So ... a short but varied tour, once again with Rob Cross, began last week on the outskirts of Sheffield at the Beehive Folk Club. This delightful place has been running many, long and successful years and is organised by a very lovely man in the shape of Peter Garrett. When we arrived and started setting up so did the nearby Campanologists! They rang their - varyingly tuned - bells for a very long time but thankfully stopped by the time Rob and I stepped up to perform.
Considering we haven’t done a gig for over 6 months it was great. We’d had several stints of rehearsals in Cardiff beforehand and re-jigged the set so as to make it more interesting for us if no one else. Rob - bless him - learnt a brand new song I wrote with Mike Slamer in Santa Clarita a few short weeks ago: “Skin and Bones” and is going down remarkably well. Plus we’ve re-learnt a couple of songs from a while back to keep us on our toes.
The Beehive audience were delightful: attentive yet rowdy in all the right places. We did have a few technical hitches entirely of our own doing ... well not entirely but there aren’t many shows where the audience accidentally unplugs the loop station before the second half! Oops. Or was it deliberate?:-) It was great to see a few friendly faces too ... especially Chris Howarth whose unmistakable laugh warms the cockles of this performers heart. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to Flip the ecstatic response at the end of the night (was that because we’d finished?) thankfully, tho' Bob used his little Flip camera to capture a few moments which I’m happy to share with you here:
Saints alive it's the Beehive! from Christine Collister on Vimeo.
Bob’s sister Chris who normally resides in New Zealand, is over visiting family and friends and was able to come to the show also ... an honour for me to have her there. Hurrah.
After the gig Rob stayed with Peter and his lovely wife, while Bob and I went back to Chris’s temporary place in Gainsborough a 30 minute drive away. The daft thing about all of that was that Jo and Mike - Bob’s daughter and her husband - live 5 minutes from the venue. Hey-ho.
The following day we had to drive to the Lake District - which of course is never a chore, even though it was a very grey, overcast day, the greenery and loveliness of the area could not be hidden. Though the venue itself:Water Yeat’s Village Hall Water Yeat’s Village Hall, has been around for 80 years, having concerts there is a relatively new venture. John Willis and his delightful wife Maggie certainly know how to make a travelling performer very welcome and also how to promote a gig ... given this is a new experience for them both they do a brilliant job.
They don’t sell tickets up front and the audience brings their own beverages ... many of them in wicker baskets; they’d managed to get a real buzz going about our show and when it came down to it, had to turn away 15 basket laden people. Wow ... more of this please. Obviously no one likes turning someone away but having a hall full with expectant punters is a joy.
Water Yeat Village I from Christine Collister on Vimeo.
We had an exceptionally good gig with a few mishaps mostly due to my ridiculous lack of memory - the most memorable (oxymoronic pun intended) was when I completely forgot some chords and Rob - bless him - had to put my fingers in the right place before we could continue. It’s not going to get any better either I suppose? My memory that is not the shows ... A fabulous time was had by all despite my varying lapses ... we definitely would love to play here again soon. Maybe next May? We’re working on it.
Water Yeat Village Hall take 2 from Christine Collister on Vimeo.
I’m now in Burnham-on-Crouch once more, with gorgeous Helen Watson for a couple of days R&R. We also need to brush up on a couple accappella songs we recorded in 1999 with Jacqui McShee, as all three of us are attempting to perform them live (something we’ve never done!) on Friday - May 13th Gulp. It will be wonderful I’m sure. Flip footage guaranteed!
So as promised, I’ll now regale you with tales of my recent visit to Santa Monica ... well I’ll try to explain why I was feeling so creative at the very least. Before I left the Isle of Man I had a very interesting conversation with local, talented artist Juan Moore about an idea he had last year. He explained to me that he decided to approach the local Arts Council for a grant and knew he had to have an original idea to get their attention. He came up with creating art pieces for various unusual exhibition sites: the first was at a wonderful Fish Restaurant “Tanrogan” and all his works included images of fish. The second was in a pub ... all artwork drink related and the third he called a “Gighibition”. He invited 5 local singer songwriters to submit 4 or 5 of their songs and then Juan painted original pieces inspired by each writer’s work. Then ... he exhibited the paintings while the bands/performers performed the songs in the same space ... a “Gighibition” .What a fab idea huh?
So I decided to reverse the idea and look at artworks by artists living or coming from the Isle of Man and writing songs inspired by their images. There are 2 websites I used for this purpose: The Sayle Gallery and Artworkx of Mann .Each has a plethora of very talented visual artists and I was VERY inspired! Who knew? Given the visual focus, I found myself tuning into a very rich seam of lyrical and musical ideas. I used my trusty program Logic on the computer to create musical landscapes and draped my intuited lyrics across the sounds. I do of course see the the irony of doing all this while thousands of miles away in sunny California.
The very first song I attempted was using Svetlana Cameron’s brilliant drawing “The Morning Light” which is now in an exhibition at the Sayle Gallery till the end of May. I emailed Svetlana to explain what I’d done and on hearing the song she immediately suggested using the demo I’d created, alongside the original drawing at the exhibition. I can’t tell you how utterly thrilled I am at this sudden and unexpected collaboration with this extremely talented young artist; in fact we’re both very happy about it. As illustration to what I'm trying to explain here is Svetlana's beautiful drawing and the song I was inspired to write:
Morning light - new mix by cc.sings
I’ve so far written 7 songs using 7 different artist’s work and had positive feedback from all of them. I’d like to have another stint at writing more and then perhaps selecting the best of the crop and putting them together - possibly with images of each piece? - on a cd and then one day touring the whole thing complete with projections of the artwork so I can talk about the artist and how I came to the songs? It’s an idea ... I’ve certainly enjoyed the process and learning more about art in general. Hurrah for motivating ideas and the courage to have a go!
I also finished writing 2 songs with Mike Slamer this time round, one of which Rob and I are now performing on tour. It’s always a joy to work with Mike. I did one other strange little musical piece inspired by an email from Mike’s wife Susan. She’s a music supervisor at Sony TV in Los Angeles and has suggested my songs on occasion for various tv shows ... as yet no takers but you never know. Anyway she emailed to ask if I had a song that would work for one of her shows. She described the scene which included the main character losing everything, including 2 of her sons dying and being found out by the police for murdering a man for stealing some of her drugs! Sue said ... I’m sure you’ve got something that would work ...? Er ... not that I could think of but I did no more than create something then and there. I had no idea I could be so responsively creative. As far as I’m aware my experiment isn’t being used but I’m so glad I had the opportunity to have a go ... who knows what else might show up?
We met and socialised with many of our lovely friends in LA and I indulged in as many Kia Miller Yoga sessions as I could fit in while I was there. Her style and enthusiastic teaching are so inspiring ... I’m now yoga-ing daily and loving the feeling it brings. I highly recommend it!
I'll leave it here for now and hope to up date with more gigs and touring adventures very soon. Thanks as ever for stopping by ... if you manage to make it to a show please do come and say hello.
Take care ... much love
Christine xx :-)
