Liz's News



10th Feb 2008	Still making progress in the studio whenever we can: basic tracks done for Beachcomber, Forbidden Fruit, Tides, Blueprint Man, Giving me the Blues, Chemistry and This Time Last Year. So far the producer and the singer/songwriter have managed not to fall out at all which is miraculous! Ian & Warwick still have parts to put on various tracks and we haven't even started Cromer Pier and Sneakers yet. Whether or not a new song - The Time of My Life (still in embryonic form) will make it onto the album remains to be seen. Fingers crossed for a summer release.

8th Dec 2007	Progress in the studio is slow but steady: we have basic tracks for Forbidden Fruit, Chemistry, Beachcomber and Tides are Going to Rise. The album is being produced by my partner Dave Ellis (seen left working on the drum part for Chemistry). Hopefully the album might be ready for next summer, fingers crossed.... In the meantime I've created a new photo page for your perusal!

19th July 2007	Finally at at last a new song! I've been working on this one since 1st April and just finished it tonight. I started writing it when I spent an hour or so in Cromer on a gorgeous cold sunny evening before driving home to London after an afternoon gig at Northrepps Cottage for Folk Beyond the Pier. It's called Cromer Pier. Click for lyrics.

July 2007	A funny thing happened on the way to Stortfolk the other night.... I had a puncture half an hour before I was supposed to be picking Warwick up at Bishops Stortford station. Undaunted (and a mere 94 years after Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the King's horse at the Derby), I rushed to my mobile telephone and (with a little coaching from someone of the male persuasion) was able to triumphantly carry out my first car puncture repair. As you can see I was rather proud of myself. Other news this month is that Ian and Warwick have defected to Tone Deaf Leopard. Here they are in the act at Friday Folk in Orpington... Anyone know a good guitarist and bass player? Despite these setbacks Stortfolk and Friday Folk were both lovely gigs...

May 2007	Some un-news: I've just cancelled my Myspace site having realised I just don't have the energy to keep two wesites going. Sorry if you're an avid myspacer but I just realised I'm not!

April 2007	Angelic Music has issued a compilation album "In her own Words". There are tracks from Janis Ian, Katie Melua and Karine Polwart. My contribution is "The Sand That Makes the Pearl."

11th Apr 2007		Pat Jones snapped this photo of Ian, Warwick and I rehearsing in the bar before our gig at Hitchin Folk Club on Sunday. We're obviously discussing "Vanishing Girl"!


1st Mar 2007	Feeling very hip as I've just acquired a MySpace site...Don't quite know what it's all about yet but I think it's something to do with sharing music on the net...Here's the link: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=162371156

10th Feb 2007	I have recently received gentle reprimands from various quarters about my failure to put any news on the news page! I have resolved to mend my ways and make sure to put in the odd entry from time to time. In the meantime here are some of the good things that have happened since last time: I'll work backwards....



January 2007	January was dominated for us by four gigs supporting The Churchfitters on some of the East Angian dates in their recent British tour. Having imagined we might sneak off at half time Ian, Warwick and I infact ended up staying and watching each of their performances and enjoyed their set more and more each time.
	The Churchfitters are quite hard to pigeon-hole: their music uses folk styles but has a very individual flavour. Watching them is exhillarating: they're all virtuoso musicians and put a huge amount of energy into what they do. So we had a great time: not least doing our own set to start the evening. The photo above shows us at Garbaldisham Village Hall and to the right here are Warwick and I soundchecking on the lovely stage at the Norwich Assembly House. (Photos courtesy of Pat Jones).
	During the second weekend of the mini tour Ian drove over from Cambridge for all but the last night, and I stayed with Warwick and his wife Pat at their lovely home in Fakenham (sounds like something out of Hello magazine: "Warwick and Pat welcome you to their lovely home!")... They looked after me a treat: we went to Fakenham's Farmer's market, had the best bangers & mash I've ever tasted, walked on the beach at Wells and ogled the seals who have recently taken up residence on the sand dunes.


	Nigel Chainey, who acts as an agent for the Churchfitter's agent in the UK, has been tremendously supportive since he first saw us play a few years back. As well getting us along to the gigs, he also arranged for an interview on BBC Radio Norfolk. Warwick and I went along on Friday 19th and spent half an hour chatting with Roy Waller and got to play two songs: Dancing with You and Letisha Boccemski. Once we'd got over our nerves, we really enjoyed it: listening back to the recording it seems we also sounded almost coherent in parts!

