Simon Little

Hello folks,

Oh yes, it’s that time of year again! The time when the normal gigs simply dry up and are miraculously replaced by a plethora of festive extravaganzas. Having just got back from Maggie Reilly’s tour in Germany, I have spent the best part of today thrashing away on a ukelele; an instrument I simply cannot play (yet). But, full of Christmas spirit, I shall persevere and conquer the little beast for your listening pleasure! Those of you who made it to one of Clare Teal’s Christmas shows last year will probably have some idea of what I’m up to. Those of you that didn’t, will simply have to wait and see…

So this is just a quick little post to let you know about some of the Christmas fun we have planned for you this year.

I will be at Pizza Express Dean Street on Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th with Lea DeLaria to launch her brand new Christmas record Be A Santa (out now worldwide on Warner Jazz). These two nights are going to be fantastic and will more than likely be selling out already, so if you want to come along, get booking now! (0845 6027 017) We have Ian shaw guesting on the Tuesday show too. The band will feature Janette Mason on piano and Mark Fletcher on drums. It’s going to be a riot…

And as soon as these shows are over, I shall be throwing myself headfirst into Clare Teal’s Festive Fiesta!! Oh yes indeed folks; there’s gonna be costume changes galore and some extreme multi-instrumentalism from all concerned. We don’t like to make it easy for ourselves! We’ll be playing just six shows this year. Here are the dates for your diary:

• 10th Exeter Barnfield Theatre
• 15th Burnley Mechanics
• 16th Pizza Express Maidstone
• 17th Farnham Maltings
• 18th Bath Chapel Arts Centre
• 19th Bath Chapel Arts Centre

These special gigs were a huge hit last year and we’re adding even more Christmas stuff to the show, as well as the traditional ‘greatest hits of 2010’ set up front. Definitely book early for these shows; especially the two Bath gigs which were rammed last year and I’m sure we’ll have some special guests somewhere on the way too. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for updates…

And of course, with Christmas just around the corner, what better gift to impress your friends than a copy of my new solo album Mandala?! I’ll be selling copies at all of the above shows too. Goes without saying really…

See you there. Must dash, I still need to learn how to play in Db on the ukelele  🙂 x

Hello folks,

As many of you will already know from my last post, I’ve just got back from a week in Shanghai at the 2010 World Expo with Duke Special. The Duke was invited to play three shows at the UK Pavilion last week and we jumped at the chance. This was the first time any of us had been to China and to be honest the reality of the situation didn’t really hit any of us until we were being driven from the airport to our hotel in Shanghai and Richie turned around exclaiming “We’re in China!!”.

The expedition began on the Friday night at Electric Picnic in Ireland. We were headlining the Cosby stage. Annoyingly, we were on at the same time as Roxy Music, The Eels and Public Image Ltd, but it didn’t seem to matter in the end as we had a huge crowd waiting for us when we went on stage. We had a surprise cover lined up for the show and we were joined by the marvelous Mr Phil Jupitus for Ian Dury’s Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (I’ve linked to a YouTube video here, the quality is a bit ropey, but you get the idea). We did have some time to wander round the site this time. Managed to catch a bit of Hurts and Laura Marling’s set, but unfortunately didn’t have time to see Jonsi (although did see him wandering around backstage, which was almost as much excitement as I can take… until John Lydon turned up!). The show was great fun and afterwards we drove back to Dublin to catch our epic flight the following day.

Eleven hours later we rocked up in Shanghai! The first thing that struck me like a house-brick in the face was the climate. It was generally between 31-33 degrees, with 85% humidity. Now, as many of you know, I don’t really do hot. I’m a hat and scarf kinda chap. We soon learnt that the mornings were a time to hide away rather than venture outside and that most people were wandering round like wet rags too; it wasn’t just us.

We did get a lot of attention walking around the streets of Shanghai. The Duke’s  dreads and my piercings were a particular fascination for the locals, but it was Richie and Phil who kept getting stopped in the street to have their picture taken with Chinese tourists. It was absolutely hilarious, especially in the Yu Gardens where we became a little attraction for about ten minutes in one of the squares…

Shanghai is utterly immense. It has a population of over 20 million people (four times that of the whole of Scotland!). Looking around from our base in downtown Shanghai, there are skyscrapers for as far as you can see in every direction. The city really comes alive at nighttime when the temperature drops a little (although not by much!) and the streets really fill up. The driving out there is incredible. Imagine driving around the West end on a Friday night, then speed it all up four or five times! Brilliant. The taxi drivers all honk their horns constantly; not a sign of road rage but instead to warn other drivers that they’re about to cut them up! Genius, if a little hair-raising at times. Definitely better than Alton Towers…

It was really strange having no access to Twitter or Facebook for the duration. I had a look at my website from a Chinese computer and noticed big gaps where Vimeo and YouTube videos had been blocked, my Twitter feed had been removed and any Facebook links turned up blank. As you’ll know I use Twitter literally all the time to stay in touch and not having that connection was pretty bizarre. I guess it was the one reminder that China is still a communist state. In fact, this very blog post will probably not come up in China. Hmm…

Back to the story…

The actual Expo site sits alongside the river and is almost like Disney World. To date they have received over 51 million visitors. Each country hosts it’s own Pavilion, with a vast range of architectural oddities: showcasing local food, art and entertainment, business, design and culture. The UK Pavilion was to be our home for three nights. Boasting an enormous fibre optic light installation on top of an extraordinary building, we were essentially playing on the roof. This will give you some idea…

The organisers really had no idea what the reaction would be from the Chinese audiences. There had been other acts on in some of the other Pavilions and we had several troupes of street performers working the area in front of the stage in the afternoon. Street performance and busking is banned in China so they went down a storm with big crowds gathering around them taking pictures and getting involved in the acts. When we took to the stage we were met with a big crowd sitting politely on the floor. This is what the organisers expected. They clapped politely after the first few songs. But by the end of the set the Duke had them jumping up and down rushing to the front of the stage, singing along (in a foreign language!) and screaming! Oh yes indeed folks, we definitely won them over big time! The Pavilion staff were bowled over with the crowd’s reaction and said they’d rarely seen anything like it from  a Chinese audience. Well, that’s the Duke for you…

We had plenty of time on the Shanghai trip to have a good look around during the day. We visited a few tourist-tastic areas. Amongst the first was The Bund (see above) alongside the Huangpu river, which looks out on the famous Pudong financial district. It’s a big tourist destination and great for photos! We also went down to the Yu Gardens to see some of the more traditional Chinese architecture.

