We few, we Magnificent few

It's been quite a busy week for the blokes these past seven days, and it has taken its toll...

First there was the excitement of dressing up as pirates and leading the parade at Lyme Folk Festival down to the seafront stage and wowing the audience with their daring-do and many hours of philandering round the town spreading the joys of BlokeSong and pubsong (more later).

Next up was Thursday night in Bath, a hot and steamy evening that half a dozen nearly missed out on because of traffic problems, but eventually made it along to give a very "contrasting" performance to the rest of the show at the amazing acoustic that is Bath Abbey (more later) and some wonderful street singing for "Afters".

Now a crack squad of blokes who can be "spared" for another day are hauling themselves out of bed on a Saturday morning to beetle up to Birmingham to re-join the gang at Voices Now.

We wish the few who can make it well  and hope they enjoy the day, and are careful they go to the right workshops as the thought of the blokes from The Magnificent AK47 inadvertently ending up in a "Singing with Movement" session by mistake is not going to be a pretty sight, although it might do them some good....

More info about another amazing Magnificent day can be found at https://macbirmingham.co.uk/event/voices-now.

Unlock your inner minstrel with us at Stroud Sub Rooms

Far be it from us to suggest that this is an old photo with ancient copy and that we have moved on massively since this was all put together, but 'tis true.  

When this pic was snapped around 1/3 of our current crew were not on board and since then we have sung in caves, castles, coaches, clifftops, quaysides, inside Stonehenge, multiple times at The London Roundhouse at the Voices Now Festival and appeared TWICE on National Radio, including being a main feature on BBC Radio 3's The Choir program.  

We also have more songs that speak of the dilemmas facing thoroughly modern men and how we strive to release ourselves by #getmensinging.

Having said all that, 'tis also true, we have been praised by many as "surprisingly good" and hopefully you can see for yourself this coming Saturday as we unleash our Radio 3 approved set along with the infinitely more talented The Croutons this 16 May from 8.00pm at the very wonderful Subscription Rooms in The People's Republic of Stroud.  

Avoid disappointment and save yourself nearly enough money to buy us a pint from their website at http://www.subscriptionrooms.org.uk/general.asp?pid=12&pgid=972.

The Magnificent sound of Voices Now Part 1

One of the great joys of last weekend's Voices Now at the London Roundhouse was the range of material sung by the very different choirs and also the fantastic way that the various groups collaborated.

This led to some great programming for the three nights and one of our very favourite moments was us old lumbering lumps sharing a song with the spritely little chaps from BoyBand.  A great example of how you can #getmensinging even if they aren't quite men yet!

And you can hear a snippet to good effect of this as part of this little medley of Magnificent recordings from the more shanty orientated material we performed at the weekend.

In passing, if you attended the event and would like to leave your feedback the organizers would be pleased to hear from you via https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BP3TRNF.

Re-live some of that fabulous weekend of singing by clicking on the Play button on our Soundcloud.

What did you do at the weekend Daddy?

Daddy, what did you do at the weekend when you were away?

Hmmm, let me think...

I dressed in black

I journeyed far away with my friends

We went to a great round building

And gathered in darkness

Where there was great light and sounds so pure, so high and so deep

We sang together with our compatriots and many new friends

We roared like Mastodons

We droned, we groaned

We sang for the Radio

We posed around town

We sang our hearts out on stage with people a fifth of our age

We shantied, we flirted in front of hundreds

We listened in awe

We drank to a great life

We bathed ladies in sound

We serenaded our fellow singers

And marveled at their singing

We shared magical, memorable moments

We lived the dream

I think I didn't dream it, but I can't be sure ...

Daddy, you are funny

From roundhouses to The Roundhouse in a week

The Magnificent AK47 is an interesting journey of self-discovery through the medium of BlokeSong.

Last week we were in modern replicas of ancient Roundhouses like these . . .

. . . wondering where we were and where we were going (and clearly one or to wondering what on earth we were doing wherever we were) . . .

So, after we had thought for a bit, we decided to Go West! (or rather East) . . 

. . . to visit an ancient Roundhouse that is a modern mecca . . . 

. . . that is THE London Roundhouse where we will be performing over the course of two days at the fabulous Voices Now Festival.

It's all go in this Magnificent little world of ours - hope you can be there too

Voices Now + The Choir on BBC Radio 3

In case you can't make it along to Voices Now this Sunday (and Saturday), and we VERY much hope you can because it will be a great show, you can console yourself with the sound of The Magnificent AK47 on LIVE on The Choir on BBC Radio 3 - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tpm44

Exciting....

