Amelia’s Magazine | Wood Festival 2015 Review: A Family Friendly Musical Paradise

Wood Festival 2015-review year of the bee
This year, as ever, the weather was absolutely gorgeous for Wood Festival: plenty of sunshine and dry underfoot despite the downpours a few days previously. I managed to persuade my friend (and fellow mum) Helen of East End Prints to accompany us as I knew that Snarf would love to feral around with his lil’ mate (we went to the Buddhafield Green Earth Awakening Camp together last year, read my review here) and we arrived in time for a late lunch on Saturday, staying through to Sunday evening.

Wood Festival 2015-review kids run wild
Wood Festival 2015-review out door singing
Wood Festival 2015-review tyre swing
Wood Festival 2015-review snarf
Wood Festival 2015-review bubbles
Wood Festival 2015-review harmony workshop
Wood Festival 2015-review samba band
I know I’ve said this in previous years but Wood Festival is perfect for kids: there is a sense of freedom and safety in the field at Braziers Park that is rare to find, and we basically had a child-led festival, following where our little ones wanted to run. We ate cheesy chips, enjoyed unexpected tunes around the daytime campfire, roamed the woodland playground, ate ice cream, chased bubbles, joined a harmony singing workshop, followed the samba band (dressed as bumble bees), ate more ice cream and of course listened to some music when we could:


The Wallingford based Band of Hope shared some beautiful folk harmonies and soaring violin melodies. They have put together a podcast recorded at Wood Festival, which you can listen to here.

Wood Festival 2015-review main stage
Wood Festival 2015-review kids in woods
Wood Festival 2015-review bee girls
Wood Festival 2015 review kids workshop
Wood Festival 2015-review dining tent
Wood Festival 2015-review campfire
Wood Festival 2015-review the gang
Late on Saturday night I listened to Tunng from the comfort of our tent, having adjourned for the night at a ridiculously early hour with my child. This was the first time the band have played together in some time and they sounded great, even in my half asleep state.


Co-Pilgrim put together a typically dreamy set from the wonderful album A Fairer Sea, which lulled my over excited three year old to sleep. Expect a new album from them soon.


The ‘big bastard baritone’ vocals of Liverpool based John Joseph Brill (his words not mine) were an exciting discovery – a uniquely raspy voice married to soulful reverb that is a heavenly cross between Interpol, U2 (in the best sense) and I LIKE TRAINS. Go check him out.


I heard Spiro on the radio a few weeks ago and was most taken with their tight music making (the result of many years playing together), a deft combination of classical music, dance and folk. It was great to hear them live.

Wood Festival 2015-review band with baby
Finally, Francis Pugh & The Whisky Singers are bluegrass singers from Oxford and were a great reminder of what Wood Festival does so well: creating a family friendly atmosphere where everyone can enjoy great music in a relaxed setting. Where else would you so comfortably find a baby on stage, holding a red balloon?

We are already looking forward to next year.

All photography by Amelia Gregory, our portrait by Mim Saxl.

Categories ,2015, ,A Fairer Sea, ,Band of Hope, ,Brazier’s Park, ,Buddhafield Green Earth Awakening Camp, ,Child Friendly, ,children, ,Co-pilgrim, ,East End Prints, ,Family, ,Francis Pugh & The Whisky Singers, ,I Like Trains, ,Interpol, ,John Joseph Brill, ,Mim Saxl, ,Oxford, ,review, ,Snarf, ,Spiro, ,tunng, ,U2, ,Wood Festival, ,Year of the Bee

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Amelia’s Magazine | The ACOFI Book Tour visits Comma Shop in Oxford

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011

Last Wednesday was my second night on the ACOFI book tour last week – and my first time visiting the lovely new Comma Shop on Iffley Road in Oxford. Comma Shop has only been open since last October and it’s a truly wonderful little store that stocks all kind of goodies. I arrived in brilliant sunshine so it was easy to spot – gleaming like a brightly coloured gem in this mainly residential area, abortion intermingled with car dealerships and hippy cafes. This part of east Oxford is enjoying something of a renaissance thanks in part to the newly refurbished Pegasus Theatre in a nearby side street.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Gemma CorrellACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Gemma Correll
Details from Gemma Correll’s mural for Comma Shop.

Gemma Correll has done a truly wonderful mural on the wall as you enter Comma Shop and everywhere hand made and unusual items have been stacked in expert manner. Dave quit his job in IT to start an innovative designer tea towel business with his partner Sally who was formerly in marketing. To Dry For showcases the work of up and coming designers and the window of Comma Shop is used to showcase the tea towel artwork.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Dave Emery
Dave Emery of Comma Shop.
ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 To Dry For tea towels
To Dry For tea towels in the window.

ACOFI book tour Comma ShopACOFI book tour Comma Shop postcardsACOFI book tour Comma Shop

It comes as no surprise to find that Dave grew up in shops: his parents always ran small shops, ampoule and despite the fact that he saw what long hours they had to work he has clearly caught the bug too. He also previously worked as a merchandiser, sickness which would explain his knack for putting stuff together. Who else would have thought of interspersing my Roger La Borde cards with designs from everyone else? Yup, he’s got an eye, this one.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Roger la BordeACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Dave and Sally
Dave and Sally. Sally has had to take some time out of the business due to the unexpected early arrival of their first child – but I was glad to meet her a bit later in the evening.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges

From 6pm attendees began to dribble into the store and we set to making some fab little fabric rosettes with Anna Butler from Custom Made UK, who was on hand to show everyone (including the children and the men) just how easy it is to make these fun little badges.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges Anna Butler
Custom Made UK button badges from Anna Butler.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges Anna ButlerACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges Anna Butler
Just some of the lovely button badges that were produced in a jiffy.

Anna also runs classes at Darn It and Stitch – the brains behind this new Oxford based haberdashery shop and teaching centre is Jo, who turned up with her partner Luke and friend Sally. Her store is part of a growing trend for a return to hands on creativity – it seems we just can’t get enough of it these days, and I for one heartily approve.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Jo Darn It and Stitch
Jo of Darn It and Stitch.

Many of the goods stocked in Comma Shop are one offs. Amongst those that really stood out were the gorgeous intricate papercut framed artworks of Helen Musselwhite – if you’re an owl fan you can’t go wrong! And I loved the Charity Shop Orphans – reappropriated with a lick of bright paint by Emma Harding. She also produces a zine if you prefer your collectable items in print.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Helen MusselwhiteACOFI book tour Comma Shop Emma Harding Charity shop orphans

Other stuff I love: the fact that Jack Teagle has committed one of my favourite art pieces to print in the form of a greetings card from Toasted. Comma Shop also stocks cards produced by Rachel Wilson, who was on hand with boyfriend Ben to help serve the Juiceology juices and G & D ice cream.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Toasted Jack Teagle
Toasted card by Jack Teagle.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop JuiceologyACOFI book tour Comma Shop G & D ice creamACOFI book tour Comma Shop Rachel Wilson and Dave Emery enjoy ice cream
Rachel Wilson and Dave Emery enjoy some raspberry and chocolate ice cream.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Dr.Hauschka
Love the Dr.Hauschka samples displayed in a pottery log and some vintage jelly moulds!

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford London Walks Baudade
One of the first to turn up was Joanne, known as Baudade. She’s just published a new comic book, London Walks! with the Tate.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Will Mccallum
Will Mccallum, aka Art of Activism, also popped in to buy a book. Although he sadly wasn’t able to stay for the talk his purchase was much appreciated! And it was nice to see a friendly face from someone who is doing good stuff in the world.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Good Biscuits
It made me very happy that Caroline of Good Biscuits (whom I met at Wood Festival) not only came along in person to drop off her delicious creations – vanilla melts, vegan chocolate buttons and chewy pistachio cookies, nomnom – but she also stayed to listen to me talk. What a lovely lady, who was inspired to start a healthy sustainable biscuit brand after her job in local authority led her to work with local food producers. Make sure you try some Good Biscuits if you’re in the Oxford area.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Drew and Jo
Drew and Jo. Also present was Drew, who is the press officer for Wood Festival. I wasn’t sure why he looked familiar and then it suddenly twigged that I had met him at Wood, but only when it was late and very dark. Fortunately his unmistakable bush of hair gave him away!

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Laura and Helen
Later on we were joined by another member of the Truck clan, younger Bennett brother Chris, with girlfriend Beehive, who was teaching clay model making at Wood Festival. It really was an Oxfordshire love fest for me last week!

The Oxfam Fashion crew
The Oxfam Fashion crew. Apparently the biggest employers in Oxford are the university, publishing (of all sorts) and Oxfam… which has it’s global office there. So it was nice to see quite a few Oxfam types in attendance.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Sarah PlantACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 custom made uk
Sadly Sarah Plant of Ferment Zine did not stay for my talk but it was nice to meet someone that I have chatted with on twitter. And we also had a very small visitor in the form of Aisha, who enjoyed making a fabric button.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Laura and Helen
Laura and Helen. Laura Hill Lines works at Bridget Wheatley and is hoping to launch her own jewellery brand soon, featuring big uncut gems. I can’t wait to see what she produces!

Malaika Aleba
Malaika Aleba is a Canadian staying in Oxford over the summer and a writer for the Sierra Club.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 postcardsACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Anastasia DuckACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Anastasia Duck

Last but very not least it was really lovely to see Michael aka Anastasia Duck – who is a fashion blogger who came along to my launch party at 123 Bethnal Green Road back in January. Not only was it great to see a friendly face but I am very thankful because he did a very speedy and good write up of the event, which you can read here. I like his description of me as being ‘haphazard’….heehee

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Jo and Michael

Don’t forget that my final ACOFI Book Tour date is at Tatty Devine Brick Lane with Biscuiteers on Tuesday 7th June. Akeela Bhattay has just posted a very lovely blog about the last event in Covent Garden. See you there x
Here’s who I gave my talk to:

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011

Categories ,ACOFI, ,Akeela Bhattay, ,Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration, ,Anastasia Duck, ,Anna Butler, ,Art of Activism, ,Baudade, ,Biscuits, ,Bridget Wheatley, ,Caroline, ,charity, ,Charity Shop Orphans, ,Chris Bennett, ,Comma Shop, ,Custom Made UK, ,Custon Made UK, ,Darn It and Stitch, ,Dave and Sally, ,Dr.Hauschka, ,Emma Harding, ,Ferment Zine, ,G&D Cafe, ,G&D ice-cream, ,Gemma Correll, ,Good Biscuits, ,Helen Musselwhite, ,Ice Cream, ,Iffley Road, ,Jack Teagle, ,Juiceology, ,Laura Hill Lines, ,Malaika Aleba, ,oxfam, ,Papercut, ,Pegasus Theatre, ,Rachel Wilson, ,Roger La Borde, ,Sarah Plant, ,Sierra Club, ,Tate, ,Tatty Devine, ,Tea Towels, ,To Dry For, ,Truck Festival, ,Will Mccallum, ,Wood Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | The ACOFI Book Tour visits Comma Shop in Oxford

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011

Last Wednesday was my second night on the ACOFI book tour last week – and my first time visiting the lovely new Comma Shop on Iffley Road in Oxford. Comma Shop has only been open since last October and it’s a truly wonderful little store that stocks all kind of goodies. I arrived in brilliant sunshine so it was easy to spot – gleaming like a brightly coloured gem in this mainly residential area, abortion intermingled with car dealerships and hippy cafes. This part of east Oxford is enjoying something of a renaissance thanks in part to the newly refurbished Pegasus Theatre in a nearby side street.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Gemma CorrellACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Gemma Correll
Details from Gemma Correll’s mural for Comma Shop.

Gemma Correll has done a truly wonderful mural on the wall as you enter Comma Shop and everywhere hand made and unusual items have been stacked in expert manner. Dave quit his job in IT to start an innovative designer tea towel business with his partner Sally who was formerly in marketing. To Dry For showcases the work of up and coming designers and the window of Comma Shop is used to showcase the tea towel artwork.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Dave Emery
Dave Emery of Comma Shop.
ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 To Dry For tea towels
To Dry For tea towels in the window.

