4/dec/24

Well it's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace. Meanwhile we are trying out some new ideas which are very different and which are leading us to a new vista of creativity.
We have no more gigs this year but we're looking forward to some good ones next year and in the meantime we wish you all a very happy Christmas... love from Dave & Boo xx

Here's a Christmas video we did a while ago... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upc0hmMDIGM

20/oct/24

We have been getting our new album ready for manufacture and we decided not to release it just yet as we weren't happy with a couple of the tracks and we need to rethink things. It's a difficult one for us... as Boo said the other day after listening to some of our earlier work...'never knowingly underproduced!' We're mostly pleased with our new underproduced work, but as Denis (our fabulous mastering engineer said) 'just get it right.' So that's what we're doing and we hope you'll appreciate the final thing when we're done.

We've finally started doing some gigs again (we've been recording all summer in case you didn't know!) and we were at Baafest 2024 up in Northumberland a couple of weeks ago (photos Rob Halliburton) and last Sunday at Readifolk in Reading. Thanks to everyone who came... we've been having a great time!

15/aug/24

Here we are all ready for another day's work... rearranging, recording and working on our studio tans. Our forthcoming album which I thought was complete except for mixing has suffered a bit of delay - we started rehearsing the new (and old) songs for the upcoming gigs, and in the process we've changed one or two arrangements, so now there is some extra recording to do... this could become like the eternal repainting of the Forth bridge!

8/aug/24

Well we're coming to the end of our enforced giglessness and I think we've got an album to be proud of. As yet untitled but all the tracks are in the can with only a few bits of remixing to do. There are 12 tracks with 5 new titles and the others (our favourites from over the years) recorded live and without overdubs for all the people who have always wanted a more natural sounding album. We'll keep you posted!

I don't see any reason why anyone should be interested in the contents of my 'Photographic Drawer' but I've had a lot of fun writing this song, trying to remember the words and finally putting this little video together. It will be on the new album that me and Boo have been working on (as yet untitled!) and we hope you enjoy this... 'I wonder where the time does go'...

26/jun/24

A quick update on our work on the new D&B album... we now have 11 tracks. Most of them are finished... that's not to say we're adding any overdubs! We've continued to resist that and the tracks have all been recorded in one go and we still have a couple more in mind that we'd like to try. It's been a challenge musically and technically but we're very pleased with what we've done.
At the moment the 11 tracks feature 6 of our favourite songs reworked with only guitar, piano (or bass) with 2 vocals. There are also 5 new songs done the same way, so this should be like hearing us at a gig but without the mistakes!

We are working hard on new songs and recordings and we hope we'll have it all done by the time we start gigging again in September. We're aiming for an overdub-less album so wish us luck!

We played at the White Horse FC near Swindon last night and we're going to be playing at the Bull Theatre in Barnet tomorrow. We've really enjoyed our live work for the last year or so, but we decided to take time out over the Summer to be able to concentrate on our recordings. We want them to reflect what we've been developing live and we need the time to do it! However we'll be back in live action from September onwards and we'll be trying to fill up our date sheet, so keep an eye on our gig page.

This was from a couple of nights ago at Soho Blues & Folk at Cuts in Frith Street, Soho.
It's a new club for us and we had pretty much a full house (it only holds 30!) and we had to play right up close to the audience. It was quite like playing in Bunjies in the old days!
It was a bit weird as Cuts is in fact a hairdresser's shop, which you have to go through to get to the venue in the basement, which is a great size for playing acoustically and for everyone to be able to hear. Plus there's a bar down there as well.
I hope we'll play there again soon and I hope it might become a regular haunt for us. We haven't had a regular gig in town for some time.

Thanks to all the people who came to our gigs at Northwich FC, Black Dyke Mills in Bradford and the Raven FC in Chester. We absolutely love doing this and we really enjoyed ourselves and it seemed like you did too! We hope to do more gigs up north in the future. Keep an eye on our gig page to see if there's going to be one near you.

We've got a lightning northern tour next week taking in Northwich, Bradford and Chester. Details are on our gig page and we hope you'll come to one of these gigs if you live in the area. We've got a whole lot of new material to keep us busy!

It was great to play at the Cornerhouse last night. I don't think we have ever heard such lusty singing from one of our audiences! It seemed to have a lot to do with our resurrection of 'Indian Country' (without banjo!) and the Cornerhouse is definitely now one of our favourite gigs. Thank you to all our friends who turned up and made it such a memorable event for us plus a huge thank you to John Mannel who has organised some great nights down there plus Nigel Collins who gave us such a superb onstage sound and fab out front too.

Details on the gig page!...

If you hop over to our music page, we are having a New Year sale in January with any of our CD albums for £7 each (normally £11) as well as downloads which are also £7. May we wish you a happy New Year and we hope you'll take advantage of our offer and help us clear out the shed!

