10th May 2008

Thursdays open-mic was pretty much how we’d like to see every night .. lots of variety, lots of new faces, and even some fun ;-)

Congratulations all round.

8th May 2008

A few announcements

Firstly don’t forget that we are doing our 1st open-mic of the month TONIGHT (even though its the 2nd Thursday of the month .. rules are made to be broken .. like hearts and noses)

Secondly congratulations to the Mayday event organisers for a lovely day .. and especially well done for organising the nice weather :-)

Thirdly .. it seems we will be repeating our collaboration with the new Wolsey theater again this summer, so watch out for details. (it will be interesting to see if we play to civic center, a bomb site, or a new gleaming retail emporium)

30th April 2008

We’ll be hosting an hours worth of our acoustic originals at the wonderful Ipswich mayday event on Sunday afternoon. if you fancy playing, then drop us a line (chris@suffolksongwriters.co.uk) and we’ll book you in.

18th April 2008

Well last nights open-mic was rather wonderful all round we though .. dead PA speaker aside. We had the triumphant return of some faces we had yet to see at our new home of the steamboat, and also some new faces which is always welcome. Lisa Ambrose performed a rather wonderful harmonica instrumental (which is possibly a first at suffolk songwriters ), and Dave Girth managed to break one of those big thick acoustic guitar strings which absolutely never break.

We managed to squeeze everyone eager to performing in at the expense of finishing rather late.
 

A quick link resulting from last night, details of the events at CASAMIA in Southwold are here

Photos from last night are here, and MP3s will emerge sooner rather than later.

Another reminder that next month we are doing things on 8th and 22nd .. As the wonderful ‘Gods Kitchen’ booked to play on May 1st before SSW moved homes to the Steamboat, so why not go along and see them instead.

Also the equally wonderful Suffolk Songwriters ‘veterans’ ‘Pity the Fool’ will be doing their stuff at the Steamboat this Sunday afternoon 3pm onwards - highly recommended.

16th April 2008

A few random items :-
 

1. The BBC have been doing some nice things on the BBC Suffolk web site. Check out the new ‘introducing’ page here.

2. Possibly a long-shot, but if you get ‘the Times’ everyday (or know of someone who does), could you pass us the T2 section from 25th April when it comes out. (They are doing an article about open-mics and may include some input from us). Thanks

3. Don’t forget .. its open-mic time again tomorrow night.

7th April 2008

The nice people at Saint Genesius are looking for singer/songwriters to take part in a fundraiser for the ‘Kenyan schools fund’. at the Grinning Rat, Ipswich on Friday June 6th.

Drop them a line if you fancy it.

Also Kesgrave Radio and keen to use any live recordings from our open-mics - so if there are any of your performances you are especially proud of, then drop me a line and I can pass the recordings on.
 

4th April 2008

Last nights open-mic was very bizarre indeed .. as those attending will testify.

One piece of advance notice .. due to the rather wonderful ‘Gods Kitchen’ having been booked ages and ages ago to play the Steamboat with a fellow band from a far-flung part of the country on Thursday May 1st, we will not be doing an open-mic that night.

In May we will be running things on the 8th and 22nd instead.

30th March 2008

Suffolk songwriters has received an invite from RDF television for artists to contact them about a series they are planning. This may be a relatively ‘exclusive’ invite, or they might have sent it to the whole world + cat, I don‘t know. RDF are at least a genuine TV production company.

Personally I’d be very dubious about this, as the job of television companies is to make television programs .. not music .. and its easier nowadays to get ratings by making people look stupid than it is to produce something credible and worthwhile.

That might just be me though .. so in fairness, I’ve stuck the details here. Feel free to give it a go if you are feeling courageous and robust ;-) (Note the deadline of April 11th.)

29th March 2008

Many apologies for the delay in updating things .. blame an extended Easter break.

The last open-mic was the quietest we had from a while - but that was kind of what we expected running in to Easter. Much wonderfulness ensued.

The picture on the left appeared on my camera during the night, and no-one else used it. Does anyone remember an alien presence during the night?

19th March 2008

Performance recordings from last time are now out .. and I’ve dropped details of where to get them to all the performers involved. If you played, and haven’t received any communication, then it means either I don’t have any contact details for you, a dog ate them, or I forgot.

Just drop us a line.


12th March 2008

As of today this web-site is now running on a shiny new web server in the UK rather than in Texas as we have been for a while. Hopefully we’ll be able to speedup getting performance MP3s to people as a result. Please forgive any system problems in the next day or so.

I have now turned off the old PC which hosted the archive of passed recordings. If you haven’t grabbed an MP3 of your performance(s) yet, they are still available, but at a new place - drop me a line to get pointed in the right direction.

From next week everything will be coming from the new server, and should be far quicker all round.

7th March 2008

Thanks all round for a rather spiffing open-mic last night. I think we squeezed everyone in OK -- at the expense of going overtime somewhat .. whoops.

Those in the audience who had not encountered the genius which is ‘the pancakes’ will have had an especially memorable night.


