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Jez
Lowe News- Last updated - 1st September 2010 The Midnight Mail is updated regularly and you can also be added to the E-mail list by sending a note to jez@jezlowe.com September 1st 2010 - First airing of the new album WOTCHEOR! on BBC Radio is likely to be on Richard Digance's folk programme on Radio Devon this coming Sunday at 7pm BST. The show will also be available on that station's Listen Again feature... Some exceptionally good reviews of the new album are starting to come through. We may compile a list of links on the NEW ALBUM page of this site sometime very soon... Watch out for another track from WOTCHEOR! to pop up on Jez's MY SPACE site in a few days. It's linked from the homepage of this site... Jez plays the first of almost 60 gigs that he'll be doing before the year's end, with a concert at Falkirk Folk Club tomorrow night, before he joins The BIG Bad Pennies for their debut appearance at Fyvie Festival on Friday night. Then it's on to English festivals at Sedgefield (Saturday) and Fylde (Sunday). July 22nd 2010 - NEWS ROUND-UP - Last week's Folk Delivering Hope concert in Doncaster was a big success, and Jez ended his set by bringing Bob Fox on stage for three songs. You can see clips from the concert, though not the duets with Bob, by clicking here... The delayed ALL ALONG THE WALL CD is due for release at the end of July, prior to an official launch at the Green Phoenix Festival near Newcastle on August 22nd. Jez has three songs on the album, one written in collaboration with Julie Matthews... Jez is booked to host a week of songwriting workshops in September 2011, as part of the popular "La Jeusse" residential courses in France. He was formerly involved at the very start of these courses, about ten years ago, but didn't participate in the end... Jez is in Devon tonight at Bideford Folk Club and in Cornwall at Bodmin Folk Club tomorrow... We here at The Midnight Mail have been promised a preview of the new album this weekend, courtesy of producer David de La Haye, so we'll be reporting back early next week on what you're likely to expect when it's released in September... July 16th 2010 - Official release date for the new album is 20th September, according to Proper Distribution who will ne handling the CD in the UK. This is one month earlier than first planned, and in fact pre-release copies of the CD are likely to be on sale direct from Tantobie Records before then, either from Jez and the band at gigs or via this website. One track will be made available on MY SPACE on August 1st, together with track-listing, personnel details and other background information. Some local press coverage has already begun in North East England - more about this soon - and promo adverts are already in the works. Meanwhile, we're getting a lot of questions about the so-called BIG BAD PENNIES tour, especially regarding the line-up of the band for these dates in September. Along with the regular band, Hinny Pawsey is likely to be part of this, along with percussionist Mattie Foulds from Edinburgh, with a different repertoire of Jez Lowe songs being featured in the sets. The first outing for the big band is at Fyvie Festival in Scotland on September 3rd. July 11th 2010 - NEWS BITS - We can expect a track from Jez's forthcoming new CD to appear on his MY SPACE site within the next couple of weeks, as a trailer for the album, so watch out for that. There's a link to it on the homepage of this site... There'll also be a special page on this site, giving background notes to the new album. The lyrics will be included in the CD booklet... Jez appears at The Regent in Doncaster this Thursday, at a benefit concert for the Folk delivering Hope organisation. Fellow-Geordie Bob Fox is also on the bill, and some sort of collabortion may be on the cards for the show... Bad Penny David De La Haye is currently on tour in Borneo with the Monster Ceilidh Band, we hear... You can see photos of The Bad Pennies with guest fiddler Hinny Pawsey on the band's fan-page on Facebook... Jez has a couple of gigs in Devon and Cornwall next week, a rare visit to the South West... July 6th 2010 - From a Dutch website, featuring an interview with one of those involved, we managed to get details of the guest musicians on the new Jez Lowe album. Along with The Bad Pennies - Kate, Andy and David - there are appearances by Benny Graham, The Tyneside Maritime Chorus, singer Louisa Jo Killen, fiddler Hinny Pawsey, Hartlepool vocal trio The Young 'Uns, and Geordie music-hall performer Bert Draycott. Some of these we already knew about, but the appearance of The Young 'Uns (becoming increasingly popular on the UK scene), and respected veterans Killen and Draycott is quite a surprise. A conscious move to bring together several generations of folk performers seems evident with such a line-up. The music-hall (vaudeville) element is equally intriguing. More news as and when... July 1st 2010 - NEWS BITS - Jez has posted a brief blog about the recent Meltdown Festival concert on his MY SPACE site, linked from the homepage of this site... Boston's folk radio station W-UMB broadcast a brief "Jez Lowe Special" last week. Anyone hear it?... It's confirmed that Jez will be reuniting with longtime cohort Jake