Well we seem to be done with 2023 (nearly) after playing in St Neots last night and Deal last week. We've enjoyed playing hither and thither more than we can say and we have had an incredibly successful year creatively but also learning some new recording techniques which will come to fruition some time next year. Thanks to everyone who came to our gigs and we hope you enjoyed what we do as much as we do! All that is left is to wish you all as happy a Christmas as you can manage! - Dave & Boo xx

Back from gigs up in Liverpool, Bradford and Birmingham where we had such great audiences and we had the rare chance to develop over the 3 days ending at the Woodman near Birmingham last night. You can write a song and rehearse it but nothing can replace fighting your way across the northern motorways through the wind and the rain whilst maintaining an attutude of positive creative performance!... and carrying gear into the house at 3am. Thanks to all who turned up and it was lovely to be out there a bit longer than we're used to.
However that's it for now and we're back to the odd night here and there. We'll be playing at Dusty's Loosley Blues Club next week (Wed 29th) where we're allowed to do our thing for the broader minded blues lovers! Details on our gig page.

Here we are back at Islington FC a couple of nights ago with a very welcoming audience in this well run club.
It's good to know that what was a traditionally minded club is now broad enough to let singer-songwriter guitarists have a gig!
The quality of floor sets and the house band was excellent and we hope they can hang on to this perfect venue at the Brewhouse at Highbury after having to move venue fairly regularly in the past.
Lovely to see old friends at this local gig too!

Do have a look at the tips page which may be added to now and then, and the icon will remain at the top of this page. There are lots of little snippets of info from Dave about anything he has discovered, mainly to do with guitars, which you might find interesting... or not!

A really nice gig last night at the Hoy at Anchor Folk Club in Leigh on Sea. Their new venue in the Estuary Club is a lovely place to play and there was a good turnout... we hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did!

Holidays and birthdays are now safely out of the way for us for another year and Dave & Boo are looking forward to a vast panoply of gigs coming up this Autumn with some of their favourite places to play... Islington, Twickfolk and Dusty's as well as a small panoply of northern venues in the Wirral, Bradford and Birmingham. We hope you can make it to one of these as we have a mostly new and exciting set to deliver. Details of all of these and more are on our gig page... see you there!

Had a great time at Broadstairs Folk Week on Mon/Tues. This was our gig on Monday and we had another gig at 11am the next morning which was packed out in the little Sailing Club. Sorry to some of our friends who couldn't get in but it was great for us to be able to play to so many people over the two days. Such a nice atmosphere in the town with the sun finally coming out! (more photos here)

Really looking forward to playing at Broadstairs Festival in a couple of weeks time. As well as a concert and an informal morning gig, Dave will be doing a guitar workshop in the afternoon of the 15th August.

For once he's been preparing to be lucid and informative. Here's the Broadstairs website...

"When Dave learned guitar, there was no myriad of confusing YouTube videos, but he wanted to find things out for himself and so he learned from copying records (mainly Bert Jansch) by ear and inventing his own methods to write songs and to be able to improvise.
Dave will show you his approach to finding some different ways around the guitar as well as sharing his personal road map (printed sheet supplied) to help you see the patterns on the neck, so you can improvise blues solos of your own.
Any level welcome. No musical education required, just a pair of open ears and maybe a notepad!

We're doing a couple of festivals soon and the first one is this Saturday in Sevenoaks on Sat 15th July at 4pm. Don't know much about this one as this was a rare unsolicited gig and thank you Euan Headley who organised it. We know Euan and his mum Kim from the Broadstairs festival which we'll be doing next month on 14/15 Aug.

All the details are on our gig page.

We've been very quiet lately on the gigging front but we've been working hard on lots of recordings. We're trying out a new way of recording (for us!) where we're trying to capture what we do live more than we have in the past. So we're recording instruments and vocals all at once and really enjoying the results of new arrangements of some of our favourite songs from the past (for piano and guitar mainly) plus a couple of new ones that have surprised us.
I remember a friend of mine from way back, who came running up to me at the end of a day and told me "I've written six songs today and they're all good!" Well Boo & I have been working together steadily for an awfully long time and we have written our first truly co-written song, which has taken over 40 years! We're hoping our writing work rate might pick up a bit!

Thanks to our friends who came to Hitchin last night where we did a 30 minute set to open the show. Apologies that we couldn't play for longer. We'll let you know about the next full length gig when we're in the area!

Thanks to all who came to the Headgate in Colchester on Saturday. It's a lovely theatre and it was a great turnout. Thanks to Dave King who invited us and thanks to Daniel who did a fab job with sound & lights.
We hope we will be back in the area before too much longer and if you signed our mailing list we'll certainly let you know!