ACOFI book tour Comma ShopACOFI book tour Comma Shop postcardsACOFI book tour Comma Shop

It comes as no surprise to find that Dave grew up in shops: his parents always ran small shops, ampoule and despite the fact that he saw what long hours they had to work he has clearly caught the bug too. He also previously worked as a merchandiser, sickness which would explain his knack for putting stuff together. Who else would have thought of interspersing my Roger La Borde cards with designs from everyone else? Yup, he’s got an eye, this one.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Roger la BordeACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Dave and Sally
Dave and Sally. Sally has had to take some time out of the business due to the unexpected early arrival of their first child – but I was glad to meet her a bit later in the evening.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges

From 6pm attendees began to dribble into the store and we set to making some fab little fabric rosettes with Anna Butler from Custom Made UK, who was on hand to show everyone (including the children and the men) just how easy it is to make these fun little badges.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges Anna Butler
Custom Made UK button badges from Anna Butler.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges Anna ButlerACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badgesACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Custom Made UK button badges Anna Butler
Just some of the lovely button badges that were produced in a jiffy.

Anna also runs classes at Darn It and Stitch – the brains behind this new Oxford based haberdashery shop and teaching centre is Jo, who turned up with her partner Luke and friend Sally. Her store is part of a growing trend for a return to hands on creativity – it seems we just can’t get enough of it these days, and I for one heartily approve.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Jo Darn It and Stitch
Jo of Darn It and Stitch.

Many of the goods stocked in Comma Shop are one offs. Amongst those that really stood out were the gorgeous intricate papercut framed artworks of Helen Musselwhite – if you’re an owl fan you can’t go wrong! And I loved the Charity Shop Orphans – reappropriated with a lick of bright paint by Emma Harding. She also produces a zine if you prefer your collectable items in print.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Helen MusselwhiteACOFI book tour Comma Shop Emma Harding Charity shop orphans

Other stuff I love: the fact that Jack Teagle has committed one of my favourite art pieces to print in the form of a greetings card from Toasted. Comma Shop also stocks cards produced by Rachel Wilson, who was on hand with boyfriend Ben to help serve the Juiceology juices and G & D ice cream.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Toasted Jack Teagle
Toasted card by Jack Teagle.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop JuiceologyACOFI book tour Comma Shop G & D ice creamACOFI book tour Comma Shop Rachel Wilson and Dave Emery enjoy ice cream
Rachel Wilson and Dave Emery enjoy some raspberry and chocolate ice cream.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Dr.Hauschka
Love the Dr.Hauschka samples displayed in a pottery log and some vintage jelly moulds!

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford London Walks Baudade
One of the first to turn up was Joanne, known as Baudade. She’s just published a new comic book, London Walks! with the Tate.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Will Mccallum
Will Mccallum, aka Art of Activism, also popped in to buy a book. Although he sadly wasn’t able to stay for the talk his purchase was much appreciated! And it was nice to see a friendly face from someone who is doing good stuff in the world.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Oxford Good Biscuits
It made me very happy that Caroline of Good Biscuits (whom I met at Wood Festival) not only came along in person to drop off her delicious creations – vanilla melts, vegan chocolate buttons and chewy pistachio cookies, nomnom – but she also stayed to listen to me talk. What a lovely lady, who was inspired to start a healthy sustainable biscuit brand after her job in local authority led her to work with local food producers. Make sure you try some Good Biscuits if you’re in the Oxford area.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop Drew and Jo
Drew and Jo. Also present was Drew, who is the press officer for Wood Festival. I wasn’t sure why he looked familiar and then it suddenly twigged that I had met him at Wood, but only when it was late and very dark. Fortunately his unmistakable bush of hair gave him away!

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Laura and Helen
Later on we were joined by another member of the Truck clan, younger Bennett brother Chris, with girlfriend Beehive, who was teaching clay model making at Wood Festival. It really was an Oxfordshire love fest for me last week!

The Oxfam Fashion crew
The Oxfam Fashion crew. Apparently the biggest employers in Oxford are the university, publishing (of all sorts) and Oxfam… which has it’s global office there. So it was nice to see quite a few Oxfam types in attendance.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Sarah PlantACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 custom made uk
Sadly Sarah Plant of Ferment Zine did not stay for my talk but it was nice to meet someone that I have chatted with on twitter. And we also had a very small visitor in the form of Aisha, who enjoyed making a fabric button.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Laura and Helen
Laura and Helen. Laura Hill Lines works at Bridget Wheatley and is hoping to launch her own jewellery brand soon, featuring big uncut gems. I can’t wait to see what she produces!

Malaika Aleba
Malaika Aleba is a Canadian staying in Oxford over the summer and a writer for the Sierra Club.

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 postcardsACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Anastasia DuckACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Anastasia Duck

Last but very not least it was really lovely to see Michael aka Anastasia Duck – who is a fashion blogger who came along to my launch party at 123 Bethnal Green Road back in January. Not only was it great to see a friendly face but I am very thankful because he did a very speedy and good write up of the event, which you can read here. I like his description of me as being ‘haphazard’….heehee

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011 Jo and Michael

Don’t forget that my final ACOFI Book Tour date is at Tatty Devine Brick Lane with Biscuiteers on Tuesday 7th June. Akeela Bhattay has just posted a very lovely blog about the last event in Covent Garden. See you there x
Here’s who I gave my talk to:

ACOFI book tour Comma Shop OxfordACOFI book tour Comma Shop 2011

Categories ,ACOFI, ,Akeela Bhattay, ,Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration, ,Anastasia Duck, ,Anna Butler, ,Art of Activism, ,Baudade, ,Biscuits, ,Bridget Wheatley, ,Caroline, ,charity, ,Charity Shop Orphans, ,Chris Bennett, ,Comma Shop, ,Custom Made UK, ,Custon Made UK, ,Darn It and Stitch, ,Dave and Sally, ,Dr.Hauschka, ,Emma Harding, ,Ferment Zine, ,G&D Cafe, ,G&D ice-cream, ,Gemma Correll, ,Good Biscuits, ,Helen Musselwhite, ,Ice Cream, ,Iffley Road, ,Jack Teagle, ,Juiceology, ,Laura Hill Lines, ,Malaika Aleba, ,oxfam, ,Papercut, ,Pegasus Theatre, ,Rachel Wilson, ,Roger La Borde, ,Sarah Plant, ,Sierra Club, ,Tate, ,Tatty Devine, ,Tea Towels, ,To Dry For, ,Truck Festival, ,Will Mccallum, ,Wood Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | Album Review: Get Well Soon – Sarabeth Tucek

SARABETH TUCEK BY CHANDRA VIOLA 1
Illustration by Chandra Viola

This morning I woke up sick – emotionally and physically sick. And upset with myself, cheap because I knew that partly it was my own fault. The early spring sun and the frizzy breeze that would invite everybody else to go out and enjoy the fresh air just didn’t work for me. And in this antithesis of moods between me and the environment outside my room, tadalafil I put on Sarabeth Tucek’s Get Well Soon. And for the first time (despite having listened to it for so long since I got the pre-release in the post) I appreciated it fully.

The second album of the Florida-born, buy information pills Brooklyn-based actress-turned-singer is a therapeutic album indeed. After the success of her self-titled debut two years ago, the fragile songstress got overwhelmed by the fame and things started to precipitate. And apparently the death of the father made her touch the bottom. But music came into help and rescued her from the dark abysses of depression. Music as self-therapy, then. But despite the introspectiveness of the album, the 12 tracks that form the narrative of Get Well Soon address to every soul that can empathise with them, and their message has a healing power for everybody who’s open to let it in. Easy comparisons come to mind when listening to Get Well Soon – Cat Power, Neil Young, Big Star and even The Breeders, just to name a few. But there’s something truly unique about Sarabeth Tucek, that may lie in the genuineness of her grief that transpires from the notes and shades of her voice and hits the heart.

SARABETH TUCEK BY CHANDRA VIOLA 3
Illustration by Chandra Viola (website under construction)

The opening track ‘The Wound and The Bow’ is a little prelude to the album while ‘Wooden’ truly sets the mood for the whole record, with its enchant of mournful games of chords gently plucked that intertwine with Sarabeth’s bittersweet voice until it opens in a warm old school rock anthem Pink Floyd would be proud of. ‘A View’ is another little gem of melanchonic sweetness. Voluptas dolendi, the Latins would say. ‘You and I, we share a view’ the lyrics go. And I look at the view through my window – a cheeky cloud attempts to cover the sun, but a ray pierces through and I wonder whether ‘he’ is enjoying the same spectacle from wherever he might be in this moment. When ‘The Fireman’ – a autobiographical ballad describing a dream Sarabeth had about her father –  kicks in with its more upbeat tempo, I start thinking about my own dad. And I suddenly realise I miss him and his funny grumpiness that has always got on my nerves causing one too many unnecessary arguments.

YouTube Preview Image
State I Am In.

‘Things Left Behind’ is in my opinion one of the most heart-breaking songs of the entire album, a sadness that’s hard to bear – ‘you wished yourself right off the map into the air / and if I’m looking hard, you’re above me now / hanging on some little star’ – but Sarabeth’s voice gets so gentle and touching that it makes it impossible not to listen to it 3 times in a row. ‘State I Am In’ opens with languid droney guitars, another classic rock tribute. It’s one of the most upbeat tracks of the whole album, and seems to prelude to the songwriter’s personal resurrection from Hell, which is confirmed by the splendid ‘Rising’ – ‘through a break in the window I can see something is shining’. I can see it too.

SARABETH TUCEK BY CHANDRA VIOLA 2
Illustration by Chandra Viola

This morning I was sick, I said. And I knew that part of the blame for this was mine. Illness is all about inner pain. And the more you mourn about your pain, the worst it gets. Sometimes you only need to recognise your faults and absolve yourself to feel better. ‘I knew I was sad / I recognised it was bad / but now looking back / I see my mind, it was cracked’, the lyrics of the startling Get Well Soon go, accompanying me to the final redemption. The sun is caressing my cheeks through the window. I open it, and let the fresh air come in. The birds sing along the last notes of the eponymous closing track. I jump on my bicycle and go to join my friends at the park. I’m well now. Thank you, Sarabeth.

Get Well Soon music video
YouTube Preview Image

Sarabeth Tucek will play at Camden Crawl and will headline a show in London at the Slaughtered Lamb on May 19th. She’s also beein added to the bill of End Of The Road Festival in September and also Oxfordshire’s Wood Festival in May. Get Well Soon will be out on Sonic Cathedral on 11th April 2011. A gem not to be missed.

Categories ,album, ,Bob Dylan, ,Brian Jonestown Massacre, ,brooklyn, ,Camden Crawl, ,Chandra Viola, ,Death, ,End of the Road, ,Florida, ,Folk Rock, ,Forgiveness, ,Get Well Soon, ,guitars, ,Music as therapy, ,Pink Floyd, ,Redemption, ,Sarabeth Tucek, ,slaughtered lamb, ,Sonic Cathedral, ,Wood Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | Woodpecker Wooliams at King’s Place: Live Review

Woodpecker Wooliams by Sam Parr

Woodpecker Wooliams by Sam Parr

Turning a corner from King’s Cross station, it was a chill wind that blew as I hurried down York Way. Past those Victorian facades touched by the regeneration that is fast spreading through this part of London, I spied that most modern of constructs, King’s Place. Opened in 2008, a mixture of the artistic and commercial (as well as performance and exhibition space, it’s also home to the Guardian newspaper), this was my destination for the evening.

I’d been to King’s Place once before, to catch Laura J Martin just before Christmas, but tonight’s action was taking place in the venue’s main room, Hall One, a curious space (apparently a structure within a structure, a box sitting on rubber springs to acoustically separate it from the rest of the building, and layered in veneer that comes from the same 500 year old German oak tree) which strangely reminded me of a lecture theatre.

The final day of The Local’s “three day mini-festival of modern-day existential songwriting”, The Stranger The Better, tonight’s fine line-up included Sons Of Noel And Adrian and a solo set by Meursault front-man Neil Pennycook, but opening proceedings was Woodpecker Wooliams.

YouTube Preview Image

Hailing from Crawley but based in that musical hotbed-by-the-sea, Brighton, Woodpecker Wooliams (otherwise known as multi-instrumentalist, shaman and bee-keeper Gemma Williams) was apparently once told by Brian Eno not to bother with music. Ignoring his sage advice, she has instead spent time crafting darkly delicate melodies tinged with electronic flourishes and occasionally unsettling lyrics, delivered in an idiosyncratic style that has drawn comparisons with Björk (“creepy, but in a good way” is how the Guardian described her – creepy from Crawley indeed, to borrow a music journo description of another of that town’s famous sons, Robert Smith of The Cure). Touring around the UK and Europe has led to radio sessions (most recently on BBC Radio 6 Music, with Tom Robinson) and the release of her debut album, The Bird School Of Being Human, on Robot Elephant Records.

