acoustic – and so she thinks

Monthly open mic

admin — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 11:02:34 +0000

Scriggler: Live

admin — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 16:46:30 +0000

A night of creativity and inspiration for the thinking person
Music and words, stories and songs, poetry and performance all come together at The Harrison Bar, London, on Thursday 18th September for Scriggler: Live.
Celebrating the launch of Scriggler, a hub for words, a magazine, social network, publishing and blogging platform for anyone who wants to read, write and discuss any topic in any style, the evening is one of inspiration and imagination.
Scriggler: Live brings the online offline, this night of music, literature and debate continuing in the ethos of allowing stimulating and creative content to be shared. Featuring the best of both established and new spoken word artists, actors, writers, poets, musicians, the live events will enthral and entertain.
And so we have Sam Berkson, the ‘poet thug’, giving us his take on the issues he sees in London, counter balanced by the sweet and gentle yet no less powerful Jo Brandon. See magical work courtesy of Anna Beecher, hear some work submitted to Scriggler, and listen back as lovely and lilting Hannah Scott plays some acoustic tunes.
Thursday 18th September 2014
7.00pm for 7.30pm start
£5 in advance / £8 on the door
Get tickets in advance from We Got Tickets or Eventbrite, and follow Scriggler and me on twitter for more information.

Fiona Bevan

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:22:32 +0000

Gentle storytelling beauty is what Fiona Bevan specialises in, her knowing yet sweet voice cooing over gentle melodies. Described as ‘pop in disguise’ it is immediate and hook laden, without any saccharin sweetness and packaging that the genre becomes so often derided for. (As the co-writer for One Direction’s Little Things, along with Ed Sheeran, she can work her magic in this field too). Although she might fear that saying ‘My writing process is really an attempt to understand who I am and how not to be walked over in the world – as a woman, as a shy person, as someone doing something different. I’d say it’s about finding myself, if that didn’t sound so terribly cheesy’ might cause raised eyebrows, it’s actually the lovely lilting delicateness of the songs that cause such flex. Latest album Talk To Strangers was recorded entirely on analogue equipment with artist and producer Shawn Lee at his Bloomsbury studio in short bursts throughout spring last year and subsequently has a flitting and wholesome feel to it, all rustling leaves flickering in sunlight. Listen to more from the Suffolk born singer songwriter below.

SHHH festival

admin — Thu, 22 May 2014 17:21:12 +0000

SHHH festival is a celebration of the quiet, something we don’t get much of in this world, and especially in the music world. A lovely lazy day of only quiet music, to take place in Hampstead Baptist Church, the festival features Tiny Ruins and their gorgeous folky blues, the poignant sounds of Sophie Jamieson, lilting Rachel Dadd and meditative beats from Laid Observations, amongst many other fine purveyors of the whisper. Organised by the wonderful The Local, who describe themselves as offering ‘ neighbourly international music services,’ 2014 marks the festival’s eighth birthday.
Tickets are available here, and you can listen to all the artists below. Quietly.
https://soundcloud.com/the-local/sets/shhh-festival-london-24-5-2014

Music & Words – Masquerade

admin — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:50:07 +0000

Thom Byles, Jess Green, Roundhouse Poets & Sugardrum

Thursday 9^th May, 7pm doors

The Gallery Café, 21 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, E2 9PL

£5 advance, £6 on the door

Another evening of music and words from Booked and And So She Thinks in the beautiful Gallery Café. Featuring rhythmic acoustic from Thom Byles, Sugardrum and his soothing glacial sounds, the Liverpool based poet Jess Green making the mundane magnificent through words, and the talents of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, our guest partner for this event.
They say that every song has already been written, and every word already said. The theme of this evening is Masquerade – pretending to be someone else, taking something you think you know and presenting it in a new way, reinterpreting all that has been before. Think the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Oasis, Shakespeare via Twitter, Cat Power sung by a man, or Jay-Z in iambic pentameter. With a mix of original content from the artists and their own takes on art that you thought you know, the night will be one to delight.
If you want to know what you can be expecting from the artists and their original writing, take a listen to the little Soundcloud set here.
Tickets are available from We Got Tickets, and are only £5 in advance, £6 on the door.
The Gallery Café will be serving food and snacks throughout, so come down and grab some of their delicious vegan fare.
BOOKED is a literary event with the aim of creating a setting for cultural exchange and a community experience, allowing the exploration of the world, via words. In conjunction with Francesca, who runs And So She Thinks and numerous music projects, these events unite music and words in an intimate and inspiring setting.