Our run of gigs is still going well this year. We had a particularly enjoyable time at Minster Music Mondays on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent last night. Thanks to Chris and Keith who took a chance on us and booked us to start their guest nights going again. This concluded our lightning Blackwall Tunnel Tour (2023) which only started the previous night at Horsham Folk Club, where we had another great turnout with another really appreciative audience. Thanks to everyone who came to these gigs. See you again!..

We've had a really good run of gigs lately, so thanks to everyone who came to our concerts in Eastbourne, Cambridge, Uxbridge, and Croydon in the last couple of weeks. We're still buzzing from Croydon last night where their club room moved into a smaller but much warmer(!) room in the big house, which felt quite like an old 70's folk club (yes, I do remember them) with the audience shoulder to shoulder and very appreciative!

We're so glad to be getting out and playing again. It's been 3 long winter months of viruses and other interruptions since our October gig in Southport. It was a joy to be playing to another decent turn out at Cambridge Folk Club. Also it's kind of weird but December gigs are very few and far between for us... maybe we're not Christmasy enough!

It was an unexpectedly fullish house at the Lamb FC in Eastbourne last night on a bitterly cold night, where we were so well received by a truly receptive audience. Thanks to everyone who came. This was the first gig where we've left the tenor guitar at home and concentrated more on our piano/guitar based accompaniment which we were very pleased with and which we'll be developing over the forthcoming gigs.
We're playing at Cambridge FC tomorrow (Jan 20th) and we were also asked to step in at Uxbridge FC at the last minute for next week on Thurs Jan 26th. There's also Croydon FC on Mon 30th Jan. See gig page for details and see you at one of these we hope!

We're back doing some gigs at long last. We've got over Christmas, Covid and Colds and we're hoping nothing will get in the way this time! We've been working hard on piano/guitar formats and here are two lovely folk clubs that let us do what we do. We hope you can come if you're either in Eastbourne or Cambridge. Details on our gig page.

7/dec/22

Fighting fit again after Covid although a certain croakiness still persists! We're working hard again on rearrangements of songs using the piano/guitar set up and having a lot of fun doing it. Unfortunately we haven't got any gigs until the new year, so we can't road test them until then. We're busy trying to set up some festival dates for next year.

Sorry but we have had to cancel our next gig at Minster Music Mondays on Mon 21st Nov because Dave has come down with Covid. We've already rescheduled it for Mon 20th Feb.

We're currently reworking some of our past songs with our new instrument format of guitar and piano. It's something we're really enjoying doing and can't wait to play some of these songs with their new arrangements. Some of the songs written on Dave's 12 string tuned to fifths have technically proved hard to do justice to... but we haven't been defeated yet!

We're back home again after a couple of gigs up north. It was sad going back to the Bothy in Southport without the lovely Clive Pownceby leading the proceedings like before. Clive was a real one off and he passed away at the beginning of this year. He had been a staunch Dave & Boo supporter, sometimes coming to see us again at another club after we had played at the Bothy.
The club couldn't use their usual golf club premises after covid. However, Clive left his old club in a fine place (literally!) after finding some new premises in the Bijou Cinema in Southport town which, we were pleased to discover, turned out to be in a very smart function room upstairs in the cinema.
Thanks for a great reception and we hope we'll see you again before too long.

Thanks to all at the Shindig in Epsom last night. We had a great time... you were such an appreciative crowd. Definitely could do with more of that!

Unfortunately our gig at Chesham Folk Club on 19th Sep had to be moved because of the royal funeral. It is now scheduled for Monday 10th Oct (see gig page). We hope neither laryngitis nor royal funerals will hinder our eventual triumphant return to the outlying regions of north west London. It would be great to see you and we shall be playing our socks off!

Last night's gig in High Wycombe was difficult for us, as Boo had developed laryngitis plus a migraine but struggled through what were mercifully short sets for us at Dusty's Loosely Blues in High Wycombe. Thanks to all that were there who nevertheless gave us a rousing reception. Happily we will be making a return to the area in a couple of weeks on Mon 19th Sep at Chesham Folk Club, by which time we'll be firing on all cylinders! Thanks to Dusty & Ron who run a great club and performed inspirationally themselves.

7/sep/22

Gigs are fairly rare at the moment as we came out of the traps very quickly and exhausted our future year's supply in about 6 months. That's partly because some clubs are still not getting going yet because of Covid and of course some (notably the Ram Club) have closed down. However we'll be playing a lovely venue called 'Dusty's Loosely Blues Club' in High Wycombe tonight where we'll be mixing our new repertoire with more than a smattering of blues tunes. Meanwhile here's another video of 'Me & Angie' from the Cornerhouse gig a few months back.

