Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Music Fusion

The Canadians are coming! Because I am tired and a little lazy I have decided to simply insert my press release about this. This is the first press release I have ever set free. At the same time I find this all frightening and very amusing. Not to mention excited. If you're reading this and live anywhere near Oxford I strongly encourage you to come to this, this will be a great night out.


Hammer and Tongue Presents

The Music Fusion

A Trans-Atlantic extravaganza of award winning slam poets fused with music explodes on the Zodiac stage.

Event: The Music Fusion

Time: Tuesday 5th July 2005

Venue: The Zodiac 192 Cowley Road, Oxford

A fusion of Canada’s ‘The Fugitives’, one of the finest slam poetry teams in the world, and Oxford’s own Inflatable Buddha, comes together at Oxford’s Zodiac for a one off gig. The Fugitives were the Canadian team at February’s celebrated and sold-out Four Nations Slam in Oxford, and Inflatable Buddha have been described as Oxford’s finest “worldfolkpunkskiffle / acid-cabaret” band.

The Vancouver-based Fugitives have been wowing huge audiences in North America for some time. They are made up of Barbara Adler, Brendan McLeod the reigning Canadian National Champion, Mark Berube and the mind-bogglingly talented human beatbox CR Avery. CR Avery can, among other things, play harmonica while beatboxing at the same time.

The legendary Tom Waits says of Avery: “Search this man out, CR Avery is terrific”.

The Fugitives deliver a unique hybrid of spoken word and music. They run the gamut from comedic to hard-hitting, insightful spoken word, and combine it with adventurous strong structures performed on piano, accordion, guitar, harmonica, beatbox, and voice.

Inflatable Buddha are fronted by the current Spoken Word Olympic International Champion Steve Larkin, one of the best slam poets the world has to offer. They are as entertaining, talented and unusual band as you are ever likely to see combining instrumentation as diverse as hurdy gurdy, accordion, double bass and tabla with the unmistakable vocal and lyrical talents of Larkin. Accordionist Rupert Allison (aka poet The Naked Mystic) said “This promises to be a memorable gig. We were blown away by The Fugitives when we got our first taste of them in February. I can’t wait to jam with their incredible beat box guy and compare our champion poet to theirs.”

The event is being promoted by Oxford based poetry organisation Hammer And Tongue, who have successfully plotted the meteoric rise of the phenomena known as slam in the UK. Promoter Richard Body said “I think I’ve hit gold here, after witnessing so much live performance in my native New Zealand and here in The UK I’ve finally found what I consider to be the perfect combination in the Canadian slam team and this crazy talented band with it’s poet singer. I’m proud to promoting them on the same bill."

ENDS

Note to editors

1. The Music Fusion will take place on Tuesday 5th July at The Zodiac, 192 Cowley Road, Oxford. Doors open 7pm, £6/£4. Box office 01865 420042 http://www.the-zodiac.co.uk/shonkweb/zodframe.html

2. Details and photo’s can be found at: www.hammerandtongue.org or

http://poeticdream.com/photo.htm.

3. For details of inflatable Buddha and Steve Larkin check www.inflatablebuddha.co.uk and www.stevelarkin.com

4. Recent feature of Hammer And Tongue in Isis Magazine can be found at http://isis.ospl.org/?issue=MT-2004-1&article=11

5. For more information call Hammer and Tongue 01865 200550, or Richard Body on 07734558477 email poetry@hammerandtongue.org,

6. Hammer And Tongue takes place on the first Tuesday of every month at The Zodiac where anyone can take the mic 3 minutes.

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