Thank you, Paul Murphy

We've lost one of the greats. We've lost a friend.

Photo Richard Shakespeare     

Paul Murphy passed away last week. His family announced his passing on Friday. It was a difficult day. The news was met with an explosion, a passionate outpouring of grief which rippled out across the world. Rightly.  

Paul was a wonderful, open, extravagantly talented man with a razor-sharp mind,   boundless optimism, and lively curiosity about anything and everything. There didn't seem to be anything he could not do.

And he told stories. Oh, how he told his stories...

Now, the GOOD news. After the storms, Songwriters Café is back!

A Birmingham institution returns. I'm really looking forward to this. 

Songwriters Café, led by Paul Murphy and Valeria Rispo, is back for a short season starting on Thursday September 4th, and running for nine weeks in all. Opening night is already full.

It's a magical affair. Paul and Valeria have crafted a wonderful, intimate performance space, fashioned below the treehouse Paul built years ago, and now lovingly refurbished. Paul is Master of Ceremonies; he'll do a song or two, and then four acts will each play short sets of around 20 minutes to the invited live audience and a (much larger) worldwide online audience, with an interval halfway though. 

The craft of songwriting

The emphasis is on song writing. Paul programmes a very wide range of talent, from new and edgy to consummate veterans. The trick? You won't know who's on until you get there or you tune in to the stream. But the concerts are always interesting and sometimes unbelievably fabulous. 

Donations to fund events are key. This season you can donate in advance; you then become a member to guarantee a place at each of the house gigs. That's a good thing: it helps to pay for the massive overhaul that the performance space needed. The 2012 season was a soggy affair: it rained on 12 out of the 13 weeks. Then the following winter did so much damage to the old structure, that a costly rebuild was necessary. So remember that when the hat comes round. 

The result is a watertight, slightly larger space, with a few little extra wrinkles added for those who are there on the night, and for the online audience too: this season, the live stream will go out in stereo for the first time.

A second emphasis is on the audience. Songwriters Café audiences listen; they give the performers space and respect. To me, that is so, so welcome. I've lost count of the number of times noisy idiots have disprespected someone up on stage who is giving of themselves. And it's getting worse, not better. Live music from committed talent, young or old, is one of those gifts that you can't put a price on. Songwriters Café supports that, brilliantly.

Laptop-lit: Rispo on chatbox, Valk on Virtual DJ. By Richard Shakespeare    

Online streams

Access is limited: these are private house gigs for invited audiences. But you can join in online, and you'll be very welcome: online audience response is key and very much appreciated. You'll normally find me doing online continuity from 8.30 pm UK time, warming up to the night's events with choice cuts from previous seasons. When we're live, the chatbox is hosted by Valeria. Songwriters Café is also very happy to hear from radio stations near and far who might like to relay the stream, live or deferred. Give me a shout in the first instance.

Tasters from previous years

I'm putting together a taster series of short programmes to celebrate the restart; you can also link to them from the Songwriter's Café website. Here's the first.

And here's the second.

There will be more available as specials, on the Songwriters Café pages. 

To find out more, follow this link. Access is by invitation only; Songwriters Café is a house gig.

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Songwriters Cafe 2012 season: feeding the five hundred.

Behind the scenes at Songwriters's Cafe as it readies for the final live stream of the season. The penultimate aubergines have, indeed, been deep-fried.

Thursday 26th July saw the last in the 2012 summer season of live streamed performances at Songwriters Café. This is their third season, and it's been great. You owe it to yourself to catch the last stream this Thursday - see the notes at the bottom of the post for more - if you haven't listened yet. I’ve been working there on a documentary project, and doing continuity on the online stream, playing some of the fantastic performances from previous weeks; it’s been a blast. 

We’ve heard some fabulous music, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But it’s also a lot of work, especially for hosts and organisers Paul Murphy and Valeria Rispo. And over the course of the season, Paul, especially, develops an unusual intimacy with, er, aubergines.

It starts on the day before the event, when Paul and Valeria work out some numbers. How many musicians? Are they bringing friends, family or partners? How many helpers are coming on the night? What sort of margin for error?  How’s the salad patch looking? OK for beer, wine, juice, tea and coffee? Is anyone lactose or gluten-intolerant? Then it’s off for aubergines and other supplies for Thursday night’s communal meal.

Paul on a roll

On Thursday, work starts early. Bread dough is mixed, kneaded and left to prove. It’s a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and strong white flour, and that’s Paul’s responsibility. So is the main course, Paul’s Aubergine Parmesan. Aubergines (or eggplants, or melanzana), are breaded, egged, and deep-fried – note that some purists insist on shallow-frying, but phooey to that - and layered with Valeria’s genuine home made Napoletana tomato sauce, and parmesan, ready for the oven. 

By six o’clock, Paul has knocked the dough back for the last time, and formed it into rolls, also ready to share space in the oven.

It’s always the same meal. Paul cooks, Valeria fixes the salads. It’s a key part of the evening; the bonding event around which the night pivots. It is hugely appreciated, and is becoming famous in its own right. A three month season of live shows means 13 weeks of aubergine parmigiana, salad and bread rolls. And as the season progresses, Paul’s dish just gets… better and better.

CDs and Teas

The meal is central to Songwriter’s Café evenings. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, your typical gig. When the artists arrive, they are greeted, made welcome, and in good time before the live show, fed a very decent meal. 

