Feels a little weird to be announcing our ‘spring’ season whilst its snowing outside, but hopefully by the time February comes around there’ll be birds and daffodils and everything! And we’ll be kicking off our short but sweet Spring season with some really exciting gigs… As well as Manchester bands Johnny Hunter Quartet, Badger the Hermit and A Greater Horror, we’ll be welcoming saxophonist Pete Lyons over from Sheffield and the much talked about Shatner’s Bassoon from the always innovative Leeds scene.
Also really exciting is is a series of one-off “project” commissions that will be performed as the first set on some nights. This is something that we’re introducing for the first time this season with projects led by Efpi co-founders Sam Andreae and Anton Hunter, and we’re all pretty eager to see what will happen with these first two projects and beyond! The premise is that we ask different musicians/composers to be in charge of putting together a set of music in collaboration with some/all of the featured act, with the likely possibility of involving local musicians too. By the nature of these commissions (sometimes the musicians will have never met before the night itself, and have very little rehearsal time) the results will be spontaneous and often somewhat a work in progress, which we think will be fascinating for audiences to be a part of. Each featured artist will have to develop a workable composition or concept for this situation, and we’re really excited about hearing the results!
Dates are as follows:
5th February – Pete Lyons LX:V Quintet + Johnny Hunter Quartet
19th February – Shatner’s Bassoon + Sam Andreae project
5th March – Badger the Hermit + Anton Hunter project
19th March – A Greater Horror + Sam Andreae (solo)
Full details and descriptions of all bands over on the Freedom Principle page, along with all the info for timings, location etc. As ever, all of this will cost you £3 to enjoy – remember that 100% of that money goes directly to the musicians, in many cases just to pay for their travel rather than as any sort of fee. Thanks in anticipation for your continued support, we wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without people like YOU coming along to Sandbar.
Happy new year! For the first podcast of 2013, Ben assembled a crack team of musicians from amongst the Efpi family and friends in a barn in the middle of the Peak District to discuss both the musical year that was 2012 and the exciting things that are coming up in 2013… Our expert panel drawn from all over Europe consists of (in alphabetical order to avoid any arguments!) Sam Andreae, Moss Freed, Anton Hunter, Johnny Hunter, David Meier, Finlay Panter and Alice Zawadzki – all of those names above are hyperlinks which will take you to their own websites, where you can find out more information about the musicians themselves and some of the projects they discuss in the podcast.
More information on the other bands and musicians we talked about can be found via the links below – there’s some that aren’t in the list below but they’re either not online (according to google at least) or can be found on the individual musician’s website as linked to above.
Massive thanks to everyone involved for being informative and entertaining, hope you enjoy listening and find some new things to listen to in the coming year!
For the last Freedom Principle before our Summer break we’re pleased to present the debut performance by the Johnny Hunter Group. You may well have seen drummer Johnny perform with Skamel, Marley Chingus or the Dub Jazz Soundsystem, or at the free improvisation Noise Upstairs events. With those influences combined with the talents of some of Manchester’s most in-demand emerging musicians, a storming night is guaranteed!
Ben Watte (saxophone), Graham South (trumpet), Stewart Wilson (bass), Johnny Hunter (drums)
Freedom Principle is currently taking an Easter break to allow us to digest both the vast amounts of chocolate we’ve had recently and the amazing music we’ve hosted at Sandbar since January. But fear not – we’ve been hard at work programming some more incredible artists to take us through until the heady days of Summer, and we think we’ve come up trumps… Full details are over on the Freedom Principle page, but dates in brief are below.
We’re particularly looking forward to June when we’re delighted to be bringing two incredible London based bands up to Manchester, both led by saxophonists – on June 5th we’ve got Cath Roberts Quadraceratops and on June 19th we’ve got Tom Challenger’s Ma as part of their UK tour promoting their fantastic album, ‘The Last’. Check out music by both groups here:
This feast of music will only cost you £3 entry, 100% of which goes straight to the artist – during the Spring season we had some amazing nights with really great audiences, so thanks a lot for that and please continue to support creative live music in Manchester! If you want a reminder about each of the gigs you can join our mailing list by clicking here (don’t forget to tick the Freedom Principle box) or follow us on twitter. See you there…
1st May – Gambol
15th May – No Good Beatniks
5th June – Cath Roberts’ Quadraceratops
19th June – Ma
3rd July – Johnny Hunter Group
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For the last Freedom Principle before our Summer break we’re pleased to present the debut performance by the Johnny Hunter Group. You may well have seen drummer Johnny perform with Skamel, Marley Chingus or the Dub Jazz Soundsystem, or at the free improvisation Noise Upstairs events. With those influences combined with the talents of some of Manchester’s most in-demand emerging musicians, a storming night is guaranteed!
