Author Archives: cath

Things are happening in 2014

The last Quad gig of the year has happened, and the last LUME of the year is tonight, so now it’s *really* time to start sorting out what’s going on next year. Lots of things are up in the air, and some things are half-organised or very nearly organised, but I recently put the first actually-confirmed thing in my diary: Ripsaw Catfish will be playing at Corey Mwamba’s gig One Note Sunday in Derby, in April.

I really like One Note Sunday and I wrote about it before when we played there with the sax quartet. If you are in the Midlands and free on April 6th, come and check us out doing a bari sax/guitar duo thing. The night is also on FB and Twitter. How’s that for advance notice?

More on everything else soon once I have something to say!

 

Quadraceratops and LUME in the LJF, and a general update…

Well, after neglecting this site for a few months I thought it was probably time to write a new post! I’ve also given things a bit of a spring clean around here and changed the colours, so it’s kind of masquerading as a new website.

In a couple of weeks it will be that time of year once again: London Jazz Festival week. Last year Quadraceratops got a last-minute gig supporting Get The Blessing at the Jazz Cafe, so I was keen to get something in the diary for 2013 too. As a lot of my time so far this year has been spent working on LUME and Collisions, it seemed fitting for that something to happen at a gig I’m involved in running myself, and happily Dee and I managed to get LUME into the festival programme! We are putting on a double bill of our own bands, and although it’s not quite the last gig of the year, it feels like a nice way to celebrate getting the gig off the ground. Do come and join us on Thursday 21st November for what promises to be a lovely gig. Dee is bringing her excellent band Entropi, and I’ll be bringing the Quad. I’ll also have special guests Henry Spencer, Jason Simpson and ‘Dave O’Keys’ (aka Dave O’Bass!) joining us for the Quad set, which will be fun! The gig is listed on the LJF site, and of course you can also check our LUME website for details.

I’m hoping that 2014 will be the year of a Quadraceratops studio album, so there’s a lot of organising to be done. Much more to come on that topic soon: at the moment it’s mainly just me sending emails! We did manage to attempt an impromptu photo shoot at our Union Chapel Bar gig, of which this is probably the best shot…some good pouts going on at least;)

DSC_8621-v3-slightly-less-yellowFinally, I’m also working on a new project which I’ll be posting more about later: a duo with Anton Hunter on guitar and me on bari called ‘Ripsaw Catfish’. It’s a lot of fun and quite noisy. So far we’re touring the rehearsal rooms of London and Manchester, with some actual gigs coming up soon…

That’s probably about it for now. See you at Hundred Crows Rising for the Quad gig, if you can make it!

Quadraceratops at The Vortex!

Just confirmed: Quad will be playing at The Vortex on 17th September! I’m very excited about this. We’ll be sharing the bill with ReDiviDeR at a gig presented by Match And Fuse.

The Vortex, in Dalston, is my favourite venue in London and I’ve spent a lot of time in the audience checking out amazing gigs, so it will be fantastic to play there with the band. We’ll hopefully give a second airing to the two new tunes we played at LUME a couple of weeks ago. I would write another new one too, but it’s SO SOON! *Runs off to practice.* Here’s ‘Calico’ on its first outing:

 

If you can make it to the Vortex gig, it would be lovely to see you there…

Addition: I also just found out that Madwort Sax Quartet will be playing at Vortex Downstairs on September 4th! More info about this soon…

LUME

So, not sure if I’ve written a proper post about this yet but I’m setting up another new music night in addition to Collisions! This time it’s LUME, which I’ll be running with Dee Byrne. As we wrote in our preview on the London Jazz blog:

Rising from the ashes of ‘Jazz At The Waterline’ and ‘Jazz At The Hackney Cut’, both of which had to fold due to venue closure, LUME will brighten up Thursday nights with a new blend of original and improvised music, starting in July.

Hundred Crows Rising is a relatively new establishment with a healthy appreciation for stuffed crows. On the corner of Chapel Market, the pub has a great upstairs room that we’re excited to adopt as our new space. We’re looking forward to working with Katy, the owner, to establish what will hopefully become a long-running new addition to the roster of London musician-run jazz/improv nights. We’re really chuffed with the location too; five minutes’ walk from Angel tube.

We’ve put together an exciting programme of diverse bands who will be coming to play for us over the next few months, including Esben Tjalve’s Red Kite, Olie Brice Quartet, Liran Donin’s One Thousand Boats, and Tom Ward’s Madwort Sax Quartet. For the opening night on July 4th, we are very happy to be hosting two SE Collective groups: Identity Parade and Redshift.

The listings are starting to come together, and one of the best things so far is we have some fantastic artwork by Peter Beatty, including the angler fish below. Full posters and flyers will be appearing soon!

LUMElowresfish

 

A few new Quadraceratops gigs confirmed, plus MSQ tonight!

After neglecting the blog for a month or so, this is a quick post to announce some upcoming Quadraceratops gigs:

24th June at Jazz In The Round @ The Cockpit, Marylebone. I’m very excited about this one…

1st August at LUME, a(nother) brand new night that I’m setting up with my good friend the sax player Dee Byrne. The gig is upstairs at Hundred Crows Rising, near Angel, in a really nice room where we’ll be hosting great music every Thursday starting July 4th. Should be fun…I’ll do a proper post about LUME soon.

6th October at Jazz at the Union Chapel Bar, a new afternoon gig (3pm) run by the esteemed Mr Andrew Button of The Button Band. This will be the first EVER Quadraceratops afternoon gig!

And finally, just in case anyone reads this post straight after I finish writing it, a reminder that Madwort Sax Quartet is playing TONIGHT at Ryan’s Bar in Stoke Newington!

msqspillkitposter

In League With Robots presents: Collisions

Over the past few months I have spent a lot of time putting together a new project with my drummer friend Dan Paton. We’re launching a live music night in the basement of The Albany, Great Portland St. Every last Tuesday of the month, we will host an exciting double bill of our favourite music from a range of genres, kicking off on May 28th with Raevennan Husbandes & Babelfish. The night will be called Collisions, and our promoter duo name is In League With Robots. The acts for May through to August have all confirmed, and you can check out the listings on the website….see you at the Albany!

MSQ and Spill Kit

I’ve just heard that we have a Madwort Sax Quartet gig booked in for June 5th: a double bill with Chris Dowding’s band Spill Kit, at Ryan’s Bar in Stoke Newington. Get it in the diary! Should be a nice gig…

Quad at The Salisbury

We had a very enjoyable evening at the Salisbury on Sunday. The jazz night there is always well attended so there was a nice crowd, and it was also the first Quadraceratops gig with an open fire. I might work on this as some kind of winter rider requirement: nothing like a fireside chat before going on stage. This gig was also probably our last one with Jason Simpson, who has been playing bass while Dave O’Brien is away travelling. Thanks Jason! And thanks to Jazz @ The Salisbury for having us.

I’m working on some new music for the band at the moment, and also getting into more gig promotion, of which there will be news soon…