CirclePit

On a sweaty but glorious evening, indie-heroes Gomez played a measured, refined set to an overjoyed crowd in what was a real coup for The Venue in Derby.

Back in the late nineties, the indie airwaves were dominated by Blurs retreat from Brtipop, The Verve and Radioheads isolated paranoia and the next Oasis rehash. But Gomez drew influence from blues and roots music and created music more experimental, carefree and roughly recorded than their peers. It made them an instant hit, loved by college kids, students, older generations and even the alternative rock crowd on both sides of the Atlantic.

Such was their quick fire success, Ian Ball (vocals, guitar), Paul “Blackie” Blackburn (bass), Tom Gray (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Ben Ottewell (vocals, guitars) and Olly Peacock (drums, synths, computers) won several awards and plaudits, and even managed to win the Mercury Music Prize in 1998 for their debut album Bring It On, amazingly seeing off seminal albums by Massive Attack, Pulp and The Verve in the process.

5 albums and a residence in the USA later, the band have moved away from their early experimentation and have followed more conventional song writing techniques, but their craft and strong melodies have not diminished over the years, as shown by the strength of the songs they played tonight.

Support act Two Fifty Calibers kick-started the night with a set of raw, surging rockers, certainly giving a nod to Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Ages desert/stoner rock, with the vocalist/guitarist bearing a huge growl similar to late Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley and playing some frantic solos. A departure from the sound of the headliners, but one the crowd responded well to.

With Gomez’ arrival fast approaching , a good mix of young fans, hipsters and middle aged music fans gathered round the stage. “They’re From back in the day!”, one older fan exclaimed, and although the band have been touring for the last 12 years, their best known material does reside in the early stages of their career.

The band enters the stage looking like experienced, weathered musicians, but sporting wide grins and giving appreciative nods to the crowd as they start the set with the elegant ‘Revolutionary Kind’, they are visibly still enjoying playing live after all this time. The vibe is warm and good natured, a show of entertainment rather than rampant sonic experimentation. This band have nothing to prove and contently receive the praise of their ever loyal fan base.

The instrumentation is richly layered , with a tightly wound rhythm section. The vocals are passionately delivered, particularly Ben Ottewells bluesy growl and guitar work, sounding like he’s from the Mississippi River – but he’s really from nearby Matlock Bath! Ian Balls songs lean towards folksy storytelling at times – although even that is a very loose term, as the heavy guitars and horns on ‘Shot Shot’ would testify – and Tom Grays tunes are driving, catchy and romantic, all lending to an eclectic, genre bending groove that all seem to fit together so seamlessly.

The band play some recent material, including the breezy, relaxed ‘See The World’ and the darker, driving “How We Operate” with Ottewells snarling vocals sung a-capella before the band jumps in right on cue on a blistering encore. But the biggest reaction from the crowd came from older tunes ‘Rhythm Blues Alibi’ and Balls’ day out in Manchester in ‘Whippin’ Picadilly’, which sparked a sing-along from just about every person in the building!

A great live band left the stage to rapturous applause, a band anyone with a thirst for live indie music -or any music – should see, and another triumph for The Venue, which seems to be getting bigger and better acts to play all the time, with many more coming soon.

Live Review by Sam Wright
Photo and Video by Liam Joseph

Another weekend, another late night! Myself and Liam have been working late into the night again bringing more functionality and tweaks to Circlepit!

- Disabled confirmation emails for new users (webmail confusing them with spam)
- Added the “Guide!?” section for new members.
- Added media (video embedding + images) to forums.
- Added a website Search (enter your keywords to find EVERYTHING related)
- Tweaked forum colour schemes
- Revised the Circlepit website banner

We welcome any more suggestions to future improvements so keep them coming.

A sweet and short acoustic performance by Paul Tabor from the Japanese Government Railways, included are just a couple of videos from the session. There’s more to come – so watch this space!

If you would like to perform in the CirclePit Live Lounge, then don’t hesitate to send an email to info@liamjoseph.com

Cheers X

One of the very first solo artists to really believe in what we are trying to do here, in fact it was myself and Tom Gourlay that came up with the name “CirclePit” over 9 months ago now. What better way to honor him than releasing this mini photo collection that we did last summer in 2009. Tom has traveled across the channel and is now promoting his talents in France! We all wish you the best of luck with your adventures brother!

Three more videos for the CirclePit Live Lounge, this time of Jamie Joseph performing a few of his new songs. We hope you can appreciate that this is just the beginning of CirclePit, but we aim to improve our locations for future studio shoots. We all have to start somewhere, right?

Enjoy

Hello everyone,

CirclePit has been under major development for the last 6 months and now after all of the teams hard work – we finally have a version which we are going to stick with!