Woodpecker Wooliams by Gilly Rochester

Woodpecker Wooliams by Gilly Rochester

It was a prompt 7.30pm start and I’d just made it to King’s Place (having come straight from home), but, on discovering that no drinks were allowed in Hall One, I had to endure that most novel of experiences – a sober gig. As Woodpecker Wooliams (tonight, a full band) walked on stage and settled down in their places, the strangeness of the atmosphere was heightened by the fact that the audience was completely hushed, there was none of the background chatter that you normally get in venues.

The set tonight was a run through of tracks from the album, which all have a common theme (in title, at least, as they’re all named after birds). We got songs like Red Kite and the most recent single, Gull, with Williams sat with her harp as around her dissonant electronic drones warbled, backed with skittish drums, an occasional trumpet (and, on Crow, a grainy sample of the Last Post). There was even the parping of a deflating balloon – not the sort of thing you’d normally encounter, especially somewhere as refined as King’s Place! Williams moved behind a keyboard set-up for an incandescent Sparrow, bobbing to the beat as the searing vocals echoed off the laminated walls. The unusual quiet of the hall added to the often eerie nature of the songs, and focussed attention on the performers.

YouTube Preview Image

Cheers broke the respectful silence as we reached the end, Williams and band taking the crowd’s applause as they walked off the stage as we, in turn, filed out to lay siege to the bar during the brief intermission.

There don’t appear to be any more live performances on the immediate horizon for Woodpecker Wooliams, at least until an appearance at the End Of The Road Festival during the summer, so we can only wait and see what more magic she is concocts in the meantime.

Categories ,BBC Radio 6 Music, ,bjork, ,brian eno, ,brighton, ,Crawley, ,End Of The Road Festival, ,Gemma Williams, ,Gilly Rochester, ,King’s Cross, ,King’s Place, ,Laura J Martin, ,Meursault, ,Neil Pennycook, ,Robert Smith, ,Robot Elephant Records, ,Sam Parr, ,sons of noel and adrian, ,the cure, ,The Guardian, ,The Local, ,The Stranger The Better, ,Tom Robinson, ,Woodpecker Wooliams

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Amelia’s Magazine | Wood Festival 2011 Review: Zeus, Treetop Flyers Eliza Carthy and printing with lino!

Wood Festival Samba Band and Tents by Sam Parr
Wood Festival Samba Band and Tents by Sam Parr.

Sunday at Wood Festival began with a stint of harmony singing led by Katy, capsule the talented teacher of the Bennett family. It’s rare that I get to sing these days what with so much else going on in my life, price so I relished the opportunity to exercise my lungs with lots of (mainly) like-minded women.

Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
All photography by Amelia Gregory.

A noisy samba parade was the culmination of the morning’s activities, travelling the length of the site to entertain campers. At many points Wood Festival felt more like a family camp than a festival, which was no bad thing as it ensured that there was a real sense of friendliness which can often be missing at other festivals, and it felt like a safe place to leave children roaming wild in packs.

Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Polly and Billets Doux Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory

Polly and the Billets Doux kicked off proceedings on the Wood Stage with their double bass heavy blend of jazz, gospel, country and folk. I particularly loved their painted double bass, which was passed around the band.


To Be A Fighter by Polly and the Billets Doux.

Two Fingers of Firewater Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Two Fingers of Firewater Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Two Fingers of Firewater took the tented Tree Stage during the lazy post lunch hour for keyboard soaked country folk.

Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
During the afternoon my merry group of adults decided to join the kids in some lino printing: at Wood all ages muck in together which is something that happens rarely in our modern society. It was really wonderful to have the space and time to indulge in a bit of creativity.

Katy Rose Cavalry Parade Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Katy Rose Cavalry Parade Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Katy Rose Cavalry Parade Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Katy Rose Cavalry Parade Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Katy Rose and the Cavalry Parade is the newest venture for Katy B, who has renamed herself in the wake of the latest grime artist to crossover into the mainstream.

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She had warned her morning singing group that we might be asked to join her on the stage for the final number but I was off visiting the compost loo and missed the callout. Woops! Katy Rose is a super singer and songwriter who you can hear on this old youtube recording since I currently refuse to link to myspace (they won’t let you hear anything unless you log in)

Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Kettle Making by Lorna Scobie
Kettle Making by Lorna Scobie. Lots of green workshops for the kids (and adults) to attend.

Sun Powered Kettle by Lorna Scobie
Sun Powered Kettle by Lorna Scobie.

Zeus Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Zeus Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory

Canadian rockers Zeus took to the Wood Stage during the mid afternoon lull, which meant that a large part of their audience consisted of excitable children wielding hand made fake fur snakes at the foot of the stage. I’m not really sure what they thought of it all (the band, or the kids).

Wood Festival by Rebecca Strickson
Wood Festival by Rebecca Strickson.

Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory

Zeus are on the very good Arts and Crafts label. Love this video:

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Treetop Flyers by Fi Blog
Treetop Flyers by Fi Blog.

Treetop Flyers Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Treetop Flyers Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Treetop Flyers Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Treetop Flyers Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory

Treetop Flyers were a great evening time discovery: more tight boy harmonies in a bluesy country stylee. They won the 2011 Glastonbury Emerging Talent so expect to see a lot more of these boys. Super.

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Eliza Carthy Band Wood Festival 2011 by Michalis Christodoulou
Eliza Carthy Band Wood Festival 2011 by Michalis Christodoulou.

Last up we caught folkstrel Eliza Carthy, who was predictably quite fantastic live – switching between fiddle, guitar and voice with perfect ease and chattering away about her dad’s 70th birthday celebrations. Eliza’s new album Neptune came out in May and it’s a rollicking narrative ride through her life.

Eliza Carthy Band Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory
Eliza Carthy Band Wood Festival 2011 - photography by Amelia Gregory

I was very sad to miss Robin and Joe Bennet’s band Dreaming Spires, who closed the festival as we sped back to London. By all accounts it was a perfect way to round off what was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable festivals I’ve been to in some time. After all, there aren’t many festivals where the people who run it get up on stage to remind everyone to put on suncream. Wood Festival was invented for and is undoubtedly best suited to families, but I for one hope to return, with or without children.

Eliza Carthy Band Wood Festival 2011

Don’t forget to read my reviews of Friday and Saturday at Wood Festival too. Read also this review by Matt Hanley of Green Wedge.

Categories ,art, ,Arts and Crafts, ,children, ,country, ,Dreaming Spires, ,eliza carthy, ,Fi Blog, ,folk, ,gospel, ,Green Wedge, ,jazz, ,Joe Bennett, ,Katy Rose, ,Katy Rose and the Cavalry Parade, ,Lino Cutting, ,Lorna Scobie, ,Matt Hanley, ,Michalis Christodoulou, ,Neptune, ,Polly and the Billets Doux, ,Rebecca Strickson, ,review, ,Robin Bennett, ,Sam Parr, ,Singing, ,Solar Cooking, ,Sun Powered Kettle, ,Sunday, ,Treetop Flyers, ,Two Fingers of Firewater, ,Wood Festival, ,Zeus

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Amelia’s Magazine | Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Tripod Stage Review: Friday

KIRSTY-ALMEIDA-Lisa Stannard
Kirsty Almeida by Lisa Stannard.

On Friday we kicked off with Kirsty Almeida, who you can read more about in our interview here. My description of her music as bayou blues meets dub bass might suit her recorded material, but for this small show Kirsty ditched the big band that would later be accompanying her on the Avalon stage and instead took a more stripped back acoustic approach, dressed in a fetching stripy all-in-one pants suit.

KIRSTY-ALMEIDA-Lisa Stannard
Kirsty Almeida by Lisa Stannard.

A particularly creative course of action was required from all the percussionists who visited the Tripod Stage and, in between rattling and banging a wide variety of objects, Kirsty’s drummer once again stole the show… dancing and gurning in accompaniment to her song about the “wrong Mr Right” in a thoroughly endearing fashion.

Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Kirsty Almeida
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Kirsty Almeida
cheeky drummer!
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Kirsty Almeida

One of a breed of strong female musicians who have no desire to fit the normal pliable record label mould, Kirsty was relaxed and chatty during her songs: an absolute delight. Her album Pure Blue Green comes out on Decca on 31st August, and she finished painting the album artwork just last night!

Kirsty on the Tripod Stage: I loved how creative yet peaceful the area was. The stage was so beautifully bonkers it brought our bonkersness out of us and gave us a licence to be cheeky too.
Kirsty’s favourite part of Glastonbury: Definitely all the street entertainers. I loved The Dead Weather too but for us as performers the highlight was definitely the chance to entertain and share our music.

Following Kirsty we had a session from Newislands, who despite worries that they would not be able to make a big enough noise managed to wow a small but perfectly formed mid afternoon crowd with their melodic post rock.

Abi Daker - Newislands -Glastonbury
Newislands by Abigail Daker.

It was only after the gig that I discovered they were missing their bassist Bogart…. we are mutual friends of the Mystery Jets and met many years ago at a small festival called Blissfields that we all went to together. Later that night Bogart called on me in my tent with Marina Pepper. I was fast asleep and woke with the fear of God in me…. it wasn’t the best way to be reintroduced but apparently he insisted on seeing me “the nicest person he knows” – I look forward to meeting Bogart again one day when I am wide awake.

Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp newislands
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp newislands
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp newislands

Lead singer David’s best bit about playing the Tripod Stage: Well apart from the lovely stage itself, complete with the best speaker system I’ve ever seen, receiving a cup of tea from yourselves midway through the set, was pretty special.
David’s Glastonbury highlight: Apart from playing two amazing gigs, (one for you and one for BBC Introducing), seeing Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood on stage together was ace… “For a minute there I lost myself…”
 
Newislands are playing at Napa Live in Cyprus and then return to the UK to play the Farm Festival. A new single, followed by their debut album, will be released soon. You can watch their other Glastonbury performance here.

We then had our first session from Climate Camp poets Danny Chivers, Claire Fauset and Merrick – all of whom deliver brilliant spoken word commentaries on the state of the world. Danny and Claire have a way of making the environmental/political mess we are in make complete and simple sense, and Merrick takes on the whole system. Why do we work? If you’ve heard Merrick speak you’ll question the sense in ever getting a job.

Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Danny Chivers
Danny Chivers.
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Claire Fauset
Claire Fauset by Gareth Hopkins
Claire Fauset by Gareth Hopkins.
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Merrick
Merrick.
Natasha-Thompson-Bristling-Badger
Merrick by Natasha Thompson.

After a somewhat more subdued ceilidh we were then treated to the most extraordinary live set from Danny and the Champions of the World, who decided to ditch most of the electrical amplification and instead sprawl towards their audience in a great acoustic morass.

Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Danny and the Champions of the World
Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Danny and the Champions of the World

This band was made for live gigs…. myself and Dom, the banjo player in Green Kite Midnight, were so enthralled by the set that we dusted ourselves down after dinner and set off to hear them once more at the Croissant Neuf bandstand. Danny is a massively confident and skilled musician who has clearly been playing for years: talents like his ought to be better celebrated.

donna.mckenzie.dannyandchampions
Danny and the Champions of the World by Donna McKenzie.

Danny liked playing the Tripod Stage because: the audience was really great and there was an atmosphere that seemed very ‘other’ to the mad hustle and bustle of the rest of the festival – like a haven of good vibes and togetherness, like a family or maybe like what my minds eye would conjure up when I think of festivals in the 60′s. We really just love playing and it’s always great to pass the instruments around, have fun with friends and sing a bunch of songs, and it felt like the perfect time for that – we could’ve played for hours. The lentil dal [for supper] was a treat too!  

Danny’s favourite part of Glastonbury this year: I guess the best part of it was getting to play music with friends to loads of folks. We were lucky enough to play on a bunch of different types of stages so we got a pretty broad experience of it all – we played about seven times which was amazing… but my feet still ache! It’s what we live to do: drink a few ciders and pass the guitar around. 

Danny and the Champions of the World on the road: Our band really lives and breathes on the road, meeting good people and having a great time playing tunes. We’re doing… Maverick, Cornbury, Lounge on the Farm, Deershed, Secret Garden Party, Port Elliot, Truck Festival, Summer Sundae and Greenbelt – and maybe a couple more that I’ve forgotten. We’ll probably start to record a new record at the end of the year.

