Hello 2014

Greetings

Happy new year and all that.

It's been a wee while since I've posted anything and a fair bit has happened, what with the bedsit show and general festive shenanigans.
 

The Bedsit

 Speaking of the show, as in A Tale From The Bedsit, it all went pretty well. We did 9 shows, over the last week of November and really enjoyed it, I felt it went pretty well all in all. There were a few hiccups but that's to be expected. The whole vibe of the festival was great, saw lots of familiar faces in the bar at Roundhouse who were either performing or just as punters. The whole thing has been a massive learning curve for me and I feel pretty good after coming out of the other side.

Reviews

I was told before the show started not to expect many of the supposed big-guns in, in terms of reviewers, for various reasons but I weren't that fussed. I appreciate that at this moment in time I'm not exactly a big draw and spoken word isn't quite as big as a play happening else where etc etc, I was just glad of the opportunity and was pretty chuffed about the fact the most of the shows were sold out (even if it was just 8 people per show, that's still 8 people that have made the effort to come in and see it, too me, that's nuts!)

HOWEVER! I was made up when I saw these two reviews from Londonist via Lindsey Clarke and Sabotage Time via Lettie McKie

http://londonist.com/2013/11/have-a-cup-of-tea-with-paul-cree-in-a-tale-from-the-bedsit.php

http://sabotagereviews.com/2013/12/05/review-the-last-word-festival-the-roundhouse-16-nov-1st-dec/

And on a final bedsit note, the show will be going to Bettersea Arts Center for a week in march, which I'm delighted about, as BAC is a venue I have a lot connections with, you can purchase tickets from here

https://www.bac.org.uk/content/31456/see_whats_on/current_shows/cook_up/a_tale_from_the_bedsit

This was me in the Camden Lock Hotel where most of the shows were

This was where the final show of the run was, for a bigger audience

rODIUM

For the last year or so, I've been playing drums and precession for my friend and collaborator Conrad Murray's band, rODIUM. We've recently had a spat of gigs which I really enjoyed, most notably at legendary gig venue, The Water-rats in Kings Cross, here is a video.

rODIUM - Steppin (Out of Love)

Way back at the beginning of the year, I went in a studio in Colliers Wood to play drums on a attack for my good friend Conrad Murray's band rODIUM. Around the same time he asked me to appear in the video, which we shot in Kingston on a cold Saturday afternoon and then at Breakfast studios in Clapham Junction. We had a lot of fun on those days and here is the the result of that work.

rODIUM, have been gigging relentlessly all year and you are most likely catch them around London, occasionally I bang a drums, or even more occasionally a full kit full for them too. The track features, Conrad Murray on guitar and vocals, Fudge as rapper, Rochelle Francis also on vocals, Rosa Brook on Violin and Dean Hewins on bass. The video was filmed by Vilmos Media, big up Mervin, Jo, Dom and the crew!

You can join the growing army of rODIUM fans on facebook HERE and purchase their first EP The rODIUM EP from Bandcamp HERE

Cirus Plans

Easy

So I've had a nice couple of months of late. I've been lucky enough to perform at some really enjoyable gigs, One Taste, Talia Randal's 3 Mile Radius EP Launch (which I will speak more about very soon!), Bang Said The Gun and Pigeon Poetry as well as playing the drums for rODIUM. It brings an end to what has been a pretty good year. As for next year, I'm currently working on 2 projects which will be, all going well, coming to fruition in the first half of next year, both of which I'm pretty excited about! More to follow...

On a quick note, I just wanted to give up some space on here, as I tend to talk about what I'm doing a bit too much, and shine some light on a guy who's doing some really exciting things at the moment. He goes by the name of Cirus and is a member of Roundhouse associate collective Elephant where I first met him. I'm not really one to try and intellectualize on what other people are doing with their own art, I don't tend too make any sence even when I do. All I know is that I like what Cirus is doing, with his voice, his words, his sounds and his pen. 
I first heard him doing spoken word, back last year at Meadowlands, I remember being taken aback by his voice and his presence. I've recently come across some of the music he's making and I'm able to pay a lot more attention to his content.
 I had a mad chat with him back in the summer at the Lounge On The Farm Festival and we both had similar interests music wise and hearing the stuff he's making hasn't disappointed, he's clearly doing on his own thing. It's inspiring.  

 

rODIUM Blind, live session video.

A couple of weeks back I had another session with rODIUM playing drums again. Things are getting tighter, I think (hope!), well anyway, here's links to 2 of the songs Take Me Away and Blind, big up Monique who filmed, Matt on guitar, who you can't see in the first video and of course Dean (Boggaloo Dee), who is a very old friend a mine who came in on bass for his first session and smashed it. Enjoy

P.S You download the latest rODIUM single You're A Star from Itunes HERE

Lenzez and rODIUM Jam 'fly' live

Yo.

So I was back again on the drums recently for rODIUM . I'm still getting into the swing of things with this and I'll probably take a while to get up to a good playing standard but again it was fun. Check the vid...

Music, it's all gone full circle!

Greetings!

This is a little update to let you know about some music projects I've been working on of late...

For anyone that's known me for a while, or for that matter has ever listened to me talk about myself, which, I do, erm, probably a bit more than I should... the'l know prior to entering the world of Poetry and Spoken Word, I was a rapper and an MC, prior to that I was a drummer, prior to that I was a fan of music! I've been lucky enough to be born into a family of music and have had many different influences around me my whole life.

So about 18 months ago I was offered the chance to go into the studio of Conrad Murray aka Cakey Monkey. I knew Con through working on theatre projects at BAC, and together with Dani Marshall whom I also know from BAC (but did'nt know at the time she possessed the voice of an angel) we put this track together (the working title is Outcast) as a little experiment, it was the first time I'd been 'in the booth' rapping for a few years

We all clicked pretty quickly and soon enough a whole project was born. At the moment, a lot of it is still under wraps but here's another work in progress track (Working title Time, Blood Sweat and Tears). 



and then finally, as if going back to rapping wasn't enough, I was just last week invited to play drums on the video shoot for Conrad's Hip Hop group Rodium (Cakey Monkey, Joypad B and Killer PLO). I must say, I was a bit rusty too begin with but it was a lot of fun in a dirty old studio round the back of the legendary Tin Pan Alley!
Here's a sneaky behind the scenes video for the track You're A Star.



To top it all off, I've been working on my self produced EP which I hope at some point will see the light of day! Who knows...

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did!