ARTISTS 2023
Lazlo Baby - Friday Evening, Trades Club
Lazlo Baby began to play their twist of folk-punk-ska in 2010 with a single goal – to have fun and have great experiences. In the early days they ran a regular Acoustic Soup night for local bands and artists, which gave them ample opportunity to perform and explore new tunes and sounds, melding trad folk into their own material.
Twelve years on and counting, they have played at numerous enjoyable events including Kendal Calling, Beat Herder, Just So Festival, Northern Green Gathering, Gobefest (the UK’s only Transylvanian music festival), New Mills Festival, Off the Tracks, Rustic Fest… But more to the point the Lazlos have made great friendships long the way and had an absolute blast.
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Lonan - Friday Evening, Trades Club
Lonan are a Yorkshire-based folk trio. They weave together compelling narrative tales and energetic jigs and reels, drawing on contemporary issues as well as local tradition. The band brings together the varied musical backgrounds of Robin Timmis (guitar, fiddle, vocals), Katy Ryder (flute, whistles, vocals) and Evan Davies (mandolin, fiddle, vocals). Lonan are currently touring their debut album ‘Forever Has Flown’, which was released in August 2021 to a sold-out launch show at Seven Arts, Leeds. The album was recorded at home when the band were living together during the first UK lockdown. Katy’s paintings of the house became the cover art for the album, and ’Forever Has Flown’ an homage to all the fantastic creative and
community projects which stemmed from this house over the last 10 – 15 years.
"Wonderful vocal harmonies, delicate arrangements and slick musicianship. With bags of
personality and an infectious passion for great folk music, Lonan are a trio not to be
missed!"
- Marc, MEWL Music.
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Firelight Trio - Friday Evening, Trades Club
Firelight Trio play European folk music that is evocative, inventive, and endlessly exciting. Driving fiddle and stately nyckelharpa meet deep accordion grooves in a rich tapestry of lively Swedish polskas and Scottish reels, lilting French waltzes, toe-tapping klezmer, dazzling original tunes and more.
"Top-calibre trio with grace, energy and playfulness"
- Folk Radio UK
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Henry Parker - Saturday Afternoon, Trades Club
A devoted guitarist since childhood, Henry Parker’s musical roots go back to a self appointed upbringing in rock and heavy metal, yet, at the age of 20, paths were taken that led him adrift. Soon enthralled by the ethereal playing of Bert Jansch and Nick Drake; finger-picking and open tunings rapidly became the essence of his sound. Coupled with a love for his immediate moorland surroundings of West Yorkshire, we are presented with a strain of informed, progressive folk music found nowhere else. Having spent the past 5 years playing headline concerts and supporting many of his musical heroes, including Michael Chapman, Wizz Jones and Bridget St John, Henry Parker's 2nd album, 'Lammas Fair', released at the end of 2021, brings him to the forefront of the progressive folk music world. Heralded across the music press as an essential album, it is this latest release that has seen Parker emerge as a respected artist in the worlds of folk-rock, psych and traditional music.
“Channelling the ghosts of Jansch and Renbourn through his fingertips, the fluid playing and emotive singing of Yorkshire-born Henry Parker evokes the spirit of the early-60’s folk revival as if it were yesterday.”
-RnR Magazine
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Trevor Beales: Fireside Stories And Songs - Saturday Afternoon, Trades Club
In Trevor Beales' songs is a suffer-no-fools sense of realism that is defiantly Northern, yet also expresses a worldliness that belies Beales’ young teenage years, whilst also showcasing an inherent storyteller’s ear for narrative.
A recently released album, 'Fireside Stories (Hebden Bridge 1971 - 1974)' released on Todmorden label Basin Rock, acts as a postcard from the past at that crucial musical period of transition, when the idealistic exponents of the 1960s emerged into an austere new decade. At the turn of the dreary 1970s, Hebden Bridge and the Calder Valley remained a monochrome world defined by its unforgiving surrounding landscapes, where the old gritstone over-dwellings were stained with soot and rain lashed down for weeks. Beales’ natural ability showcases a sophisticated guitar-picking style that was leagues ahead of many of his (older, more recognised) contemporaries. This is music that can confidently hold its own with Davey Graham, Michael Chapman, Dave Evans, Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank, as influenced by jazz, blues and steel guitar as any of the old songbook classics from ancient Albion.
Crucially, Beales' music is never jaded or cynical, but instead possesses a poet’s ear, a strong sense of self and some sound critical faculties. And much of it recorded at an age when he could neither vote nor order a pint of heavy.