But, it didn’t end there…. like a magic jack-in-the-box, there were more surprises in store. Out of the band popped a duo who’s music I have loved since the very moment their album plopped onto my doormat. Like a butterfly emerging (from a particularly sexy and gorgeous caterpillar) Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou shed the rest of the musicians to perform a few gorgeous tunes of their own. I was beaming like a motherfucker by this point.

Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou
A surprise performance from Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou.

And then… I discovered that the band line up also features the delightful brothers who run Truck Festival, a great independent music festival near Oxford. They also run the smaller and folkier Wood Festival which takes place at the gorgeous Braziers Park, a sustainable community where I have camped on many an occasion. I really hope I can hook up with them some more. A nicer and more talented bunch of folk I have seldom met.

Glastonbury 2010 Climate Camp Danny and the Champions of the World
This man runs Truck Festival.

Moving on, my next blog tackles a very busy Saturday on the Tripod Stage – read it here.

Categories ,Abigail Daker, ,Avalon, ,BBC Introducing, ,Blissfields, ,blues, ,Brazier’s Park, ,Climate Camp, ,Cornbury, ,Croissant Neuf bandstand, ,Danny and the Champions of the World, ,Deershed, ,Donna Mckensie, ,Farm Festival, ,folk, ,Gareth Hopkins, ,glastonbury, ,Greenbelt, ,Kirsty Almeida, ,Lisa Stannard, ,Lounge on the Farm, ,Marina Pepper, ,Maverick, ,Mystery Jets, ,Napa Live, ,Natasha Thompson, ,Newislands, ,Port Elliot, ,Prog Rock, ,Secret Garden Party, ,Summer Sundae, ,The Dead Weather, ,Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou, ,Tripod Stage, ,Truck Festival, ,Wood Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Mike Gale of Co-Pilgrim and review of A Fairer Sea

Co Pilgrim by Gemma Cotterell
The Traveller by Gemma Cotterell. This illustration was inspired by the concept of a A Fairer Sea, title of Co-Pilgrim‘s album. The octopus is taming the sea with his melodic folk music.

Co-pilgrim is the new project from Mike Gale, who has enlisted various friends to join him on A Fairer Sea. The album opens with a rollicking beat before the more melancholic Trapeze takes over: songs are inspired by the difficulties of a trans-atlantic relationship, combining often sad lyrics with beautiful tunes and harmonies. Third in the beautiful title track A Fairer Sea makes copious use of slide guitar to create a gentle slice of Americana that belies the lovelorn words. Other highlights include the combination of upbeat chorus and lonely lyrics on I’m Going to the Country, and the final tune, No Guiding LIght, a spiritual questioning in times of woe. Mike Gale has successfully woven together different musical genres and personal experience to create a gorgeous album that deserves a wide audience.

Co-Pilgrim by Lucy Kirk
Co-Pilgrim by Lucy Kirk.

Why Co-pilgrim
My mum actually came up with the name, I just liked the sound of it. I didn’t want the project to be called Mike Gale. Co-pilgrim felt like a good name for a band that isn’t strictly a band in the traditional sense in that we don’t really have a fixed line up, people can come and go as they wish.

co pilgrim album art
I believe this is the most recent of many projects for all your members, what has been your musical trajectory so far and how did you end up here?
Everyone in the current line up apart from Claire ( vocals ) has known and worked with each other for at least 10 years or so. Myself, Andy ( bass ) and Tom ( drums ) were all in a band called Black Nielson. We were lucky enough to get picked up by Joe ( Slide, vocals, keys ) and his brother Robin’s label Truck records about 13 years ago and released some albums through them. I’ve worked on and off with both brothers since. After Black Nielson split I travelled around for a while and worked on Co-pilgrim songs with the people I met but when it came time to make A Fairer Sea I wanted to work with the people that I felt most comfortable with and had the biggest musical connection to, I was lucky enough that Joe, Tom and Andy wanted to do it. We’re also really lucky to have Claire, who is Joe’s wife, on board because her beautiful vocal harmony is exactly what we’ve been missing.

Co-pilgrim by Carley Chiu
Co-pilgrim’s ‘Surreal fantasy land‘ by Carley Chiu.

You are a fan of both Smog and the Beach Boys – how do these two influences manifest in your music?
I think that they both make music designed to get right into your soul. I know some people may consider Bill Callahan‘s music to be a bit miserable and The Beach Boys to be happy and full of sunshine but I think the opposite is often the case. Bill Callahan‘s lyrics are more often than not really funny where as a lot of Beach Boys songs are heartbreaking, especially the later stuff when Brian was losing his way. I guess the thing that I take from them both the most, apart from the harmonies is the idea that just because the feel of a song is happy or sad it doesn’t mean the lyrics need be the same, I really like that trick.

Co-Pilgrim by Carina Martina
Co-Pilgrim by Carina Martina. Co-Pilgrim’s album A Fairer Sea inspired my illustration with its aquatic references and dreamy melodies. 

Would it be fair to say that Co-pilgrim is a combination of folk and country, with a strong American influence? Why do you think British bands have taken Americana to heart in recent years? 
Yeah I suppose that’s fair, though the first bands that I really fell in love with were Stiff Little Fingers and The Jam, I still love them and they’ll always have an influence on me and my songs. I’m not sure It’s only been recently that British bands have been influenced by Americana, I think It’s been an influence for a while, maybe a few breakthrough artists have made it seem like a recent thing? To be honest I’m not really even sure what qualifies a band to be called Americana, it’s quite a broad genre.

co-pilgrim
A good melody is clearly very important to you, how do you write your tunes? 
Thanks, yep, the melody is definitely the most important part of any song for me, then the harmonies. My songwriting style is quite simple I guess. I just sit with my guitar for a while until I find a few chords I like and then try to mumble a melody over the top. I don’t always write a full song in one go, often I’ll have a bunch of little sections that will all end up in different songs. Lyrics always come second to the melody for me, though I really am trying to work harder on my words.

co-pilgrim
Is there a theme to the new album, and if so what is it?
Yeah, the main recurring theme of the album is a long distance relationship I was involved in a while ago with a woman from New York and the struggles we faced in trying to make it work. I moved over there to be with her but ultimately we couldn’t keep it going. It was nobody’s fault and she’s still a dear friend.

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What is title track Fairer Sea about, and what was the idea behind the accompanying video? Who made it?
A Fairer Sea is again about that same relationship. It’s just about how with a bit more luck then maybe we could have made it. The sea is the distance we always had to fight against. Claire from the band and our friend Suzy made the video, it came out brilliantly and fits the theme of the song perfectly.

co-pilgrim
What can we expect next from Co-Pilgrim?
We are going to release a couple more singles from A Fairer Sea over the next few months. During that time we’ll also be starting to record the next album, I’m really excited about the new songs. We’ve got some festival appearances booked over the summer including my favourite little festival, Wood Festival. We’ll see you there!

A Fairer Sea by Co-pilgrim is out now on Battle Worldwide Recordings.

Categories ,A Fairer Sea, ,americana, ,Battle Worldwide Recordings, ,beach boys, ,Bill Callahan, ,Black Nielson, ,Carina Martina, ,Carley Chiu, ,Co-pilgrim, ,Gemma Cotterell, ,interview, ,Lucy Kirk, ,Mike Gale, ,new york, ,review, ,Stiff Little Fingers, ,The Jam, ,Truck records, ,Wood Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | A post Tin Tabernacle interview with Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou

Jesca Hoop by Rebecca Strickson
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly.

I love Jesca Hoop‘s new song City Bird and the accompanying video so much so that I decided to get in touch with both Jesca and Elia Petridis, side effects the director of her recent videos, sildenafil to find out what makes them tick. Elia Petridis runs boutique production company Filmatics in Los Angeles, California. After making several award winning shorts and music videos he is about to start shooting his first full length feature The Man Who Shook The Hand Of Vicente Fernandez. I think his incredibly detailed answers throw an intriguing light on what goes into the creation of a very considered and beautiful music video.

Jesca-Hoop-by-Liam-McMahon
Jesca Hoop by Liam McMahon.

When did you start working with director Elia Petridis?

Jesca: Elia is an old friend. We met in Los Angeles at one of my shows. He would say that he forced me to be his friend, which is kind of true though I would say that he used his clever imagination to lure me in. I’m glad that he did. The Kingdom was our first video adventure together.

Elia: A producer I’m working closely with these days said to me recently that humans are “meaning making machines” (a soundbite from some career seminar) but that phrase really resonated with me. I’m infatuated with screenwriting and personal mythologies, sometimes to the detriment of my own mental health. I grew up in Dubai for 18 years before moving to LA for film school – although Dubai had a lot of its own magic it didn’t have a music scene to speak of so I’m always a little astonished by the talent I find in LA. When I saw Jesca perform live I really felt her music was very special and otherworldly, and tried to do my best to see if, as human planets, we could potentially orbit each other and become friends. 

I would venture to say that the first time I saw Jesca Hoop live was one of the most astonishing musical moments I have ever witnessed. It was the night before Halloween and she came out in a marionette outfit, complete with rosy cheeks, and stood motionless while her back up players wound her up to life. For a visualist like me, a storyteller, it really had an impact. The whole endeavour of courting a friendship with her was kind of a lark for me because I honestly thought she had better things to do. It was just a matter of pushing the boundary between fan and friend and seeing how much I could get away with. Suddenly, unexpectedly, as with most of life’s wonder, we had some mileage behind us and had transformed into friends. I will tell you that the first *official* conversation, the ice breaker, was when she was writing Tulip – from the Hunting my Dress album – and I was writing a screenplay dealing with Tulip Fever in Holland so I leant her my reference material. I knew I had two opportunities to wiggle my way in there – one to give her the book, and one to get it back!   

Hunting my Dress
The Hunting My Dress album cover.

Where was City Bird shot and where did the inspiration come from?

Jesca: It was shot in a miniature haunted house in downtown LA. We both wanted it to be a ghost story and Elia was the one to bring the children’s narrative into it.

Elia: FALSE! The video was shot in a garage in Riverside, Ca. The whole thing was fractal – an infinite amount of information in a finite space, as the garage is attached to an 18th century ‘Painted Lady’ Victorian house owned by my fiance. So in essence, it was shot in a miniature dollhouse inside a bigger dollhouse which made the shoot utterly magic. I think what Jesca is communicating is that the story takes place in a miniature dollhouse in downtown LA. The whole thing was lit using candles and christmas lights. 

Where did the idea for an animated video come from?

Jesca: It came out of limitation really. We had very very little money for this video so we just mused about what we could do with what time and money we did have. I set a pretty hard task considering the resources available and I am delighted with what Elia and his team came through with.

Elia: To me, the track is seance folk. That’s the sonic iconography that City Bird evokes – a ghostly seance. When it comes to music and music videos I am not a literal thinker so although my mind knows the song is about the fright and sadness associated with homelessness that’s not what my heart feels when I hear the song, and it’s not what the dream theatre in my mind projects over it either. But here Jesca’s mastery shines through, because the sonic landscape, right down to the very physical shape her mouth is making around the lyric is just as important as what she’s trying to say; the two are organically woven together. The magic of Jesca’s music lies in the alchemy that exists between form and content. All my artistic heroes do this, from Chabon, to Spielberg; they use genre to sugar coat the pill. So here she uses the disguise of seance music to coat the literal message of homelessness she’s trying to communicate. 

Now, narrative is something I am always running away from when directing a music video. Whenever I read a music video treatment from some kid that went to film school it makes me cringe and I think the best music videos come from documentary filmmakers who get a chance to put forward a psychology of form rather than one of narrative. But, having said that, my instincts on City Bird were narrative, perhaps because it’s a kind of lilting waltz so it felt right to have a narrative to pull you through it.  So, for the treatment, I sat down and wrote an entire ghost story from scratch, in the style of Poe or Hawthorne. I even wrote nursery rhymes about the ghost, because ghost stories are mostly aural traditions.