 

5th March 2008

A couple of random items. I’ve finally got round to adding a few more performances to the mp3 section of the web site. I’ve got some other gems from previous months lined up as well, but currently waiting on permission from the performers.

Secondly a quick plug for acoustic sessions run way up in Kings Lynn by Peter Kitchen who played some marvelous material at the May Day fund raiser last weekend. Details are here.



1st March 2008

Don’t forget the fund-raiser today at the Steamboat tavern, Ipswich.

We are doing an open-mic thing there from 2.40 to 4.10.pm onward.

26th February 2008

2 news items in 1 day .. what is the world coming to.

We’ll be hosting 90 minutes of SSW open-mic this Saturday (1st march) from 2.40 to 4.10pm as part of the Mayday fundraising event at the steamboat.

Drop us a line if you’d like a slot - there is lots of good stuff happening during the day so it’ll be a good place to be anyway and the mayday festival is certainly an important thing to support.

26th February 2008

Recordings from last time are done.

Electronic messages have been sent winging their way to the performers involved - so if you played and haven’t heard from us, then it either means we have no contact details for you, or a message has fallen down the back of an electronic sofa. Just drop us a line and we’ll point you at the noises


25th February 2008

A couple of links for performers from last week. Some of Paddy Strattons’ recordings are availabe from ‘the levellers’ site. ‘David’ has many albums available at CDbaby.

22th February 2008

We are very happy bunnies here at SSW central at the moment.

 Last night was really rather good indeed .. with more new faces and more unexpected wonderfulness than anyone could wish for.

Photos and mp3s will be arriving as soon as I can wrangle the ones and zeroes.


20th February 2008

At the last open-mic we mentioned that Shane had written a book on the subject of being a a musician in Ipswich, playing in bands, and indeed playing at things like Suffolk Songwriters.

Interested parties need to point their inter-web hyper-browser portal-windows here for details.

18th February 2008

I had finally got around to sorting out the recordings from the last open-mic - sorry for the delay - its down to a combination of a horrible cold, and the inability of my new computer to run my well-worn audio editing software (curse you Bill Gates).



14th February 2008

Andy and I really enjoyed the ‘Anniversary’ open mic last week -- and it was especially nice that Shane Kirk and Tony James Shevlin were able to attend and play having started Suffolk Songwriters 10 years ago.

It was also nice that we had many first time performers as well - the mix is what its all about.

(As a pointless aside, ‘Emma’ is definitely now the most common name for female SSW performers. ‘Dave’ remains most common for males, but ‘John’ is making a fresh challenge.)

This was the first time we have run things at the Steamboat. Most people we have heard from are very happy with the venue, but we have also had some negative comments.

As always let us know what you think.

7th February 2008

Tonights open-mic shows signs of being both busy and somewhat special. We will be kicking off somewhat before 8.30 to squeeze people in.

See you there

5th February 2008

We are on track for a triumphant return in 2008 this Thursday. Lots of interesting artistes have expressed and desire to play, so it should be good.

For those of you familiar with the steamboat, we thought we’d mention that we plan to do things down the ‘other end’ from the usual stage area (so we’ll be where the pool table usually is.)

The idea is that performers won’t then get distracted by regular traffic of people to the beer garden for a smoke, (and blokes going to the bogs.) Instead the stage area will be a calm pool of art and artistry .. maybe. If this proves a bad idea, we’ll do something else.

See you Thursday

23rd January 2008

We are happy to be able to announce that we’ll be calling the wonderful Steamboat Tavern home on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month from now on.

The Steamboat has been an oasis of original music for donkeys years since Val took over as landlady, and old people with long memories will also know that the ‘Earl Roberts’ was the same when Val ran that. (Gigs there fell off dramatically when Val left, although that might also be partly because the pub got demolished)

While there are plenty of places in Ipswich keen to have us, it felt right to go to a pub who are genuinely enthusiastic about putting on music rather than just trying it occasionally to get some punters in the door.

We hope to see you all there on 7th Feb.

15th January 2008

IMPORTANT
The previously advertised open-mic on Thursday 17th January will now NOT be happening.

It seems the Arboretum has now closed .. we’ve been unable to contact landlord Joe to confirm this , but the place was dark and locked up yesterday evening, no one is answering the phone, and I’ve had no response to a note stuck through the letterbox .. so that’s pretty much that.

(If you know of anyone who might be thinking of coming along on Thursday, then please check that they know .. cheers.)

This had been on the cards for a while, but we are obviously sad to see the Arboretum struggle, as it has been a happy home for us for the past year(ish), and Landlord Joe has been supportive and enthusiastic host.

We hope that Suffolk songwriters is not doomed to be nomadic, but we have pretty much decided on our next move, and believe its the right one and to a place we can call home for years to come.

We’ll hopefully be able to announce the new venue within a week (via website, myspace etc) when the details are confirmed, but for the moment the bullet points are ;-

1. No SSW this week .. Arboretum Shut.
2. SSW is ON for the Thursday February 7th .. venue TBC


We sincerely hope to see lots of familiar faces next month.
 

For the sake of layout-sanity, news from 2007 back to 2005 is now here