Music:
Member Since: 15/11/2007
Band Members: No Prima Donnas ( www.myspace.com/noprimadonnas ) & High Notes Showcase Nights come together to create more opportunities for singer songwriters in & around Bristol.
We're starting with Songsmith at Mr Wolf's on Mondays ( www.myspace.com/songsmithpub ). 3 great acts for a mere £2 + if you bring one of our flyers, you're entitled to 2 bowls of noodles for the price of one! That's a bloody good deal if you ask me.
Under the same umbrella you can also find SongSmith@ Mayors Arms ( www.myspace.com/songsmithfridays ) at Mayor's Arms, Redcliffe. 3 great acts for a minute £3 & cheap beer. What more could you want?
And so this is Xmas … and actually we’ve done quite a lot but not been that much time to write about it.
We are already running the SongSmith nights at Mr Wolf’s under this name and organised the impromptu Oxjam gig together in October. Since then we’ve been plotting and filling in spreadsheets and talking to potential suppliers / artists and a lot of our friends to see what we can set up.
From the middle of January we will also be taking offices at Artist Studios run by our good mate Ben Woodward. The plan is to run an office we can work out of as well as a small composition and recording suite for singer / songwriters of our acquaintance as well as take on some more serious promotion work. We’ll initially be trying to set up gigs for High Note and No Prima Donna related acts. We’ll be getting ex-Scissors wielding running person Nix Urbane in to help us out with that side of things.
We will also be organising some releases on our own Jumping Joint record label. This is likely where Q's Devil’s Garden single will appear along with Helen’s New Orleans Musicians benefit album. We are also planning to release a SongSmith compilation album sometime in the spring.
We are also negotiating some re-releases of old materials from some of our old friends as well as new material from old and new friends alike as well as offering publishing facilities for our artists. Again details are yet to be confirmed .
We’ll be doing top notch demos at knock down prices in our composition suite which will have professional standard equipment as well as very nice friendly producer (yes shucks, it’s me …) and for larger scale work we’ll be using the live room and plushness of the Artist Studios with even more super equipment. It’s really going to be a one-stop shop for singers / songwriters and we plan to provide session musicians, arrangement services, guest producers as well as the in-house team in addition to the record label, publishing, promotion and artist management. If you’re interested in using or providing any of these services do get in touch!
Also coming under the Jumping Joint wing will be the High Notes Show Case nights. This seems like a natural break as the arrangement with St Bonaventure’s is coming to an end due to some mutual dissatisfaction with the setup. But welcome in the Jumping Joint Show Case night which will start on Friday 25th January at the Mayor’s Arms in Redcliffe. We have been chatting to the owner there Cyril (Squirrel to his mates) and it looks like it’s going to be a really boon to all of us and we’re all really excited about it. Helen will continue to mostly run this night and its format will be similar to its existing setup—though hopefully we’re going to sort out some proper advertising like … so eh hem Nice One Cyril. And Helen.
BARRSFest ( www.myspace.com/barssfest )will also now be run as a joint promotion and this year will be in August—exact date to be finalised. We’re also very excited to announce that this year BARRSFest will be supporting a Bristol-based children’s charity called National Association for the Children of Alcoholics (www.nacoa.org) where Q has been doing some volunteer training (no that’s not a euphemism for community service) and they have also been very supportive and enthusiastic so hopefully publicity and turnout will be even better than last year, even more fun will be had, and even more money raised! BARRSFest MySpace and web sites are the places to look for all the latest and hottest news on that though it will continue to get a mention here on a regular, frequent and frankly obsessive basis.
SongSmith will be getting several new strands and full details can be found at ( www.myspace.com/songsmithpub ).
Record Label: unsigned
Type of Label: Indie