On The Kingdom video Jesca had a ton of input because I quickly realised that it would only reach its full potential if I pretended to be a paint brush and let her grab hold of the crew through me and paint. Once I took my ego out of the equation I realised there was something special there I was meant to service, and honestly, that’s the best method of working with an artist on a music video, that’s what you really cross your fingers for, isn’t it? You can see a little more of that process on the behind-the-scenes doc of the kingdom here:

But for City Bird Jesca was in Manchester and we were in LA shooting. Her schedule was tight, and I was really flattered that she had enough faith in me to let me just go and shoot because I know how much she loves her songs and how much faith it took for her to let go a little. I had originally submitted an entirely different treatment to her and had kind of resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to do it, which was cool enough for me because god only knows how many talented people Jesca comes across in her travels. Surely, I thought, she can find people in the UK to make amazing videos, and surely, as an artist, she wants to go and do cool stuff with other cool people. So I thought I would just give it a shot. I submitted this treatment about metaphorical ghosts, which dealt with mis-en-scene of places that had just been left and abandoned – an unmade bed, plates on a table after dinner, a toilet still running, stuff like that, where humans had vacated the frame only seconds ago and you’d just missed them – kind of pretentious honestly. Then I came across my fiancée’s childhood dollhouse and started taking video and snapping pictures and all of a sudden this whole new idea came to mind of the dollhouse and miniatures and stop motion and ghosts. I sent the examples to Jesca and she totally fell for it! 

City Bird house
City Bird house.

Ghost stories are tricky because they are incredibly emotional stories surrounded in gothic imagery. Ghost stories like The Others, The Orphanage, The Sixth Sense, are rite of passage stories – they’re about letting go. About the dead letting go of the living and the living letting go of the dead. They’re NOT about the living being punished for a sin like horror movies, but about forgiveness of that sin from all parties, the relinquishing of unfinished business. And I wanted to nail that, I really did. In City Bird it is the boy who is at the centre of the story and has the rite of passage: the ghost is a sort of Frankenstein or Edward Scissorhands character. 

The boy has nightmares and makes up ghastly stories that paint the ghost as a demon, then something happens to the boy on his bike and he dies. We get those silent movie inter-titles: his tower (the city) is turned to a tomb. Shadows loom over his white coffin and he becomes a ghost, set into the underworld where he is refused and becomes a refugee with nowhere to go. It’s scary out there for a little boy so he returns to the ghost’s house and we realise that’s her purpose – she is a host for waywardly spirits like the dead boy. But he has been so scared of her, will he change? Can he let go of his fear of her? Can he muster up the courage to enter as she beckons him in? The song ends unresolved sonically so I wanted to leave the audience there just as the music does. The theme is that of judging a book by its cover and misunderstanding something: just as we pass the homeless on the street and pretend they are invisible like ghosts when they all have a real inner life. Can we let go of our prejudices and see beyond the stereotypes to see that the issues that made them homeless are ones that could very well come to prey on and haunt us at any time? That’s kind of the metaphor I was trying to get at. 

City Bird ghost
The City Bird ghost.

Who made the puppets and how long did the video take to make?

Jesca: I’m not quite sure actually… I should ask.

Elia: Everyone who was involved in making the City Bird video knew there was a finite time of ten days in which to create this beautiful, creative thing so necessity was to be the mother of invention due to the time constraints, and everyone really fed on that and brought their best to the project. My fiancee, Maranatha Hay, is an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker who is piped into the most creative, kind, and daring community of filmmakers and her best friend Natalie Apodaca is an artist with experience in installations. I showed her Metropolis and told her we were going to build a monotone city from cardboard and she just went for it. Cosmin Cosma was my left hand man who insisted we use the Dragon Stop Motion software, which honestly was the main reason we were able to get the shots we needed in the time we had. 

The crew never lost faith in my direction, even when I had no idea how we would do it just ten minutes before the shoot. In the opening shot of the video there is a city cardboard diorama, the dollhouse, the puppet of the ghost AND the moon projected over the city! All those elements came into play because we just broke down the shot we had in mind element by element: that’s real filmmaking in a pure form. 99% of this video was done IN-CAMERA, like The Lumière Brothers! Then it was given that incredible aged look by Dan Geis, our after effects genius.

Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson
Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson.

I can tell you how the puppets were made, but I urge you to remember that cinema is like a magic trick. The home made feel is part of the fun of the viewing experience, especially the joy in realising that things like hair are actually twine. The doll’s arms are made of tiny painted tree branches, her spine is metal wire and her dress is made of muslin. Her face is tracing paper and is removable so that we could change her expressions from shot to shot. The part where the fork floats across the table had to be done with tweezers! (nudged lovingly one frame at a time by Maranatha)

The house was a nightmare. It is three feet tall and it took us 3 days to put it together from a flat box. We painted every part, so we had to know what the end product would look like before we even started. Luckily an architect friend, Dannon Rampton, showed up just to check out what was going on and got so enamoured with the dolls house that he ended up putting it together which is just as well since Natalie and I were clueless as to how we were going to do it. We painted it and then we had to DILAPIDATE IT so it looked old and haunted! We scrubbed it with metal brush, we broke its steeple and we stuffed miniature moss in all its crevices so that the ghost story would feel real and lived in. 

My motto is: make movies that can only be movies! Make movies that need that final step of the medium to fully realise the vision, because it’s such an expensive, time consuming endeavour that the content had better deserve and earn the medium. If it can be a song, a book, a play, let it be that. But film, film is reserved for the special stories that need the seven arts to make them whole. SO don’t give away our secrets if you don’t have to. 
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly.

I love Jesca Hoop‘s new song City Bird and the accompanying video so much so that I decided to get in touch with both Jesca and Elia Petridis, drug the director of her recent videos, hospital to find out what makes them tick. Elia Petridis runs boutique production company Filmatics in Los Angeles, California. After making several award winning shorts and music videos he is about to start shooting his first full length feature The Man Who Shook The Hand Of Vicente Fernandez. I think his incredibly detailed answers throw an intriguing light on what goes into the creation of a very considered and beautiful music video.

Jesca-Hoop-by-Liam-McMahon
Jesca Hoop by Liam McMahon.

When did you start working with director Elia Petridis?

Jesca: Elia is an old friend. We met in Los Angeles at one of my shows. He would say that he forced me to be his friend, which is kind of true though I would say that he used his clever imagination to lure me in. I’m glad that he did. The Kingdom was our first video adventure together.

Elia: A producer I’m working closely with these days said to me recently that humans are “meaning making machines” (a soundbite from some career seminar) but that phrase really resonated with me. I’m infatuated with screenwriting and personal mythologies, sometimes to the detriment of my own mental health. I grew up in Dubai for 18 years before moving to LA for film school – although Dubai had a lot of its own magic it didn’t have a music scene to speak of so I’m always a little astonished by the talent I find in LA. When I saw Jesca perform live I really felt her music was very special and otherworldly, and tried to do my best to see if, as human planets, we could potentially orbit each other and become friends. 

Jesca Hoop by Rebecca Strickson
Jesca Hoop by Rebecca Strickson.

I would venture to say that the first time I saw Jesca Hoop live was one of the most astonishing musical moments I have ever witnessed. It was the night before Halloween and she came out in a marionette outfit, complete with rosy cheeks, and stood motionless while her back up players wound her up to life. For a visualist like me, a storyteller, it really had an impact. The whole endeavour of courting a friendship with her was kind of a lark for me because I honestly thought she had better things to do. It was just a matter of pushing the boundary between fan and friend and seeing how much I could get away with. Suddenly, unexpectedly, as with most of life’s wonder, we had some mileage behind us and had transformed into friends. I will tell you that the first *official* conversation, the ice breaker, was when she was writing Tulip – from the Hunting my Dress album – and I was writing a screenplay dealing with Tulip Fever in Holland so I leant her my reference material. I knew I had two opportunities to wiggle my way in there – one to give her the book, and one to get it back!   

Hunting my Dress
The Hunting My Dress album cover.

Where was City Bird shot and where did the inspiration come from?

Jesca: It was shot in a miniature haunted house in downtown LA. We both wanted it to be a ghost story and Elia was the one to bring the children’s narrative into it.

Elia: FALSE! The video was shot in a garage in Riverside, Ca. The whole thing was fractal – an infinite amount of information in a finite space, as the garage is attached to an 18th century ‘Painted Lady’ Victorian house owned by my fiance. So in essence, it was shot in a miniature dollhouse inside a bigger dollhouse which made the shoot utterly magic. I think what Jesca is communicating is that the story takes place in a miniature dollhouse in downtown LA. The whole thing was lit using candles and christmas lights. 

Where did the idea for an animated video come from?

Jesca: It came out of limitation really. We had very very little money for this video so we just mused about what we could do with what time and money we did have. I set a pretty hard task considering the resources available and I am delighted with what Elia and his team came through with.

Elia: To me, the track is seance folk. That’s the sonic iconography that City Bird evokes – a ghostly seance. When it comes to music and music videos I am not a literal thinker so although my mind knows the song is about the fright and sadness associated with homelessness that’s not what my heart feels when I hear the song, and it’s not what the dream theatre in my mind projects over it either. But here Jesca’s mastery shines through, because the sonic landscape, right down to the very physical shape her mouth is making around the lyric is just as important as what she’s trying to say; the two are organically woven together. The magic of Jesca’s music lies in the alchemy that exists between form and content. All my artistic heroes do this, from Chabon, to Spielberg; they use genre to sugar coat the pill. So here she uses the disguise of seance music to coat the literal message of homelessness she’s trying to communicate. 

Now, narrative is something I am always running away from when directing a music video. Whenever I read a music video treatment from some kid that went to film school it makes me cringe and I think the best music videos come from documentary filmmakers who get a chance to put forward a psychology of form rather than one of narrative. But, having said that, my instincts on City Bird were narrative, perhaps because it’s a kind of lilting waltz so it felt right to have a narrative to pull you through it.  So, for the treatment, I sat down and wrote an entire ghost story from scratch, in the style of Poe or Hawthorne. I even wrote nursery rhymes about the ghost, because ghost stories are mostly aural traditions.

On The Kingdom video Jesca had a ton of input because I quickly realised that it would only reach its full potential if I pretended to be a paint brush and let her grab hold of the crew through me and paint. Once I took my ego out of the equation I realised there was something special there I was meant to service, and honestly, that’s the best method of working with an artist on a music video, that’s what you really cross your fingers for, isn’t it? You can see a little more of that process on the behind-the-scenes doc of the kingdom here:

But for City Bird Jesca was in Manchester and we were in LA shooting. Her schedule was tight, and I was really flattered that she had enough faith in me to let me just go and shoot because I know how much she loves her songs and how much faith it took for her to let go a little. I had originally submitted an entirely different treatment to her and had kind of resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to do it, which was cool enough for me because god only knows how many talented people Jesca comes across in her travels. Surely, I thought, she can find people in the UK to make amazing videos, and surely, as an artist, she wants to go and do cool stuff with other cool people. So I thought I would just give it a shot. I submitted this treatment about metaphorical ghosts, which dealt with mis-en-scene of places that had just been left and abandoned – an unmade bed, plates on a table after dinner, a toilet still running, stuff like that, where humans had vacated the frame only seconds ago and you’d just missed them – kind of pretentious honestly. Then I came across my fiancée’s childhood dollhouse and started taking video and snapping pictures and all of a sudden this whole new idea came to mind of the dollhouse and miniatures and stop motion and ghosts. I sent the examples to Jesca and she totally fell for it! 

City Bird house
City Bird house.

Ghost stories are tricky because they are incredibly emotional stories surrounded in gothic imagery. Ghost stories like The Others, The Orphanage, The Sixth Sense, are rite of passage stories – they’re about letting go. About the dead letting go of the living and the living letting go of the dead. They’re NOT about the living being punished for a sin like horror movies, but about forgiveness of that sin from all parties, the relinquishing of unfinished business. And I wanted to nail that, I really did. In City Bird it is the boy who is at the centre of the story and has the rite of passage: the ghost is a sort of Frankenstein or Edward Scissorhands character. 

The boy has nightmares and makes up ghastly stories that paint the ghost as a demon, then something happens to the boy on his bike and he dies. We get those silent movie inter-titles: his tower (the city) is turned to a tomb. Shadows loom over his white coffin and he becomes a ghost, set into the underworld where he is refused and becomes a refugee with nowhere to go. It’s scary out there for a little boy so he returns to the ghost’s house and we realise that’s her purpose – she is a host for waywardly spirits like the dead boy. But he has been so scared of her, will he change? Can he let go of his fear of her? Can he muster up the courage to enter as she beckons him in? The song ends unresolved sonically so I wanted to leave the audience there just as the music does. The theme is that of judging a book by its cover and misunderstanding something: just as we pass the homeless on the street and pretend they are invisible like ghosts when they all have a real inner life. Can we let go of our prejudices and see beyond the stereotypes to see that the issues that made them homeless are ones that could very well come to prey on and haunt us at any time? That’s kind of the metaphor I was trying to get at. 

