, as with Jake Oldershaw's magnificent Intimate Histories , a 10-minute theatre performance for one. Here, there are a selection of six performances to choose from, set up on a quirkily designed menu. When your order is placed, your performance is freshly prepared for you, and you are invited into a dark room to take a seat with a stranger (Oldershaw himself, the performer), while the cabaret-style storytelling performance begins.

My starter proved to be a charming and chilling Sweeney Todd -style story of scientific discovery, while my main course was a sweet personal serenade whose heartbreaking ending spoke poignantly to the concept of fleeting connection that is at the core of this innovative, intimate performance. Having originated in Birmingham, the universal appeal to human relationships that Intimate Histories taps into has become, deservedly, an internationally applauded attraction.

http://www.stengazeta.net/article.html?article=5547

http://www.mk.ru/blogs/idmk/2008/11/17/mk-daily/381320/

Quite a funny translation if Babelfished...

http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=r0NbtaRGXEY&feature=channel

Our newly formed company 'Untied Artists' will be presenting extracts from Ivar Waldemarson's 'The Glassworks' at the mince pie special Pilot event cuarted by Talking Birds

Be there!

December's Pilot, hosted this time round by Talking Birds (though someone
else will be making the mince pies, Mr Kipling probably) will feature the
following stunning acts:

Stan's Cafe - Come Together
Peter Fletcher - Reflections on the Counting of Sneezes
Kings Of England - Where We Live and What We Live For
Millions and Pliers - Writing the Biography of the Millions
untied artists - (extracts from) The Glassworks
Instant Opera Company - Specialise

With live pre-and-post music by the very excellent Little Rumba.

It promises to be a night of excellent untried performances where your
support, feedback, and general goodwill is most appreciated. A colourful
e-flyer will be sent out in due course, but we're hoping to reserve a space
in your packed diaries before they're all filled up with office parties and
whatnot.

Times 2-9.30pm, 13-16 November

Great to be here!

The shock for that small island community must have been considerable when by some accounts 650,000 people came to Afton Farm (just a mile from my folks place) for the 1970 festival. I remember some fantastic footage of the local jeweller in Freshwater and his daughter talking 25 years after the event. 'Some of them stayed for days, weeks, some of them might still be here, we just don't know!' Like some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers nightmare the freaks have taken over and made it acceptable for Never mind the Bollocks to adorn the back of our buses!

I suppose that generation grew up, chilled out probably even bought the company, whatever company that might be, and having a bit of fun for a weekend in the summer became thoroughly acceptable rather than rocking the foundations of civilisation. Leonard Cohen's back this year, having to pay the bills because his manager did him over, ending the weekend at the festival Michael Eavis set up in '71 after a bit of island inspiration.

Like anything money plays a part, once they'd got over the shock and repealed a 30 year 'Isle Of Wight Act' that pretty much banned any festivals on the island, the council stood to make a whole load of direct and peripheral profit out of the festivals. Trading on the majestic history of Bob Dylan in '69 and, amongst others, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Miles Davis in '70, but not run by the original organisers, the 'Nokia' Isle of Wight Festival now sits in a municipal park in the island's capital, Newport. Rock and Roll and and easy nip into town to use a decent loo.

Meanwhile in its fifth year, Bestival, has got really popular really quick. After humble beginnings they've received a license for 40,000 people to squeeze into Robin Hill. Great festival, great line up, but isn't that too many people for a site that size?

The first cabaret version of Intimate History will take place at Warwick Arts Centre on 31st May. 'Intimate History - Into the Night' features a 5 strong band, new songs and is on a double bill with the very fine Talking Birds show - Trevor Goose.

Also next week sees a rare outing for the new Stan show' The Cleansing Of Constance Brown' on home turf seehttp://www.stanscafe.co.uk for details. It's quite a ride.

Did I mention the drums? Breakneck beats from Yonadav Halevy who manages the seemingly impossible task of keeping a get-on-yer-feet beat and leading the band and sorting out quite a lot of technical problems whilst all the time looking like he's having the best time time of his life.

It's a thoroughly infectious mix and soon enough if you're not grooving with a great big smile on your face well then you're way too cool for school. Their signature Rage against the machine cover goes down a bomb wiv da kids, an encore includes a laugh out loud call and response between us and what sounds like James Brown in a mincer. Honestly.

I got to remembering my two tours to Israel in 2000 and 2002. The spirit of The Apples was so much like a lot of the people I met, especially in Tel Aviv. At the time I couldn't help thinking all this hedonism was born out of a fatalist approach to life. Could be dead tomorrow so lets enjoy today sort of thing.

It looks like they're on tour in the UK til the 20th but check them out here if you can't see them. More of the same please

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=37880542

'Gigbeth - The UK's Most Diverse Music Festival' - is another case of running before you can walk. I have to admit to only attending the opening event here but with such a shambolic organisation who can blame me? With an open mind a bunch of us turned up fashionably late to the free event on the high street an hour after the published start. Unfortunately so had the sound crew it seemed. With a 200 strong crowd in a 5,000 capacity arena we waited for another half hour while the crew farted around trying to get the first band on. Reports of seeing them playing footie and not working during the day even though the stage was ready filtered through... Another case of advertising superlatives not delivering, made all the more embarrassing as a major music conference that coincided with the event can't have failed to notice the events shortcomings.

Come to think Birmingham is always harping on about the biggest this, the most that, so i suppose it's no surprise that's bled into the arts market from, say, 'The largest billboard in the world!!!!!!!!!!!' or 'The most places that look like the back of somewhere.'

I don't want to be entirely negative so i've got to include how much I like the newly refurbished Town Hall. The opening programme was well thought out and suitably eclectic. You couldn't help thinking someone was testing the water to see which events drew which crowds, spent what money. I only hope whoever was doing that doesn't then close up the doors and shy away from programming such wide ranging, quality acts.

We had a chance to see a great site-specific new circus show by Italian/Danish company Cantabile2.
Set outside a disused dockside grain silo with a complimentary boat-trip, it was highly skilled, beautifully lit and breathtaking. Grungey Bukowskian characters knocking around in industrial wastelands. Visual enough to understand in any language but not so tricksy as to lose a sense of emotion and humanity. Sets a pretty high standard in comparison the other circus shows in my limited experience.