I’ve a little confession to make…this bit isn’t about clay!
Beneath the Beacon Song Project
In 2018 I was lucky enough to be involved in writing songs for a project called ‘Beneath the Beacon. This involved automata puppets, poetry and songs telling the stories of local historical characters. I’d been a member of local band, The Misdemeanours, for a while by this time, dabbling with writing and performing. This project allowed me to write and play alongside a bunch of lovely local musicians and together we created the Beneath the Beacon Song Project. We had a professional recording made of our second live performance at Wreay Church. The Church itself was designed by Sarah Losh, one of the Beneath the Beacon characters. It’s beautiful and well worth a visit.
Errant Thieves
Out of this song project, by happy accident, another band was born, this was Errant Thieves.
Thieves by name, thieves by nature, stealing band members and borrowing songs creating our own original compositions and arrangements. Our music was very much about the vocal harmonies and woody acoustic instruments creating a rootsy warm sound.
The Clifford Movement
The Clifford Movement is the latest band I’m involved in. A four-piece striving to create innovative ways to tell the tales of folk from the past who lived, loved, worked and played in Cumbria. We bring you stories, songs, poems and visual projections, celebrating, above all, the lives and landscape of the Eden Valley, with some interjections of more far-flung tales. Harmonies are central to our sound, be they haunting, or perhaps more raucous, but very much from our own perspective and a glorious mix of instrumentation.
