I realised I hadn’t really said anything on here about how LUME On Tour with Quadraceratops and Entropi went. It was brilliant! All the gigs were lovely, the logistics went smoothly without any disasters and we all had a lot of fun. After so many months working on the project, it feels a bit mad that it’s all over, but it couldn’t have gone better really, all things considered. Here are a selection of photos, with more to be found on the #LUMEOnTour hashtag.
Category Archives: Quadraceratops
LUME On Tour!
Exciting news…Quadraceratops is going on tour! We’ll be on the road with Dee Byrne’s band Entropi, under the banner of ‘LUME On Tour’. Dee is releasing the debut Entropi album too. We’re playing nine dates around the UK; check out the poster below and see if you can make one of the gigs…
Happy 2015! And some gigs…
I’ve just updated my gigs page with some 2015 dates. Lots of fun stuff coming up, starting this Saturday 10th January, with the Raw Tonk Records in-store gig at the awesome tiny record shop Electric Knife in Kentish Town. Anton and I are playing a Ripsaw Catfish set, sharing the bill with Anton Mobin and Benedict Taylor, who also have an album out on Raw Tonk.
Notable things coming up in the first half of this year include the first outing of a new band, Sloth Racket, at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival on April 12th. The festival is happening at The Sage, Gateshead, and we’re sharing the bill with Rachel Musson, Julie Kjaer and Hannah Marshall as part of Jazz North East’s ‘Women Make Music’ series, supported by PRSF. Rachel and I are also giving a workshop on free improvisation…
In late May/early June, Dee and I are striking out with our bands for ‘LUME On Tour’. Entropi and Quadraceratops will play double bills around the UK, giving us a chance at the same time to meet lots of other promoters as LUME. We have applied to Arts Council England’s Grants For The Arts scheme and also to the PRSF Open Funding scheme for this, so we’re crossing our fingers that we can make it all happen! Entropi will also be launching their debut album, on the F-IRE Presents label, on the London date of the tour (7th June at the Vortex).
All the dates are on my gigs page, so head over and see what I’m up to. Hope to see you out there somewhere!
The London Jazz Festival is upon us!
It’s that time of year again, and I’ve got a few things coming up in the London Jazz Festival. They are:
18th, 19th and 20th November: a three night LUME festival special! I’m playing on the 18th (with Ripsaw Catfish) and the 20th (with Quadraceratops) plus referee-ing the Deemer/duck-rabbit double bill on the 19th. More info on the LUME blog post, and there are advance tickets on sale for all three gigs too.
23rd November: Quadraceratops are playing at the BBC Jazz On 3 festival edition of ‘Jazz In The Round’, at the Clore Ballroom, Southbank Centre. We’re kicking off the four-band bill at 2pm. This will be fun! It’s also being recorded for Radio 3, and will be broadcast at 11pm on Monday 8 December.
In between all that I’ll be trying to catch everyone else’s amazing gigs. See you out there!
NB: The Ripsaw Catfish gig is also the first night of our ‘Shoaling’ tour. We’re heading off around the UK in November and December, collaborating with lots of different improvisers. There’s some more info on the Sound And Music project page, and here’s a handy flyer.
Guardian and FT reviews for Quadraceratops album
I’m extremely chuffed that the Quadraceratops album has been reviewed in the Guardian and the Financial Times! Plus – both reviewers had some very nice things to say indeed. Yep, it’s self-indulgent, but here they are in full:
Quadraceratops album launch gigs…
See you there? Advance tickets for October 5th are available from the Vortex website, and the Manchester Freedom Principle gig on October 7th is £5 on the door.
Quadraceratops album available for pre-order!
Exciting news: the Quadraceratops album is now available for pre-order from Efpi Records! It will be released on October 6th, but you can place your order now for download and/or CD versions. I did the album artwork using linocut printmaking and I’m really pleased with how they came out:
I think my living room will be looking like this for a while…
Quadraceratops @ The Salisbury
I’ve just booked in a gig for Quadraceratops at Jazz At The Salisbury on Sunday 2nd February. It’s always nice to play there, and this will be a week before we go into the studio so a good chance to blow through the tunes ready for the session. Come along if you’re free!
Quadraceratops recording booked…
After a lot of diary checking, we’ve booked in the Quad album sessions for April. Very exciting! There is still much admin to be done, but it now feels like a real thing. And a deadline. Time to knuckle down for a winter of editing and shuffling the music around…
Resurrecting Paul Francis‘ Quad for the occasion.
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;)
Finally, 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!