Before beginning The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot immersed himself in the hotbed of American ragtime, swing & blues music: Montmartre, the hippest part of Paris after World War I. These new, syncopated sounds influenced the beginnings of the highly experimental ‘Roaring Twenties’ in everything from poetry to performance art. Chanteuse extraordinaire Kai Hoffman will take you Back to the Jazz Age in an immersive cabaret evening dedicated to T.S.Eliot, and the songs and sounds of the jazz and dance halls of Paris following the Great War in the perfectly vintage setting of Margate’s Tom Thumb Theatre.
American-expat Kai Hoffman is a jazz singer, producer and recording artist based in east Kent. She has presented live jazz, swing and vintage music-based events for over a decade, including the new Herne Bay Jazz & Swing Festival (2017) and London Time Out Critic’s Choice club night ‘Live & Let Jive’ at Ronnie Scott’s – “London’s coolest hepcat hangout” [The Stage], also featured in Metro and the Evening Standard (2008-2016). Kai has performed all over Europe and in the USA, including the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, London Jazz Festival, and the European Jazz Expo.
pink suits are a Poli-Rock (aggressive/genderfuck/
The Poli-Rock Show is queer cabaret of music, performance art, and dance. Come join us and enjoy the beautiful, the grotesque and the silly. Everyone welcome!
A storytelling comedy show about a man who fell in love with a woman who wants an open relationship. With vocal looping and beatboxing.
Charlie Partridge has appeared on Radio 4, BBC Three and 6Music.
This is his debut solo hour.
Another evening to showcase both the electric and acoustic guitar in range of
different musical styles from the blues, to rock, to folk, to jazz, to original
compositions.
Fingerstyle wizard, Dave Reay will join jazz guitarist, Tony Hudd to bring a very
varied programme of music to the Tom Thumb. They will be aided and abetted
by Gay Reay on vocals and by Mateuz Gocek on bass guitar.
A real first for JAZZ AT THE TOM THUMB when we will have a sax double-
header. Phil Smith and Mark Hutchins have an almost telepathic rapport
between them as well as boundless enthusiasm for all things to do with the
saxophone and with Jazz. Tony hudd will be on guitar and Clive Fletcher will be
on double bass. The sparks will fly.
“A deeply atmospheric cut, echoes the soft darkness of Daughter.” – DIY
Following spellbinding performances at Cambridge Folk Festival and Secret Garden Party last summer Kerry Devine announces the release of her debut album ‘Away From Mountains’ on 11 May via Trapped Animal.
‘Away From Mountains’ is profoundly inspired by the Fenland landscape and the stillness and history that inhabit the ancient and wild fens in the East of England. As Devine expands: “When you’re there and you’re still you can hear so many different sounds, so many different layers, so I wanted to create something that sounded like that, that had the depth and the richness but also very sparse. This place comforts me, I wanted to create a kind of sound womb that the listener could come into and be comforted too.”
Recorded live in the stillness of night in an empty Northamptonshire church the album exudes a haunting quality. Inspired by artists such as John Martyn, Devine’s ethereal vocal – which has raised comparisons to Beth Orton – is used as an instrument, interweaved with simmering strings and acoustic guitar. A self-proclaimed audiophile ‘Away From Mountains’ also includes samples of nature and sounds of human existence such as trains pulling up and old barrels being played as drums.
Lyrically nature is also omnipresent throughout ‘Away From Mountains’, often used as subtle metaphors for Devine’s own inner conflicts married with themes of nostalgia, death and rebirth and the passage of time. Lines in the Landscape, for example, chronicles how the Fenland fields once belonged to the sea, but since banishment by drainage there’s a foreboding sense of pull-push between land and water. In parallel, the song deals with unrequited love, of falling for someone who isn’t falling for you and the sense of being stuck in an emotional no-man’s land just like the water. Closed Roads deals with the death of a friendship and also the aging and dementia of Devine’s Grandfather with reflections on the cycle of life.
Over the last 18 months, Devine has been honing her sound whilst playing live with performances at Fête De La Music Festival in Rennes, France and UK festivals such as aforementioned Secret Garden Party and Cambridge Folk Festival. She has also performed various shows across Ireland and the UK including a performance at Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room as support to Nadine Shah and Eliza and the Bear. She has garnered early support from Amazing Radio (“An amazing talent far beyond her years. A haunting melodic sound.”), BBC Radio Cambridge and BBC Radio 2, with Mark Radcliffe including Devine’s music in his Folk Playlist 2017.
Following the successful release of album teasers Work You (as premiered on DIY) and Vehicle which was released as a double-a side single with Maija Sofia, both out in January this year, Devine’s long-player ‘Away From Mountains’ will be released on 11 May (12” vinyl/CD/digital) via Trapped Animal. The album was recorded in Fotheringhay Church in Oundle Northamptonshire by Jes Kerr, who also mixed the record, and mastered at Metropolis, with the exception of Work You which was produced by Benny Turner and Closed Roads which was recorded by Benny Turner at Chime Studios in Peterborough.
a different-every-night, shouting & reading show… stories, poems and black humour. Bailey’s words deliver a linguistic kaleidoscope of caustic cartoons, crackpot prophesies and demented erotica. verbal diarrhoea, dirty jokes, venomous poetry, and tall tales that corkscrew deep into nightmares. tonight he is a voicebox and a microphone and nothing more: a potty mouthed poet, a reverend with a forked tongue, a standup comedian from hell, delivering a symphony of verbal adrenaline and twisted humour, a dense, poetic blend of the hallucinogenic and the hardboiled, a live action short story collection for the depraved, the depressed and the death obsessed.
JONNY & THE BAPTISTS: THE WORLD IS A MESS, HERE ARE SOME SONGSIt’s very hard to tour topical material these days. For multi-award-nominated musical comedy stars Jonny & the Baptists, it’s been a real nightmare. Every time they try to write something silly about the world, the world does something even sillier.Either way, this spring they’re coming to Margate with lots of new songs (and some old ones) to try to make sense of the mess.★★★★ ‘Wickedly amusing’ The Times★★★★ ‘Spirited comedy… broad, daft and punchy’ Guardian★★★★ ‘Brilliant – the closest thing the fringe has to rock gods’ Fest