Our new album 'Time' is now available as CD or download. If anyone who bought our 'What If' album at a gig recently would like a free copy, then just tell us where you bought it and we'll send you a free copy of 'Time' even though it is essentially the same album as 'What If', but remastered and packaged beautifully!

Here is our last song of the night a couple of weeks ago at a great new gig that just opened up... the Cornerhouse in Surbiton. This is 'Rocketship' reinvented with a new approach. Thanks to Nigel Collins who did such a great job on this video.

Had a great time up north last week, where we played the Willows in Preston, The Hungry Horse in Ellesmere Port and the Woodman in Birmingham.
It's such a different experience from club to club, but one thing they all have in common is a real will to get on with some live music again after being so long in the doldrums.

These clubs had different kinds of problems, whether it was trouble with their venue, audience numbers or just the difficulty of running a club in these tempestuous times. The performers have their own problems but we've all got to keep going, because I don't know about everyone else, but I don't know a better way to have a good time!

We're very pleased to be asked to open a new gig for John Mannel in Surbiton on 17th May. It's a new venture and it makes such a nice change to hear about someone opening a gig instead of closing one! It's at the Corner House, 116 Douglas Road, KT6 7SB. Do come along if you're anywhere in the Surbiton area that night... it sounds like a great venue and, as John says, "it's exciting!". Details are on our gigs page and tickets can be bought in advance from Ticket Source.

Still waiting for some of the venues to get going in ernest since the pandemic has abated a little, so we are trying to build up a few gigs in the diary slowly but surely. The next one for us at the moment is Islington Folk Club on Thurs 7th April. Boo has had Covid over the last couple of weeks, but is now testing negative again and we are both extremely positive that we want to play! Keep an eye on our gig page, it will hopefully be building up with a gig maybe somewhere near you.

A very strange bit of timing last night at our gig in Faversham. we had a bit of a technical problem when we were playing our new song “all that jazz“ towards the end of the evening.
One of Dave's jack plugs disintegrated, just when I was about to make my entry in verse two of the new song. Boo was left accompanying my scurrying about trying to fix the problem for an extra verse.
The compere, who had been keeping an eye on the time, told me that the incident occurred at exactly 2222 on 2/2/2022. What does this mean?

Got off to a shaky start this year. We struggled through Twickfolk with Dave nursing a brochial infection. This got worse and we had to cancel a gig for the first time in our lives! We should have played at the Acoustic Shindig in Epsom on 27th Jan but had to postpone it until later in the year. Sorry! Tonight though, we will be playing in Faversham (see gigs), where amongst other things we will be playing a new song which we did for the first time at Twickenham called '(Don't Give Me) All That Jazz'. The video below was beautifully put together by Joe McBurnie from FolkOclock. Thanks Joe!

19/jan/22

The start of a new year and we hope (probably like everyone else!) that it's going to be a whole lot better than the last one. We're kicking off with one or two gigs (see gig page) and hoping that we can build up a decent gig list before too much longer. We're also hoping that these gigs will stay where they are time wise.
We've got a whole new album that we're in the process of finishing off. Mainly remixing (on new equipment) and making some final choices before mastering. There's also a late song just been written called '(Don't Give Me) All That Jazz' which we'll be doing at our forthcoming gigs and which we're keen to include on the new album which is provisionally called 'What If'.

22/dec/21

We still have songs we want to record for our new album, but unfortunately we can't get on with it until our studio has been reorganised. We've had two Soundcraft 328 digital mixing desks, both of which have now died and which have been sold for parts for £10 on ebay! We are now in the middle of a technical nightmare in which the recordings will now be all computer based using an audio to digital converter with all the mixing being done in the computer. We're at the beginning of a learning curve which is costing plenty of money and which we don't really want to be on... still it is Christmas, so I guess it's something to do!
Happy Christmas to all our friends. We hope we'll see you at a gig in the New Year once things improve. Stay healthy... we need you!

Our new album 'What If' (which we've been selling in the form of unmastered computer copies at gigs) is nearly ready to go to the printer. The tracks so far are:
What If
Castaway
It's Just A Rumour
It's Only Make Up
Van Gogh Legacy
Long Distance Runner
I Feel Funny
All The Way To Liberty
All I Need
Couldn't Be Better
Easy Ladder
Three Wishes & A Valentine
Time
This list may get smaller if we decide to leave anything out... or larger if we have a new song we want to include. If you bought a copy at a gig but want a free copy of the end product when it comes out, then please just drop us a line and we'll send you one of the manufactured CDs when they're ready.

We played at Uxbridge Folk Club last night which is the ninth gig we've played since lockdown. There was a pretty good crowd there and it was a great evening with the very talented Odette Michell opening the evening.

We were a bit shocked to hear that our CDs on Bandcamp cost £10 postage, which is obviously why we've never sent any out via Bandcamp, but it was equally obviously our mistake! If you're reading this on our website you should know they are the same price as on Bandcamp, but they cost £10 each with no postage costs. Go to the music page and click on any album.