Walton for a German tour next March. Bad Pennies bassman David De La Haye will also be involved. Jake has a new MY SPACE page too... We'll soon be highlighting two special projects for Jez for next year - the previously-mentioned Celtic Cruise in January, and the yet-to-be-confirmed songwriting week in France next September (2011), a project Jez was briefly involved with some years ago... Last year's Darwin Project concert in Shrewsbury - previously only available as a DVD and a CD - is now streaming on-line at the Shrewsbury Festival website. and includes the otherwise unavaiable Jez Lowe song THE DARWIN WALK... WE expect full details of the new Jez Lowe CD in the next couple of weeks, by the way, so watch this space... June 24th 2010 - NEWS ROUND-UP - Jez was featured in the "My Place" feature in Newcastle's Journal newspaper last week, wherein he "revealed" that his favourite TV show is The West Wing, his favourite restaurant is The Plumed Horse in Edinburgh (run by Scots folk singer Ian Bruce), and his favourite building is the Norman Church in his hometown of Easington, plus lots of other essential facts. A nice little article all round... Jez was interviewed by Radio Teesdale again (a different show) following The Bad Pennies' Saturday afternoon gig at Beverely Festival last weekend. This followed an interview on the station's folk show last week... Tyneside fiddler Hinny Pawsey was standing in for Kate Bramley again at last weekends shows, while Kate is taking time off for her theatre work... No further news on the new CD. The Bad Pennies stuck to mostly their standard repertoire at last week's concerts, so nothing was revealed about new songs we might expect to hear on the album... Jez will play his final solo gig of the month at The Crystal Club, Rowley Regis in the West Midlands on Friday. June 20th 2010 - You can see photographs from last Thursday's Meltdown Festival show by clicking here. It starts with rehearsal shots from the afternoon run-through, and then continues into photos from the show itself. The link is by courtesy of Richard Thompson's website Beeswing. . June 18th 2010 - MELTDOWN FESTIVAL, ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, LONDON JUNE 17TH 2010 - An amazing night - the star-studded concert started with Jez singing BARE KNUCKLE , with Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson joining him, followed by JACK COMMON'S ANTHEM, with the full house-band in support. The rest of the concert included appearances by Emily Smith, Tom Robinson, Boris Grebenshikov, Chaim Tannenbaum, Christine Collister and of course Richard Thompson, plus many more over a two hour-long set. Jez re-appeared in the second half to perform FUN WITHOUT FOOLS, and then did backing-vocal duties on Boris's TRAIN SONG (in Russian!!) and MOVING ON SONG, alongside Richard, Christine and Emily. Truly a night to remember. June 15th 2010 - It's a big week for Jez - he's currently in London rehearsing for Thursday's Meltdown Festival show at The Royal Festival Hall, where he's appearing alongside The Watersons, Tom Robinson, Emily Smith, Chaim Tannenbaum, Boris Grebenshikov, Claribel Alegria and Harry Shearer (of Spinal Tap and The Simpsons fame!). He's then back with The Bad Pennies at Carlisle Folk and Blues Club on Friday, and then on to Beverley Folk Festival on Saturday. We hope to have a report on the Meltdown concert by the end of the week. June 8th 2010 - NEWS ROUND-UP - Various cryptic messages continue to pop up on the Jez Lowe and The Bad Pennies fan page on Facebook, including the news that the band were in the recording studio as recently as yesterday, finishing up work on the new CD. We guess that this is where previews of the new tracks will eventually appear, so keep an eye out for that as the weeks progress... A set-list from Jez's solo gig in Richmond, Yorkshire last weekend - Set One - WILL OF THE PEOPLE / A SMALL COAL SONG / BARE KNUCKLE / TAKING ON MEN / TASKER JACK / LONDON DANNY / VIKINGS. Set Two - OLD BONES / LAST OF THE WIDOWS / THE JUDAS BUS / WE'LL HUNT HIM DOWN / GREEK LIGHTNING / A CHAMPION LIFE / DARLING'S OTHER DAUGHTER / BACK IN DURHAM GAOL. Encore - THE POTHOLER'S SONG. Six of these songs have not yet appeared on a Jez Lowe album, though a couple have appeared elsewhere... Jez has gigs at festivals at Worrall, South Yorkshire and Southwell, Nottinghamshire this coming weekend... Next week, it's the Meltdown Festival in London, with rehearsals on Wednesday for the Thursday night show at The Royal Festival Hall... June 4th 2010 - Jez did a radio interview earlier this week, by phone to Radio Teesdale in North East England, mainly to promote the All Along The Wall project at Brampton Live Festival in July. The word is though that All Along The Wall will be going ahead, both as a CD and in live performance at various venues later in the year. Watch this space... Jez is at the Pig's Ear Festival in Kent tonight and at Swaledale Outward Bound Club in Richmond, Yorkshire tomorrow. May 28th 2010 - We got some clarification about the new album, sessions for which ended just a few days ago. Final mixing will be going on into next week. According to Jez's blog on his MY SPACE site, Bad Pennies bassman David De La Haye is producing the album, and the brief description he