WARNING!: These men are Live and dangerously entertaining

Last seen around these parts with the full compliment of Spooky Men on their night off in the The White Hart, Stephen Taberner, better known as the whimsical mastermind behind the Spooky Men's Chorale,  offers for public amusement a musical wrestle to the death with his beloved double bass B, which typically involves a highly charming collection of songs, some moody, some funky, and some downright ridiculous.

For this pointless spectacle he will be joined by fellow spooky man Jack Fitzgrerald Sice (Ukelele/Guitar/Vocals), who has seemingly mastered the difficult art of not only sounding beautiful in his own right, but subtly enhancing whatever else is happening at the time, and has a fantastic beard....which may ultimately involve the recruitment of the glorious and/or unformed musical talents of the audience.

The pair are due to be appearing in The White Hart on Tuesday 23rd January with the fun start some time after 19:30 (your timings & mileage may vary, profits can go up and down, etc etc) so toddle along for some seriously good entertainment for so early in the week!

Spooky Men on the Radio

In case you had facebook switched off yesterday, or just don't do that sort of thing, you may not have noticed that a crack team of black clad sonic operatives descended upon the nation's hallowed institution that is the BBC, Radio 3 no less, to do some singing and chatting stuff.

But, be ye not sad, the sounds of Spookyness on the airwaves can still be heard via your favourite digital device, or failing that, computer or smart@rse phone via http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06402ny.

And you can, and really should, catch them in the flesh in the real world via their on-going sojourn suffering over-generous breakfasts across these lands - see http://www.spookymen.com/gigs.php for a full list of where you can catch them.

Sound advice from The Axis of Spook

Well, we hope those who were at the awesome Spooky Men's Chorale gig last night in Bristol's Colston Hall have managed to come down off the ceiling! 

To help ease you off a Spooky high we offer a couple of photos from last night and a some sound advice - Wear your wonderful "Axis of Spook" T-Shirt with immense pride and make sure you wash it inside out to preserve the wonderful work of one Bill H.

Spooky Phil R and Bates do a quick hat check (above) as the mighty Axis of Spook assemble behind them (below).   More pics as they come back from the developers.

And another nudge to have a listen to the rough recording from the performance.

Spooky, Magnificent, AWESOME

Well, what can we say...?  2015 has been a pretty epic year already on the Magnificent front (our first tour, starring roles at Voices Now at THE Roundhouse, singing inside the inner circle at Stonehenge) and now many of us singing with The Spooky Men's Chorale as we return to the Colston Hall.

And what an awesome sound the 180 strong troupe made for the final pieces before the encore.

Not bad for one rehearsal - think what they could do with a couple more . . . (sounds of plot hatching).

Judge for yourself.

Shhhh... Secret Axis of Spook pop-up choir uncovered, possibly

Spotted and snapped as evidence by an undercover reporter in a secret location in a major conurbation in the South West of England, a number of Magnificent AK47 blokes were seen consorting with around 170 other so-called "singers" preparing by stealth for something happening somewhere at some point in the very near future (at least at time of writing it was in the future).

The fact that the Spooky Men's Chorale were also seen in the vicinity and they are giving a concert in the same said city the same week can merely be construed as co-incidental fact.

We can say no more other than if you book to come to the gig via the website at http://www.colstonhall.org/shows/spooky-mens-chorale/, you may see something along these lines ....

But remember, you didn't hear this from us, right?

They're (nearly) here

They are indeed very nearly here.  

One more sleep maybe, until the awesomeness that is The Spooky Men's Chorale of the UK 2015 Tour is unleashed on the world.

Only then will we know what they have been up to for the last few weeks, days and hours beavering away at learning new pieces to enthrall us, amaze and entrance us.

Love them to bits for their sonic sensibilities and scenic silliness, they have to be admired for being just a top quality embodiment of all things simple yet genius.

Stop your life and go and see them this summer or regret it forever.

---

Find out where you can see them from http://www.spookymen.com/gigs.php

Hear them at https://soundcloud.com/the_spooky_mens_chorale 

Enjoy and treasure them wherever you can.

Magnificent year so far, Spooky Summer ahead

We can't help feeling a little pleased with ourselves within the small world of The Magnificent AK47 because 2015 has so far, been "more than quite good" to re-quote(ish) one of our number.  

Not that we are getting above ourselves but landmarks like our show stealing at The Roundhouse, our very first multi-date international tour, being on TWO national radio stations, several sell out gigs and the part we played in THE best ever BlokeFest.  

Anyway, more soon(ish) when we conduct a more extensive mid-year review and announce what we are plotting for later in the year, but for now we can all feel a little chuffed with ourselves in having brought a little something special into the world as we settle into our summer recess and brace ourselves for another Spooky Summer as the Big Daddies of BlokeSong, The Spooky Men's Chorale, lurch back into the UK.  More info from their website at http://www.spookymen.com/gigs.php.

More very soon, but do brace yourselves!!

The Spooky Men's Chorale on BBC Radio 3's The Choir

Before we finally bid farewell to the immenseness that is The Spooky Men's Chorale and the joy they have sprinkled on the summer all over the UK (no coincidence the weather has been so much better this year??), there is one more nugget of Spookyness to unearth.

You may not have noticed, but the blokes were in action on the BBC again just before their last emotional concert at the Union Chapel, and what an interesting piece of radio it is.  The programme in question is The Choir presented by Mary King who was looking at the growing interest in natural voice singing which lead her to meet with the Spooky Men's Chorale and others.

Events like this probably don't happen enough, but the programme was full of very interesting material including a decent length interview with the SpookMeister himself as well as a lady called Phoene Cave, a member of the Natural Voice Practitioner's Network.  This is another website worth exploring where you might find reference to someone we know very well.

But, unfortunately if you haven't heard the piece by the time you see this posting it could be too late to head over to the BBC Website to listen again, however some decent soul has manage to scrape the recordings together, trim them down and posted them so you can enjoy them for a little longer.

You really should give it a listen as the two pieces have a lot of interesting material in them and some revealing insights into some of the inspiration and the methods of the SpookMeister and how he pieces the Spooky's songs together.  There is a particularly interesting insertion of a genuine traditional Georgian choral piece Riding Song, Tskhenosnuri, performed by the excellent Ensemble Rustavi (well worth an amble over to explore their site).  You can purchase a recording of this piece (bizarrely enough captured whilst in Australia) from here - if you are interested in Georgian male choral singing it is highly recommended.

Ending their tour on yet another high (how will they cope returning to normal life?!) with this final comment from Mary King in conversation with Mr Stephen Taberner, "Anything that gets men to sing is a good thing", Agreed!

Spookys on the Radio

Would you trust these men with your delicate lugholes and your BBC Licence money?  Rest assured they are out there somewhere, up to no good, but hopefully at a safe distance, but imagine the excitement for the Spooky fraternity when these marvelous chaps appeared on national radio not once, but twice in the same week!

First was their ground breaking performance on Radio 2's Folk Show hosted by Mark Radcliffe on Wednesday 14 Aug 2013.  The show notes can be found on the programme's BBC website but the replay facility has now lapsed.  (But read on . . .)

Next up, the very next day, the blokes performed on the In Tune show on Radio 3 and were interviewed Suzy Klein who mentions the "beautifully named" Magnificent AK47, thanks to our friends Nigel and Katie Holt, and acknowledged that "men who need to sing, can find a space in the UK to do so" - heart warming stuff.

Sad to say that the iPlayer no longer has the programmes but maybe you might find something of interest here.  Listen out for mention of The Magnificents at around 17:30 on the In Tune recording.