We've actually got a few gigs coming up! We'll be in Croydon on Monday and then we'll be doing a few gigs up north on 1/3/4 Oct (see gig page). Boo will be uncomplainingly hoiking her new piano around and providing a new dimension to our sets which have been transformed with lots of new songs and arrangements.
We've played most of the venues before but it will be so good to really get back into playing live. We've enjoyed the 2 gigs that we've done since lockdown so much, but this will be almost like getting our old lives back again. All the clubs are taking precautions and we hope you feel safe enough to come out and enjoy yourselves... we do!

We now have some gig dates appearing (see gigs page) which are more than welcome! A couple of nights ago we played at St Neots Folk Club which was a lovely gig where our new sets (with Boo on piano for a few songs) was incredibly well received by a very small audience. Can't remember enjoying a gig so much... there again I can't now remember many gigs at all! We've got another go on Mon 27th Sep at Croydon Folk Club, where we're hoping to renew some links with some of our south London friends.

We're getting in shape with some heavy duty rehearsing for our only gig that looks like going ahead in the near future... at the Headgate Theatre in Colchester on Sat 31st July. We're dying to see everyone we know at that gig regardless of distance! Tickets are £15 and can be bought online in advance from the Headgate ticket office, phone 01206 366000 or email tickets@headgatetheatre.co.uk. Support is David Booth & Kelly Bayfield who will open the show.
Come on, it's not a big place and we'd love to see every seat filled with a friendly face... Wouldn't that be great?!!

Here are a couple of our songs, both of which Boo usually sings, but here is Dave and his guitar getting himself in shape for his next foray out into the renormalized world.

Yes we've started playing together again. Can't wait to do a gig. At the moment the first one is on Sat 31st July at the Headgate Theatre in Colchester. Boy will we be rehearsed!!

Below Boo gets on with the slow resurrection of our set... but wait... what is that keyboard doing there?

Suffice to say, we've got a lot of new songs to work on and we want to do some of them at the gigs that may (or may not) be coming up.

Hope you've all avoided the plague and that we'll see you when we're all able to get out there again.

Here's the result of our efforts below for our new song 'Van Gogh Legacy'.

Thanks to Paul Howard who spent a huge amount of time coaxing all the clips to behave themselves. Thanks too to Vincent for supplying the stunning backgrounds.

We're putting together a video today. This time it's for a new song 'Van Gogh Legacy.' There's some trickery involved in the form of each of us performing in front of a black screen in our own houses (as we still can't get together at the moment).
The background is going to be mainly Vincent's pictures with our performance inserted by clever editing. Today Dave is having to reshoot his bit, because last time, apart from believing he looked too old and miserable (true), he committed the cardinal sin of using a black guitar strap which makes his part of it almost impossible to edit. Today Dave has borrowed their only red strap and is going to look vibrant enough to make Hollywood wonder how they've managed to overlook him all these years. Wish us luck!!!

While we've been isolating from each other, we've both been writing and trying to produce our recordings using some remote internet technology that we'll be very glad to see the back of. However, the pandemic has given us more time to develop ideas and with the tech, we've been able to record with even better sound quality than we had before. We have 11 tracks supposedly finished, but who can say that when they're just sitting there with your over-active imagination and lots of time to use a bunch of new technological knowhow?!!..

If we ever get out of here (to quote Jet) we hope to be doing most of them in a brand new set, with Boo possibly taking a keyboard along to the gigs as well.
Songs recorded so far are:

Castaway*, All I Need, I Feel Funny, Easy Ladder, All the Way to Liberty, It's Only Make Up, Long Distance Runner, Time, Three Wishes and a Valentine*, Van Gogh Legacy, What If.
They're all original tunes with a couple of older songs* from the past slipped in (as is our wont) and we hope to share them with you before too much longer... preferably live!

You might not know about Boo's other artistic efforts. She's been very busy in lockdown not only with music but also with her pottery. To quote her website at bamboozle ceramics: 'her work explores themes of shape and movement in the natural world.'
Here is one of her latest creations... the gravy boatman. Truly inspirational! There is a little video of it on her website.

I think her prices are far too low and she has been advised to put her prices up... so get over there and pick up a Boo bargain before she does something about it!

Below is another very original piece... 'the lady in the bath' which we use as a butter dish. Liz & I have bought both these as we think they are great ideas, beautifully made.