gives, although somewhat tongue in cheek, seems to suggest something special is due this time around. The Bad Pennies fan page on Facebook also has some oblique and intriguing comments. We also now know that the whole album consists of new Jez Lowe songs, rather than the mixture of new, traditional and other people's songs that we had been led to believe. A full tracklisting is a long way off, however, as the release date is thought to be late October in the UK. Jez is on tour in America in early October, so an American release may be somewhat earlier... The live version of BARE KNUCKLE that is included in the free CD with the recent edition of Sing Out Magazine is getting a lot of airplay on American folk radio stations, we hear... There's a lot of new You Tube clips suddenly emerged, featuring Jez both solo and with the band, from Oxford Festival and from Penrith Plug and Play Club last month... The Bad Pennies are in South Wales this coming weekend for the Fishguard Festival, where they top the bill on Saturday night. May 24th 2010 - This weekend's NORTHERN ECHOES gigs in Kent did indeed hark back to the 2008 Song For Geordie tour, with much of the same visuals on display at various point during the concert, and versions of BOBBY SHAFTO, THE LOST PIPER, LONG IRON, BARNSTORMING and BLACK TRADE included in the set. We were also able to glean a few more details on the new album, sessions for which are continuing this week in Newcastle. Benny Graham is certainly among the guests on the album, along with The Tyneside Maritime Choir, for which Benny is the director. And it seems that the new CD "will not be a straight-forward collection of Jez Lowe songs", according to one of the band, speaking after last Saturday's gig. This suggests that some traditional or even some other writer's songs may be included, in the manner of the recent Winter Almanac and Song For Geordie shows, when songs by Alan Hull, Alex Glasgow, Mark Knopfler and Ed Pickford, all North East of England writers, were featured. Jez himself is being tight-lipped about it, but there is a local radio interview with the man himself coming up shortly, we hear, so more may be revealed then. May 17th 2010 - NEWS ROUND UP - While recording for the new album is continuing up in Tyneside, things continue a-pace, with a solo gig from Jez at Blaydon (just up river from the recording studio) on Thursday, then two Bad Pennies gigs in Kent this weekend - these are both special shows, reprising much of the material from the 2007 show "A Song For Geordie", complete with film and archive photos. None of this material has been seen or heard since then, other than on the NORTHERN ECHOES DVD... It seems that Jez's appearance at Richard Thompson's Meltdown concert on June 17th will be preceded by a day of "rehearsal", suggesting that some collaboration between the artists involved might be on the cards... Meanwhile, nothing much is leaking out of the recording studio, other than a report on a well known internet chatroom that Jez was involved in a "field recording" with a Newcastle-based choir earlier this week. This took place at The Bridge Hotel in Newcastle, and the whole band was present at the session. Watch this space for more news as and when we get it. May 13th 2010 - What more do we know about the new album? Well, the Wallsend studio where recording is taking place is called Anomale Studio apparently, not as previously reported. It is not however the old Impulse Sound Studio, as suggested in one on-line commentary, where lots of 1970's Tyneside bands like Lindisfarne and Hedgehog Pie used to record, and where Jez himself made his debut on disc for an obscure sampler LP some 30-odd years ago! The whole band has been in there for much of the past two weeks - there are some photos of them at work, sort of, on the band's Facebook fanpage. Recording will continue into next week. The "Radio Ballads Medley" mentioned below is thought to be the three (anti)-hunting songs that were featured in the recent Winter Almanac show. If so, it is thought that Benny Graham may be one of the "local players" guesting on the album. Apparently, Jez also mentioned at a gig last week that his new song about the pub-quiz team will be on the album, but A CHAMPION LIFE, another unrecorded audience-pleaser, will not be on it, as a result of the subject matter of the song having been rendered out of date. More news as and when. May 9th 2010 - NEW ALBUM NEWS - We managed to squeeze some more info. on the the new album from a friendly Bad Penny at the CD sales table at the band's gig in Herefordshire last night. The album is being recorded at Canopy Studio in Wallsend, near Newcastle, and as well as the band, there'll be a few "local players" guesting on some tracks. However, it seems none of the songs that we had hoped would be on it (see below) will be included! There are three or four from the recent Winter Almanac show on the shortlist, a medley of Radio Ballads songs, several acapella tracks and "a song about a flood". Intriguing eh? None of these were included in last night's set by the way, at which fiddler Hinny Pawsey was once again guesting - the only unrecorded song was BARNSTORMING, which has been part of the live repertoire for over a year now, and was indeed part of the Winter