City Bird ghost
The City Bird ghost.

Who made the puppets and how long did the video take to make?

Jesca: I’m not quite sure actually… I should ask.

Elia: Everyone who was involved in making the City Bird video knew there was a finite time of ten days in which to create this beautiful, creative thing so necessity was to be the mother of invention due to the time constraints, and everyone really fed on that and brought their best to the project. My fiancee, Maranatha Hay, is an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker who is piped into the most creative, kind, and daring community of filmmakers and her best friend Natalie Apodaca is an artist with experience in installations. I showed her Metropolis and told her we were going to build a monotone city from cardboard and she just went for it. Cosmin Cosma was my left hand man who insisted we use the Dragon Stop Motion software, which honestly was the main reason we were able to get the shots we needed in the time we had. 

The crew never lost faith in my direction, even when I had no idea how we would do it just ten minutes before the shoot. In the opening shot of the video there is a city cardboard diorama, the dollhouse, the puppet of the ghost AND the moon projected over the city! All those elements came into play because we just broke down the shot we had in mind element by element: that’s real filmmaking in a pure form. 99% of this video was done IN-CAMERA, like The Lumière Brothers! Then it was given that incredible aged look by Dan Geis, our after effects genius.

Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson
Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson.

I can tell you how the puppets were made, but I urge you to remember that cinema is like a magic trick. The home made feel is part of the fun of the viewing experience, especially the joy in realising that things like hair are actually twine. The doll’s arms are made of tiny painted tree branches, her spine is metal wire and her dress is made of muslin. Her face is tracing paper and is removable so that we could change her expressions from shot to shot. The part where the fork floats across the table had to be done with tweezers! (nudged lovingly one frame at a time by Maranatha)

The house was a nightmare. It is three feet tall and it took us 3 days to put it together from a flat box. We painted every part, so we had to know what the end product would look like before we even started. Luckily an architect friend, Dannon Rampton, showed up just to check out what was going on and got so enamoured with the dolls house that he ended up putting it together which is just as well since Natalie and I were clueless as to how we were going to do it. We painted it and then we had to DILAPIDATE IT so it looked old and haunted! We scrubbed it with metal brush, we broke its steeple and we stuffed miniature moss in all its crevices so that the ghost story would feel real and lived in. 

My motto is: make movies that can only be movies! Make movies that need that final step of the medium to fully realise the vision, because it’s such an expensive, time consuming endeavour that the content had better deserve and earn the medium. If it can be a song, a book, a play, let it be that. But film, film is reserved for the special stories that need the seven arts to make them whole. SO don’t give away our secrets if you don’t have to. 
TM AND HL-Jan 11-photography by Amelia Gregory
Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, viagra dosage all photography by Amelia Gregory.

Last week Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou held a preview screening for their Tin Tabernacle tour video, viagra sale titled 11 Nights Under Tin. I caught up with them at Bush Hall a few weeks ago to find out more about this talented couple.

Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, all photography by Amelia GregoryTrevor Moss and Hannah Lou, all photography by Amelia Gregory

The Tin Tabernacle tour followed on from Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou’s Village Hall tour of last year. To pull it off they found approximately fifty churches through the Tin Tabernacles website, got details of about thirty of them and managed to stage concerts in eleven of them. The website often listed the nearest town or they enterprisingly zoomed in on the google street view: sometimes a contact number would be visible on a noticeboard, and at other times they phoned the local pub. Most people were really enthusiastic, but some were overwhelmed by the idea and worried by the commitment. “We wanted to get out into the community and play for people who don’t have much access to music,” they told me when I spoke to them at Bush Hall. “We went to those who were keen.” It seems to have been a successful venture: the audiences were mostly comprised of locals.

Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester
Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester.

The Tin Tabernacle churches all vary in size, though they have a few things in common. They are all made of corrugated iron, and were invented circa 1840, when the scattering of God fearing British citizens across the British Empire hastened the need for an easily transportable place of worship. Mining communities sprung up in all sorts of remote corners of the globe so the churches often had to be carried for long distances overland. “They warm up fast because they are wooden clad inside,” explained Trevor and Hannah, “but some had no electricity so we played by candlelight.” The smallest church held only about 40 people, all squashed into the pews, but the average capacity was between 70-120. What with Trevor, Hannah and their two support acts it was still quite a squish.

Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester
Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester.

I spotted a tin church on my visit to the Cornish village of Cadgwith earlier this year, but sadly this was not one that they managed to include on the tour, despite Trevor’s Cornish heritage. Many were nevertheless located in amazing locations, including on cliff tops.


11 Nights Under Tin, a film by Trevor Moss, can be watched in full above.

Why did they chose such an innovative way of touring? “We had toured the same venues for years and they are all the same, painted black inside.” Trevor and Hannah hope that with their Arts Council funded tours their audiences will experience an event, instead of just standing in the shadows. “It’s no wonder that so many bands’ later records are rubbish when they live in such a strange parallel reality.” So they have chosen places that will open their eyes to other communities. They always stay in independent B&Bs and sometimes with the local vicar – it’s also a carefully considered way for them to have an interesting time whilst peddling an album. “We get to play in places we would never have seen otherwise.”

Tin Tabernacle by Alison Day
Tin Tabernacle by Alison Day.

I can totally relate to this idea – half the reason I was so attracted to fashion photography as a creative medium was the possibility of visiting interesting locations to take photos. During my nascent fashion photography career I went to South Africa and America before I began to realise the environmental problems of excessive air travel.

Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou by Sarah Matthews
Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou by Sarah Matthews.

The *world* premiere of the resulting Tin Tabernacle film was shown at The Social on Wednesday 16th March. It was entirely shot on an old 80s Hi 8 camera in three seconds bursts three or four times an hour, so it is basically what they describe as “a collection of moving photos” with mostly in-camera sound.

Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou - Tin Churches by Emmeline Pidgen
Tin Churches by Emmeline Pidgen.

This interactive approach to playing and documenting music is a result of Hannah and Trevor’s art college career. They both met at Goldsmiths, where Trevor was studying fine art and Hannah was doing theatre studies. By the time they reached their third year they were signed as the band Indigo Moss, which we profiled on Amelia’s Magazine. By this point they were spending so much time immersed in music that Trevor had to enlist the rest of the band to help get his degree show up on time.

Tin Tabernacles by Reena Makwana
Tin Tabernacles by Reena Makwana.

The couple have now been writing songs together for 8 years and seem a lot older and wiser than their 25 years of age, a fact which they attribute to having lots of older friends. They met whilst living in halls but did not start going out together until Indigo Moss, and managed to keep their relationship secret from other band members for two months. They got married in 2008.


There’s Something Happening Somewhere, a film by Trevor Moss.

Indigo Moss eventually broke up because they didn’t enjoy it anymore, especially the way the label was pushing the band. Inevitably, they were pulling bigger audiences as a duet. At that point Tom from Lewis Music saw them and they signed a one album deal. After that Jeff of Heavenly saw a couple of shows and as they put it “it all happened quite naturally. We had a cup of tea and the Tin Tabernacle tour really caught his imagination.” Heavenly Recordings have parted ways with megalith EMI and are now part of the Universal funded Cooperative Music initiative which supports independent labels such as Transgressive, Moshi Moshi, Bella Union and Domino. It means they can share PR costs and everyone knows when the others are releasing records so they don’t step on toes, which seems to make brilliant sense. These are amongst my favourite labels and between them they host some fabulous musicians – why would they want to deliberately compete with each other?

Trevor-Moss-Hannah-Lou-by-LJG-Art-Illustration
Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou by LJG Art & Illustration.

Ever prolific, Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou aim to put out one album a year from now on. The next record will be out in May and then comes the festival season, starting at Wood Festival on 21st May, and moving onto Truck Festival, Port Eliot and of course Glastonbury – where they played on my Climate Camp stage last year alongside Danny and the Champions of the World.


Performing at Wood Festival in 2009.

What to expect from the upcoming record? “There will be drums and a much bigger sound.” But as always all guitar and voices will be recorded together. I can’t imagine there will be much room in their van for more band members, and they agree that it is perfectly sized for just them. Although Trevor jokes that Hannah gets on his nerves it’s clear that this is very much a twosome. What happens when a family enters the equation? “Trevor wants to be a house husband,” laughs Hannah. “It will be a nice quiet time to write!” For now what they really want is a pet whippet. “They are lovely; so skinny and frail,” says Trevor. “It could travel in a hammock in the van.” The main trouble would be taking a dog into festivals, but I’m sure they could find an interesting series of venues that would accept a canine companion. Did someone mention lighthouses?

Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, all photography by Amelia Gregory

Categories ,11 Nights Under Tin, ,Alison Day, ,Arts Council, ,Bella Union, ,British Empire, ,Bush Hall, ,Cadgwith, ,Climate Camp, ,Cooperative Music, ,Cornish village, ,Cornwall, ,Danny and the Champions of the World, ,Domino Records, ,EMI, ,Emmeline Pidgen, ,Gilly Rochester, ,glastonbury, ,goldsmiths, ,Hannah Lou, ,Heavenly Recordings, ,Heavenly Social, ,Hi 8 camera, ,Indigo Moss, ,Lewis Music, ,LJG Art & Illustration, ,mining, ,Moshi Moshi, ,Port Eliot, ,Port Elliot, ,Reena Makwana, ,Sarah Matthews, ,The Social, ,There’s Something Happening Somewhere, ,Tin Tabernacle, ,Tin Tabernacle Tour, ,Transgressive, ,Trevor Moss, ,Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou, ,Tripod Stage, ,Truck Festival, ,Universal, ,Village Hall, ,Whippet, ,Wood Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | A post Tin Tabernacle interview with Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou

Jesca Hoop by Rebecca Strickson
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly.

I love Jesca Hoop‘s new song City Bird and the accompanying video so much so that I decided to get in touch with both Jesca and Elia Petridis, side effects the director of her recent videos, sildenafil to find out what makes them tick. Elia Petridis runs boutique production company Filmatics in Los Angeles, California. After making several award winning shorts and music videos he is about to start shooting his first full length feature The Man Who Shook The Hand Of Vicente Fernandez. I think his incredibly detailed answers throw an intriguing light on what goes into the creation of a very considered and beautiful music video.

Jesca-Hoop-by-Liam-McMahon
Jesca Hoop by Liam McMahon.

When did you start working with director Elia Petridis?

Jesca: Elia is an old friend. We met in Los Angeles at one of my shows. He would say that he forced me to be his friend, which is kind of true though I would say that he used his clever imagination to lure me in. I’m glad that he did. The Kingdom was our first video adventure together.

Elia: A producer I’m working closely with these days said to me recently that humans are “meaning making machines” (a soundbite from some career seminar) but that phrase really resonated with me. I’m infatuated with screenwriting and personal mythologies, sometimes to the detriment of my own mental health. I grew up in Dubai for 18 years before moving to LA for film school – although Dubai had a lot of its own magic it didn’t have a music scene to speak of so I’m always a little astonished by the talent I find in LA. When I saw Jesca perform live I really felt her music was very special and otherworldly, and tried to do my best to see if, as human planets, we could potentially orbit each other and become friends. 

I would venture to say that the first time I saw Jesca Hoop live was one of the most astonishing musical moments I have ever witnessed. It was the night before Halloween and she came out in a marionette outfit, complete with rosy cheeks, and stood motionless while her back up players wound her up to life. For a visualist like me, a storyteller, it really had an impact. The whole endeavour of courting a friendship with her was kind of a lark for me because I honestly thought she had better things to do. It was just a matter of pushing the boundary between fan and friend and seeing how much I could get away with. Suddenly, unexpectedly, as with most of life’s wonder, we had some mileage behind us and had transformed into friends. I will tell you that the first *official* conversation, the ice breaker, was when she was writing Tulip – from the Hunting my Dress album – and I was writing a screenplay dealing with Tulip Fever in Holland so I leant her my reference material. I knew I had two opportunities to wiggle my way in there – one to give her the book, and one to get it back!   

Hunting my Dress
The Hunting My Dress album cover.

Where was City Bird shot and where did the inspiration come from?