Chatting with The YuYa – and get Naked for free!

admin — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:36:51 +0000

Yuya was a powerful Egyptian courtier during the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Signed to Dayjob Records The YuYa are an inspiring and eclectic duo who’s almost reggae folk fusion and dreamy indie tunes have been making waves amongst those who like their music with a dollop of authenticity and avant garde. It’s All Happening catch up with Eliseo Soardi and Constance Dalrymple, The YuYa Super nice folks, they have offered up Naked, their debut single, as a free download for you. Lovely!
For those who don’t know The YuYa, describe the band and your sound.
The YuYa is me and her. The influences of the band are very mixed and draw on the world of music. From rumba to waltz, jazz to reggae, acoustic soul to ska..all with our touch. We think that in these days of internet and the freedom it gives, everyone has developed a taste outside their cultural roots. This is due to a diversity never seen before; music is part of the same system and needs to be as diverse as possible, reaching places and mixing things no one until recently knew existed. Our sound, if it could be a colour, would be red.
Your debut album A Boy, A Queen and A Fish was out on 24 Sept– tell us about it.
The debut album is lovely to listen to. Nice songs, and to be honest we didn’t know we could make such good music :). Jokes apart, the album was written over 6 months in a London warehouse (Arena Massive) and then recorded in a wonderful theatre in the middle of the Italian Alps, in less than a week. It was winter and bloody cold! But it came out quite summery and that’s something we still don’t understand :). Many thanks to the Council of Pieve di Ledro, which gave us the place for free and Nilo Santoni who did an amazing job mixing the album and playing percussion for us!
The title of the album is taken from an African children’s story for wannabe fishermen…. it ends with a boy capturing the biggest fresh water fish that ever existed and the Queen of Uruba sparing the fish’s life to teach the boy a lesson! The metaphor of the story is that boys don’t impress Queens with just a fish!
You were the first signing to Day Job records – what made you decide to team up with them?
They look good and when we walk down the street together people are generally very pleased with the sight of us. Eli and Greg at the moment are in a beard growing competition that started last October…. and their credo was spot on for us as poor struggling employees!
You do both have day jobs – why do music? What does music, and being an artist mean to you?
Most of all, why work full time? Music means freedom to both of us.
You have both British and Italian roots, and have played all around the world, from Europe to Africa. There’s also a very diverse range of styles in your music, and the album was of course recorded in Italy – how does the world and culture influence you?
Constance loves rice and Eliseo loves pasta: two worlds and two cultures come together. It was difficult at the beginning of our musical relationship to combine our differences but we naturally came together and that’s because it is in the nature of things to mix and develop into a new one.
I’ve heard that you met at a fancy dress wedding – sounds amazing! What were you wearing, and was it the great costumes or witter banter than drew you to each other?
Constance was Billie Holiday and Eliseo was Amy Winehouse. Have you read The Secret? It explains how these things happen……
It’s Better is beautifully whimsical and rhythmic, which fits with the video – are visuals important to you?
Yes, very and we think the It’s Better video really gives an idea of what we are. Although the day of the filming on the boat was a mission! Constance does not like water! We couldn’t pee for 6 hours, and we had to put a pigeon out of his misery for reasons we can’t really explain here. In the end we had to row one boat to push the other for the whole day… But thanks to Lara (Jacoski) for the magnificent editing it worked well. Visuals are very important but I think the story is even more important. Have you ever seen a great film without a great story? Even Avatar had to have a story, special effects can only do so much….
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mWMYInaooE]
What have your highlights of the year been, and what’s coming up next?
We run a Festival in Italy called Mand’stock Festival, not to confuse it with man’s cock…. Last year was the first edition and it went really well! We had 45 bands and djs, a skateboarding half-pipe, rock climbing walls and great Italian food and drinks! 2000 people came and we think this year is going to be even bigger! It’s great to organize a Festival so we can invite bands we love. Damian Rice was at the festival on the Friday and we had a chat about music and business, we’re now friends 🙂 DJR and The Harrison Pub (King’s Cross) are also involved in the Festival this year.
2013 is a promising year, with the album out and gigs coming up you should keep checking our website or join our mailing list for any updates! God Speed!