Voices (nearly) Now!

Only a few days to go before we are back off to the London Roundhouse for the next parts of our incredible journey that takes us to this year's Voices Now Festival this weekend 9th - 10th May.

On the Saturday we are due to be helping run a workshop from around 4pm with Boy Band and then  performing in the evening SATURDAY SESSIONS with folk legends Sam Lee and Kathryn Tickell as we journey around the folk-routes, by-ways and high-seas of England and Ireland.

Discover your inner pirate and explore traditional music old and new with North London’s very own 60 strong Boyband, plus The Magnificent AK47 (little old us!), the Holst Singers and friends from across the British and Emerald Isles.  

Then on the Sunday we return  to join in with incredible choral sounds from around the world for the final night of Voices Now with SUNDAY WORLD SERVICE.  Taking in music from across Africa, Bulgaria, Georgia, the UK and all points in between as Sam Lee and Kathryn Tickell join some of the country’s most adventurous vocal travellers, including the 300 voices of Bristol’s Gurt Lush. Voices Now is brought to an exciting finish with this world-wide celebration of singing.

Should be a cracking weekend.

What is the Magnificent connection between this week's Folk Show and The Magnificent AK47?

Anyone get the right answer?  

Perhaps not any easy one but next time you will know as we build up to another big trip to the Big Smoke in May for a couple of very Big Nights out singing with some top choirs.

It is Sam Lee and Voices Now!

Check out for Sam's performance along with real birds at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mqdyb (and also http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mslvs - interesting stuff preserving culture...)

The Choir and Voices Now snippet

Thank you to the bloke that tipped us off about this snippet from an earlier edition of BBC Radio 3's The Choir that features us from around 0 mins & 31 seconds onward with a mysterious member being interviewed and the interviewer commenting "Delilah sounding very Magnificent".

Tune your browers to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jrz2s for the snippet and to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnw5 for the regular show.

The VERY Magnificent sounding...

As it is not every day that we are name checked on national radio we are sure you will forgive us a little indulgence of basking in the fact for a few more hours and feeling rather excited that we were indeed mentioned BBC Radio 3's The Choir program and described by a very knowledgeable lady as sounding "very magnificent"!

You can hear for yourself if you point your Worldly Wise browsing device (as the young people apparently call it) towards http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051ccr8 to hear a very full and comprehensive report of the Voices Now preparations that we had the great pleasure to attend the other weekend.

They rather conveniently have little markers indicating the principal sections of the show and you can find the report on the Voices Now preparations from the 2nd marker.  

For those of you who particularly like to get to the point where you hear about your humble singers, then slide towards roundabout 11 mins and 32 seconds and you will hear a mystery voice from a mystery member of our mysterious group declaiming the fact that we are not "The AK47", we "THE Magnificent AK47".  (Cheers Doug!)

And judge for yourself with the rather splendid snippet from Delilah.  More news about Voices Now preparations emerging soon.

Listen to The Choir on BBC3

 

Following on from the excitement of last week's Voices Now pre-event jaunt there should be a mention or two about that day and the evolving event itself on this afternoon's edition of The Choir on the venerable BBC3 presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch.

Those who were there at the event last week may remember Sara as she was wandering around capturing the day on a rather impressive bit of kit and hopefully will make mention of that and some interviews with people on the show the today.

Point your browsers to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051ccr8 for more info.

Voices Now & Roundhouse Round up

 

A fantastic mass gathering at The world famous Roundhouse of "15 of the most exciting choirs in the country" and The Magnificent AK47 were there too!

It was all part of the day long preparations for the 2015 Voices Now which you can read all about on our Twitter Feed at https://twitter.com/magnificentak47.

Choirs included our brothers in song, Chaps Choir, the hearty The B.I.G Choir, a fabulous Boyband 60 boys from Rhodes Avenue Primary School who stole everyone's hearts, the very impressive Green Street Blues, our friends from the immense Gurt Lush, the rather good Holst Singers, the excellent Roundhouse Choir, the Sheffield Young Singers who performed a cracking piece, the startling Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir, who like us have also graced The Convent and many, many more

And  much of this was captured by Sara Mohr-Pietsch from BBC Radio 3's excellent The Choir on Sunday afternoons and a programme we will be featuring a bit more in the future.

You can hear a rather rough recording of the blokes in action to give you a flavour of the event and see loads more on our Twitter and Facebook feeds.

Another Magnificent day out and here's to the main event (if we are invited back...!)