Our wonderful cafe HQ now has its own vintage clothing shop, run by none other than Red Tides' own Molly Macleod!... http://fb.me/u5VvQhyf
Welcome to Debt Records
DEBT Records is a label born out of troubled times, a label nurse-fed on the understanding that current music industry practices are failing both artists and listeners. DEBT IS A LABEL THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO THAT INDUSTRY
Shows and Tours Articles
The Weekend Ahead...
24 August 2010
This weekend Debt’s home town of Manchester will be something of a ghost ship as all of our acts and label directors will be off making merry in the fields of England and Scotland.
Solfest in Cumbria will see the biggest influx from our roster with not one, not two, not three or four but FIVE of our acts gracing the fields with their talent.
Becca & The Broken Biscuts, John Fairhurst and Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six will be appearing on the Mainstage on saturday and sunday. Red Tides and Richard Barry will be performing on the Drystone Stage.
Honeyfeet and Alabaster Deplume will be playing The Wandering Word stage at Shambala Festival in Northamptonshire (also appearing will be Louis Barabbas solo acoustic - as well as on The Compass Stage later that same night). John Fairhurst will also be appearing at Aeon Festival in Devon. Meanwhile Monkey Poet Matt Panesh continues to wow the crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe.
www.solwayfestival.co.uk
www.aeonfestival.com
www.shambablafestival.org
www.edfringe.com
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
11 August 2010
Our acts have been in and out of muddy fields all summer - both in the UK and overseas - but there is one festival that takes the cake for mayhem and that’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Three of our number have shows spanning the full three weeks:
MONKEY POET is premiering Welcome To Afghanistan - his first play and one man show. That takes place at the Sin Club on Cowsgate Click here for more information He’ll also be doing his regular stand up poetry show (and album tie-in) Welcome to the UK complete with Debt label-mate Alabaster Deplume and some amazing people we met at Kiuperfest this year (including the puppeteers from the Something Something Company!) Details of that can be found here He’ll also be filling in a 9.15 solo slot with an hour of stand-up poetry at Sin Club.
SAM BUCKLEY, bassist and co-singer in Honeyfeet will be playing the part of “The Sex” in a new opera entitled “Man And Men” at Hill Street Theatre at 4.35pm every day except Tuesdays. It is a strange, other worldly production backed by a contemporary classical score. Written and composed by Joshua Goodman with libretto by Tom Riley. More information here
ALABASTER DEPLUME (pictured) will be appearing at Faceplant, The Forest on 17th August, at 8pm, compered by none other than Louis Barabbas’ enigmatic publisher A. Valliard. Venue info here
He will also be at Banshee Labyrinth, from 17th - 19th August as part of Monkey Poet’s Welcome to the UK at 6:20pm (see above)
Please enjoy poetry responsibly
Honeyfest
14 July 2010
This year the UK’s most talked about new jazz-folk outfit Honeyfeet has been picked to open the 2010 Manchester Jazz Festival this month.
Times haven’t been easy for Honeyfeet in recent months. Their recent Spanish tour, whilst inspiring ecstatic audience reaction, was peppered with catastrophe - including two broken instruments and a defunct tour bus.
The five-piece (“graced by the Midas touch… plagued by the Midas touch”) stayed positive, however, and stayed tight. They are now back on home turf, putting the final touches on their new record “Scumbags” and getting ready for a lot of high profile shows around the country. As well as the Manchester Jazz Festival on 24th July, they will be the main support for highly acclaimed US performer C.W. Stoneking at the Ruby Lounge (2nd August) and among the highlights of the Green Phoenix Festival in Newcastle and Shambala in Northamptonshire (on 20th and 27th August respectively).
Tickets for the Manchester Jazz Festival can be bought here
Tickets for the C.W. Stoneking show can be bought here
www.greenphoenixfestival.org.uk/
www.shambalafestival.org/
www.myspace.com/honeyfeetmusic
The Festival that wasn't there
29 June 2010
The Debt Records team has just returned from the Aragon region of North Spain where almost all our acts (plus others from across the globe - spanning every conceivable artistic discipline) gathered to celebrate the final Kuiperfest, an all acoustic festival hidden among the olive groves of the Mattaraña mountain range.
The festival is one of the most welcoming and challenging events an artist can be involved in (as well as the most secret) - there are no lighting rigs, stage props or effects pedals - not even amplification beyond the terraces’ natural acoustics - all a performer has is their material and the trust of a listening crowd. To say that the festival is “no-nonsense”, however, would be grossly inaccurate… with turns from The Navet Bete clown troup and the Something Something puppetry duo there is certainly plenty of nonsense - though nonsense of the finest caliber.