Almanac show as well. Highlights of the concert last night included rare outings for HEANEY'S FINGER and BLACK TRADE (the latter particularly effective, with the whole band coming in on the chant at the start and finish of the song) from "Jack Common's Anthem", and a knock-out version of LONG IRON from "Honesty Box", which was performed as an encore. It was a great concert, by the way, with the band clearly enjoying themselves a great deal. Recording for the new album continues this week. May 4th 2010 - Work on Jez's new album started earlier this week at a studio in Wallsend near Newcastle. There's talk of three weeks worth of sessions being lined up, with a break for gigs in Kingswinford and Whitchurch this coming weekend. There's still no real clue as to what songs will be on the album, but we're promised a tracklisting as soon as things get settled. We're hoping for studio band versions of WE'LL HUNT HIM DOWN from the Darwin Project, and THE JUDAS BUS and ARTHUR MY DEAR from the recent Radio Ballads programme. BOWNESS BELLS from the upcoming All Along The wall show would be nice, but will presumably be on the CD from that project that Jez was helping to mix last week. Any other requests? April 28th 2010 - Thirty years after recording his very first album there, and fifteen years since he last recorded there, Jez is currently back at Fellside Recording Studios in Cumbria, UK, with producer Paul Adams, helping with the mixing and compiling of the forthcoming "live" album of the ALL ALONG THE WALL concert from earlier this year. The album, which features three of Jez's songs (one co-written with Julie Matthews), is set for release in time for a reprise of the show, at Brampton Folk Festival in July. Meanwhile, recording for the new Bad Pennies album is set to start in May. No details of the sessions or of the studio has been forthcoming, but we're informed by several people who attended Jez's solo gig in Leeds last weekend, that he included more brand new songs in his set, notably one about a pub-quiz team that seems to have made a big impression. Exciting times! April 21st 2010 - NEWS UPDATES - Full details of the June 17th Meltdown Festival political songs concert at the Festival Hall in London are now confirmed - along with Waterson/Carthy, Tom Robinson, Emily Smith and Jez Lowe, Boris Grebenshikov and Claribel Alegria have been added to the bill... Jez will be featured in a special questions-and-answers profile in the Newcastle Journal daily newspaper next week, called My Place, where he'll be informing us of his favourite restaurant, favourite building, favourite everything else... Jez had an extra concert last weekend at Sutton Village Hall in Bedfordshire, standing in for Flossie Malavialle, who was marooned overseas due to the lack of air-travel across the UK... That set of demos being handed around by Tantobie Records for the forthcoming CD has apparently got about TEN brand new songs on it, suggesting that some of the unrecorded songs that Jez has been doing at gigs recently may remain, indeed, unrecorded! Watch this space... April 14th 2010 - As of today, the Meltdown Festival website still hasn't listed the final line-up for the June 17th Political Songs Concert, suggesting the night's line-up is yet to be finalised. Jez is certainly confirmed to appear, along with the Carthys, Tom Robinson and Emily Smith... More dates have been added to Jez's October tour of the States, including one Canadian date. More will be added to what will evidently be an East Coast only tour... Last week's Pitmen Poets concert at London's King's Place was a memorable night. Jez performed solo on BLACK DIAMONDS, THE JUDAS BUS, BALLAD OF TASKER JACK, LAST OF THE WIDOWS and A CHAMPION LIFE, and joined Bob Fox, Benny Graham and Billy Mitchell on ensemble versions of HIGH PART OF THE TOWN and THE MINERS LIFEGUARD... Internet news - Jez Lowe and The Bad Pennies now have a "fan-page" on Facebook, with photos and exclusive stuff. Jez has also recently posted a new blog entitled "Three Years later" on the Jack Common's Anthem My Space page. There are also two new clips on You Tube from Jez's solo appearance at Barnsley Acoustic festival a few weeks back... Jez is on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon on the Open Country programme... He has solo gigs at Garstang (Thurs) and Blandford Forum (Fri), and then is reunited with the band for Oxford Festival on Sunday...Finally, let's not forget there's a new CD on the cards. A friendly Bad Penny has told us that a TWENTY TRACK DEMO of possible songs for the album has been circulated to those involved! April 10th 2010 - Very Big News! Jez has been invited by Richard Thompson to appear at this year's MELTDOWN FESTIVAL, which has Richard as "curator" for this year, at London's Royal Festival Hall on June 17th, as part of the Political Songs concert. Jez will be there alongside Tom Robinson, Martin and Eliza Carthy and others to be announced. The Tantobie Records office has known about this for a while, but the news embargo was broken by the BBC News website earlier this week. More details on this to follow. April 7th 2010 - The BBC Radio 4 programme Open Country, featuring Jez playing and chatting with presenter Matt Baker, will be broadcast on Saturday morning, April 