Plastering My Pasty Face On People Is Paving The Way Towards...?

Greetings again

After attending The Tongue In-Chic Poetry Forum  recently in Oxford, I left thinking that I'm never going to get anyway if no one knows who I am. I always believed that regardless how much talent a person had if they weren't willing to put the work in they wouldn't succeed.

In the world of Spoken Word, this hard work I speak of refers to performing (as well as all the work that goes into performing such as writing and practising). I am in the fortunate position of being in London where one can attend a spoken word event pretty much every night of the week. To date, I think I've been to maybe half of those nights on a handful of occasions - in short - not good enough!

With the exception of those rare occasions where a person / band / actor etc is plucked out of obscurity by a major record label or company with the money and power to build a PR machine the sise of Russia, slogging your guts out is par for the course, well, that's the way I see it anyway. So I will be trying my best to attend as many of these events as possible.


Speaking of which, I recently attended 3 events which I hadn't been to before, 2 of which I got to perform at. Starting with a night in Catford, run by Mark Mr T Thompson called Mixed Messages. A great night which was packed, wall to wall, I'm guessing maybe there were a 150 people there perhaps?!

This was taken of me performing at Mixed Messages 

On Thursday 3rd February, last week I performed for the first time at Rum Punch in central London. This night is run by Partners In Rhyme (Comfort and Saran) which again was jam packed with a really good crowd.

Both Pictures taken at Rum Punch by SLOETRY   http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2F63xaq2p&h=4235d

Then On Sunday 6th Febuary I went RRRants at the Canden Eye. I've been aware of the RRRants collective for a while now http://www.rrrants.com/ who run events in and out of London as well as doing a lot of work within Schools. I didn't perform at this event but fellow Rubix member Talia Randal did as well as a host of other really good performers including some wicked music.

I've also been back in the studio this week doing some more music which I hope will begin to see the light of day very soon, to run alongside my pastey face (hopefully) lighting up as many gigs as possible. Here's too it

Paul

Some Upcoming Gigs

Yo

Some upcoming gigs for you, and erm...me, of course, me mostly though innit!

Thursday 3rd February
Rum Punch
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146673235385730


Thursday 10th February
BAC Homegrown
http://www.facebook.com/BACHomegrown
http://www.bac.org.uk/get-involved/programmes/homegrown/

Thursday 24th Febuary
Bang Said The Gun
http://www.bangsaidthegun.com/news/about/

Friday 25th March
Catapulting Coccoon Arts Carival
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=296541176061

Thursday 3rd March
BAC Homegrown
http://www.facebook.com/BACHomegrown
http://www.bac.org.uk/get-involved/programmes/homegrown/


Wednesday 3rd March
Rubix Present House Party
http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/explore/portfolios/rubix

Thursday 24th
Homegrown (Last One!!!)
http://www.facebook.com/BACHomegrown
http://www.bac.org.uk/get-involved/programmes/homegrown/


Saturday 9th April
Tounge Foo at Roundhouse
http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/productions/tongue-fu-tales

See you there, hopefully.....

Paul

So what's 'appening?

Bon-jaw (how it would sound If I were to pronounce it)

2011 has started off well. So far so good. Keeping myself busy and getting into the habit of writing applications, which is an art in itself.

Things seem to have gone full circle for me over the last few months, re-connecting with old friends, via the medium of facebook, now that I've actually began to use it to promote myself, but also with music. I talk about music a lot as it's something I grew up with, I've referenced it often in pieces http://manorlogz.co.uk/play/Poets/Jungle_warfare and when talking to people about what I do in terms of writing and performing. It's played a massive part in shaping me as a person and continues to do so. A few months back I began the labour-intensive process of burning all my cd's onto my PC. Between the years of 1999 and 2005 I've collected a lot of Drum and Bass and UK Hip-Hop, and have been able to chart the progression of UK music just through my own back catalogue. So  was delighted recently to be invited round to the studio, with Dani Marshal, of Conrad Murray, whom I know through BAC. Conrad is all things to all men, he's a producer, singer, rapper, beatboxer, guitarist, actor, director...the list goes on. http://www.myspace.com/groupro and http://www.myspace.com/theatredecunt.

Last Sunday I performed with Conrad and Pete form Theatre De-cunt and they improvised with the use of loops, breaks and samples music to one of my performance pieces "London calling". All going well a video will be uploaded at some point of the performance we did it live over in Whitchappell at a bar called Carivale which I really enjoyed. Myself, Conrad and Dani are currently working on some music so watch this space.

This Friday 21st January I will be attending, and possibly performing at a night called Mixed messages, which is down in Catford http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188002624545277 The event is hosted by Mark "Mr T" Thompson who was the winner of the Manorlogz competition, the line up is pretty good so I'm looking forward to this one.

On Thursday 27th January  is the lauch of BAC Homegrown. http://www.facebook.com/BACHomegrown which I'm very excited about. This has taken months of planning with the Young Producers group I'm part of http://www.bac.org.uk/get-involved/programmes/bacs-young-producers/ Part of the reason I'm so excited about this project is that BAC are actively interested in breaking down the social boundaries associated with the performing arts by offering a wide range of workshops and encouageing everyone to take part regardless of your background.

My pastey mug also managed to get in the photo shoot too!

Thursday 3rd February I'll be performing at Rum Punch http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146673235385730 I've not performed there before so I'm looking forward to it as it seems like a really well run event with a big reputation, and I'll be dropping some new material I've been working on.

Thursday 25th I will be doing a feature set at the Almighty Bang Said The Gun http://www.bangsaidthegun.com/news/about/ this is one of the best nights around and not one I've been too in almost a year, so this should be wicked and Rob Auton is the man!!

Friday the 25th I'm very fortunate to be involved in very cool project http://www.catapultingcocoon.com/theatre which will be at the Woodstore Islington. At this stage I'm not sure what it will be as it will be a collaobtation with other artists but either way I'm excited!

I think that is about it for now, and I'm sure there will be more updates...

All the best

Paul