It’s late afternoon now. The night’s helpers start to arrive, to man the door, make tea and coffee, dispense drinks, sell artists’ merchandise, light the fires, sweep out and tidy up the performance area, fix any last minute snags in the building, and help with the artists.

From half past six, artists and friends drift in. It’s time for greetings, hugs, catch-ups and gossip, time to settle people down in the green room area, to show them around the performance space, to let them get a feel for the acoustics, to make (more) cups of tea for everyone. Paul and Valeria are working flat out. 

I’m privileged to be among the helpers. This is the point where I record interviews with the artists about their ways to write songs. We do that early, to get that part of the night’s work wrapped up before suppertime.

Now it’s 7.30. Food and drink flows out of the kitchen, ferried up to the decking area outside the Cafe. Everybody settles down around two huge tables for a communal meal. Musicians and helpers, who might never otherwise meet, talk, exchange ideas, and break bread together before the night’s concert. 

The fires are burning brightly now, and the evening gently shifts into its relaxed and magical performance mode. Around the table, ideas and thoughts flow back and forth. Paul is from Belfast, and Valeria from Naples, and neither of them has lost their accent – but that’s just the start. The whole night is a melting-pot of accents and cultures, with stories and ideas from different places and lives, to share and inspire.



Supper over, there’s one last burst of activity, clearing the tables after supper, back down to the kitchen where helpers wash up. Outside, we’re setting up the bar and lighting tealights. The Songwriters Café is ready to open its doors to its invited audience. 

Streaming and chatting online 

At 8.30, Paul is meeting and greeting, Valeria is rigging up the mixing desk, and putting the stream up. I’m hooking my kit up the mixer, ready for web continuity duties as we warm up to go live. 

It’s 8.45. The show starts at 9. We’re going online…

This is a slightly modified version of a guest post I wrote for Chris Bouton’s brilliant and witty A Dash Of Culture blog, which looks at the role of food and its place in our culture. It’s a great blog, and I heartily recommend it.





Links:
The Songwriter's Cafe 
Paul Murphy's solo work can be found here
See also Paul's work with the inimitable Destroyers
Read Chris Bouton's A Dash Of Culture blog
Other live music events which provide supportive platforms for new musicians include
   The Free Love Club,
   Muzikstan at the Old Print Works,
   and Muso Monday at the Station, King's Heath, Birmingham

2012 season preview: The Songwriters Cafe

All photos courtesy of Richard Shakespeare

On Thursday 3rd May, the 2012 season of the Songwriter’s Café gets underway, with live performances from a secret Birmingham venue, streamed online from this web address to a vocal and appreciative world wide audience. 

The webcasts go live, weekly, at 8.30pm UK time (that's 3.30pm ET), from Thursday May 3rd until 26th July. 

And to mark this, this blog post comes with audio! I’m interviewing the two hosts of Songwriter’s Café, and it’s fitting that you should listen to them, because they’re both fantastic talkers; I could listen to them all day. Paul Murphy is the live host of Songwriter’s Café, and Valeria Rispo is the online host. Paul dreamed up the idea and engages and enchants the live audience; Valeria interprets and clarifies for the world wide online listenership. Songwriters Cafe is a fantastic, magical thing, and I’m delighted to be involved in a small way. The online community that gathers around the SWC live event is pretty magical too, and you get something equally unique and magical, but different, by logging on. It's in three parts . 

In part 1, Paul Murphy looks back with me at a few of the highlights from the 2011 season. 

Songwriters cafe preview part 1 

In part 2, Paul talks us though the origins of the Songwriter’s café in the 90s. There's also some a vintage performances from the old days,  highlights from 2011.

Songwriters Cafe preview part 2 

In part 3, Valeria discusses her role as online host, and Paul looks back to the end of the first, 90s version of the Songwriters Cafe, and, for very good reasons,  there's a track from Paul Murphy’s 2012 solo album, ‘The Glen'. 

Songwriters Cafe preview part 3 

This isn’t – quite – a public event. You have to be invited to join the audience. And once invited, the terms are specific: that you will listen, properly, to singer-songwriters, practising and developing their craft in front of a sympathetic audience. If you want to chat through someone’s songs, you’ll be told, nicely but firmly, to shut up.  

Mahalia making only her second-ever live performance in 2011

The range of performers is huge, from new and highly promising to vastly experienced. They sing for their supper, literally, and every evening brings surprises. The line-up is not announced ahead of time. Paul and Valeria could tell you who’s playing come May 3… but then they’d have to kill you. 

Paul Murphy introduces Friends Of The Stars

This might sound severe. It’s not. It’s simply a great way to provide the kind of receptive environment that songwriters crave, and need, to develop as artists. It takes place weekly throughout the summer months, while the weather is kind and the days are long, in a unique performance space.  

Online host Valeria Rispo

I was lucky enough to attend several times last year. Each time I was  enthralled and surprised. I also felt a keen sense of privilege at being a part of something really lovely and collective. 

Once I’ve posted the third audio clip, we will have a one-hour documentary, and as always with documentaries on this blog, the full documentary is available, free of charge to any station, anywhere, that wishes to run it. The audio clips can also be found on Paul’s Songwriters Café pages as well. 

The Songwriter's Cafe is streamed live though the SWC website at 8.30 pm UK time (3.30pm ET), Thursdays from May 3rd, thoughout the summer. 

You'll find the Songwriter's Cafe site here

Details of Paul's 'The Glen' 2012 CD are here

There is also a preview page, updated daily, featuring some of the artists appearing at Songwriter's Cafe 2012.