A Day Late, A Dollar Short

Hello!

Apologies for another late blog, at least it's just a day this time!

First off I want to say a big thank you to everyone who came down to The Lacehouse last Saturday for the Hope for Children benefit concert that I put on for a friend of mine.  He was very pleased with the event and the money we raised!  A special thanks to everyone who performed, Alexa Hawksworth was a fantastic addition to the bill and filled in at very short notice which we were incredibly grateful for.  We also had two other lovely ladies, Beth Frisby, Izzy Marie Hill and one of my favourite Nottingham based bands (possibly just one of my favourite bands in general) The Most Ugly Child performing an acoustic set of their country/Americana style music.  Finally I also want to throw in a huge thank you to Kimberley Winter of Under the Tree for helping make the night possible and The Lacehouse for being fantastic hosts as always.

Before I get into this weeks activities I want to say that sadly I will not be going on the Emily and the Woods and Sam Brookes tour that I was due to embark on today.  Due to some unfortunate work conflicts I have had to withdraw myself from the tour and also end my work with NA Music.  Thankfully, the wonderfully talented Dougie Francis was able to step up and fill the gap.  I wish Emily, Sam and Dougie all the best for the week, I'm sure they'll have a fantastic time!

This Friday I traveled back to Matlock for the first time since the February tour to play a set at Twenty-Ten for the lovely Jason Barker.  The two of us were also lucky to be joined by The Most Ugly Child who I was more than happy to watch again not a week since they played for me at The Lacehouse.  Since Matlock is pretty close to Nottingham but far enough away to be a bit of an adventure, with my Under the Tree friends in tow, we set out bright and early to go and explore what I'd call a seaside town with no sea (so many fish & chips restaurants and amusement arcades!).  It turned out to be a really lovely day out, we drove around the surrounding areas and I visited the Chatsworth Estate for the first time, such an impressive place!  The nice weather seems to have disappeared however, and as we were driving through the rainy countryside we had the questionable brilliant idea to film Hurricane in a stormy field.  The resulting video was very atmospheric and I got soaked.  It should hopefully be floating around on the internet soon as well as Kim's Road Trip diary showing our travels...

I did yet more filming bright and early on Saturday morning, this time for WAITT Unsigned at the BrewDog Nottingham.  That video should be available next Saturday (but I'll be living it up in Barcelona by then!).

Finally, I'm very pleased to announce that I will be going back into the studio, this time with Dan of The Most Ugly Child (which as you can imagine I'm very happy about), so the EP is getting set... I've even finished the artwork, can't wait to show you!

Tonight I'll be at The Golden Fleece for one of the last open mic nights with all my friends before people leave Nottingham and the uni life forever, these are pretty sad times but I'm sure we'll be having fun tonight!

Love y'all!

Anwyn :) x

The Late Blog

Hello everyone,

First and foremost I want to say sorry for forgetting to blog last week... The sunny British weather took me by surprise and I got a bit carried away sunbathing in the park!

So the last time I wrote on here I was writing live from Dot to Dot festival.  It seems like such a long time ago now but I just want to talk a brief bit about how fantastic it was.  I was lucky enough to be performing at the Dot to Dot fringe for the lovely people at Under the Tree down at Alley Cafe.  I was joined by some truly amazing acts including the likes of Agnes Bella, Michael Stott, Matt Gold and Beth Frisby.  When I wasn't helping out with our stage I was able to catch some of the main festival in full swing.  I kicked my Dot to Dot day off in Rescue Rooms bar with Leah Sinead who is an incredible local artist.  Continuing the Nottingham based theme, I went to Jongleurs to watch the amazing Georgie Rose perform with her full band.  After seeing her play an acoustic set just a few days before for Under the Tree at Bodega, it was brilliant to see just how perfectly she took to playing with a band.  It was also lovely to see the relatively large venue with so many people in to support a local talent, despite it being early.  This year's Dot to Dot excelled at bringing local acts to the forefront, with such a huge number of talented musicians performing I believe the Nottingham music scene is something everyone involved should be incredibly proud of.

Of course there were other acts at the festival, I finally was able to see Benjamin Francis Leftwich perform after missing him at the end of last year.  He took to the Rock City main stage alone with just his guitar and captivated the audience.  Over on the Rescue Rooms main stage later in the day, following very positive reviews from a friend, I saw Bear's Den and I am now officially in love with this band.  I'm kind of regretting jumping on the Gentlemen of the Road in Dublin tickets now I know that they'll be joining Mumford & Sons, Ben Howard and Edward Sharpe in London, but never mind!  I am hoping they put some more music online soon...  Towards the end of the day as the sun started to disappear, I headed back to Rock City for the 1975, they'd just arrived from supporting Muse at the Emirates but with so much energy you couldn't tell.  While they were no where near being my favourite of the day, it was totally worth sticking around for the majority of their set just to hear Chocolate and have a little dance/sing along (with my terrible accent impression).  Finally, before heading over to the silent disco, I went back to Jongleurs for one of my faves; Lucy Rose.  She was brilliant as ever, possibly even better than when I saw her in Sheffield!  

As if my Dot to Dot day couldn't get better, about 3 weeks before I'd set my iTunes to automatically download Laura Marling's new album and at midnight it did just that.  I won't go into a track by track review because I will be here til next week, but I am so happy with it.  Highlights for me are the 3 tracks she'd already released on SoundCloud; Once, Master Hunter and Where Can I Go? as well as Undine, Little Love Caster, When Were You Happy? and Devil's Resting Place.  Now, I realise that that's a lot of highlights, but that's how amazing and beautifully crafted this album is.  The first 4 tracks roll effortlessly into each other and could just as easily have been one long song.  Many of the tracks on the rest of the album remind me of Joni Mitchell, particularly When Were You Happy, perhaps because Marling relocated to LA for this album.  Either way, it is fantastic and I advise everyone to get a copy, I can't praise her highly enough.

Other than Dot to Dot I've been doing my standard rounds in Nottingham, putting in appearances at BrewDog, The Maze, Guitar Bar and The Lacehouse.  Today I'll be at the Maze again for Wipe Out Festival which I'm very excited about.  It's only £5 entry for 3 stages of music from 5pm til late!

Hope everyone is enjoying this cheeky bit of summer we're having!

Love y'all!

Anwyn :) x