Alexander's Festival Hall

Author: alex mayor

  • Horses, poetry and performance – 1st December!

    winter-1Cor… cold innit? Why not come warm yourself up at The Horse Hospital on the 1st Dec 2015… where AFH and performer/poet Guy Sangster-Adams will be debuting an EP collaboration called “To the Fore”. Four musical poems, available soon from Spotify/iTunes/Amazon and all good digital stores.
    AFH will be playing a short support set with the micro-acoustic-storytelling team, there’ll be some lovely records from Travis Elborough and some recent photography from Guy, Travis and Isabelle Sarginson Allen.

    Reserve your free ticket here: eventbrite.
    Map: Horse Hospital (nearest tube: Russell Sq.)

  • Many dankes Berlin!

    Many dankes Berlin!

    Well, that was one lovely show in Berlin’s famous Sudblock venue last week! (Friday 6th November 2015). Effortlessly capturing the Berlin wit, November Depression is hosted every year by the charming Christiane Rosinger, a luminary of many fine German bands and independent labels to boot. A show, a quiz, a sing-off, prizes and much tanzen, it’s an entertainment arrow aimed straight at the misery of winter.

    As this was a nearly-solo show AFH enlisted the help of local visual artist Astrid Rostaing to open the show with a heliumized recollection of a lost but wonderful summer, a story from the forthcoming AFH album and book “Not from above”. Then it was a quick whirlwind tour around a few songs old and new to open what was a lovely evening that reminded one that really, a good show is always about variety and ‘Variety’…

    Vielen dank!
    Many thanks to Thomas Venker for organisation, to Jens Friebe for the Telecaster, to Julius Beltrame for some fine photography, Sarah Szczesny for the mid-80s Tokyo-Sound and Marc and Andy at Ragu for the best recovery food known to man… Some photos, including from the Editions-Fieber launch of Claus Richter’s amazing soundtrack, and an excerpt from the night’s opening story below…

  • Four women, poetry, music and horses…?

    ToTheForeTo the Fore (EP) – Guy Sangster Adams

    AFH has teamed up with writer/poet/performer Guy Sangster Adams, to create four tracks of love, lust with healthy doses of “it’s complicated”. Guy has written four  mini-dramas documenting seaside lust, confounded romance and that particular longing that hits you as the sun dips below the horizon. AFH has crafted musical settings for each from elegant piano tinkling to peppy pop…

    The EP will be available on Spotify/iTunes/Amazon in December and we will be performing it for the first time at The Horse Hospital, Tuesday 1st December. AFH will also play a short acoustic set and there will be some deletectable vinyl spinning from Travis Elborough and much more besides.
    We’d love you to join us…

    Free! Reserve your seat here: ebEventbrite.

  • Micro-set in Berlin: AFH at Sudblock 06.11.2015

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    Hallo!
    AFH is appearing at a small show in Berlin this Friday. Winningly entitled NovemberDepression, this little solo set will attempt to encompass the manifold of human misery in the best way we know how: popmusik.

    Come and say ‘hallo!’ if you’re in Berlin. It’s at Sudblock. Starts 9pm. Freitag, 6th November.

    Details: https://www.facebook.com/events..

    rBONUS DJ set: Thursday 5th November
    AFH will also be spinning some 7″ platters-that-definitely-don’t-matter, at the Claus Richter / Edition Fieber launch party, 5th Nov, Smaragd Bar, Prinzenallee 80 13357 Berlin, from: 9pm–. You can find out more about Richter’s wonderful soundtrack and vinyl art piece here: Edition Fieber

     

  • AFH micro-story-team show: 28th September!

    AFH micro-story-team show: 28th September!

    Hi all,

    Just time to mention a hastily booked appearance on Monday 28th September at Servant Jazz Quarters in Dalston. It’ll be a reappearance of AFH in story-team form. We’re playing with Piney Gir who have a new double A-side out. It’s a lovely venue, and we’ve got our fingers crossed the piano is in tune 😉

    There’s a map here, it’s right by Dalston Kingsland station:

    http://www.servantjazzquarters.com/find-us

    Hope to see you there!

    AFH x

  • It’s probably about time for an AFH show – How’s 21st March 2015 sound?

    alex=bwAloha! It’s time for something on the board-treading front so come join AFH Acoustic Story Team for a slightly different kind of [makes air quotes] “gig”. I’d let you in on a few more details but that would be a touch previous, as at this point we’re still brainstorming in the ideas lounge, lost some steps among the gnarled roots within the forest of possibility… I’ll get Clive to ping you an update, first thing Monday, promise.

    Mark your dance cards for the Specks in the Sky, at the Slaughtered Lamb, Clerkenwell, 21st March 2015. Doors 7pm.

