A night at the museum…

Posted on May 14, 2012

The Cardiff Story Museum has teamed up with two of Cardiff’s top music institutions, Clwb Ifor Bach and Spillers Records, to curate The Cardiff Sessions, a night of free live music in the museum’s galleries.

On  May 18 , five Cardiff acts – The Gentle Good (pictured), Spencer McGarry, Evening Chorus, Miss Maud’s Folly and Little Arrow -  all hand picked by The Cardiff Story, Clwb Ifor Bach and Spillers Records, will take the stage for The Cardiff Sessions. Radio Wales DJ Georgia Ruth Williams will MC the night, which will also include a music quiz with prizes provided by Spillers Records.

The event is part of the Museums at Night, an annual after-hours celebration of arts, culture and heritage when hundreds of museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage sites open their doors for special evening events. It is coordinated by Culture24, and takes place over the weekend of Friday 18 to Sunday 20 May. The Cardiff Sessions will celebrate some of the best live music Cardiff has to offer, and also give visitors a chance to see the galleries and the city’s history in a new light, completely free of charge.

The Cardiff Story Museum opened its doors for the first time in 2011 to become the only museum dedicated to telling the city’s tale. The Museum focuses on portraying Cardiff’s history through the eyes of those who made it – its people.

The new Museum provides both an introduction to the city for visitors and a community resource for residents. The Museum is open seven days a week and entry is free.

The Museum’s collection is made up of over 3,000 objects, the vast majority of which has been donated by the Cardiff public. Items on display in the museum range from a cutlass used by the Bute Docks police in the late 19th Century to a jukebox from Clwb Ifor Bach Cardiffians danced to 100 years later.  The Cardiff Story also worked in partnership with the National Museum of Wales to allow Cardiffians access to over 8000 Cardiff related objects in their collection. Many of these are on display in the Cardiff in Context gallery.

The new Museum is located on the site of the iconic Victorian Grade II* listed Old Library. The Museum includes a permanent introductory gallery (Cardiff in Context), a fully interactive lifelong learning suite (City Lab), state of the art classrooms, a community showcase gallery and access to the Grade II* Listed historic tiled corridor.

The Museum’s phase 1 development was completed in 2011 with funding from Cardiff Council, Heritage Lottery Fund, the Engelhardt family’s Moondance Foundation, the Welsh Assembly Government via Museums, Libraries and Archives (CyMAL) and the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries Wales with kind contributions from donors to the Big Give public appeal as well as various community groups across the city.

Rachel Carney, Learning Officer at The Cardiff Story said: “We’re really excited about The Cardiff Sessions. It’s not the kind of event you’d usually expect to find in a museum, so it’s a great opportunity to attract new audiences to the galleries. Clwb Ifor Bach and Spillers are the mother ships of the Cardiff music scene – nobody is better placed to curate an evening of some of the best our city has to offer!”

Catrin James, Events Programmer at Clwb Ifor Bach said: “It’s an honour for Clwb Ifor Bach to be part of ‘The Cardiff Sessions’ for Museums at Night 2012. The Cardiff Story is an unique museum that celebrates not only it’s social history but it’s current cultural tapestry of music / theatre & art and beyond. I’m really excited about the night and looking forward to hearing the musicians play in the wonderful surroundings of the museums galleries.”

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Legendary guitarist ‘Eric Johnson’ announces July UK tour

Posted on Mar 5, 2012

Eric Johnson, the celebrated American electric guitarist, hailed by Joe Bonamassa as “one of the greatest guitar players of all time,” will embark on his first UK tour at the Holmfirth Picturedrome on Friday 5th July. The 5-date mini tour will showcase material from his current album “Up Close”, as well as from his rich back catalogue.

Planet Rock will start at ticket pre-sale on Wednesday 7th March, followed by a ticket pre-sale from Ents24 on Thursday 8th March.

Tickets go on sale to the general public via the 24 hour box office: 0844 478 0898, www.thegigcartel.com.

Johnson is also a respected acoustic, lap steel, resonator and an accomplished pianist and vocalist. He’s best known for his diverse array of music genres evidenced by many different styles incorporated in his studio and live performances, including rock, blues, jazz, fusion, folk, New Age and country music.

Guitar Player magazine called Johnson “one of the most respected guitarists on the planet”. His critically acclaimed, platinum-selling 1990 recording Ah Via Musicom produced the single Cliffs of Dover, for which he won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Cliffs of Dover also appeared in Guitar Hero 3 – Legends of Rock.

In 1996 he joined forces with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai for the original and legendary G3 tour that garnered a worldwide audience with the platinum selling CD and DVD release.

Johnson is best known for playing stock Fender Stratocasters and Gibson ES-335 electric guitars through a triple amp setup that consists of vintage Fender and Marshall amplifiers.