We have borrowed the networking entities that we love so much from Facebook, combined them with the better aspects of MySpace, merged the ideals of what we had previously in the last 20 odd versions of CirclePit – all to create this basic framework!

CirclePit is a Social Networking Hub originating in Derby & Nottingham that brings live performance photography & media directly from the heart of the Venue straight to your living room!

Updates will include the following:

Group Profiles (Bands/Artists)

- Links to Videos, Pictures and Live Audio Streams of that particular artists work.
- A ratings system, where people can rate each individual artist.
- Links to all of the reviews that the CirclePit Writers have released for that artist.

Member Profiles (Individual Accounts)

- Advanced Profiles with more interactivity and extensive features.
- A Favorites & Achievements system that keeps you connected to all the Live Music that you love.

Here at CirclePit.co.uk we are an Open Community. We encourage writers, photographers and creative thinkers to join and start submitting their own reviews which will add to an extensive blog covering Live Performances from all over the United Kingdom.

If you would like to Join our team, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us now, by sending an email to info@liamjoseph.com

Thank you for tuning in.

PS: Below I have included the very first CirclePit Freestyle Studio Video or if you like something more relaxing’ check out James Rippingale’s Calssical Piece… Hope you enjoy them

Kind Regards from all The CirclePit Team X

This was one of the first live shoots that i did for CirclePit, it would have been around 2 years ago now! This was when i first started to play around with the long exposure limits on my Nikon DX and experimented with different shutter speeds. Quite a sentimental memory that i wanted to share with CirclePit

Any ideas that you might have to develop CirclePit even further – then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at The CirclePit Social via Facebook or send an email to info@liamjoseph.com – Thank you.

A collection of images taken for the Band ‘Rugosa Nevada’ at The Vic in Derby. The band were currently on their tour and had some funky fairy-lights wrapped around their instruments, which allowed me to get some pretty explosive shots!

The Venue played host to a night with the legendary Howard Marks, international hashish smuggler turned best selling author, teacher and now a successful stand up, sharing his fascinating life story to supportive crowds around the world. Marks has become something of a pop-culture phenomenon. His lifestyle and rock-star charisma were enough to catapult him into the world of celebrity and tabloid hysteria. He has appeared on various panel shows, magazines and even in films such as Human Traffic, extolling the importance of “spliff politics”, all fuelling his mythic status as ‘Mr Nice’, the warm, cuddly face of dope dealing.

His stories bring you through his life in a small Welsh mining town, on to his education at Oxford, where the seeds of his interest in dealing of hashish were first planted, onto his biggest dope deals, which lead him to smuggling dope with high profile rock bands such as Pink Floyd and Genesis. “I got away with it the first 7 times, I got caught on the 8th”, he muses. He speaks of his dealing and trafficking of over 30 tons of marijuana in Pakistan, Thailand, America and Canada, his links with groups as disparate as the CIA, MI6, the mafia and the IRA, his wrestling with authority and eventually his indictment by the DEA – detained for seven years at Terre Haut Penitentiary, Indiana, one of the USA’s most notorious prisons (where he became a teacher to the most hardened of criminals).

It stands to reason that a man from such humble beginnings would become one of the worlds most successful dope dealers. It’s his laid back, friendly charm offensive that makes him such a captivating and interesting speaker, and could give reason to his success.  He’s not a stand up. He’s a story teller, a rebel, a ‘free thinker’, although he decides to forego his usual habit of lighting up spliffs on stage. He resembles a cross between Keith Richards and a farmer, his movements are slow and he is softly spoken and laced with THC, but his voice booms to add dramatic affect to his wonderful story telling.

The mood he sets is warm, relaxed and good natured, the audience hangs on his every word – it’s almost like sitting with your cool grandfather or uncle in a pub as he tells you his tales and treats you to his pearls of wisdom. He is a man of experience though, well aware of the hypocrisy of self-serving governments & institutions, and doesn’t attempt to hide his contempt for them. But above all he is a man of rock n roll and of having a good time, and it makes him no less likeable for it.

But you can’t help but wonder if the ‘rock n roll’ lifestyle he extols is really a positive face for the possible legalisation of marijuana, or that it might even be a hindrance to politicising the issue. Attractive and exciting as it is – the excesses of the rock n roll lifestyle are dangerous and potentially life threatening – many have needlessly fallen by the wayside, and promoting marijuana in this way only serves the notion that it only contributes to indulgence and wasted lives.

To stand up for marijuana as a social tool, for its medicinal uses and for people to be made aware of its potential dangers, or how legalisation could boost our failing economies and take the profits out of the hands of criminals, is important. These are the issues surrounding marijuana, and it’s clear that more attention needs to be made to this, which thankfully Marks does when faced with questions from the audience towards the end of the gig, with his customary wit and charm of course.

Review by Sam Wright
Photography and video by Liam Joseph