It's All Happening festival – the video is here!

admin — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:37:40 +0000

Here it is. Evidence that not only did the It’s All Happening festival did, er, happen, but that it was a damn good day to boot. Check out performances from Alessi’s Ark, Soulmates Never Die, The Ruby Kid, Silent Devices, and Fallingham Fair, and many others, marvel at the ambient surroundings of The Gallery Cafe, appreciate the delightful adornments and decoration, courtesy of Bronwyn Opland and the girls.
Again we would like to thank all the artists, be you of the music, art, spoken word, poetry or craft type, for your time, talent, and entertainment, The Gallery Cafe and St Margaret’s Settlement – good space and great staff, Rob Taylor & Aidan for making sound happen, Bronwyn & the girls for beautifying things, Lara for preserving the memories, The To Do List and everyone who helped spread the word, and all those who came down to enjoy the day.
Of course, the beauty of the visual art form is that you don’t have to read lengthy written musings – you can let the images do the talking. Here you are then:
[vimeo 45900953 w=500 h=281]

Neil Cousin – Bonfire

admin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:22:20 +0000

Released 5^th November 2011 on Olibug

Reviewed by Francesca Baker

The fourth album from Neil Cousin as a solo artist, Bonfire is the first to feature ‘a band’, with dense strings, varied piano laments and propulsive drums all contributed by friends and artists discovered on the way, in true bohemian style. The timing of the release, and possibly its name, means that an automatic ‘nu-folk’ label will be slapped upon it, but Bonfire is more raw and resonant than many in this gang. Pub Singer is an upbeat tale of a less than salubrious figure, Semaphore Haiku combines gentle guitar plucking with ardent yet never overwrought lyrics, and the tormented temper of title track Bonfire lingers on long after its closing notes. Striking is the reminder of The Libertines, sensitive and stark tracks Dead Chris and Carpathian Mountain March in particular having the troubled lilting pace of Music When The Lights Go Out and grazingly embracing vocal style of Carl Barat. A personal and powerful album that emotes the smokey smell, intense colours and yearning feeling of the autumnal, Bonfire is a welcome addition to cold evenings.

Rachel Sermanni, Robbie Boyd & Sugardrum

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:51:06 +0000

So, how did it go? We could rave about how wonderful it was, boast that we sold out, be pleased that people were piling in on the steps outside, impress you with the that fact all the profits raised by the cafe went to St Margaret’s House, or we could just let you see some of the comments we got back. Keep an eye out for videos and photos from the night!
‘You guys are absolute legends’ Robbie Boyd
‘It’s boiling in here but she’s just given me goosebumps’ Amy Yates
‘Brilliant, thank you so much for having us’ Sugardrum
‘Amazing quality and awesome organisation’ The London Folk Meetup Group
‘Just spellbinding at the Gallery Cafe, looking forward to the next date in London’ Ross Wilson
‘Such a fun gig at The Gallery Cafe. Thanks to It’s all Happening, Dan and Cesca; you are wonderful.’ Rachel Sermanni
‘You were, as always, sublime :)’ James Houghton
‘Such an amazing night. Total triumph’ Becky Glass
‘Looking forward to next It’s All Happening gig’ Antonia Baker
‘Such a good night. Again I go home with an armful of CDs.’ Katie Mortley
‘Amazing night.’ Emily Evans

White lips, pale face, breathing in the snowflakes…

admin — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:59:04 +0000

Recognise that? Course you do, but for what reason?

Literally every girl on the universe has taken a picture of themselves, posted it on Facebook with those lyrics as the caption and suddenly after 34 seconds of having been posted, the picture has 14 likes and 17 pretty similar comments reading ” omg babe u stunnaa!xx lolz, no jkee u beauuut!xx♥”. Not that thats a bad thing, they’re obviously talking about the lyrics and not the seemingly moody girl with a duckface pose. Yeah, you know the type…
You have amazing taste in music, and therefore have heard Ed Sheeran’s The A Team.
You saw example number 1, searched example 2 and you are now on example 3, the most probable answer.

The A Team is an acoustic yet rather sad song that tells the story of a young prostitue who suffers from abuse and drug addiction, the song tells of her struggles through life and ends in her death. I thought that either the song was that it sounded almost too real to have been purely fake or, this an excellent example of Sheeran’s creativity, but a quote from Ed Sheeran reveals that The A Team is based on a true story: ‘The song is a true story and was written by Sheeran after meeting a girl called Angel, whilst volunteering at a Crisis homeless shelter. He told The Sun July 15, 2011: ‘I wrote that song last year in a student flat in Guildford. I recorded it for less than £200 and made the video for under £20. In two weeks we’d sold 200,000 copies. I’ve made a song about a homeless prostitute who has been able to get on A-list radio.’

And the song hasn’t just touched moody-duckface-girl facebookers, but many parents as well. Sheeran told Q magazine: ‘After it got into the charts I got lots of messages from parents saying that something similar had happened to their daughters. When I wrote it I never thought that it would connect with so many people, but it’s great it has.’