10th, at 6am, then repeated next Thursday at 3pm. It will also be on the BBC website. Overseas readers please note, this is not a programme about "country music", it's about "rural pursuits"... There's still a few tickets left for tomorrow's Pitmen Poets show at London's King's Place... Meanwhile, there are whispers that Jez will be making another major London appearance in the very near future. "Something quite exciting" was what we heard from the Tantobie Records camp. Watch this space... April 2nd 2010 - Jez has a very special concert coming up next Thursday, April 8th, at the prestigious King's Place concert hall near Kings Cross in Central London. Titled THE PITMEN POETS, it is an evening of music inspired by the Coal Mining Tradition of North East England, and features a unique gathering of some of the region's top folk performers - Billy Mitchell, Bob Fox, Benny graham and Jez Lowe, playing "individually and collectively". There'll be songs by writers such as Tommy Armstrong, Ed Pickford, Alex Glasgow, Jock Purdom and of course Jez himself. There are still tickets left for this quite exceptional concert, via the Kings Place website at www.kingsplace.co.uk. March 28th 2010 - Within the last few days, Jez recorded an appearance on the BBC Radio 4 programme Open Country, due for broadcast some time soon. The programme was coming from Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, and Jez performed his new song THE LOST PIPER (which was featured in the recent Winter Almanac show), and was interviewed by presenter Matt Baker. We'll announce details of when it will be on the air shortly... On the LINKS page of this site, you can access both of Jez's MY SPACE sites, including the site set up for his JACK COMMON'S ANTHEM album a couple of years ago. We'd forgotten that among the songs on that site there is an unreleased live version of BLACK TRADE, alongside various album tracks and photos from the recording session with Show of Hands, the West Country duo who produced the album for Jez... Jez has run to ground somewhat in the last few days, so there's no more to report on the new album due later this year. Watch this space! March 22nd 2010 - BIG NEWS! In an interview for the Northern Sky website, recorded last weekend at the Barnsley Acoustic Routes Festival, Jez finally confirmed that he will be making a new album later this year. It will be his first studio CD since JACK COMMON'S ANTHEM in 2007. No more details were given about the album, but the interview was full of interesting snippets, with mentions of the recent All Along the Wall project, the writing of songs for the new Radio Ballads programme, and even a bit about his song LONDON DANNY, who he reveals was "an 1980's yuppie"! You can hear the whole interview by clicking here. Meanwhile we await more news on the new album with baited breath... Details of last weekends's gigs have also filtered through. The Bad Pennies concert at Darlington Arts Centre last Friday had ex-Bad Penny Simon Haworth standing in on bass for David De La Haye (who is in Russia!) plus a guest appearance on some songs by ace Tyneside fiddler Hinny Pawsey. And that solo concert in Durham on Sunday was NOT an all-request show after all, though that is a concept being considered for later in the year, following a suggestion by Jez's agent Bob Gilchrist. How about some requests for this new album folks? We can certainly think of a few, given all the new material currently pouring out of Jez for one project or another! March 17th 2010 - NEWS ROUND UP - A brand new song has appeared on Jez's MY SPACE page - to which there's a link on the homepage of this site. It's ARTHUR MY DEAR from the recent BBC Radio Ballads programme. This recording is the original demo that Jez submitted to the producers of the show. Jez has also written a piece about the song and it's subject matter on his MY SPACE blog... Another new song which is getting extensive airplay in the United States, is the live version of BARE KNUCKLE, recorded at last summer's Old Songs Festival in New York, and included on the free CD with the current edition of Sing Out magazine. This edition was delayed from last year, but is now available... Jez has written a review of the biography of Jack Common by Keith Armstrong, to be published soon in the periodical Scottish Affairs. We're unsure how freely available this publication is, but it is associated with Edinburgh university, and is due out in a couple of months... Jez's solo gig at Durham's Gala Theatre this coming Sunday is sold out. This is the rumoured "all request show", but we're still not sure if that is true or not... Dates for Jez's October tour of America will be appearing on the gigs page of this site later this week... The UK TV programme about the "Billy Elliott" movie, which featured an interview with Jez, was repeated in some regions last week... March 14th 2010 - Next weekend is a busy one for Jez, starting on Friday, with The Bad Pennies in concert at Darlington Arts Centre in County Durham as part of their annual Spring Thing Folk Festival, followed by a trip down to Barnsley in Yorkshire on Saturday, where he appears solo with The Demon Barber Roadshow at the Barnsley Acoustic Music Festival. He then returns to Durham on Sunday for a solo concert at the