14th April 2016 (SCE #8)

The Details

Date: Thursday, 14th April 2016

Venue: The Urban Bar, 176 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1BJ

Time: 8.30pm

Entry: £5.00

Travel: Whitechapel Tube & London Overground, various buses

The Performers

Kitty Day

Yorkshire born and raised, Kitty’s musical education ranged from classical to jazz and she is a multi-instrumentalist but she has only recently found her singing voice, and for this an acoustic guitar is the perfect accompaniment. Kitty grew in leafy West Yorkshire and has played in many ensembles and bands. She made her debut covering Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan on the Ukeylove scene and progressed to writing and performing her own songs on guitar, releasing the debut album ‘Master & Pioneer’ in 2011. She writes deeply personal and idiosyncratic songs from the heart. 

Website

Kirsty Merryn

New Forest born singer songwriter Kirsty Merryn tells stories of boxing champions, forgotten heroines and frozen winters. She has become a regular on London’s folk scene, delighting the crowds with her delicately introspective piano based songs and sophisticated musical style, which are balanced beautifully by an intimate and finely observational lyrical content. Kirsty was recently listed in Buzzfeed’s ’34 Brilliant British Songwriters To Discover’. In 2015 she completed her first UK tour and is working on her debut album, produced by award-winning Gerry Diver (Sam Lee, Lisa Knapp, The Speech Project), which will be released in 2016.

Website

Mine Host

Simon Hopper is the founder and host of Song Club East. See earlier posts in this blog.

Website

Whistling, analysis-in-depth and fine, fine songwriting

We had another heartening display of song-writing/performing at SCE#7 on the second Thursday of March. It's a joy that we're able to entice such dedicated tellers-of-stories-in-song along to gritty Whitechapel for the celebration of life, love and all points poignant.

Jeremy Tuplin is a singer/writer with his own idiosyncratic take on both those trades. It's said to be a marker of a special talent that you couldn't mistake them for anyone else. Jeremy's debt to a variety of writers - especially one L Cohen to these ears - can be heard in his songs. But it couldn't be anyone else writing or singing them.

Jeremy gets under the skin of what it is to be. In Time's Essence he sings of '... a world we create', never feeling the need to resort to the dominant chord and thereby leaving both the melodic arc and the song's message hanging. It's waiting for something. The answer as to what is not imposed on the listener. His finest moment, though, came in a song that he had to persuaded to sing because it came from 'a dark place', he said. The Morning Sun is a special piece; 'But I chose to love and guard myself / Instead of being vulnerable to the love of someone else... / You don't love me any more / And the morning sun is just a little too bright'. Jeremy Tuplin will help you to understand. Just listen.

Our other artist's songs hit you directly. Boozer's Lament and It Hurts Me, Too get you first time, right in the gut. They are the kind of songs you feel you've heard before but they are very definitely the output of Rob Corcoran, a warm, open Irishman who shares his triumphs and disasters equally liberally. He forgot his Bob Dylan-style harmonica cradle so substituted for this with the most note-perfect whistling you've ever heard.

In All For The Sake Of A Song, addressed to one - perhaps to a former lover - who told him to 'accentuate the negative' he suggests 'Think of all the bridges you've burned / Champion cuddlers you've spurned'. In Boozer's Lament he asks his departing barmaid lover why she blamed his drinking for their breakup when she sold him the beer in the first place. It Hurts Me, Too reminds us that the instigator of an ending feels the pain of it as well.

Yours truly was the compère and question-master. We discussed writing influences, methods and preferences, the dangers of too much self-revelation - especially to a current lover, the reasons why we write and why we think an audience should listen - or not.

It was an illuminating evening. Join us for our next concert on 14th April - an all female guest list with Kitty Day and Kirsty Merryn.