He plays vintage Stratocasters but also his ‘Fender Signature Stratocaster’ model, which is one of the best selling instruments in the Fender catalogue. He also designed a Signature acoustic guitar that was released by Martin guitars.

Eric Johnson’s stature as one of the premier guitar players in contemporary music is his artistic trump card, backed by a Grammy Award and five nominations, platinum album, Top 10 hits like Cliffs of Dover, praise from critics and the esteem of his peers. The full range of his talents marks him as a gifted songwriter, dynamic live performer, singer, pianist, and song interpreter.

His myriad and distinctive musical gifts are vividly evident on Johnson’s current studio album, Up Close, released on his own Vortexan Music label. The 15-track disc finds the noted master craftsman cutting loose, roaming through variations on the rock, blues, pop, country and jazz genres,  pushing the dynamic range of his artistry, and mixing it up with such friends and peers as guitarists Jimmie Vaughan and Sonny Landreth, plus guest vocalists Steve Miller, Johnny Lang and Malford Milligan.

“I decided to let go a bit and allow things to happen and just go with the flow,” explains Johnson about his approach to the album. “That’s a direction that works better for any artist, and especially for me. I like my work to have a high proficiency, but I also want to go for the energy and magic of the performances.”

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Eleanor McEvoy tours “Alone”

Posted on Jul 4, 2011

One of Ireland’s most accomplished singer songwriters, Eleanor McEvoy, has embarked on an extensive UK tour. Her warm, lyrical songs are an open invite to get involved in what should be a breakthrough tour for her in Britain, for although her worldwide hit single “A woman’s heart” may be familiar, she has yet to make the household name list on these shores. You can hear a sample of her music here.

Coinciding with the tour is the release of her new album “Alone” a twelve track journey through the art, emotions and mind of this luxuriantly talented artist. If you think there’s a better song than “You’ll hear better songs (than this)” (;-)) released this year, then you have cloth ears. Her vocals, with that distinctive Dublin burr of hers, are heart-breakingly inspiring, and a counterpoint to the simplicity and accessibility of songs. The combination is an outstandingly listenable mixture that is both instantaneously likeable and insistent enough to be memorable. Liking McEvoy’s work is easy, because it’s beautiful.    

Exposed to music at a very early age, Dublin born Eleanor McEvoy grew up in a strict Catholic household in the grey north-side suburb of Cabra. After a musical upbringing playing the piano, violin and performing on stage with her older siblings, Eleanor graduated in music from Trinity in Dublin and set out to pay her way through life as a jobbing musician. Already writing her own songs, she was waiting for the opportunity to branch out on her own. To initially pay her way, Eleanor spent 4 years in Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), she recorded studio sessions as a singer, fiddle and keyboard player and joined Irish diva Mary Black’s touring band. She then decided to cash in her savings and go for it; spending the cash on better song demos, home recording gear and a decent guitar.

Out of the blue, two chances came along at once. Mary and her record company manager/husband decided Eleanor’s song "A Woman’s Heart" would be a fitting title and lead song for the compilation they were putting together of contemporary Irish female performers. Simultaneously the legendary Tom Zutaut of Geffen Records (who signed the likes of Guns N Roses and Motley Crue), on a scouting mission to Dublin, heard Eleanor in a pub, bought her demo cassette and on the spot decided he wanted to sign her to Geffen.

Everything changed and Eleanor was off to tour the world, while at the same time A Woman’s Heart went into the Irish charts and still remains the biggest Irish selling record in the home market.

Zutaut’s departure from Geffen led to Eleanor re-signing to Columbia Records in New York. By this time she had a band and she cut the album "What’s Following Me?"  Columbia reinvested, but Eleanor let the band go and went in to a French Chateau with producer Rupert Hine (Rush, Stevie Nicks, Tina Turner) and engineer Ruadhri Cushnan (George Michael, Mumford and Sons and the Maccabees). Events now took a lurch side-ways, as Eleanor was attacked walking home from the studio in London. Traumatised and with a damaged hand, Eleanor had to recruit a new band to tour the album. Sadly the album was not what Columbia had in mind, and after the briefest airing of "Snapshots", they let her go. (Bizarrely "Sophie", a song from the album has become a focus of hope and comfort for anorexics world wide on you-tube with videos made with the song as the soundtrack).

Having recovered and not about to give up, Eleanor moved to Wexford and recorded "Yola" a far more tranquil and thoughtful album, which remains to this day a talisman in the worldwide Hi-Fi community.

Embarking on full time song-writing during this period, she’s co-written with Rodney Crowell, Lloyd Cole, Henry (The Christians) Priestman and Johnny Rivers. Her most recent and longest writing companion has been Dave Rotheray of the Beautiful South. This culminated in the recording and performance of Dave’s "Life Of Birds" album.  Eleanor co-wrote five of the songs, sang and played on several of the tracks and was a special guest on the album’s tour earlier this year.