	Also in January my friend Janis Haves who runs Angelic Music (and who is re-releasing my album Vanishing Girl) asked me to play solo along with herself and Abbie Lathe at the National Theatre Foyer on the Southbank. This was the second time we played there to theatre-goers and commuters on their way home. We had a really good time, despite Janis breaking a string on stage and having to borrow my guitar... Geoff, her husband/roadie replaced the string on the spot before the end of her next number. It's alright for some!

December 2006	A gig at Walthamstow Folk Club gave me the opportunity to try out my new song This Time Last Year. It's a song about how blessed I feel at getting to play with Ian and Warwick and how they tirelessly keep on travelling miles to play with me for peanuts and just make everything about performing better. Some things just work out without you really having to try. Click here for lyrics.

	It was also at this gig that I decided against making a live album - at least for now. I'd tried recording an earlier gig supporting Clive Carrol at Hichin Folk Club on my supa dupa 16 track digital recorder. It recorded reasonably well but there were problems with the guitar sounds and I realised I'd have to revise the way I went about the recording. The idea was to record all our gigs over a period of time and then put the best tracks together for a live album. I hate recording: find it very difficult to relax and perform the songs well, so the theory was that I could just record some gigs and have done with it. Less stress and a lot cheaper too! I quickly realised, though, that aside from the technical difficulties of recording in different venues without a sound engineer, just knowing that the set was being recorded was putting me off and injecting an element of dread into the live performance. At Walthamstow there was a technical hitch at the last minute which meant I couldn't record the gig at all. The sense of relief I felt was immense and the whole thing brought home to me how anxious I'd been feeling about it in the first place. A bit counterproductive, as the whole idea is to try and enjoy performing and not make it as stressful as recording. So it's back to the drawing board. Current tentative plan for recording the next album is to ask my partner Dave Ellis to produce it: he's a great producer so why not? (If I can only let him get on with it without interfering we'll be fine!) Not given up on doing a live album at some stage: maybe one day may just put some minidisc recordings together without trying for a hi-fidelity sound.

October 2006	I was asked to do a set at Crouch End's Oxfam Books and Records shop to help promote the shop and as part of Oxfam's live music fundraiser series. Wasn't sure how it would go down but Warwick and I really enjoyed playing to the assembled shoppers who thankfully refrained from leafing through the CDs while we were playing!

September 2006	Bernard Hoskin who runs Acoustic Routes in Cambridge managed to persuade me to support Christine Collister when she appeared there on 23rd September. I was very dubious about it because in the past I've been know to somewhat idolised Christine, who was undoubtedly a huge influence on me when I first started performing (see my tribute to her here). I've never been able to acheive anything like her technical ability and have now finally given up trying which is quite a relief! Hopefully I'm now my own man (so to speak) but I was very daunted by the idea of meeting her and playing for her audience who might very well see me as a poor imitator. Luckily both audience, venue and Christine herself treated Ian, Warwick and I with great kindness and we had a lovely evening. Christine even put a generous mention in her on-line diary: "The opening act was also a delight and I’d urge you all to check out Liz Simcock’s work; her songs are beautiful." Thanks Christine and nice to meet you.

16th June 2006	My album Vanishing Girl has just been re-released on the Angelic Label and is now available online or by mail order from them. (When it goes platinum, this means of course that the original Doghouse Records release (still selling at gigs) will in time become a collectors item!)

21st Mar 2006	This year's gigs have got off to a great start: Hitchin, Garboldisham, St Albans, Dorking, Redbourn, Fulbourn and last night Croydon, where we got to play two more new songs which I've finished recently: The Tides are Going to Rise and Forbidden Fruit. Click the songs for lyrics.

7th Nov 2005	The fact that my finishing a new song makes it onto the "News" page tells you that I'm not exactly a prolific songwriter! This is only my second offering for this year. It's called Beachcomber and will be given it's WORLD PREMIER! at Orpington's Friday Folk at the end of the week...(Click on the title for lyrics)

25th Sep 2005	I have been asked by the poet Hylda Sims - a poet and novelist as well as my friend and artistic mentor - to co-host a new monthly poetry and music night at the Poetry Cafe. It is to be called Fourth Friday and has a brand new website www.fourthfriday.co.uk. No prizes for guessing when it's on! I'll be doing the occasional song some Fourth Fridays, and then in June 2006 Hylda and I have booked ourselves as the guest artistes! No other news in particular except to say that with the able support of Ian and Warwick, gigs keep coming and going and the audiences are appreciative and everyone has a lovely time! That's just as it should be.

4th March 2005	Sue Tuckey has just sent me these photos which were taken at my Orpington Folk Club gig last December. Everyone pictured (apart from myself) is wearing "Liz Simcock" or "Letisha" tea-shirts exclusively designed by Del Boy (far left in the photo on the right). I suspect there was some heavy bribary going on between designer and wearers!


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