Matt Henshaw Recommends ... Anwyn Williams

Bumper recommendations, twice in one day, and I can't escape these beautiful Welsh named women ! I'm even lumbered with one in my house ...

Anyhoo, right, Anwyn Williams is without a doubt one of the friendliest, loveliest, most warmest faces you're ever likely to meet on a night out in Nottingham, and a voice of golden silk.

Matt Henshaw Recommends ...

Just whilst we're having a pause, here you can flick through my recommendations, I started in November and this feature has quickly become the most popular on Matt Henshaw's Adventures in Wonderland ... Loads more to come, but for now, check out ...

Stef Baker

Emily Carr

Becky Edwards

James Byron

Mahalia

Mia & The Moon

Rosa-Leigh

AJA

Kate Rendell (Sold Separately & Mocassin Mile)

Esther Van Leuven

East Midlands Girls

Ones to Watch for 2014

The Bobcats

Savanna Bones

Mattayoux

Matt Zara

The Simpletones

Charlotte Carpenter

Leah Sinead

Matt Henshaw Recommends ...

---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep

Matt Henshaw to Play Leicester Music Festival ...

East Midlanders, if you'd like to see me join Billy Ocean, Soul II Soul, Aswad, The Real Thing and the rest at this year's Leicester Music Festival at the Tigers' Stadium on Welford Road click here and write your name, my name and some other stuff in the corresponding boxes ... Much Appreciated, MHx



Peace, Love & Tea,
MHx

Matt Henshaw Recommends ... The Bobcats

Seeing as we're having a bluesy Christmastime my next recommendation is for the blues explosion that is The Bobcats. Rural raucous country blues is the order of the day, rumbling toms, rolling basslines and crunchy licks seems to be the soup du jour.

Rocking behind the drum kit it Boppa, real name unknown, even to the other members of the band, who looks like he'd be at home in an al night rave at a petrol station as he does effortlessly knocking out solid loops of rhythmic fury, and Dan Fraser-Betts plays the bass like a nimble and dexterous jazz musician who's somehow stumbled into a blues band, and probably feels kind of how Jack Bruce must have done playing with Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton in Cream. A very solid and talented rhythm section indeed.

Frontman Stu Crown I had had the pleasure of seeing acoustically a couple of times before I saw the Bobcats and whilst his howling blues and seeming attempts to saw the guitar in half with his hand whilst playing was a pleasure to witness and behold, it didn't prepare me for how much I would enjoy watching the full electric blast of The Bobcats.

Stu, with a wealth of knowledge in blues music and a voice that had me believing he was many years my senior I was further shocked to learn he was two years my junior at a subsequent meeting ! A tale of alcohol and drug abuse there for you kids from myself and Stu, you might get a nice unique voice but you'll probably look as dishevelled and hairy as we do in our mid-twenties (and that's a joke before anyone starts suggesting that I'm recommending drugs and alcohol to improve your vocal skills, tone and resonance, because that is simply not true ... listen to Liam Gallagher circa 1994, 2004 then next year in 2014 for a reference on that theorem).

It seems fitting that I'm writing this with some home-made bread, tomato soup, peppermint tea, a fruit smoothie featuring apples, melon, pineapple, oranges and unpeeled kiwis - so much nutrition in the skin of those little hairy bad boys - that Mr Crown and I have had many a discussion on all things rural, rustic and pastoral, a keen craftsman and ardent follower of the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra I feel as though I've found somewhat of a musical kindred spirit, excellent stuff, and it always helps when someone like The Beatles too ... personally I'm feasting on the hearty blues and full of soul sound of The Bobcats and I hope you will too.

And now because I'm not one for scouring links and putting other people's tunes up on my blog here's my heaviest bit of blues rockin' for you all this Boxing Day ... you've all got Google, do it for yourself ... you won't be disappointed ...

Matt Henshaw Recommends ... Savanna Bones

Sorry I've been overdue a recommendation for a little short while now, so here' we go with some noisy rockin' cataclysmic dirty blues - Savanna Bones. These top chaps invited me to play at their hometown show and blew me away, live and on the cooly stamed brown card CDs they give out, for nothing, and there's some top notch stuff on their.

