Tribute to Venus Carmichael


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Taking it to the Bridge

Kelly Brooks is made of stern stuff, let me tell you. As we prepared for the last gig, she didn’t let being actually technically homeless stand in her way; this time, the combination of being in the middle of exams, suffering from flu, and on the other side of the Forth from the rehearsal rooms didn’t stop her either. In the absence of a passable Road Bridge, I half expected her to swim across: fortunately she found an alternative route by means of the train, and I picked her up at North Queensferry, where the ghost of Iain Banks gave us a cheery wave.

As a band, we’re probably in a slightly odd position of not having a lot of tracks out there other than our EP, so even regular attenders at our gigs might not recognise the names on our set list. Nevertheless, here’s (in no particular order yet) what we’re rehearsing in the teeth of infrastructural failures and viral attacks for next Thursday night’s gig at the White Horse:

Needle and the Knife

Helter Skelter

Girl in the Picture

Barricades

Taking Names

Highway Tonight

Katerin

The Prediction

Tank Song

Running Song

Icarus Wings

Heartlands

Spit in the Rain (Del Amitri cover)

It’s a mix of older stuff, some of which we’ve not done for a couple of shows, and the new material. The cover of ‘Spit in the Rain’ came together quickly on Tuesday night. All I need to do is work out the harmonica part they didn’t put in!

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Next Show

More news about our next gig, on Saturday 19th September at the White Horse in the Canongate. Unfortunately it looks like Kirsti Wishart, can’t make it, so Halsted Bernard, who shared spoken word duties with Kirsti last time, is putting in a double shift with the storytelling elements of the show.

Meantime Kelly and I have added a couple of previously-unheard songs to the set: ‘Icarus Wings,’ and ‘Heartlands.’ We think it’s the strongest set of Venus material we’ve ever put together, so why not come along and listen?

Here’s the spiel for the Facebook event:

Edinburgh audiences have been hearing the story of Venus Carmichael, lost 70s singer-songwriter from Arbroath, for some years now. According to the legend, she had a brief moment in the sun amongst contemporaries like Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Jackson Browne, before disappearing off the beaten track in every sense.

But is she real, or just a figment of her so-called tribute band’s imagination?

In their latest show, Tribute to Venus Carmichael combine a retelling of Carmichael’s remarkable life story with a whole bunch of her songs. Venus in Orbit blends spoken word with the band’s own version of her music, all in the intimate surroundings of the White Horse Bar’s back room. Hear of her travels from sun-drenched California, to Communist-era Yugoslavia, via southern Spain, to places much closer to home.

The band say Venus’s latest, unreleased material, reaches them via cassette tapes mysteriously delivered to the singer’s house by an ageing intermediary. Sit back, listen, and decide for yourself!

Venus in Orbit
White Horse, 266 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8AA
Saturday, 19th September, 2015 20:00
£4/£3 conc.

PS Ticket price includes free entry to a prize draw to win an exclusive Venus Carmichael mug!

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