Here is my playroom for today. Lots of toys but no Boo! We're connecting via the internet so we can still make high definition recordings, but it's a situation we're both getting heartily fed up with. We have written some songs we're very proud of lately, and Boo has come into her own with 3 heartfelt songs of her own composed on the piano and with very little interference from me! The piano may be making an appearance on gigs in the future as will an almost entirely new set, as we have 11 songs in the can already for a new album. As I now have the time and have been forced more into the computer age, the production side of it has been really good for me and I've learned more than I ever thought I would want to know about Cubase and Cubase Connect.
We can all now see the light at the end of the tunnel and needless to say... we can't wait to be out of here and playing for you all live somewhere in the less distant future. Stay safe everyone!

Sorry... but although St Neots FC is still struggling on, we decided we had to cancel our gig there on Jan 5th as we are now in tier 3 in London. Boo & I would have to mix our households for rehearsing purposes as well as potentially transmitting the virus to a different county, so we thought we had better call the whole thing off! Sorry to disappoint anyone who might have been thinking of going, but you're not as disappointed as we are...

Our plans to do some live streamed gigs online are on hold as we can't get together until the virus situation is brought more under control. We're keeping busy writing and recording though and the gig dates are all being herded ever onwards ready for a Dave and Boo re-emergence into the folk world maybe late 2021. We hope we're not being too optimistic!

We are working on producing some live streamed gigs at the moment. We are setting up the sound, coming to grips with the technology and getting our playing back up to scratch. All this takes more time than we thought, and as Dave & Boo live in separate households, we might not be able to complete our mission if the rules change again... but we'll let you know when you can hear us live via the internet if you have joined our mailing list.

A new song from Boo. WARNING!! It might make some old Reactors fans feel even older!

A new song recorded under lockdown. We hope we can play it live for you before we're too old to bother!

Just in case you're missing us as much as we're missing you, here is our last performance before the lockdown which luckily was recorded and filmed at the Entshed in Bedfordshire on 22nd Feb.
It's a good reminder for us to remember what we do! Hope you enjoy it. Love Dave and Boo xx

So here we are doing our best to cope with our lockdown. Boo & I live a couple of miles apart, so we use Cubase Connect to record some new songs. It's a difficult process to manage but the results are surprisingly good although our communication is often limited to "I can't hear you" which sometimes has to be written on a post it note and held up to the camera!
Stay healthy everyone, we need you!

Here's an update... all our gigs are being cancelled or postponed for the time being. Who knows when we'll all get going again, but our new gig landscape is taking shape and is up to date on the gig page.

Thanks for being interested enough in our little act to bother reading this! Just to update you... life is becoming more and more awkward for everyone including me and Boo.
Boo & I have separate lives and we live a couple of miles apart and that is probably how it is going to have to stay for the forseeable future. So as a duo, we probably won't be able to get together to stream or video if we've got to keep our distance... and it's going to be very tough. All our plans, gigs and recordings will have to be put on hold for the time being unless we can soften the problem with technology.
Hope we can all keep our peckers up doing whatever we can and see you later we hope! D&B

As the Coronavirus kicks in, our gigs are starting to disappear before we've had a chance to play them! As we get nearer an upcoming date and if the situation hasn't improved, there will inevitably be more cancellations of our bookings. All the clubs are intending to rearrange when the epidemic dies down, so we'll see you a bit later than we all thought. In the meantime... stay healthy! D&B

19/jan/20

We had some great times at the gigs below last week, particularly the Broadstairs Festival fundraiser at the Sarah Thorne Theatre on Sunday evening. The lovely organizers of Broadstairs were lovely as usual and the gig was really well attended by maybe 250(?) people. Some of the other acts were amazing, particularly Mazaika with their amazing vituosity and Arcelia with their spot on harmonies. It was a treat to hear them as well as Chris Difford who was very funny with his his Squeeze memories. Oh... and we got a great reception doing our set as well!
This was an event to swell the coffers of Broadstairs Folk Week who are not having the best time financially, so we wish them luck and prosperity with their festival later on this year.

We'll be kicking off the new decade with 3 gigs this week:
Tues, 14th Jan 8pm - Hoy At Anchor Folk Club Westcliff-on-Sea
Fri, 17th Jan 8pm - Milkmaid Folk Club Bury St Edmunds
Sun, 19th Jan 6pm - Sarah Thorne Theatre Broadstairs

Really looking forward to getting back in the saddle!

Details on the gig page.

Happy Christmas everybody! Here is a little offering in the form of a song not used on any of our albums but it is undeniably seasonal... although a tad on the miserable side. Some pics to go with it and we'll be seeing you in the New Year hopefully when we're next down your way.

What a fab time we had last night at Bromborough as ever! It's like coming home every time we play there... such a warm reception. Thanks to everyone who came and thanks particularly to John and everyone else concerned with the club who make it what it is.
Thanks too to Brian & Stella who actually danced in Sandbach Folk Club the night before to 'Back To Default'. Believe me... that takes some courage!

