This Weekend's Events (4th to 6th October)

Hi Everybody

I've already been asked if I'll be mentioning the passing of Peter Sissons who has now shuffled off to that great newsroom in the sky.  Well, seeing as we're all devotees of Jan Leeming in this office the short answer is probably no.  

(However given this rather unfortunate event, rumour has it that the powers that be at Tribute Night will be planning a future evening where various regular and not so regular musicians will read out their favourite news reports from yesteryear.  While we can both agree this is slightly far-fetched, you can be sure that Tom Hawkins' interpretation the Iranian Embassy Siege would no doubt be 'interesting')

And finally, we have a few things at the Rising Sun to be telling you about this weekend...

First of all, Friday.  And MIKE COOPER returns to the Rising Sun

A rare return for this living local legend!

For the past 50 years, Mike Cooper has been an international artistic explorer constantly pushing the boundaries. He plays lap steel guitar and sings, he is an improviser and composer, song-maker, a visual and installation artist; film and video maker and radio arts producer. Initially, a folk-blues guitarist he is as responsible as anyone else — and more so than many — for ushering in the acoustic blues boom in the U.K. in the mid-’60s.  He has, arguably, stretched the possibilities of that genre even more than his better known contemporaries Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne etc. by pursuing it into the more avant-garde musical areas occupied by guitar innovators such as Elliott Sharp, Keith Rowe, Fred Frith and Marc Ribot, with an eclectic mix of the many styles he has practised over the years. Ranging freely through free improvisation, his own idiosyncratic original songs, electro-acoustic music, exotica, traditional country blues, folk, pop songs, and ‘sonic gestural’ playing utilising open tunings, extended guitar techniques and electronics.

“Cooper, now in his seventies, is making the most adventurous music of his life… incredibly rich and evocative, and as a live performance, it’s utterly flawless. Cooper takes live guitar processing and sampling as his raw material, using it to build something complex and substantive, full of ideas and surprises, not just abandoning it half-formed.” – (Jonathan Dean – Brainwashed.)

“Cooper’s music, in any of its forms, seems drunk on the intermingling of folk traditions, searching for a spot between them all that renders the strange familiar and vice versa. He is an improvisatory musician, one who generates his music in sheets, loops, and layers, and he seems to accrete these found-sound albums like a spider spins silk, or a vine grows pumpkins. They just appear, fattened and ripe, the fruits of his memories, travels, and idiosyncrasies.” – Pitchfork.

Support comes in the shape of JOHN CEE STANNARD & BLUES HORIZON

We're open from 8pm and it'll cost you £10 on the door or £9 plus booking fee in advance from www.wegottickets.com 

Then on Saturday, we have the welcome return of THE GREEN ROCK RIVER BAND

In what’s starting to become an annual tradition, we’re pleased to welcome The Green Rock River Band back to these parts 

The Green Rock River Band are a hybrid of sounds that universally connects with audiences all over, echoing music hall, Americana, folk and jazz, all blended with a contemporary sound and performance. They present modern songwriting and arrangements for 21st century audiences wanting to connect with a sound that runs a little deeper, a little more primitive than the clean overproduced sound of modern folk and pop.  A Green Rock River Band show will promise loud, brash string band music; banjos, fiddles, guitars and washboards all over-scored by melodic trombone and soaring three-part harmonies.

They have always focused on the craft of songwriting. Sometimes this has led them to write big boozy anthems, at other times they emerge with striking ballads, sensitive songs that reach out to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. It’s the universal appeal of their songs that elevates them as one of the UK’s top original folk bands. Their sound inevitably is compared to the popular folk-pop bands around at the moment, and while the roots of these bands are obviously similar, the Green Rock River Band offers something alternative to these clean-cut stadium bands, with a refreshing grit and dirt to their songs, a sweaty energy that fills up venues with excitement and atmosphere.

Opening the show, THE NEWTOWNERS and THE RETREAT SINGERS are teaming up to form a special one-off supergroup of old-timey tunes and heartfelt harmonies.

We're open at 8pm, and it's £10 on the door with £7 concessions (£9/£6+booking fee in advance via www.wegottickets.com)

That’s everything for another week, just to remind you that we are, as always, at 30 Silver Street, Reading, RG1 2ST (If you pop it into your satnav or Google, we shall magically appear!)

Have a nice weekend!