Charley Marlowe Redux
Wednesday, June 8, 2011, 04:10 PM
Around fifteen years ago, me and my friend P started putting poems to music. We would do these very particular pieces. They were quirky, folky, fragile things and they used to ellicit the most violent responses. We were impervious to sensations of success or failure and continued on, eventually forming a band, Charley Marlowe, that various people tried to sign and make something of, but there was a quality in us that was completely resistant to anything of that kind. It was in the days before youtube and mobile phones with cameras so there is nothing of our live stuff out there on the internet. And we were pretty much all about live - we had scores upon scores of songs and recorded a handful, kind of by chance. The band broke up, when one day I remarked dreamily to Frank the percussionist and Lucas the electric guitarist that in seven years or so, we would really come into our audience.
In fact, it was more like 14 years - me and P were laughing about the huge folk revival that's gone on and how well we would have fitted in - maybe.
P is about to release his 4th album in France. It's amazing. I went to visit him and his family with my family. The kids played and me and P recorded a cover version of 'I'll Be Your Mirror' - link should be on his site:http://www.piersfaccini.com/
We also did this totally acoustic gig in an old Romanesque church. 100 people was the maximum capacity, candles, no mics. And of course, no cameras, no recordings.
Leave No Trace :)
The poster for the event. Loud, isn't it.
;)
L'eglise St Etienne.
;)
P before the gig.....it was dark when we started.
The acoustics were a revelation, I guess it's a church, the lessons and parables spoken by the priests and the mystery and drama of the mass and the choral singing and chanting, they would have built it to create beauty and power from the voice.
Even whispered words soared over the guitar and harmonica. P did a cover of Skip James' Cypress Grove and the swallow and bat who had been flitting around the space started dancing with each other. It was cool and weird.
If you are curious to hear some Charley Marlowe tracks, you can hear some here http://www.myspace.com/charleymarlowe
http://www.wildscreen.tv/videos/6304856/Charley-Marlowe-Limo-Piers-Faccini-and-Francesca-Beard-
And you can buy the ep here: http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/shop.html
BookSlam!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 08:34 PM
Come!
http://www.bookslam.com/
Aesop Agency:21st Century Fables
Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 03:43 PM
;)
I was commissioned by brand strategists, Aesop Agency to write some modern stories inspired by Aesop's Fables - it was a fun thing to do and I'm proud of the pieces - there's a video of me performing some of them at the launch if you click on the link below and I think there should be a bunch more in text form on the Aesop Agency site.
http://www.aesopagency.com/index.php/blog/21st-century-fables/
I am a supermoron.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 03:33 PM
So I'm lying in bed, back in London, after the euphoria of running the first London Tales-type event at Banff, thinking about writing the tales of my core characters and worrying whether it was a mistake to clear my diary of paid work so I could do so and then I think, well, what have I got coming up this month? Well, there's the workshop at Keat's House for Benjamin Zephaniah's residency on Sunday 29th, looking forwards to that, and then oh, I've also got Animal Olympics at the Birmingham Book Bash on Sunday 29th..................
Shame, ignominy and the lash of a thousand disappointments. Woe and woe and woe.
I have put myself in the lowest doghouse next to nettles and a skip and am contemplating my place in the universe as being but a shard of scree in the sweaty sock of life.
Dorothea Smartt is one of a whole heap of people better than me morally and admin-wise and is now running a great workshop opportunity on Sunday 29th May, 1 - 4pm at Keat's House.
Sunday 29th May
Creative Writing Workshop
Keats: London Roots
Explore Keats's London roots in this creative writing workshop with Dorothea Smartt: "This opportunity to create our own poetry within this unique physical setting is fabulously rich and exciting. Inspired by Keats' own London roots and his use of common language, this workshop will start with real geographical spaces in London and explore how, through our poetic writing, we can create and reveal our own roots in, and visions of London spaces."
1 - 4pm
£8 - please book in advance
Meanwhile, I will be in Birmingham.
Banff Tales flyer.... I'm so nervy and excited...
Friday, April 29, 2011, 07:24 PM
It's 1254 Mountain Time, we're doing the tech run-through in 30 minutes and doors open at 1500.
There's a greenscreen poemfilm, a song to improvised fiddle music, numerous audience surveys, a historical re-enactment of the first Theatre and Creative Writing programme at Banff School of Fine Arts, 'Which Superhero/DragQueen Would you Be?' a Smudging by Elder Tom Crane Bear and a Wedding. Oh, and of course, an Election.
Got to go get some lunch.
;)
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