We were inspired by a gig we did last Friday at the Running Well Acoustic Club in Wickford. We really enjoyed the atmosphere of this club which was more of an open mic gig except for our 40 min set at the end. A nice crowd who couldn't have been more appreciative. It's probably not unconnected that we were working on two new songs today with Dave having shaken off his writer's block of getting on for 2 years!

Some nice gigs at Islington and Waveney Folk Clubs this week...

Here are Ali Smith and Wendy Hargadon at Waveney who became our backing singers after we heard them doing one of our songs 'Your Heart Says NO!' on a video.
They did it beautifully with us too, but we managed to forget most of the song ourselves - it's complicated you know!

We've had a brilliant time lately, doing gigs from Northwich to Northumberland to Darwen and then back home, where last night we played a couple of short sets at Bards & Beats at the Ivy House in London.
We don't normally do this many gigs and so we're recovering over the next few days with a little gentle playing at home!
Thanks to all who came to these gigs and thanks particularly to Hylda Sims who hosted this Bards & Beats gig last night in Peckham. It brought back a lot of memories for Dave because it is where he first met the young Liz Simcock and she invited him to join her mailing list.
Well he's still on it!...

We're working on songs for our tourette up north next weekend (see details) when we'll be doing a wide variety of old and new songs with the banjo being brought out of retirement and some devilish guitar arrangements to spice up your ears.
We're really looking forward to playing a few gigs after a summer that seems to have gone on a wee bit too long. Back in the saddle!

13/aug/19

We are playing at one or two (or three) festivals this year and here we are at Saltburn last weekend. We're looking a little crumpled as we went for a look around the beautiful town and beach in between our soundcheck and our appearance (5 hours!) and got totally drenched, so we had to do the gig in our going home clothes!

The banjo has been brought back out of retirement with some snappy tunes on show as well as one or two banjo songs from a while ago. It's added a new welcome dimension to our sound, but unfortunately we don't get the chance to show it off for a while. It went down very well in Eastbourne last night but now we have a long hiatus during the intervening Summer breaks for the folk clubs. There are also breaks for both band members who have managed to take their hols at different times instead of coordinating them! Back in action in August. BFN

Great to be back at the Redbourn FC last night. Great crowd and we had a great time! We're off up to Chester today and we'll be playing at the folk festival 3 times tomorrow. See you there if you're in the area.

A lovely gig on our favourite island of Sheppey last night at Minster Music Mondays. It was great to see the club prospering and looking so good. Thanks to all there who make it happen. xx

Our physical CDs are now just £10 each including p&p. Our downloads are £6 per album or £1 per track. So click on a cover below for samples from the album and if you buy one, we hope you enjoy many years of happy listening!

	Great Pleasure (2018)	Facebook Friend (2015)	Eye On The Sky (2013)	Stuff (2010)	Living On Light (2007)
Late In The Day (2004)	Amber (2002)	Maybe I Might Fall (1999)	Snaps (1996)	Reactors (1995)	Dave Ellis Album (1973)

This gig at the lovely Hitchin Folk Club will be our 11th consecutive Easter Sunday gig there and has become something of a tradition for us and the club. As ever we'll be splitting the evening with the gorgeous singing of Liz Simcock.
We had a ball last year (I'm not just saying that!) and this is one of the best places to come and hear us. Beautiful room in the Sun Hotel and a crystal clear sound. We will be doing one hour's set each and this year we will play first at about 8pm.

We've been spring cleaning this website as it's been getting a bit cluttered over the years, so we hope you'll appreciate this new slicker version! Gone is the kit page, which might have been interesting to gear junkies but isn't what we should all be so obsessed about now is it? Also this diary page went back to 2005, so lots of ancient history could be junked and replaced with this extremely uninteresting information...

The mailing list is now incorporated into the contact page and the biography and CD reviews are incorporated into the press page, which should provide clubs with anything they might need for any of our impending gigs. Hope to have something a lot more interesting to report soon!

Really enjoyed last night's gig at the Acoustic Shindig. A very enthusiastic and positive crowd and a great atmosphere. It's a long time since we played in the public bit of a pub, but the chaotic event was excellently managed by John Mannel and we highly recommend it. It happens on the last Thursday of each month at the Queen Adelaide in Ewell... give it a try. It's fun!

Later this week we'll be off up north to Chester on Friday (15th) and Southport (17th) where we're hoping for massive turnouts and unrelenting adulation. Details on our gigpage. See you there!

Wow!... does this month's Folk London cover mean we've finally made it as folkies? We almost feel accepted into the fold!

There is a review of our new CD 'Great Pleasure' in this issue and we met the reviewer last night at Orpington Folk Club who was complaining that there should be more information about who had played all the instruments on the recording.

We had to tell him that anything that wasn't a guitar or bass were samples played by us.

He was very impressed with this and I was very impressed that we'd fooled an old folkie with our technology!

