Gig: Will Kaufman/Woody Guthrie

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: evansakes
Date: 21 Jun 09 - 04:55 AM

Will Kaufman's Woody Guthrie presentation/show is tonight and there's still plenty of room if any want to join us.

Sold a number of tickets in the last few days after an article in the local paper.

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 04:00 PM

Recommended. Saw him last week at UCLAN, Preston, presenting Woody Guthrie's civil rights songs. Showing how Woody got from the casual racism of his famiy and local background in Okemah to his more recognizable persona as spokesman for the poor and opressed of all colours against fascism and authority. Great stuff.

Ross

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: evansakes
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 07:58 AM

Flagging this one up again....

Prof Will Kaufman brings his Woody Guthrie show to Twickenham this coming Sunday 21st. Plenty of tickets available (or just turn up and pay on the door)

http://www.myspace.com/willkaufman

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: matt milton
Date: 04 Jun 09 - 11:52 AM

For any Londoners, he's also playing upstairs at the next night of monthly club Offline, which takes place at the Dogstar in Brixton a week today (Thursday 11th)

Entry is free, and there's quite a jamboree of a line-up. Will is on around 8pm apparently.

WILL KAUFMAN
"Woody Guthrie: Hard times and hard travellin'"
A brilliantly entertaining and informative musical 'tour' around Woody Guthrie's America, Will's performance mixes live performance, sparkling humour and excellent musicianship. Discover why Guthrie's work is as relevant and hard-hitting now as it was for America in the Depression in this superb show.
"No one can understand the American people without listening to Woody Guthrie. Will Kaufman's doing important work here." Tom Paxton
Times feature

TRANS SIBERIAN MARCH BAND
A wonderfully chaotic and exhilaratingly brilliant 12 piece gypsy Balkan brass sensation packing a fiesta of tubas, trombones and clattering things, the Trans Siberian crew have been picking up rave reviews.
"Balkan ska meets Ottoman battle punk in The Trans-Siberian's obscenely infectious brass blow-out"
"The Sex Pistols of Balkan Brass...Punk brass world beat oddities"
"Music of the people for the people by this Balkanic-Latino band who love to party" - TIME OUT

THE LANI SINGERS
"These are their songs of freedom. Merdeka! Freedom!"
Hailing from the remote central highland region of West Papua in the south-west Pacific, the band sing deeply emotive and compelling melodies which are rooted in the sacred rituals of the Lani tribe people – a tribe whose way of living has remained largely unchanged since the Stone Age.

Their music has also come to embody a powerful modern day message - the struggle that their fellow people endure under a brutal and illegal Indonesian occupation. Since Indonesia invaded West Papua in 1963, over 400,000 native West Papuans have been murdered by Indonesian military and countless others have 'disappeared' in one of the world's worst ongoing yet largely unreported cases of ethnic cleansing.
"wonderfully uplifting: joyous South-Sea harmonies sung over lilting chords"
Read their story

STARS OF SUNDAY LEAGUE
Already a veteran of Bestival, End of the Road and New York's Sidewalk cafe, this Scottish folk outfit sing simple, heart-rending songs about football, love, life and the Firth of Forth, and are sometimes assisted by Emmy The Great.
"With his Scottish twang and heart attached to plaid sleeves you'll shed a beer glass full of tears to his beautifully crafted songs" Plan B
"gentle and uncluttered, but entirely self-assured folkish songcraft with a narrative, confessional bent" Time Out

In the back room:
VIC LAMBRUSCO'S CABARET HOUR
'Abrasive political comedy' - Time Out
Comic piquancy - Independent
With a full line up of comedians, wags, poets and wordsmiths.

CRAFT CORNER:
A massive hit at the last Offline, Craft Corner serves up a hands-on feast of glitter, sticky-back plastic, toilet rolls, empty detergent bottles, PVA glue and other messy stuff for big kids to get creative. Think: Blue Peter on Absinthe.

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: evansakes
Date: 04 Jun 09 - 06:17 AM

Just looked up the date....Will is visiting us in Twickenham on June 21st

Here's the press release/flyer....

WOODY GUTHRIE: HARD TIMES AND HARD TRAVELLIN' is a live documentary that sets the songs of Woody Guthrie in the context of the American 1930s – the Dust Bowl, the Depression, the New Deal and the state of popular music itself. In the presentation, Will Kaufman brings such hard-hitting Guthrie songs as "Vigilante Man", "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "I Ain't Got No Home" into conversation with other relevant songs – from Joe Hill's "The Preacher and the Slave" to "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?". These renditions, buttressed by detailed historical commentary, exemplify the blending of music and radical politics that marks Guthrie's most powerful and evocative work.

WILL KAUFMAN is a singer, guitarist and Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Central Lancashire. In 2008 he was awarded the BMI-Woody Guthrie Research Fellowship. To book this presentation, contact Will on www.myspace.com/willkaufman

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: Rog Peek
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 07:00 PM

The presentation begins with slides of a number of B&W photographs which illustrate the attrocious conditions in the dust bowl. While this is showing Will plays slide guitar.

The rest consists of recitation puntuated by songs sung by Will accompanying himself variously on guitar, banjo and fiddle. The whole thing invokes many emotions including sorrow, sympathy, empathy, humour, etc., I would have no hessitation in recommending it.

Rog

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 02:53 AM

I saw him at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge a month or so ago, a talk, songs and slides, altogether an excellent event, well worth seeing.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: evansakes
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 05:24 PM

Was it just song and recitation, Rog? Or was there a visual element also? (slides/film etc)

He'll be at Twick in a few weeks but we're not sure exactly what to expect....

Subject: Will Kaufman/Woodie Guthrie
From: Rog Peek
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 04:44 PM

Attended Will's presentation on Woodie Guthrie at bath on Saturday- entertaining, informative, brilliant! Thanks Will.

Rog