prestigious Gala Theatre in Durham City, which we have seen touted as a "Songs of Jez Lowe - All Request Show" in one local listings source. We hope to clarify that with Jez when he returns from his travels later this week... March 10th 2010 - Jez is helping his former musical partner Jake Walton prepare a songbook for publication in Germany next year by the Heupferd Publishing Company. It's a revised edition of Jake's 1984 book "Celtic Songs", and will include some of Jez's songs alongside originals and traditional songs from Jake's own repertoire. Irish singer Andy Irvine recently released a songbook as part of the same series... There's more film of the band on You Tube - a 2008 clip of them doing CALL FOR THE NORTH COUNTRY in New York during their US tour of the time... A cover of Jez's 2004 song CALICO appears on a new CD by American band The Hoolies, just out on their own label. The notes refer to it as "a song he wrote for Fairport Convention". We're not sure where that information came from... Jez and the band are in concert in Lichfield Staffordshire on Friday, then there's a batch of North East England gigs the following weekend, including a special solo show at the prestigious Gala Theatre in Durham... March 5th 2010 - Lots of positive reaction to the latest BBC Radio Ballad - The Guardian newspaper hailed it as a potential "radio programme of the year"... We have revived the "Frequently Asked Questions" page on this site (click the FAQ button on the homepage). Some of these questions have been pending since last summer, and there are also a few more recent "probing" questions dealing with the new Radio Ballad show... Jez Lowe and The Bad Pennies now have a Facebook Fan page! All the band promise to update it on a regular basis... Jez is currently in Scotland, where he appears at Craigie Folk Club near Kilmarnock tonight. But please note that next weekend's solo gig at The Saville Exchange Theatre in North Shields has been cancelled due to a problem with the venue. The Bad Pennies concert at The Holy Cross Hall in Lichfield, Staffs goes ahead as planned. Full details of all future shows on the gigs page of this site... March 1st 2010 - "The Ballad of the Miners Strike", the latest BBC Radio Ballad is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 tomorrow night at 10.30pm UK time, and will be available at BBC Online for the rest of the week. There is a preview of the show on Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show tomorrow afternoon, and it is likely to be included on BBC Radio 4's Pick of the Week programme next weekend. There is also a piece in The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday. February 26th 2010 - Set list from Jez's solo concert in London last week - Set One - WILL OF THE PEOPLE, A SMALL COAL SONG, BARE KNUCKLE, TAKING ON MEN, BALLAD OF TASKER JACK, THE FAN DANCER'S DAUGHTER, GULL'S EYE, VIKINGS. Set Two - OLD BONES, LONDON DANNY, THE JUDAS BUS, WE'LL HUNT HIM DOWN, DARLING'S OTHER DAUGHTER, A CHAMPION LIFE, TENTERHOOKS, HIGH PART OF THE TOWN. Encore - LONG IRON... Jez was included in the preview of next week's BBC Radio Ballads programme that was featured in Mike Harding's Radio 2 show earlier this week. The 1993 version of THESE COAL TOWN DAYS from the "Bede Weeps" album was played... Another YOU TUBE clip has appeared, this time of Jez and Kate Bramley performing Kate's song CARTER'S FAIR at their gig in Spain earlier this month... A posting on Facebook last week suggested that Jez may be touring in Europe with his old musical partner Jake Walton sometime next year... Dates for Jez's solo US tour in October are beginning to filter through, starting with a show at The Linden Tree in Wakefield Massacheusetts on October 16th. More to follow... February 22nd 2010 - NEWS ROUND UP - Reports on a UK folk music website that Jez will be releasing an album of all his BBC Radio Ballads songs seems to be a misinterpretation of rumours that the entire 2006 Radio Ballads series is likely to be re-issued on CD later this year. The original albums were deleted a while ago when the record company closed down. The new releases (on a new label) may also include the forthcoming Miners Strike episode due for broadcast on March 2nd. Jez's record company Tantobie says there are no plans to release Jez's songs seperately... Jez and the band look likely to be added to the bill of Beverley Festival in June... Jez is coming to the end of his current run of solo gigs tonight with an appearance at the Folk and Blues club on The Isle of Sheppey in Kent. The Bad Pennies rejoin him for shows next weekend... February 14th 2010 - NEWS ROUND UP - Broadcast date for the BBC Radio Ballad about the 1983 UK Coal Miners Strike is March 2nd on BBC Radio 2, and on-line around the world. Jez has two songs included, ARTHUR MY DEAR and THE JUDAS BUS, the latter a highlight of his current live solo set. The programme will be previewed on Mike Harding's Wednesday night BBC show the week before.... two songs from Jez's appearance at Lewes Folk Club near Brighton last Thursday have been put up on You Tube - just search for Jez lowe and they'll pop up along with all the many other clips currently up there. The songs are WE'LL HUNT HIM DOWN and GULL'S EYE, the latter a radical new arrangement