We have recently rediscovered some old recordings of our band 'The Reactors'. The quality is excellent and the songs were recorded sometime in the 90’s but most were written much earlier.

We were amazed to hear the old Reactors songs sounding so good... the weird thing is that we don't have much memory of having made these recordings at all!
If you remember us from those days we hope you enjoy it as much as we did putting it together and reliving the old times!

A couple of great reviews for 'Great Pleasure'. See review page.

This guitar tuning came about when I was idly gazing at a 12 string in a shop one day and wondering if I tuned it to pairs of fifths, could I reproduce acoustically some of the songs I wrote years ago using a guitar synth tuned a fifth above and blended with the guitar? Folk clubs are not known for their welcoming of gadgetry and I thought this might solve the problem.
So I have been using this weirdly tuned 12 string to produce some unusual songs for over a decade now and I thought it was about time I put something on youtube.
'Rocket Ship' was the first song I wrote on it and I hope you think it was worth the effort!

9/nov/18

We're now back from our Dave & Boo Tourette of the North, where we had a varied selection of 4 gigs which gave us a different experience each time. All of them happy ones, but none happier than the last one at Bromborough Folk Club which has always been top of our list for welcoming audiences. After our encore one or two people started to stand up and we thought they were just going to put their coats on, but then more of them did the same and we ended up with the only standing ovation that I can remember!
We may of course have had other ones when we have played to audiences that were already standing up but then we'd never have known!
Thanks to everyone who came to the Raven Folk Club in Chester, Number 39 in Darwen, Sandbach Folk Club and of course... Bromborough. We love yous!

Here is our video for 'Great Pleasure'. We really enjoyed making this ... hope you like it!

Some stills from the video we're making for the title song of our new album 'Great Pleasure'. We'll be shooting a bit more of the live song at our launch gig at the Ram Club on 19th Oct. It would be a great pleasure to see you there! (see gig page)

Our new album 'Great Pleasure' will be out on 20th Oct and we will be having a launch gig at the Ram Club on Friday 19th Oct.
Tomorrow we’ll be shooting part of a video of the title track at Ally Pally and it should be completed with live footage at the Ram.

With an occasional dip into our past repertoire, this is a truly varied assortment of our new and old songs in what we hope is a coherent bundle and a great listen!

Click the album cover for track listing and samples.

Hope to see you at the Ram gig if you can make it!

I know everyone says this, but we really enjoyed last night's gig at the White Horse Folk Club in Highworth near Swindon. We were very worried about this gig beforehand as several things conspired to put a spanner in the works... Dave had a stinking cold and could hardly sing (it got better after croaking through a couple of songs plus some lozenges donated by the audience!)... the road to the gig was inaccessible because of a fun fair... and Dave broke his only important right hand thumb nail getting equipment out of the car making some of the picking quite painful!

However we developed the spirit of the Blitz and soldiered on and had one of the most enjoyable gigs we've had for some time. Thanks to everyone there. We hope we can do it again some time when our health improves!

We had a great time at Dusty's Blues Bar near High Wycombe last night. A lot of thought has gone into transforming a sports centre into a club for the night and providing something that actually manages to attract an audience.
It was a nice pairing with the Hallelujah Trails too... two duos... both with blond female bass players. My guess is this was not an accident!

We've been doing some lovely gigs this week... Dorking Folk Club on Wednesday and Orpington Liberal Club on Friday. Two entirely different clubs where we enjoyed ourselves so much. A question raised at both clubs was when will your new album be ready? This was perfectly valid as people came to realise that most of our set now consists of new numbers not yet available on CD when they checked out our merchandise.
Well... we've finished the album which now has a total playing time of 49 mins (in danger of being too long maybe?), but we've got one more tune to try before we get it mastered. We did it at both gigs with a view to frightening ourselves into getting it right. It's called 'Women In Love' and features Dave performing his first ever strummed accompaniment (hailing as he does from the Jansch school of fancy finger picking!) to Boo's vocal.
We'll see how it turns out and then we'll be off to Denis Blackham up in the Isle of Skye to get it mastered. We're very pleased with this new album which has a few surprises on it we hope you'll like.

We've finally caught up with the 21st century and our recordings are now all downloadable. You won't find them in Amazon or itunes as we make hardly anything from these sites. We reckon that most people know us from the folk clubs and will look for our recordings via our own site, so CDs and downloads are all £10 and can be found in our own little shop.

Last night at Hitchin was a lot of fun! We played some new songs mixed with some tried and tested ones and also a couple of old Reactors (our old band) songs reconfigured to be folk club friendly. If you remember 'Gunga Din' you'll know what I mean. Here's a rare picture of us not smiling... we did a lot of that last night. Thanks to all who came to make up an almost capacity audience.

14/nov/17

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