     

  • Next AFH live show! Chat’s Palace, 2nd Nov 2014

    Next AFH live show! Chat’s Palace, 2nd Nov 2014

    Hi all,

    Next AFH live show will be at the lovely ‘Famous Times Live’ a Sunday afternoon session at Homerton’s Chat’s Palace. Doors 4pm, and once we know our stage time we’ll let you know!

    http://www.chatspalace.co.uk/whatson/

    AFH x

  • The Longest Handshake

    Here’s The Longest Handshake – a video-art/social-happening  conceived and organised by Claire Flannery and a team of other interesting people, that took place in June 2013 in Skerries, Ireland. As a nice side-project I composed music for the piece, using piano, guitar and harmonium – taking two chords as the basis, echoing the idea of two hands interacting. Finger sounds recorded on a table top add a little percussion and rhythm.

    From the original event notes:
    “The act of shaking hands is a performance. Humans alone perform this act, frequently and often on a daily basis. The context defines the intensity and weight placed upon this single gesture that joins two bodies together in a physical bond. It is a performance we enact to demonstrate genuine interest, commonality, shared integrity and is generally servant to a social occasion or contractual agreement. In ‘The Longest Handshake’ this act is isolated and performed by up to one hundred people simultaneously.

    On a vast beach, two long lines of people will be facing each other, and moving from a considerable distance, will slowly walk towards a central point in a choreographic gesture of approximation. The performance will culminate in a collective handshake of people that may know or not know each other, an act that expressly magnifies our awareness and aims to realise its poetic potential…”
    More

  • Next gig:

    Next gig:

    NEXT AFH LIVE SHOW!
    1st May @ The Slaughtered Lamb, Clerkenwell… Lovely little downstairs venue in the sleepy village of Clerkenwell, pop it in your diaries mes chers…

    Update: tickets available! here: https://www.facebook.com/earmusicgigs/app_211526985586920

  • Singing and being a ‘chap’… an article

    Singing and being a ‘chap’… an article

    As a member of ChapsChoir, London’s foremost artful new male voice choir, I wrote an article reflecting on the experience of joining such a group, and what it might tell us about the evolving nature of maleness. You can read the full article on the Chaps’ website below.

    “We’re singing songs from the fields of Georgia to the snows of Finland, the chart world of the 1990s to the elegant drawing rooms of Manhattan’s upper-west side. Men of all stripes and ages, learning in public, transmuting long held fears about public speaking into a determination to make the very air turn new colours in song…”

    Read: On being a Chap.
    Bonus: here’s an excerpt of us in full flow:

  • Present and Correct – acoustic at the Union Chapel

    A little video from our December 2013 show at Union Chapel… We present ‘Present and Correct’ featuring members of Chaps Choir on backing vocals…

    Thanks to Julius Beltrame, for shooting and directing. Also thanks to Arctic Circle who put on the excellent Daylight Music sessions at this truly one-off London venue.

  • Feeling nuptial? new AFH video

    Feeling nuptial? new AFH video

    So in a sop/bid/gesture/offering to those Hallmarkian Gods of Greeting Cards who rule our time on Earth, Mr AFH spent a busy night cutting together a little Valentines video for “I’m gonna get married” from the album. The song also features some lovely duetting from Miss Piney Gir and is in no way suitable listening for the romantically cynical.

    Here’s the video and you can get the song on iTunes here.

  • AFH Winter shows and new Xmas compilation song.

    AFH Winter shows and new Xmas compilation song.

    And with the agglomerating leaves underfoot, a sure sign of terrible poetry in the offing, it is of course autumn. In gigging news, AFH will be opening proceedings tomorrow night with a full-band show at the Buffalo Bar, 28th Nov., onstage 8.15pm.

    If you can’t make that and are feeling a wee bit festive, AFH will also be playing a couple of songs at a very special Union Chapel show on Saturday 7th December at 12 noon, playing with other contributors to “Festivus 2” – a delectable Christmas compilation from New York’s Highline Records. Headliners are the Trans-Siberian band – should be a mad show and the perfect way to kick off Xmas. We’re on at 12.15 sharp, FREE entry.

    You can RSVP or find more details here:
    http://store.unionchapel.org.uk/events/7-dec-13-daylight-music-union-chapel/
    https://www.facebook.com/events/235421323273350/

  • Plectrum

    “One moment a green olive being seductively swirled around a perfectly mixed Martini, the next a revolving mirror ball lighting up the eyes of George Gershwin” (Plectrum-TCP magazine)

  • HowDoYouAre

    “AFH sounds like Jarvis Cocker backed by a street marching band trying to play Disco in a gay Vaudeville cabaret owned by Kompakt” (HowDoYouAre blog)