Trevor Beales died suddenly and unexpectedly on March 29th 1987, aged 33.
Christine Beales, with Trevor's childhood friend and local musician John Armstrong, and Denny Field from Basin Rock, will be joined by BBC Radio 3 DJ Elizabeth Alker who will host a Q&A. After which Henry Parker will play a set of Trevor's songs.
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Lunatraktors - Saturday Afternoon, Trades Club
‘Broken folk’ duo Lunatraktors are choreographer and percussionist Carli Jefferson (she/her), and vocalist and researcher Clair Le Couteur (they/them). Reimagining British folk through a shared love of drum’n’bass, triphop, art rock and post-punk, Lunatraktors attract passionate fans at festivals, galleries, museums, theatres and queer cabarets. Le Couteur’s self-taught overtones and four-octave range combine with Jefferson’s hybrid of tap dance, flamenco and tonal percussion, developed after touring with STOMP (2001-2004). The pair turned heads when their percussion-and-vocals debut This Is Broken Folk made MOJO’s Top Ten Folk Albums of 2019, and again when second studio album The Missing Star reached MOJO’s #2 in 2021.
Lunatraktors are unsigned and DIY. They received the British Music Collection LGBTQ+ Composer Award 2021, George Butterworth Award 2022, and EFDSS Alan James Bursary 2022.
"A sparse, bravely original style."
Robin Denselow, Songlines
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Johnny Campbell - Saturday Evening, Trades Club
Johnny Campbell emerged onto the UK folk scene writing self-penned material and delving deep into Northern English folk song and story. Harking back to an age when Folk musicians travelled to share songs, stories and tales from their land, Campbell has since 2013 plied his trade across over twenty-one different countries. Writing self-penned material and delving deep into Northern English folk song, Campbell's material and performance is authentically English. Or Northern English. A Right to Roam (2022) is a collaboration with Commoners Choir & Skelmanthorpe Brass Band which received the accolade of 'One of the Best Folk Songs of 2022' alongside contemporaries such as Eliza Carthy, Jon Boden, Angeline Morrison & more, chosen by Tradfolk. 2023 sees Campbell releasing True North, an album of Northern English traditional songs recorded on their respective county summits which has already garnered press from Country Walking Magazine and interviewed by BBC Radio 4 Open Country.
"A Modern-Day Billy Bragg"
- Tradfolk
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Living With Machines - Saturday Evening, Trades Club
Folk musicians Alice Jones, Katy Ryder, Simon Robinson, and Pete Dilley were brought together by Leeds Museum and the British Library for an exhibition on the Industrial Revolution and the advent of new technologies entitled “Living with Machines”. The aim was to create brand-new music to accompany industrial ballads which have mostly languished in the British Library’s archives, remaining without an accompanying tune and unsung for over a hundred years. The music recorded for the project was used to explore some of human stories in the exhibition connected to the development of machines, including strikes and tragedies. Join the band to journey into Britain’s industrial past and join in with infectious choruses to rouse any spirit.
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Reg Meuross - Saturday Evening, Trades Club
Award-winning Reg Meuross was introduced onto the stage of the Albert Hall by Mike Harding as ‘one of this country’s finest’ and is a true modern troubadour, representing contemporary English folk writing at its best. Captivating audiences with his beautiful tenor voice, and with breadth and depth of material that is unparalleled, Reg has toured extensively for decades across the UK, Europe, North America and the Antipodes.
Masterfully accompanying himself on his ‘44 Martin six-string guitar, harmonica, tenor guitar, banjo and dulcimer, witnessing a Reg Meuross performance is to experience a journey into the heart, soul and songs of one of England’s most celebrated writers. Stories that need to be told; struggles that need to be known; injustice that needs to be uncovered; social conscience that needs to be celebrated – his music has an unrivalled power to reach and move the listener. After 14 critically-acclaimed albums, Reg continues to prove how highly relevant his songs are, whilst reaching new audiences with consistently spellbinding performances.
In April this year Reg releases a new song cycle Stolen From God, focusing on the transatlantic slave trade – uncovering its’ hidden history from a South West England perspective.
Reg has also recorded Fire & Dust, due for release later this year, a song cycle that delves into the life story of Woody Guthrie. A journey into the heart and soul of one of America’s finest folk musicians. Highlighting racism, bigotry, corruption and inequality.
‘classic, with echoes of early Dylan, Tom Paxton and Leonard Cohen’ – The Guardian