Acoustic alchemy

We've been really lucky recently to have been enjoying lots of live gigs. Its so nice to hear live music, especially acoustic folksy stuff in some of the most intimate venues too...

We've just spent this evening at our "local", the Tobacco Factory, listening to Bristol's own Phil King. Sunshine and I luuuuuurve him ... and we try and go see him whenever we can. We love him so much that I walked down the aisle on our wedding day to this wonderful song. Definitely one of Bristol's hidden talents. One day he is going to be HUGE :)

Last week when we drove up to Dorset, our first stop was at the Square and Compass Pub. Just our luck that they had some live music on that evening in a tiny room full of lots of locals. It was so tiny infact that I ended up sitting on the floor just in front of Gren Bartley. We had never heard of him before - but he was fantastic. He had a really good rapport with the audience and a real dry sence of humour. We were in stiches between songs ... Would definitely go and listen to him again.

Then earlier this week Sunshine found out that Martha Tilston was playing just down the road from us at the Louisiana. We'd never been to a gig at the Louisiana, and we'd never heard Martha live so it seemed the perfect opportunity to go. The very pregnant Martha did a fantastic set of lots of music we have listened to lots before on CD. It was really nice to hear the stories behind the songs ... suddenly I can listen to them with a completely different perspective. My first exposure to Martha was when she used to be in a duo called "Mouse". Sunshine introduced me to her music (he says he can't quite remember where he had heard of her from) and we both really like this song (sorry, couldn't find a video of it anywhere) from her Mouse days. We even tried to do the walk from St Ives in Corwall along the coast to Zennor Hill during our honeymoon. Unfortunately the coastal path was closed due to landslides .... but we've vowed to do the walk ... one day ...

And as luck would have it, Martha was supported by the excellent Jason Steel, who again we had never heard of before, but so glad to have been introduced to his music now. The music room at the Louisianna is again quite small, and as the gig was so gentle and folksy, a lot of us in the front were sitting on the floor ... so incredibly intimate that at one point Jason came out into the audience and sang accapella to us ... Wow! What an amazing voice! Going to be looking out for him again in the future ...

Anyway, so that has been our musical adventures in the last couple of weeks. I would highly recommend listening to each of these artists - you won't be dissapointed!

Appologies for the rubbish pictures - low light and taken with my phone ...