Jesca: It was shot in a miniature haunted house in downtown LA. We both wanted it to be a ghost story and Elia was the one to bring the children’s narrative into it.

Elia: FALSE! The video was shot in a garage in Riverside, Ca. The whole thing was fractal – an infinite amount of information in a finite space, as the garage is attached to an 18th century ‘Painted Lady’ Victorian house owned by my fiance. So in essence, it was shot in a miniature dollhouse inside a bigger dollhouse which made the shoot utterly magic. I think what Jesca is communicating is that the story takes place in a miniature dollhouse in downtown LA. The whole thing was lit using candles and christmas lights. 

Where did the idea for an animated video come from?

Jesca: It came out of limitation really. We had very very little money for this video so we just mused about what we could do with what time and money we did have. I set a pretty hard task considering the resources available and I am delighted with what Elia and his team came through with.

Elia: To me, the track is seance folk. That’s the sonic iconography that City Bird evokes – a ghostly seance. When it comes to music and music videos I am not a literal thinker so although my mind knows the song is about the fright and sadness associated with homelessness that’s not what my heart feels when I hear the song, and it’s not what the dream theatre in my mind projects over it either. But here Jesca’s mastery shines through, because the sonic landscape, right down to the very physical shape her mouth is making around the lyric is just as important as what she’s trying to say; the two are organically woven together. The magic of Jesca’s music lies in the alchemy that exists between form and content. All my artistic heroes do this, from Chabon, to Spielberg; they use genre to sugar coat the pill. So here she uses the disguise of seance music to coat the literal message of homelessness she’s trying to communicate. 

Now, narrative is something I am always running away from when directing a music video. Whenever I read a music video treatment from some kid that went to film school it makes me cringe and I think the best music videos come from documentary filmmakers who get a chance to put forward a psychology of form rather than one of narrative. But, having said that, my instincts on City Bird were narrative, perhaps because it’s a kind of lilting waltz so it felt right to have a narrative to pull you through it.  So, for the treatment, I sat down and wrote an entire ghost story from scratch, in the style of Poe or Hawthorne. I even wrote nursery rhymes about the ghost, because ghost stories are mostly aural traditions.

On The Kingdom video Jesca had a ton of input because I quickly realised that it would only reach its full potential if I pretended to be a paint brush and let her grab hold of the crew through me and paint. Once I took my ego out of the equation I realised there was something special there I was meant to service, and honestly, that’s the best method of working with an artist on a music video, that’s what you really cross your fingers for, isn’t it? You can see a little more of that process on the behind-the-scenes doc of the kingdom here:

But for City Bird Jesca was in Manchester and we were in LA shooting. Her schedule was tight, and I was really flattered that she had enough faith in me to let me just go and shoot because I know how much she loves her songs and how much faith it took for her to let go a little. I had originally submitted an entirely different treatment to her and had kind of resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to do it, which was cool enough for me because god only knows how many talented people Jesca comes across in her travels. Surely, I thought, she can find people in the UK to make amazing videos, and surely, as an artist, she wants to go and do cool stuff with other cool people. So I thought I would just give it a shot. I submitted this treatment about metaphorical ghosts, which dealt with mis-en-scene of places that had just been left and abandoned – an unmade bed, plates on a table after dinner, a toilet still running, stuff like that, where humans had vacated the frame only seconds ago and you’d just missed them – kind of pretentious honestly. Then I came across my fiancée’s childhood dollhouse and started taking video and snapping pictures and all of a sudden this whole new idea came to mind of the dollhouse and miniatures and stop motion and ghosts. I sent the examples to Jesca and she totally fell for it! 

City Bird house
City Bird house.

Ghost stories are tricky because they are incredibly emotional stories surrounded in gothic imagery. Ghost stories like The Others, The Orphanage, The Sixth Sense, are rite of passage stories – they’re about letting go. About the dead letting go of the living and the living letting go of the dead. They’re NOT about the living being punished for a sin like horror movies, but about forgiveness of that sin from all parties, the relinquishing of unfinished business. And I wanted to nail that, I really did. In City Bird it is the boy who is at the centre of the story and has the rite of passage: the ghost is a sort of Frankenstein or Edward Scissorhands character. 

The boy has nightmares and makes up ghastly stories that paint the ghost as a demon, then something happens to the boy on his bike and he dies. We get those silent movie inter-titles: his tower (the city) is turned to a tomb. Shadows loom over his white coffin and he becomes a ghost, set into the underworld where he is refused and becomes a refugee with nowhere to go. It’s scary out there for a little boy so he returns to the ghost’s house and we realise that’s her purpose – she is a host for waywardly spirits like the dead boy. But he has been so scared of her, will he change? Can he let go of his fear of her? Can he muster up the courage to enter as she beckons him in? The song ends unresolved sonically so I wanted to leave the audience there just as the music does. The theme is that of judging a book by its cover and misunderstanding something: just as we pass the homeless on the street and pretend they are invisible like ghosts when they all have a real inner life. Can we let go of our prejudices and see beyond the stereotypes to see that the issues that made them homeless are ones that could very well come to prey on and haunt us at any time? That’s kind of the metaphor I was trying to get at. 

City Bird ghost
The City Bird ghost.

Who made the puppets and how long did the video take to make?

Jesca: I’m not quite sure actually… I should ask.

Elia: Everyone who was involved in making the City Bird video knew there was a finite time of ten days in which to create this beautiful, creative thing so necessity was to be the mother of invention due to the time constraints, and everyone really fed on that and brought their best to the project. My fiancee, Maranatha Hay, is an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker who is piped into the most creative, kind, and daring community of filmmakers and her best friend Natalie Apodaca is an artist with experience in installations. I showed her Metropolis and told her we were going to build a monotone city from cardboard and she just went for it. Cosmin Cosma was my left hand man who insisted we use the Dragon Stop Motion software, which honestly was the main reason we were able to get the shots we needed in the time we had. 

The crew never lost faith in my direction, even when I had no idea how we would do it just ten minutes before the shoot. In the opening shot of the video there is a city cardboard diorama, the dollhouse, the puppet of the ghost AND the moon projected over the city! All those elements came into play because we just broke down the shot we had in mind element by element: that’s real filmmaking in a pure form. 99% of this video was done IN-CAMERA, like The Lumière Brothers! Then it was given that incredible aged look by Dan Geis, our after effects genius.

Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson
Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson.

I can tell you how the puppets were made, but I urge you to remember that cinema is like a magic trick. The home made feel is part of the fun of the viewing experience, especially the joy in realising that things like hair are actually twine. The doll’s arms are made of tiny painted tree branches, her spine is metal wire and her dress is made of muslin. Her face is tracing paper and is removable so that we could change her expressions from shot to shot. The part where the fork floats across the table had to be done with tweezers! (nudged lovingly one frame at a time by Maranatha)

The house was a nightmare. It is three feet tall and it took us 3 days to put it together from a flat box. We painted every part, so we had to know what the end product would look like before we even started. Luckily an architect friend, Dannon Rampton, showed up just to check out what was going on and got so enamoured with the dolls house that he ended up putting it together which is just as well since Natalie and I were clueless as to how we were going to do it. We painted it and then we had to DILAPIDATE IT so it looked old and haunted! We scrubbed it with metal brush, we broke its steeple and we stuffed miniature moss in all its crevices so that the ghost story would feel real and lived in. 

My motto is: make movies that can only be movies! Make movies that need that final step of the medium to fully realise the vision, because it’s such an expensive, time consuming endeavour that the content had better deserve and earn the medium. If it can be a song, a book, a play, let it be that. But film, film is reserved for the special stories that need the seven arts to make them whole. SO don’t give away our secrets if you don’t have to. 
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly
Jesca Hoop by Avril Kelly.

I love Jesca Hoop‘s new song City Bird and the accompanying video so much so that I decided to get in touch with both Jesca and Elia Petridis, drug the director of her recent videos, hospital to find out what makes them tick. Elia Petridis runs boutique production company Filmatics in Los Angeles, California. After making several award winning shorts and music videos he is about to start shooting his first full length feature The Man Who Shook The Hand Of Vicente Fernandez. I think his incredibly detailed answers throw an intriguing light on what goes into the creation of a very considered and beautiful music video.

Jesca-Hoop-by-Liam-McMahon
Jesca Hoop by Liam McMahon.

When did you start working with director Elia Petridis?

Jesca: Elia is an old friend. We met in Los Angeles at one of my shows. He would say that he forced me to be his friend, which is kind of true though I would say that he used his clever imagination to lure me in. I’m glad that he did. The Kingdom was our first video adventure together.

Elia: A producer I’m working closely with these days said to me recently that humans are “meaning making machines” (a soundbite from some career seminar) but that phrase really resonated with me. I’m infatuated with screenwriting and personal mythologies, sometimes to the detriment of my own mental health. I grew up in Dubai for 18 years before moving to LA for film school – although Dubai had a lot of its own magic it didn’t have a music scene to speak of so I’m always a little astonished by the talent I find in LA. When I saw Jesca perform live I really felt her music was very special and otherworldly, and tried to do my best to see if, as human planets, we could potentially orbit each other and become friends. 

Jesca Hoop by Rebecca Strickson
Jesca Hoop by Rebecca Strickson.

I would venture to say that the first time I saw Jesca Hoop live was one of the most astonishing musical moments I have ever witnessed. It was the night before Halloween and she came out in a marionette outfit, complete with rosy cheeks, and stood motionless while her back up players wound her up to life. For a visualist like me, a storyteller, it really had an impact. The whole endeavour of courting a friendship with her was kind of a lark for me because I honestly thought she had better things to do. It was just a matter of pushing the boundary between fan and friend and seeing how much I could get away with. Suddenly, unexpectedly, as with most of life’s wonder, we had some mileage behind us and had transformed into friends. I will tell you that the first *official* conversation, the ice breaker, was when she was writing Tulip – from the Hunting my Dress album – and I was writing a screenplay dealing with Tulip Fever in Holland so I leant her my reference material. I knew I had two opportunities to wiggle my way in there – one to give her the book, and one to get it back!   

Hunting my Dress
The Hunting My Dress album cover.

Where was City Bird shot and where did the inspiration come from?

Jesca: It was shot in a miniature haunted house in downtown LA. We both wanted it to be a ghost story and Elia was the one to bring the children’s narrative into it.

Elia: FALSE! The video was shot in a garage in Riverside, Ca. The whole thing was fractal – an infinite amount of information in a finite space, as the garage is attached to an 18th century ‘Painted Lady’ Victorian house owned by my fiance. So in essence, it was shot in a miniature dollhouse inside a bigger dollhouse which made the shoot utterly magic. I think what Jesca is communicating is that the story takes place in a miniature dollhouse in downtown LA. The whole thing was lit using candles and christmas lights. 

Where did the idea for an animated video come from?

Jesca: It came out of limitation really. We had very very little money for this video so we just mused about what we could do with what time and money we did have. I set a pretty hard task considering the resources available and I am delighted with what Elia and his team came through with.

Elia: To me, the track is seance folk. That’s the sonic iconography that City Bird evokes – a ghostly seance. When it comes to music and music videos I am not a literal thinker so although my mind knows the song is about the fright and sadness associated with homelessness that’s not what my heart feels when I hear the song, and it’s not what the dream theatre in my mind projects over it either. But here Jesca’s mastery shines through, because the sonic landscape, right down to the very physical shape her mouth is making around the lyric is just as important as what she’s trying to say; the two are organically woven together. The magic of Jesca’s music lies in the alchemy that exists between form and content. All my artistic heroes do this, from Chabon, to Spielberg; they use genre to sugar coat the pill. So here she uses the disguise of seance music to coat the literal message of homelessness she’s trying to communicate. 

Now, narrative is something I am always running away from when directing a music video. Whenever I read a music video treatment from some kid that went to film school it makes me cringe and I think the best music videos come from documentary filmmakers who get a chance to put forward a psychology of form rather than one of narrative. But, having said that, my instincts on City Bird were narrative, perhaps because it’s a kind of lilting waltz so it felt right to have a narrative to pull you through it.  So, for the treatment, I sat down and wrote an entire ghost story from scratch, in the style of Poe or Hawthorne. I even wrote nursery rhymes about the ghost, because ghost stories are mostly aural traditions.

