I am happy to announce my new cd is out and can be bought and/or downloaded from this site.
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Robin Grey – I Love Leonard Cohen – modvan008
1 – I Love Leonard Cohen
2 – Before The Apple Falls
3 – The Winter Blues
4 – Shakes And Shudders
5 – Chip Shop
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Greg, an excellent promoter who runs ‘The Basket Club’ at The Windmill in Brixton, has started a new live music night north of the river at the excellent and cosy Betsey Trotwood – happy days.
Christened ‘The Snake Mountain Review’, I will be playing this coming tuesday 11th november, sharing a stage with Dan Raza and More Story Fours, both of whom I love and are great live…
I have just spent a lovely day with Dean Firth recording a new tune called ‘Make Believe (Roses From Africa)’.
Dean did the final mix of my album back in January. He is an amazing musician, engineer and producer who I am very happy to be working with again.
Dean played classical guitar on the track as well as pointing microphones and looking after EQ, mixing and other dark sound engineering arts which baffle me…
I have been pondering the small mystery of why I come up in the top search results when googling ‘london schools of design’ – http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=london+schools+of+design
Strange world.
Anyways, music, yes, I have a show in Camden next Thursday at Iktoms. It will be my tenth time playing for Kev, a truly enlightened promoter, who provides sweets, lego and colouring-in pencils and paper as well as consistently booking great new music.
The evening is unamplified and I will be practising for the second time the noble art of singing whilst playing the double bass with Iain on guitar to fill in the gaps 🙂
Ik:toms – Thursday, September 25, 2008 – 8:00pm
The Liberties Bar (map – http://maps.google.com/?q=NW1+0LU)
100 Camden High Street, Camden, London, NW1 0LU
http://www.myspace.com/iktoms for more details and full line-up.
Elsewhere I have written a new song about my passion for permaculture which can be heard here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSdUIlXq1Ug
…I have just started playing with an amazing violinist called Geri who is going to be doing her first gig with me at the Wired Festival in Kings Cross on Saturday 27th. Kinzli will also be joining me on backing vocals and the rest of the bill looks awesome including Fiona Bevan, Show Without Punch, Lail Arad and many more of my favourite artists. More info here http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=16958626249
…and have just booked the Arcola Theatre in Dalston for a Sunday early evening show on 2nd November – please pencil in the diary if you can – I think this will be a full kitchen sink show with guitar, banjo, tabla, double bass, violin, backing vocals and cake.
Oh, and you can join me on facebook here – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-Grey/22856296288
Cool beans,
Robin
Hey Hey
I hope all is well with your summer. I am finally back and have the use of my hands again after three months of being nearly wholly dependent on others to work and play. Quite a humbling experience.
To ease me back into gigging I have a couple of shows coming up – firstly at The Basket Club in Brixton next Monday 18th at The Windmill and then at The Musician in Leceister on Wednesday 27th.
I am going to do both the shows solo as it has been ages since I last played on my tod and have some spangly new tunes which I am dead excited about performing.
(FYI – hmmmm… apparently ‘on my tod’ – By myself. Alone. Rhyming slang from Tod Sloan, the name of an American jockey – so now we know)
I have had some lovely things written about my music and album recently including my first interview. See the ‘reviews’ and ‘interviews’ blog catagories to see them and have a read.
Lastly, Iain and I recently worked out a banjo and guitar arrangement of my favourite Sparklehorse song called ‘Happy Man’ which can be seen here.
Right enough clicky clicky, time for some strummy strummy.
Best wishes
Robin*
A second review which I only found out about today!
ANOTHER FORM OF RELIEF
The art of the protest singer seems to have been lost in recent years. Which is unfortunate as there hasn’t been in a time when they have been more needed. The state of this world, and this country in particularly, is practically screaming out for someone to put complaints into words. Which is something of an odd way to open when I’m not sure I’d even consider Robin Grey to be a protest singer.
He does take some swipes at the government of the day (”On the radio politicians dutifully opine which liberties they are taking away”), but most of The Finchley Waltz centres on the personal. It’s a melancoly tale of finding love (at first sight, no less) and then realising it’s not quite what the movies cracked it up to be. So still a protest song to a degree, just not in the political sense.
But then what does all this matter with a voice like this? Grey is one of those wonderful talents that could recite the phone directory on record and you’d still be enthralled. His voice is restrained, yet you can still feel the emotion behind every word. This allows each song to sound light and breezy enough to pull you in at the start, before the emotional punch comes in out of nowhere. Leaving us with the kind of cheerful misery that’s perfect for this time of year.
