So, the last In The Spotlight – the boutique semi-open variety night at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore, run by Moogieman and Lewis Newcombe – coincided with World Book Night.
‘What’s World Book Night?’ I hear you ask, ‘and is it related to World Book Day?’ Normally you’d expect the night to immediately follow, apart from some unspecified but certainly brief twighlight period, the day.
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First of all I’d like to apologise for not posting for a while. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from gigging and songwriting, and for much of March I was away in Paris and some of the cities of the Hanseatic League, namely Lübeck, Hamburg and Copenhagen. I’ll post some pics soon.
However, I have a couple of interesting pieces of news to report. First of all the Moogieman band is being beefed up with a keyboard player so you can expect some more rocking gigs soon. Second, I’ve recently completed a song about a Pomegranate. It starts:
Oh Pomegranate,
Most inscrutable of fruit,
I’d travel the solar system
To ingurgitate your wisdom
And caress your glowing orb.
This is some of the earliest colour movie footage. It was scanned recently and put on YouTube by Kodak, who created it as a test clip in 1922. That’s 13 years before the first full-length colour feature film, Becky Sharp.
The film was produced using the two-colour Kodakchrome process. Read the rest of this entry »
Who says Moogieman is a joyless scrooge, entirely lacking in festive spirit? Well you’re probably right but nonetheless he’s making an exclusive seasonal download available to likees of the moogieman facebook page.
The download is a brand new recording of My Origami Christmas tree, a song written last year for a Christmas gig at the Isis Farmhouse. Read the rest of this entry »
You may have heard rumours about a monthly variety night at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore in Jericho, run by Moogieman and Lewis Newcombe, where there is not only a mix of spoken word and musical performances but also regular improvised acting slots and even, it is whispered, a drawing competition. Read the rest of this entry »
Right, so first I should probably mention that along with my compadre Lewis Newcombe I’ve been putting on a variety night called In The Spotlight. This takes place monthly on a Tuesday in the Albion Beatnik Bookstore and incorporates music, poetry, storytelling and improv acting. There’s also a regular drawing competition. More on this later …
For this month’s Spotlight I wrote an election-themed poem in honour of the world’s most important democractic constest Read the rest of this entry »
In the early 1990s, as a result of the fall of the Iron Curtain, a bunch of students living in Viennna came across the Lomo Kompakt Automat – the iconic LC-A. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been another year and yesterday it was the Catweazle Club’s anniversary again – the legendary Oxford open mic has now been going for over 18 years. I decided to honour the occasion with a continuation of the story I wrote for last year’s anniversary: the history of the Kaddiska Mu-Stellar Club, an open mic on the planet Oxford in the Sopdet binary star system. Read the rest of this entry »
So I’ve now recovered sufficiently from my Edinburgh trip to write a few words and post some photos.
Edinburgh is a wonderful city, and it’s supercharged when the Fringe is on. I ended up playing the Kittens and Häagen-Dazs open mic at Pulp Fiction books, had slots on two days at the variety show Well It’s Woody, for which I got a mention in a review (Seamless cabaret night with a programme to savour …), and also played a fairly impromptu gig at a café (where I was wowed by the spiced Mexican coffee). Read the rest of this entry »
So … a few low-key gigs/open mics in Edinburgh … First the inruigingly named Kittens and Häagen-Dazs at Pulp Fiction bookshop on Thurs. Then on Friday an appearance at the Forest Café open mic, followed by a guest slot in ‘Well, It’s Woody’ at Fingers Piano Bar (to complete the wood-based theme of the day).
Looking forward to seeing lots of other great stuff, and catching a glimpse of that castle I visited on what seemed like endless occasions as a kid … well it was that and curtain shops.
I’ll be taking a number of cameras so expect some pics on here soon. In fact, I’ll have the polaroid so there may even be some almost-instant updates.
Variety night hosted by Moogieman and Lewis Newcombe
Albion Beatnik Bookstore, 34 Walton Street OX2 6AA