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.

Festive Fish and Chips

We’ll be filling the community room at Akeman Street with members old and new, regular attenders and occasional visitors alike. After a harmonious and hearty starter of songs from our seasonal repertoire, we’ll sit down to share a delicious, nutritious fish and chip takeaway meal together.

It seems fitting that lately we’ve been singing an old Spiritual – and American Civil Rights song – ‘I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table’. We’ll be aiming to make ours a real ‘Welcome Table’ on Friday.

Christmas sparkles at Wintercomfort

The third and final event of the year will be on 23rd December, when we’ll be visiting Wintercomfort and entertaining service users and staff with a seasonal sing along…

After that, it will be out with the old and in with the new as we look forward to the annual Homelessness Sunday concert, at 3pm on Sunday 29 January. As usual, the venue will be the ancient (and chilly) Leper Chapel on Newmarket Road. We are really looking forward to airing our new repertoire to the wider public…  So do wrap up warm and come down to listen… there’ll be plenty of our trademark folk and blues, with a few surprises.

If YOU have an idea for a Street Voices gig in 2012 please do get in touch and we’ll certainly come if we can. We especially like community events where we get to meet people and raise awareness of some of the issues surrounding homelessness.

In the meantime, everyone at Street Voices would like to wish our wonderful fans and followers a peaceful and blessed Christmas season.

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!'

spooky trio in the garden at Akeman Street, 2009

It was all far too exciting to hold a camera steady on the night, so trusty blog readers will have to make do with some archive pics of Spooky Men on previous visits to Street Voices, when we cleverly lured them with chocolate croissants and manly mugs of coffee. Thanks guys, you were great! We hope you enjoy our CD and the rest of the tour goes swimmingly…. Welcome Breaks and all.

spooky picnic 2009

This time our performance for Terry was much closer to home in the lovely garden of Westcott House in Cambridge. Once again the cause was the young people’s homeless charity, Newmarket Open Door.

Despite a favourable forecast, the weather turned overcast and showery on the evening of the performance

The garden party guests were forced to take cover, while we played on to those stoic enough to venture outside! Thanks to all the folks who listened, enjoyed and made encouraging comments! Spoon-playing was clearly off the agenda for Terry, but we did manage a short interchange, and a brief reminisce about our earlier meeting.

After the very excellent buffet meal only one question remained… where was the famous Westcott tortoise? The rainy weather clearly wasn’t conducive to our reptilian brethren turning up for the gig, but we didn’t lose all hope of a sighting.

The lengthy business of drying off the kit and packing away the last few leads and stands finished, a shout went up from down in the walled garden – and there she was, the venerable Hort: safely tucked into her shell and sheltering by the wall.

I don’t know what she thought of the music (she didn’t say) but here is photographic proof of her presence

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’.

luscious soundscapes from Toby

Body and soul were refreshed in equal measure with sandwiches and cakes to die for in the break…  Our lovely audience warmed to our songs in no time at all and I’m sure some would have been up and dancing were it not for the pews cramping their style somewhat.

Haslingfield Blues

All in all a brilliant experience of taking the Street Voices sound and message to new friends who gave us a wonderfully warm welcome. Thanks to the Friends of Haslingfield Church. It truly was a bright, bright sunshiny day….

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.

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