Street Voices

Happy New Year to all our fans!

Please support us if you can by coming to the annual Homelessness Sunday concert of poetry and song at the Leper Chapel on Newmarket Road – arrive 3pm for a 3.15 start. Wrap up warm and do bear in mind that, in true medieval style, there are no toilets at the chapel. Full details are on our ‘Events’ page.  The Concert is organised by Cambridge Link Up, a group run by and for homeless people. To find out more about Link Up, see www.cambridgelinkup.org.uk.

It may be January now, but listening to the birds singing today I can’t help feeling that Spring could be just around the corner.

Did someone say Spring?

So we are already looking forward to our annual Irish session and lunch on 16 March – and I’m sure there will be lots of other performances and events besides. Keep an eye on this website for more news and events. We hope to see you soon.

Footsteps, heart beat, just breathing in and out… we’ve all got rhythm in our souls, and who better to coax those rhythms out into the open than our lovely drumming friend, Cambridge’s own drumming maestro, Daniela McDermott. On Friday 9^th September we formed our own drumming circle and took turns to keep a steady beat on Daniela’s big  ‘sangban’ drum, while the rest of the group did their funky stuff, weaving rhythms in and out of some totally spontaneous musical creations. We were playing djembe drums, the smaller Turkish darabouka,  cowbells and  woven cylindrical shakers called ganza. A new addition were the laladehs, carved from right angled sticks with wooden discs threaded on one end, which made a nice crisp clicking sound when shaken.

picking up the beat

All of this turned out to be the best base layer ever for some crazy vocal improvisations! After a bit of progressively less tentative tribal calling and responding, we moved on little by little to the magnificent and probably-never-to-be-repeated ‘Honey Monster Love Child’ riff. Well, you probably had to be there!

'honey - monster - love child!'

So much to report! If you didn’t make it to our recent gigs, prepare to be thrilled!

We went down a storm at the Cambridge Folk Club on the evening of Friday 27 May. Open Mic rules dictated we could only play two songs – despite many enthusiastic shouts of ‘more!’ from the audience. So we hope to return and play a longer set sometime soon. Watch this space!

1^st June – a sunny first day of the month and we had a grand day out at the East Barnwell Community Centre, where local youngsters were making some ingenious instruments out of recycled materials.

Our job, to play some grooves and get them all ‘shake, rattle and roll’ ing. I think that’s a ‘phrasal verb’, Gene will no doubt confirm…

So back to the music, hopefully we didn’t disappoint, with our usual blend of blues, rock and folky numbers, plus a couple of surprise additions on a (you guessed it) recycling theme. We struggled valiantly on to the end of our recycling version of ‘Ten Green Bottles’ – despite losing count several times on the way. Nick’s heartfelt exhortation to respect and care for Mother Earth and recycle those bottles, bags and cans will no doubt stay with us all for a long time!

Finally, what a fantastic time we had at STRAWBERRY FAIR on Saturday. It’s an event we’ve long hoped to play for. Thanks to the organizers and particularly to Jay for inviting us and looking after us so well. The bandstand on the ‘Village Green’ looked fantastic with it’s multicoloured canopy and our own Street Voices banner resplendent on the side. So it was we kickstarted the fair at high noon with some cracking blues numbers.

A few songs in we played the reggae style ‘Hills Road Blues’ as a very special tribute to our friend Shayna, who has sadly passed away. Shayna came to our CD launch in November, and her dad says that of all the songs she loved that particular track. Shayna was very close to the heart of Nick and many of our fans and followers, and it was easy to imagine she was there with us in the warm and playful breeze.

Set lists are always somewhat fluid with this group, and luckily so! The early return of the parade half way through the quieter part of our set meant accommodating an interlude of rumbustuous samba beats with associated stilt walkers, belly dancers and assorted carnival characters. There was nothing for it but to pitch ourselves in to the musical tide and add our own fine and funky riffs to the melée.

It was to our usual jamming sessions as white water rafting is to a gentle paddle down the river! But, as they say, ‘nobody was drownded’ we went on to play our closing numbers, and our cheery crowd of fans loved it all, down to the last fading notes of ‘Leslisa’… ‘by the riverside’.

Only a week after our Stepney adventure we found ourselves back in the tranquil Cambridgeshire countryside for the Landbeach Concert of Words and Song.  This took place beneath the ancient wooden angels decorating the rafters of All Saints Church, Landbeach. We performed before a wonderfully welcoming audience, our usual line up enhanced by the addition of poet Jade Rivers. Jade’s beautifully crafted poems about her experiences of dark times and renewal left the audience visibly moved.

Jade with the wooden angel

Jade will be joining us again for our next concert at All Saints Haslingfield on Saturday 9th April, 3 – 5 pm. This time Jade will bring Toby Peters, who will provide his unique and subtle guitar accompaniment to the poems. Of course, you can also expect to hear the usual Street Voices musical fare, some poems from Cate Williams, a good helping of blues and, as always, some surprises along the way.

Where to start! So much has happened in the last few weeks there’s barely been time to boot up the lap top.

March 11th’s Irish Session did not disappoint. Akeman Street was crammed to bursting with Street Voices members old and new and lots of guests including some new friends who gamely entered into the Irish spirit, tapping their feet to Gene’s Belfast Hornpipe and wiping away a tear at Kevin’s ‘Danny Boy’ and Dodie’s beautiful celtic harp. Thanks to Willow Walk resident Irish Mikey for his heartfelt rendition of “Fields of Athenrye’ and for bringing along friends including ladies’ man Sandy (‘I’m single!’)

Gene performs 'workin' on the railway'

Friday 18th March saw the long awaited London Gig! Yes! We went down a storm with the Camden Calling crew and their guests at The George Tavern, Stepney. Big thanks to our fantastic mini bus taxi driver Errol Ballantyne. This is the man who not only changed a wheel in record time when we had a flat on the motorway – but also helped us unload and set up at the venue. As if that wasn’t enough, he surprised us all by proving an excellent kit drummer and playing along with our set like a pro.

Street Voices rock the George, Errol on drums

Then with uncanny discernment he took himself off ‘for a rest’ in the van while we braved the takeaway in the parallel universe over the road. The geniality of our host was sadly not matched by the quality of the food. As LeeJ Thomas so aptly said, the fried fish was ‘like a training shoe in batter’. Still, over the red formica, we were able to chat to Gene’s friend James, in London for the weekend from California. James lives near Fulsome Jail and roasts coffee for a living – with the aid of a modestly paid work force of prisoners. At the moment James is working for Pink Floyd on a coffee house idea called The UFO. Beam me up Scottie!

Gene and James brave the red formica