On The Kingdom video Jesca had a ton of input because I quickly realised that it would only reach its full potential if I pretended to be a paint brush and let her grab hold of the crew through me and paint. Once I took my ego out of the equation I realised there was something special there I was meant to service, and honestly, that’s the best method of working with an artist on a music video, that’s what you really cross your fingers for, isn’t it? You can see a little more of that process on the behind-the-scenes doc of the kingdom here:

But for City Bird Jesca was in Manchester and we were in LA shooting. Her schedule was tight, and I was really flattered that she had enough faith in me to let me just go and shoot because I know how much she loves her songs and how much faith it took for her to let go a little. I had originally submitted an entirely different treatment to her and had kind of resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to do it, which was cool enough for me because god only knows how many talented people Jesca comes across in her travels. Surely, I thought, she can find people in the UK to make amazing videos, and surely, as an artist, she wants to go and do cool stuff with other cool people. So I thought I would just give it a shot. I submitted this treatment about metaphorical ghosts, which dealt with mis-en-scene of places that had just been left and abandoned – an unmade bed, plates on a table after dinner, a toilet still running, stuff like that, where humans had vacated the frame only seconds ago and you’d just missed them – kind of pretentious honestly. Then I came across my fiancée’s childhood dollhouse and started taking video and snapping pictures and all of a sudden this whole new idea came to mind of the dollhouse and miniatures and stop motion and ghosts. I sent the examples to Jesca and she totally fell for it! 

City Bird house
City Bird house.

Ghost stories are tricky because they are incredibly emotional stories surrounded in gothic imagery. Ghost stories like The Others, The Orphanage, The Sixth Sense, are rite of passage stories – they’re about letting go. About the dead letting go of the living and the living letting go of the dead. They’re NOT about the living being punished for a sin like horror movies, but about forgiveness of that sin from all parties, the relinquishing of unfinished business. And I wanted to nail that, I really did. In City Bird it is the boy who is at the centre of the story and has the rite of passage: the ghost is a sort of Frankenstein or Edward Scissorhands character. 

The boy has nightmares and makes up ghastly stories that paint the ghost as a demon, then something happens to the boy on his bike and he dies. We get those silent movie inter-titles: his tower (the city) is turned to a tomb. Shadows loom over his white coffin and he becomes a ghost, set into the underworld where he is refused and becomes a refugee with nowhere to go. It’s scary out there for a little boy so he returns to the ghost’s house and we realise that’s her purpose – she is a host for waywardly spirits like the dead boy. But he has been so scared of her, will he change? Can he let go of his fear of her? Can he muster up the courage to enter as she beckons him in? The song ends unresolved sonically so I wanted to leave the audience there just as the music does. The theme is that of judging a book by its cover and misunderstanding something: just as we pass the homeless on the street and pretend they are invisible like ghosts when they all have a real inner life. Can we let go of our prejudices and see beyond the stereotypes to see that the issues that made them homeless are ones that could very well come to prey on and haunt us at any time? That’s kind of the metaphor I was trying to get at. 

City Bird ghost
The City Bird ghost.

Who made the puppets and how long did the video take to make?

Jesca: I’m not quite sure actually… I should ask.

Elia: Everyone who was involved in making the City Bird video knew there was a finite time of ten days in which to create this beautiful, creative thing so necessity was to be the mother of invention due to the time constraints, and everyone really fed on that and brought their best to the project. My fiancee, Maranatha Hay, is an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker who is piped into the most creative, kind, and daring community of filmmakers and her best friend Natalie Apodaca is an artist with experience in installations. I showed her Metropolis and told her we were going to build a monotone city from cardboard and she just went for it. Cosmin Cosma was my left hand man who insisted we use the Dragon Stop Motion software, which honestly was the main reason we were able to get the shots we needed in the time we had. 

The crew never lost faith in my direction, even when I had no idea how we would do it just ten minutes before the shoot. In the opening shot of the video there is a city cardboard diorama, the dollhouse, the puppet of the ghost AND the moon projected over the city! All those elements came into play because we just broke down the shot we had in mind element by element: that’s real filmmaking in a pure form. 99% of this video was done IN-CAMERA, like The Lumière Brothers! Then it was given that incredible aged look by Dan Geis, our after effects genius.

Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson
Jesca Hoop by Emma Lucy Watson.

I can tell you how the puppets were made, but I urge you to remember that cinema is like a magic trick. The home made feel is part of the fun of the viewing experience, especially the joy in realising that things like hair are actually twine. The doll’s arms are made of tiny painted tree branches, her spine is metal wire and her dress is made of muslin. Her face is tracing paper and is removable so that we could change her expressions from shot to shot. The part where the fork floats across the table had to be done with tweezers! (nudged lovingly one frame at a time by Maranatha)

The house was a nightmare. It is three feet tall and it took us 3 days to put it together from a flat box. We painted every part, so we had to know what the end product would look like before we even started. Luckily an architect friend, Dannon Rampton, showed up just to check out what was going on and got so enamoured with the dolls house that he ended up putting it together which is just as well since Natalie and I were clueless as to how we were going to do it. We painted it and then we had to DILAPIDATE IT so it looked old and haunted! We scrubbed it with metal brush, we broke its steeple and we stuffed miniature moss in all its crevices so that the ghost story would feel real and lived in. 

My motto is: make movies that can only be movies! Make movies that need that final step of the medium to fully realise the vision, because it’s such an expensive, time consuming endeavour that the content had better deserve and earn the medium. If it can be a song, a book, a play, let it be that. But film, film is reserved for the special stories that need the seven arts to make them whole. SO don’t give away our secrets if you don’t have to. 
TM AND HL-Jan 11-photography by Amelia Gregory
Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, viagra dosage all photography by Amelia Gregory.

Last week Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou held a preview screening for their Tin Tabernacle tour video, viagra sale titled 11 Nights Under Tin. I caught up with them at Bush Hall a few weeks ago to find out more about this talented couple.

Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, all photography by Amelia GregoryTrevor Moss and Hannah Lou, all photography by Amelia Gregory

The Tin Tabernacle tour followed on from Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou’s Village Hall tour of last year. To pull it off they found approximately fifty churches through the Tin Tabernacles website, got details of about thirty of them and managed to stage concerts in eleven of them. The website often listed the nearest town or they enterprisingly zoomed in on the google street view: sometimes a contact number would be visible on a noticeboard, and at other times they phoned the local pub. Most people were really enthusiastic, but some were overwhelmed by the idea and worried by the commitment. “We wanted to get out into the community and play for people who don’t have much access to music,” they told me when I spoke to them at Bush Hall. “We went to those who were keen.” It seems to have been a successful venture: the audiences were mostly comprised of locals.

Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester
Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester.

The Tin Tabernacle churches all vary in size, though they have a few things in common. They are all made of corrugated iron, and were invented circa 1840, when the scattering of God fearing British citizens across the British Empire hastened the need for an easily transportable place of worship. Mining communities sprung up in all sorts of remote corners of the globe so the churches often had to be carried for long distances overland. “They warm up fast because they are wooden clad inside,” explained Trevor and Hannah, “but some had no electricity so we played by candlelight.” The smallest church held only about 40 people, all squashed into the pews, but the average capacity was between 70-120. What with Trevor, Hannah and their two support acts it was still quite a squish.

Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester
Tin Tabernacle by Gilly Rochester.

I spotted a tin church on my visit to the Cornish village of Cadgwith earlier this year, but sadly this was not one that they managed to include on the tour, despite Trevor’s Cornish heritage. Many were nevertheless located in amazing locations, including on cliff tops.


11 Nights Under Tin, a film by Trevor Moss, can be watched in full above.

Why did they chose such an innovative way of touring? “We had toured the same venues for years and they are all the same, painted black inside.” Trevor and Hannah hope that with their Arts Council funded tours their audiences will experience an event, instead of just standing in the shadows. “It’s no wonder that so many bands’ later records are rubbish when they live in such a strange parallel reality.” So they have chosen places that will open their eyes to other communities. They always stay in independent B&Bs and sometimes with the local vicar – it’s also a carefully considered way for them to have an interesting time whilst peddling an album. “We get to play in places we would never have seen otherwise.”

Tin Tabernacle by Alison Day
Tin Tabernacle by Alison Day.

I can totally relate to this idea – half the reason I was so attracted to fashion photography as a creative medium was the possibility of visiting interesting locations to take photos. During my nascent fashion photography career I went to South Africa and America before I began to realise the environmental problems of excessive air travel.

Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou by Sarah Matthews
Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou by Sarah Matthews.

The *world* premiere of the resulting Tin Tabernacle film was shown at The Social on Wednesday 16th March. It was entirely shot on an old 80s Hi 8 camera in three seconds bursts three or four times an hour, so it is basically what they describe as “a collection of moving photos” with mostly in-camera sound.

Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou - Tin Churches by Emmeline Pidgen
Tin Churches by Emmeline Pidgen.

This interactive approach to playing and documenting music is a result of Hannah and Trevor’s art college career. They both met at Goldsmiths, where Trevor was studying fine art and Hannah was doing theatre studies. By the time they reached their third year they were signed as the band Indigo Moss, which we profiled on Amelia’s Magazine. By this point they were spending so much time immersed in music that Trevor had to enlist the rest of the band to help get his degree show up on time.

Tin Tabernacles by Reena Makwana
Tin Tabernacles by Reena Makwana.

The couple have now been writing songs together for 8 years and seem a lot older and wiser than their 25 years of age, a fact which they attribute to having lots of older friends. They met whilst living in halls but did not start going out together until Indigo Moss, and managed to keep their relationship secret from other band members for two months. They got married in 2008.


There’s Something Happening Somewhere, a film by Trevor Moss.

Indigo Moss eventually broke up because they didn’t enjoy it anymore, especially the way the label was pushing the band. Inevitably, they were pulling bigger audiences as a duet. At that point Tom from Lewis Music saw them and they signed a one album deal. After that Jeff of Heavenly saw a couple of shows and as they put it “it all happened quite naturally. We had a cup of tea and the Tin Tabernacle tour really caught his imagination.” Heavenly Recordings have parted ways with megalith EMI and are now part of the Universal funded Cooperative Music initiative which supports independent labels such as Transgressive, Moshi Moshi, Bella Union and Domino. It means they can share PR costs and everyone knows when the others are releasing records so they don’t step on toes, which seems to make brilliant sense. These are amongst my favourite labels and between them they host some fabulous musicians – why would they want to deliberately compete with each other?

Trevor-Moss-Hannah-Lou-by-LJG-Art-Illustration
Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou by LJG Art & Illustration.

Ever prolific, Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou aim to put out one album a year from now on. The next record will be out in May and then comes the festival season, starting at Wood Festival on 21st May, and moving onto Truck Festival, Port Eliot and of course Glastonbury – where they played on my Climate Camp stage last year alongside Danny and the Champions of the World.


Performing at Wood Festival in 2009.

What to expect from the upcoming record? “There will be drums and a much bigger sound.” But as always all guitar and voices will be recorded together. I can’t imagine there will be much room in their van for more band members, and they agree that it is perfectly sized for just them. Although Trevor jokes that Hannah gets on his nerves it’s clear that this is very much a twosome. What happens when a family enters the equation? “Trevor wants to be a house husband,” laughs Hannah. “It will be a nice quiet time to write!” For now what they really want is a pet whippet. “They are lovely; so skinny and frail,” says Trevor. “It could travel in a hammock in the van.” The main trouble would be taking a dog into festivals, but I’m sure they could find an interesting series of venues that would accept a canine companion. Did someone mention lighthouses?

Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, all photography by Amelia Gregory

Categories ,11 Nights Under Tin, ,Alison Day, ,Arts Council, ,Bella Union, ,British Empire, ,Bush Hall, ,Cadgwith, ,Climate Camp, ,Cooperative Music, ,Cornish village, ,Cornwall, ,Danny and the Champions of the World, ,Domino Records, ,EMI, ,Emmeline Pidgen, ,Gilly Rochester, ,glastonbury, ,goldsmiths, ,Hannah Lou, ,Heavenly Recordings, ,Heavenly Social, ,Hi 8 camera, ,Indigo Moss, ,Lewis Music, ,LJG Art & Illustration, ,mining, ,Moshi Moshi, ,Port Eliot, ,Port Elliot, ,Reena Makwana, ,Sarah Matthews, ,The Social, ,There’s Something Happening Somewhere, ,Tin Tabernacle, ,Tin Tabernacle Tour, ,Transgressive, ,Trevor Moss, ,Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou, ,Tripod Stage, ,Truck Festival, ,Universal, ,Village Hall, ,Whippet, ,Wood Festival

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