When people generally encounter two piece blues they tend to opt for the lazy journalist comparisons of The White Stripes and The Black Keys, and yes, whilst they are often relevant touching stones, there's a whole lot more going on here. Elements of lots of modern rock bands go into the pot, I hear elements of recent Arctic Monkeys, a little 22-20s, occasional bits of The Hives and The Dead 60s, and there's a lot of proper fuzzy old blues influence in their too.

Adam Paddy on guitar drinks from the same poisoned chalice as Disraeli Gears era Eric Clapton, whilst Robbie pounds the drums like John Bonham, with a loud full fat soaring ride cymbal and stomping bass, whilst all the time searching for lyrical plateaus left on a Wildean cutting room floor.

Personal highlight from their set was the unyet recorded Crooked Little Beast, it's a corker but hopefully they'll get some more of their other tunes online soon, tales of psychopaths, serial killers, fire, light, loudness and darkness, it's all in there, it's all good and it's all Savanna Bones. Catch them live when they get themselves together for a showdown, it'll stay yer !

Blues & Soul,
MHx


PS. here's one of my bluesy rockin' efforts you all should know ...

Satsuma Elephts videos ...

Hola gang !

Just a quick one today ... thought you might be up for watching a few Satsuma Elephants videos ! There's new ones popping up online all the time and you're gonna be hearing a lot more new songs over the summer ... stay tuned SatsumaElephants.com

Satsuma Elephants @ The Situation, Foxlowe Arts Centre in Leek ...

Jolly Sunday to you all,

So behind on blog updates, we'll get there slowly and surely, I'll fill you in on allllllll the goings on. And there's a lot going on.

Here's what my band Satsuma Elephants played in Leek last Friday night ...
707
(I Went On) Holiday
Creep Into the Night
Let Everything Go
A Hard Road of Hope
Always in the Way
I Didn't Know What Day It Was

So, that's that ... and here's Chris Satsuma and his elephant pre-show ...



And here's the brand new website ... get a load of this !!!
SatsumaElephants.com

Make sure you like us on facebook and follow us on twitter ... and enjoy the videos ... the playlist is growing ... stay tuned ...

Summer gigs kick off in Leicester ... how did I do?

So, I played my first two proper gigs in almost two years over the last week, and how did they go? Pretty well I thought. Great to be on a stage again with folk lookin' at yer. And the occassional compliment on the voice is very nice, it's a while since it's been praised so much, I'd almost forgotten I could sing. But sing I did at two fairly intimate shows in my new home city of Leciester ...

Played at the Shed on Thursday night, somewhere I'd never had the pleasure of playing in my Censored days, the spiritual birthplace of a little band called Kasabian and playing alongside a great new band called Silent Signals (look out for them, they've got two beautiful female vocalists and a band of very talented musos, ambient pop/rock that will have you vibrating with pleasure (I could be a music journo!)) My set was almost like a concerto in two parts (not to grandiose sounding I hope!) ... with the first half being soulful jazzy pop numbers including three brand new songs and a bit of Frank Sinatra thrown in for good measure ... That's Life, that's what all the people say ...

And then the second half of the show at the Shed I got back to doing what I used to do ... bluesy stuff, singing for the testicles up through the stomach and the chest and then raucous through the throat ... a medley based around "You Need Love" by Willie Dxon and Muddy Waters ... then I'm sure old Censored fans will be pleased to hear I played In The Presence of the Lord upon request (yeah, that's right, people actually requeting old stuff, it's only a matter of time before i'm forced to play Your Eyes Are Made of Gold) ... and then a couple more raucous bluesy ones to close, but i'm not going to give the game away ...

And then the followig days it was an outdoor afternoon affair bookended by a couple of original tunes (including Bon Nuit Madame (Goodnight My Lady) being aired at long last in song form) and some Beatles, Ben E. King and a little Martha Reeves & The Vandellas thrown in ...

Peace Love and eternal sunshine to you all,
Thanks for reading,
Matt Henshaw x
http://www.matthenshaw.com

PS. Be sure to vote for Matt Henshaw the "New school old-time b-boy" on the LoveBox NME vote thingey ... http://www.facebook.com/LoveboxOfficial
PPS. buy the album on bandcamp, I need the cash, I want to see Europer over the summer ... Munich, Amsterdam, Paris and Prague ... every little helps ..