Thursday 26 April 2012

New Digital Release

That classic Cantabile (The London Quartet) album, Hear No Evil... is now available for digital download - at least at CDuniverse and on Amazon (com and co.uk)... hooray... itunes seem a little tardy, but we shall say as soon as it is up there... but it's somewhere in the ether already!
Lots of songs which we still sing (as they are so good!), and a few that only have occasional outings...
Go on, you know you want to!

PS: second Dutch corporate, as good as the first... similar lovely atmosphere (and food!), and a great Castle (Kasteel de Wittenburg). Lut Van der Eycken as gracious to us as yesterday.... two more in June.

Dutch trip #1

Two pairs of concerts in the Netherlands, the second in June, started yesterday in Meppel & continue today near Leiden... more specifically: Chateauhotel en restaurant De Havixhorst & Kasteel de Wittenburg.
A (very wise) business here has four centres and they provide entertainment for each every year... and we are the chosen act this year.
Lovely audience last night and excellent food... all splendid.

We were introduced, and interviewed live by Lut Van der Eycken - a presenter on Belgian classical radio channel, Klara

Hoorah for Holland - good to be back...

Friday 20 April 2012

Keswick - Funny Side

Last weekend we had a (really short) sojourn in very north England.
Keswick was the destination for our first ever Funny Side of the Street - and splendid it was too.  All the new stuff seemed to work and people even laughed.... well, what can you do?
Some were especially touched by Steve's rendition of Tim Minchin's Not Perfect - and no, we have not recorded it ... yet!
As Mike said (& Richard wrote) we had on stage a mass murderer, a spotty adolescent, a hairy nun & a cross-dressing lumberjack ...and that was just the performers!  I was certainly finding it difficult not to laugh at times.... especially in the Hee Bee Gee Bees' Meaningless Songs & Barry Cryer's Peace & Quiet...

Wonderfully accompanied by Chris Hatt, as ever, and he, in turn, was accompanied by Sian and the three cherubs... how glorious...

Steve and I went home though the early night (Steve drove) and were in London by three; allowing me to go on holiday to Cornwall the next day... hence the lateness of this missive...

Wednesday 4 April 2012

New things

Lots of new things on offer...

We have been busy preparing new songs for our show On the Funny Side of the Street - lots of new stuff for us; the show is a selection of funny UK material... from Monty Python (not just Lumberjack...), Hee Bee Gee Bees, Instant Sunshine, Barrys Cryer & Took, Tim Minchin (yes OK, he is Australian, but he has lived here for years), Flanders & Swann, Coward and Stilgoe - we have been finding it hard to not collapse laughing in rehearsal!

We are preparing also, a few new songs for publishing by Edition Peters - we'll say as soon as we know more...

We are three-quarters through a new CD with pianist Malcolm Martineau - working title, Songs of Love and War... if only the venue of recording (Champs Hill), MM, we & the producer were available on the same day (ever), we'd be able to finish it soon... as soon as we know etc...

Also another digital CD release - Hear no Evil... from 1984 - will happen in late April.

More news on all this soon,
Have a Happy Easter...