MOSCODISC has announced the September 12th UK release for Eleanor McEvoy’s 9th studio album Alone; a beautiful collection of 12 stripped-down solo tracks, including the new single You’ll Hear Better Songs (Than This), A Woman’s Heart and a unique take on P.F. Sloan’s Eve Of Destruction.

Says Eleanor, "There was a time when I was stranded in a long gap between tour dates and, with time to kill, I headed for the peace of The Grange; a small studio tucked away in the Norfolk countryside. In the converted barn, alone except for Dave the engineer, I stepped up to the microphone and sang my songs. My state of mind wasn’t the brightest, but there was a certain something about being in the studio with no agenda, no deadline, no pressure, it just came out."

The product of those tranquil sessions is an album of incredibly haunting performances, up close, personal, and timeless. This is Eleanor McEvoy in her most intimate setting, running through the journey of her writing and singing career.

One of Ireland’s most accomplished singer/songwriters, McEvoy’s life as a musician began at the age of four. To date, she has released albums on the Geffen and Columbia record labels and continues to tour the world over to her ever increasing legion of fans.

Eleanor wrote and recorded the worldwide hit single A Woman’s Heart which was the title track on the album Only A Woman’s Heart; the best-selling Irish album in Irish chart history.

To coincide with the September 12th release of Alone, McEvoy will embark on a 16 date tour of the UK, which kicks off on September 21st in Birmingham.

Tour dates:

Wednesday 21st September
BIRMINGHAM GLEE
Tickets: £10 / Box Office: 0871 472 0400
www.glee.co.uk
The Arcadian, Birmingham, B5 4TD

Thursday 22nd September
HAMMERSMITH IRISH CENTRE
Tickets: £12 / Box Office: 0208 563 8232
www.irishculturalcentre.co.uk
3 Black’s Road, Hammersmith, W6 9DT

Friday 23rd September
WINCHESTER DISCOVERY
Tickets: £10 / Box Office: 01962 873603
Jewry Street, Winchester, SO23 8SB

Saturday 24th September
NOTTINGHAM GLEE
Tickets: £10 / Box Office: 0871 472 0400
www.glee.co.uk
British Waterways Building, Castle Wharf, Canal Street, NG1 7EH

Sunday 25th September
BRIGHTON KOMEDIA
Tickets: £10 / Box Office: 0845 293 8480
www.komedia.co.uk/brighton
44 – 47 Gardner Street, Brighton, BN1 1UN

Monday 26th September
PORTSMOUTH CELLARS
Tickets: £10 / Box Office: 0845 293 8480
www.thecellars.co.uk
56 Cromwell Road, Southsea,
Hampshire, PO4 9PN

Tuesday 27th September
STRATFORD UPON AVON COX’S YARD
Tickets: £10 / Box Office: 01789 404600
www.coxsyard.co.uk
Bridgefoot, Stratford on Avon, CV37 6YY

Wednesday 28th September
HEBDEN BRIDGE TRADES CLUB
Tickets: £11 / Box Office: 01422 845265
www.thetradesclub.com
Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EE

Thursday 29th September
KENDAL BOOTLEGGERS
Tickets: £6 / Box Office: 01539 723824
www.bootleggersbar.com
24 Finkle Street, Kendal, LA9 4AB

Saturday 1st October
BELLSHILL CULTURAL CENTRE
Tickets: £10 / 01698 403120
www.intimate-gigs.com
John Street, Bellshill, ML4 1RJ

Sunday 2nd October
GLASGOW SOUND IN THE SUBURBS
Tickets: £10 / 08444 155221
http://tinyurl.com/64frp6u
30 Chamberlain Road, Glasgow, G13 1QG

Monday 3rd October
EDINBURGH MALONES
Tickets: £8 / 0131 226 5954
www.wegottickets.com/event/124375
14 Forrest Road, Edinburgh, EH1 2QN

Wednesday 5th October
ESSEX HIGH BARN
Tickets: £10 / 01371 811 291
www.high-barn.com
28 The Bardfield Centre,
Great Bardfield, CM7 4SL

Thursday 6th October
OSWESTRY IRONWORKS
Tickets: £10 / 01691 679123
www.the-ironworks.co.uk
Church Street, Oswestry, SY11 2SP

Friday 7th October
BURY MET
Tickets: £10 / 0161 761 2216
www.themet.biz
Market Street, Bury, BL9 0BW

Saturday 8th October
COATBRIDGE BERRETS
Tickets: £8 / 01463 233 651
www.intimate-gigs.com
67 Church Street, Inverness, IV1 1ES