from the original version on the Doolally album. A third song, A CHAMPION LIFE was also up there for a few hours on Friday, but was soon taken off... One recording from the recent WINTER ALMANAC tour has finally emerged - it's an ensemble version of Jez's song BACK TO THE LAND GIRLS, sung by Kate Bramley, and is being used to promote the impending UK theatre tour of Kate's play of that name, for which the song was originally written. It's being sent out to radio stations around the country, so listen out for it. No other recordings from the tour have so far emerged... Jez is solo in Colchester, Northampton, Lymm, Tamworth, Twickenham and The Isle Of Sheppey in the coming week... February 11th 2010 - Jez is currently playing gigs in the South of England, and is including lots of new songs in his set, by all accounts. Meanwhile, reaction to the recent All Along The Wall project continues to stir up excitement. You can read an article about Jez and his current adventures from last week's Croydon Guardian by clicking here. He's back with The Bad Pennies for two shows in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire this coming weekend, before heading south solo again next week. February 5th 2010 - Jez returns from gigs in Spain today to start a busy month of UK club and concert shows... Andy May has his first solo concert at Gateshead's Sage Auditorium tonight, as part of the series "Kathryn Tickell Presents". He rejoins Jez and the band tomorrow for their Shining Friends Concert in Bromsgrove... The Bad Pennies have contributed a track to a compilation CD out soon on Navigator Records, called "Folk Against Fascism". No word on what track will be featured... No word either on the Sing Out Magazine issue which will include Jez's BARE KNUCKLE on it's free CD giveaway... Photos of Jez at last week's BBC Folk Awards show him in deep conversation with Tom McConville and Flook's Sarah Allen... An extra date just added - a solo concert at the Saville Exchange Theatre in North Shields, Tyneside on March 13th... Jez did an interview with the Croydon Guardian newspaper last week to promote his show next Monday, with some interesting comments about current folk events... Reviews of last week's All Along The Wall concert are glowing! We'll try and get links to these soon... February 1st 2010 - Last night's ALL ALONG THE WALL concert was quite an event, according to our eye/ear witness. After a week spent collaborating in an isolated farmhouse, just north of The Roman Wall, the seven participants managed to produce a reportedly outstanding set of pieces, both musical and spoken word. The concert presented them all on stage together, with everyone contributing to the performances of each piece. It wasn't made clear who had collaborated on what in terms of writing/composing, but Jez's main vocal contributions were on three songs, ALL ALONG THE WALL (which recurred several times throughout the show), HALTWHISTLE APPLES and BOWNESS BELLS - exact titles uncertain. One late-night blogger wrote that it compared very favourably with last year's "Darwin Project", though with more humour in evidence this time. The concert was recorded for release on CD, so hopefully it won't be long before we all get the chance to judge for ourselves. January 26th 2010 - The ALL ALONG THE WALL project has now started with all the participants ensconced in the Writers House near the village of Once Brewed in Northumberland. You can find a special MY SPACE page devoted to the project, with photos and blogs and more by clicking here. January 22nd 2010 - Jez recorded his contributions to the new BBC Radio Ballad programme earlier this week with John Tams and Andy Seward. He has two songs in the show - ARTHUR MY DEAR and THE JUDAS BUS - which is due for transmission in mid-March. There is also a possibility that it will be released on CD, along with a re-release of all the other 2006 Radio Ballads shows... The new song that Jez performed at a gig last week has been repeated at other gigs since, and is indeed a new original, written for yet another BBC programme. The song is called THE OTHER DARLING DAUGHTER... The tracks from "Fighting the Tide" have been removed from jez's MY SPACE site, apparently at Jez's request, and have been replaced by songs from earlier albums - THE BERGEN from 1986's "Two A Roue", FATHER MALLORY'S DANCE from 1988's "Bad Penny" and DONNINI DOOLALLY from 2004's "Doolally"... Jez has been added to the bill of Barnsley's Acoustic Roots Festival on March 20th... Jez has solo gigs this weekend, at Bingham tonight and Grimsby on Sunday, before the start of the "All Along the Wall" project on Monday. Tickets for the concert in Maryport on January 31st are now on sale... January 16th 2010 - Details of the ALL ALONG THE WALL project, which runs from January 26th through to the all-star concert at Maryport's Wave Centre on January 31st, are coming through. There will be a special MY SPACE site dedicated to the project available early next week. Details of the concert can be found on the Wave Centre website, linked from the GIGS page of this website. All tickets are £12... Jez's concert in Oxford DID go ahead last night, and the capacity audience were apparently treated to a new song, which according to our correspondent was about