We had such a great time in Shanghai. Great food, lovely people, great city! Big thanks to Tania, Bin-Bin and James at the UK Pavilion for looking after us so well. I promised Katy I’d take lots of photos whilst I was away and now have a big blog surplus, so here they are in no particular order in clickable gallery form. Enjoy!

And for those of you waiting with baited breath for news of my CD release, fear not. The Mandala CD will definitely be ready at the beginning of next week, if not the end of this week. The packaging looks stunning and I can’t wait to see them in the flesh. I shall of course post here to let you all know when it’s ready. Until then, you can still of course buy the digital version on my music page.

Until next time…

Hello folks,

With all the excitement surrounding the completion and subsequent release of my solo album Mandala I have let the road diary slip somewhat! So i thought I’d briefly redress the balance a little by filling you all in on some of the various goings on of late.

Even as I sit here writing to you now, I should really be packing. Tomorrow lunchtime I set off with the Duke Special band to play at Electric Picnic over in Ireland before heading straight across to China to play three shows in Shanghai. Oh yes indeed folks, we’re jet-setting this week!

August has been a pretty hectic month, let me tell you! Since the Duckworth Lewis gig at the Dublin Olympia at the end of July I’ve been back and forward to Heathrow airport like a maniac! Pretty much the moment I got back from Dublin I flew back out to Ireland to play at the fantastic Indiependence festival in Mitchelstown near Cork. This was a real in and out affair so I didn’t get a chance to catch any of the other acts but we had  great show. I’ve been playing my new Danelectro Dano ’63 bass with the Duke of late to save us lugging the upright around, which has been a real treat. Thinking I might have to post a little review here at the some point.. watch this space!

On the 8th we played the Tall Ships Festival in Hartlepool which was a lot of fun. The stage was enormous (as was the crowd!) and I got to watch Ocean Colour Scene straight after our show. I used to love them back in the day and it was brilliant seeing them live (even without the fab Damon Minchella on bass). We then burned straight up the motorway to play at the Famous Spiegeltent at the Edinburgh Festival. We were met with some traditionally grotty Scottish weather but playing in the Spiegeltent is always good fun. We went back to some of the Mother Courage and hector Mann set for this one-off show which went down a storm.

The Duke band also ventured forth into Devon to play Beautiful Days a couple of weeks ago. I’d never played this festival before. It’s quite small but had a great lineup including The Wailers, Fairport Convention, James and New Model Army. My parents decided to come along to this one for their first festival experience and loved it (even in the rain!). Again I didn’t manage to catch any of the other acts as is often the way in these situations, but we had lots of fun during the gig…

In between all the Duke dates, the Teal tour continued on with three shows in Germany. We started off at the lovely Rheingau festival, which is set in the grounds of a beautiful old castle. We were playing on a small stage which was floating on the moat (!). In fact,  the speaker stack was suspended in the most peculiar fashion, which Clare christened the “Speaker of Damocles”. I tried to get a photo of it in all it’s glory, but all I could come up with was this, taken from our dressing room…

Playing on a floating stage with that hanging over your head was a bit exciting, let me tell you.

We then moved on to the lovely town of Jena where we played the first of two shows opposite the fantastic Canadian boogie pianist/singer Michael Kaeshammer. He had a great trio featuring Marc Rogers on bass, who was also a joy to watch. If you haven’t heard their music, you should definitely check them out…

The last show was in Kassel. Both those shows were right in the town center. I really enjoy playing these kinds of festivals. They’re quite common in Germany and Scandinavia; state funded arts festivals which often run for more than a month throughout the summer. They often feature a rich and diverse mix of music, theatre and cinema right in the heart of a town; bringing proper culture right into the local community.

We were so well looked after by our German promoters. Really looking forward to playing some more German dates soon..

As soon as I landed back in the UK from the German shows with Clare I was back on the plane on my way back to Germany to play a one-off festival with Maggie Reilly. It was a big beer festival where we shared the stage with a very loud and raucous schlager band and, wait for it…. Right Said Fred! Oh yes indeed folks! They are still alive and touring in Germany. Absolutely hilarious.. The gig involved a very early start for me at Heathrow, a four-hour drive to the festival site from Berlin and getting picked up at 2.15am after the show to do the four-hour drive back to Berlin to fly home alone. Why?! You may ask. It was the day before the Tall Ships festival in Hartlepool! The gigs really are the easy bit…

So, enough of this waffle. I’m off to China in a couple of days and shall undoubtably be blogging away on my return. Today I dropped the master off at Key Production to start the process of getting the Mandala CDs pressed. I had a photo shoot with my friend Ary Vidot last week and Symeon Cosburn has done a sterling job on the cover design. They should be ready in a couple of weeks for those of you who don’t like downloads. For those of you who do, or can’t wait that long for the CD, you can buy the album in whatever electronic format you prefer at my website. You can also stream the whole thing there too. Oh you lucky people!

Until next time x