Showing posts with label The Sleepers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Sleepers. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

New adventures and sad goodbyes

It is with heavy hearts that we must announce the departure of our beloved drummer, Art. In a decision to take a break from the music scene as a whole, Art is going to have a well-deserved rest and devote his time to pursuing other adventures. He will be sorely missed for his refreshing input in jamming sessions, quiet strength, and infectious sense of humour – not to mention his superb drumming skills which showcased our music so beautifully.

Coal will be playing a few last shows with Art behind the kit:

• Friday 19 November at Obz Cafe (acoustic) with Tape Hiss and Sparkle.

• Wednesday 1 December at Mercury – a huge farewell show featuring some of Art’s bands, including Andy Lund and the Mission Men, V.O.L. and Three More White Guys.

• Saturday 11 December at Zula with The Sleepers and The Great Apes.

Be sure to catch one (or all) of these shows to enjoy Coal for the last time in its current format. As for us ladies, we plan to experiment a bit more with percussive elements in our songs and are open to various options going forward. We look forward to our future, and wish Artur all the best for his.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

‘Tis the season to be kicking

Coal has been hard at work with the talented mister Artur Pereira to bring the plugged-in set back alive and kicking for our 23 December gig (at Zula Bar in Long Street). For a few months it has been set aside to simmer while we worked on the softer subtleties and rearrangements of our recent acoustic set.

Dressed in his shiny armour, Art has stepped in to help us out for these two shows. In just a few short weeks, he has added a whole new dimension to our sound with his wealth of experience, ideas and tricky rhythms. He also keeps us entertained with anecdotes about all the notorious/impressive bands for which he has tickled the snare. (Now that just sounds dirty.) We are, however, still looking for a permanent replacement, so please send any intrepid drummers who might be keen our way.

The acoustic gig at the Waiting Room was a roaring success in terms of keeping the rain at bay, forcing us to come out from behind the flashy lights and loud distortion to make ourselves more vulnerable, and teaching us much about writing and performing a ‘different’, moodier kind of set.

For the show, Vera whipped out her Renaissance lute (okay, more like gingerly lifted her out of the velvet case and cradled her - the lady is older than all of us!) for a reinterpretation of Mister Fox, which she and Cathy sang with some really beautiful goose-bump inducing harmonies. Helen taught Nick Cave a trick or two with her rendition of Henry Lee and our friends Simon and Adam from The Sleepers kindly joined us with some vocals and guitar to add more depth and drama to Ghost, The Ruse, Tractor and Stroke. Thanks, gents! We are already plotting to do more performances of this nature as we really enjoyed the ‘bones laid bare’ feel and intimate atmosphere of an acoustic performance.

To keep my ideas pot bubbling, my MP3 player has serenaded me of late with Radiohead’s In Raindows, Mogwai’s The Hawk is Howling and some other bits and bobs of Tool, Incubus and PJ Harvey. But at home there have been strains of a more folky ilk, with Simon and Chris and I working on some of Simon’s Tape hiss and Sparkle songs to get them ready for a performance in the new year sometime. *sings really high harmony*

The end of year madness is upon us all, so keep taking those vitamins and going to see local live music, and we’ll wave to you from the stage on the 23rd!
Linky Xx

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Gig...a what?

With the 30th September looming, Coal is busy with preparations for this performance. We have finalised our set and working on the fine-tunings for some bits and bobs, but I'm happy to say we are sounding fabulous...absolutely fabulous ;)

This time we'll be doing 'Henry Lee' again with our guest, Phillip, who will be happily married by gig night!

We'll have finalised our stage set-up by Friday, so any last minute preparations can still be taken care-of.

The talented Adam Hill is responsible for creating our beautiful poster, so when you see it around Mercury or on the night, bear that in mind and give him a wink...hehe ;)

I suppose all that's left to mention is our carefully thought out theme, which will only be observed on the night...

Thanks to 'Sidecar Fire' who gave mention to us on their web page...awesome guys, awesome! ;)

See you on Wednesday!
S

Monday, August 31, 2009

Silly shoes and all...

Well me dearies, it's Monday after a weekend that would intimidate even the stoutest of heart. Needless to say that the ladies of Coal had a fantastic time on Saturday night, playing at ROAR, even with the drama that surrounded this gig.
No, we didn't cry, we didn't scream or even flinch when we were informed that we were to go on stage at 10:30pm, instead of 12:00am, to hail the re-opening of Gotham. Instead, I tried to break all land speed and make-up application time records
to run from the car to the stage in the nick of time! Apologies to all the friends who I was unable to sms to notify of the time change, applying false eyelashes and smsing at the same time is not to be attempted!
The crowd attending the Seven Deadly Sins party was a real treat to perform for and I hope that we see you guys soon at our shows. Wednesday will see us
attending Fezray's gig at ROAR. Come along, it would be lovely to see a few familiar faces.

The next day while nursing my bruised tootsies,(the shoes I bought for this gig were not my dancing shoes, they were the shoes which looked pretty and almost caused acute ankle failure on the way to the car) and working my tuch off at the Celebrate life festival, it was on a cloud of post-gig elation that I managed to get through the gruelling early start and day of massaging the knots out of peoples' shoulders.
Thanks once again to my band-mates and the folks who come out to support live music. I, for one, felt like a Chinese foot binding victim after wiggling on the spot to the Sleepers' set... and by the way their cover of Bela Lugosi's dead was superb!

This last little while the lassies have been picking apart our songs and rearranging them. It's a painstaking process, but one which fills one with an enormous sense of satisfaction when we perform the new babies for the first time and they are well received.*sigh*
The next month is going to see more refining of our material, as well as the crafting of a few new songs, so best diarize the 30 September, when we will be on stage at the Mercury Lounge with Cape Town legend, Inge Beckmann.

Rock on!
C