Northumbrian heroine Grace Darling! Whether this was a new Jez Lowe song or some sort of cover-version is not known. Other songs played last included THE JUDAS BUS, WE'LL HUNT HIM DOWN, GULL'S EYE, A CHAMPION LIFE and a rare outing for LONG IRON, one of our favourite songs from the "Honesty Box" album... Meanwhile there's advance notice on the GIGS page of Jez's involvement in a amazing "Celtic Cruise" in the USA at the end of January 2011. More news on this as that time approaches no doubt! January 13th 2010- Another gig has been cancelled due to bad weather - tomorrow's gig at Maudsley has been postponed until later this year due to more snowfalls in the area. Friday's concert in Oxford is still going ahead at this point - watch this space. January 10th 2010 - Jez is back on the road, with his first gig of the year last night at The Cellar Upstairs in London... Meanwhile, two major projects have been announced for later this month - Recording starts next week for the new BBC Radio Ballads programme, a one-off show scheduled for March 2010, with the 1983 UK coal-miners strike as it's subject. Jez has written and will perform at least two new songs... Then at the end of the month, Jez is included in an illustrious list of names for the ALL ALONG THE WALL songwriters project, initiated by the Brampton Live Folk Festival, and based closely on last year's Darwin Project, although Jez is the only one of the Darwin composers to be involved in this new enterprise. The writers will be asked to come up with songs and music inspired by The Roman Wall, built by the Emperor Hadrian as a barrier between England and Scotland in the second century A.D. The results will be performed at a special concert at The Wave Centre in Maryport, Cumbria on January 31st, which is being recorded by Fellside Records for release on CD. Other performances will follow later in the year. Among the other writers involved are Boo Hewerdine, Rory MacLeod, Ruth Notman and Julie Matthews. Jez and Julie (who will also be involved in the Radio Ballads programme) were interviewed about the project by Carlisle's local press last week. Information about tickets for the Maryport concert will be made available soon. January 7th 2009 - Tonight's gig in Whitstable has been called off due to the bad weather conditions. The gig at The Cellar Upstairs in London on Saturday is still set to go ahead at this point. January 6th 2010 - Despite the snow currently causing havoc across the UK, Jez's gigs in Whitstable tomorrow and in London on Saturday are still going ahead. If there's any change to this, we'll let you know here immediately... On Jez's MY SPACE site, which you can access via the link on the right hand side of this column, there are now four tracks from the (now deleted) FIGHTING THE TIDE soundtrack album, issued in 2002 to accompany the Badapple Theatre production that was on a nationwide tour at the time. The play was a somewhat surreal look at the global warming debate, and consequently the songs that Jez wrote for it were quite unlike his usual style. Some of them (ALL TRAWL AND NO TICKLE and THE SUN AND THE MOON AND ME on the "Northern Echoes" album, and cover versions of THE NET MY FATHER LEFT ME by Tom McConville and FIGHTING THE TIDE by John and Di Cullen) have reached a wider audience, but the MY SPACE selection offers up THE POSTMAN'S SONG, BLESSING AND CURSING, SIRENS SONG and FIGHTING THE TIDE, the latter pair with Kate Bramley on vocals. The play itself is slated for a revival in 2012, ten years after it's first production... January 1st 2010: Happy New Year! It’s 2010, and welcome to another
year with Jez Lowe and The Bad Pennies. 2009 saw Jez play over 160 performances, in six
different countries as well as the UK, (New Zealand, Australia, USA, Spain, Switzerland
and Holland). CD sales were the highest since 2002, despite no new album being released on
to the market during this period. It was the year of The Darwin Project, The Winter
Almanac Tour, and The Indie Acoustic “Album of the Year” Award for NORTHERN
ECHOES. Thanks to everyone who has supported and encouraged Jez and the band over the last
twelve months, and for so long before that too! 2010 looks like being another year to
remember... On the WINTER ALMANAC page of this site, there is a review of the final show
of the tour, the sold-out appearance at The Sage Gateshead on December 27th, giving
something of a taste of what went on for those who missed it... There’s no word on
when any of the recordings from the tour will be made public... Fellside Records have told
us that all of Jez Lowe’s albums for their label (1980’s JEZ LOWE, 1983’s
THE OLD DURHAM ROAD, 1985’s GALLOWAYS, 1988’s BAD PENNY, 1990’s BRIEFLY ON
THE STREET and 1993’s BEDE WEEPS), are being made available for download via i-Tunes
over the next few months... The tour of North America slated for later this year is
definitely going ahead, and will be a solo tour for Jez, starting on October 4th, and
taking in both USA and Canada gigs... Unconfirmed reports also hint at Jez being invited
to participate in another song-writing collaboration experiment along the lines of last
year’s Darwin Project. This could be happening quite soon, we’re told. Watch
this space...
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