Over the years the Kuiper showcase has led to collaborations, international tours and Fringe Festival residencies for those that have taken part. David Rybka and Louis Barabbas, for example, found themselves with bookings in Mexico, Alabaster Deplume ended up performing alongside a string quartet and contemporary dancers, Biff Roxby became Monkey Poet’s producer and a lot of drunk musicians fell down a ravine (but that’s another story).
This year’s Kuiperfest was always set to be the final installment, its founder Jon Bonfiglio (producer, playwright and author of the Movement and Memory lecture series) was adamant that one cannot sustain the innocence of such an event indefinitely. Anyone who has watched the metamorphosis of festivals like Glastonbury over the years will no doubt agree.
The legacy will live on though as Debt plans its own arts festival to begin next year. An acoustic Kuiper stage for both seasoned and emerging talent will most certainly be in the schematics.
If you have any memories of Kuiperfest please add them to the comments board below.
A Date with Yates
31 May 2010
This month’s Debt Records Presents… will take place on the first saturday of the month rather than the usual second friday (due to the Debt Set flying off to Spain next week for the Kuiperfest acoustic festival).
We like to think that the gigs we curate are something a little bit special, after all we’re musicians on both sides of the industry and know what works live. The upcoming show on Saturday 5th June, however, is something we’re particularly excited about. As well as a headline set from our newest signing Honeyfeet (one of the finest live acts of our age), we herald the triumphant return of Thomas E Yates after a two year sabbatical from the live circuit.
Tom has been on our radar for years - we met him in early 2007 at a Bedlam Six gig (when they were called The Black Velvet Band). He was an enthusiastic yet very shy first year student from Wigan seeking to size up the Manchester “scene” before plunging into it himself.
Since then he has developed his craft and grown into one of the most compelling and unpredictable singer-songwriters we’ve ever come across. It is with great pleasure that we host his live show this coming saturday at Fuel Bar in Withington.
Yates’ debut EP will be released on Debt Records this Summer.
Un-Convention's Invisible Band
09 May 2010
The last few days have seen two historic events take place: the first UK hung parliament in thirty six years and the first album to be recorded, produced, pressed and released in a mere twelve hours.
The latter is, of course, Un-Convention Factory. Eight bands, Sixty music industry professionals and three hundred people in a converted factory space recreating Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot” album to mark the thirtieth anniversary since Ian Curtis hanged himself while listening to it.
One of those bands was Debt’s own Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six who were commissioned to rearrange track six “Dum Dum Boys”. Despite receiving praise on the day from everyone from Har Mar Superstar to UB40’s sax player they don’t get a credit on the album sleeve. The artwork for the record was produced and printed in-house and somehow the band with the longest name (playing the album’s longest song) was left off the sleeve notes. This oversight comes as no surprise to Louis:
“It’s pointless getting annoyed about these things, it happens all the time and has characterized our musical career. We’re best known for our live presence but to the existing industry we’ve always been invisible - it’s apt for us to be anonymous on the only record that has any kind of mainstream appeal… it tickles my perverted sense of humour that anyone enjoying our track on the Unconvention album will have no idea who’s playing it. Besides, I’ve always said I’d rather be a myth than a legend.”
The whole Debt Records team were at the factory all day and were moved by the mixture of positive collaboration and useful discussion between current practitioners (coupled with the usual industry survivors wittering on about the good old days) - it was a curious harmony of new ideas, community spirit and optimism with a handful of irrelevant famous people wasting everyone’s time. A perfect mirror to what we now hesitantly call “the music business”.
For more information about the great things that Un-Convention gets up to visit their blog.
Honeyfeet and Levantes Dance Theatre
04 May 2010
“The quirky & eccentric touches suggest the depths of emotion & even perversity that lie beneath the mundane & everyday.” The Stage
“With a kitsch aesthetic & kooky costumes… [they] create a space where a world of play is superimposed on the ordinary & everyday.” Metro
“Room Temperature Romance”
Manchester Premiere
Greenroom, Manchester M1 5WW
Friday 7th May @ 8pm
www.greenroomarts.org
Choreographed and Performed by Eleni Edipidi and Bethanie Harrison
Multimedia design by Gopan Iyadurai
Guest performance by HoneyFeet
Room Temperature Romance blends dance, video & movement with flamboyant costume & evocative audio. This fantasy voyage indulges in the delights of both ordinary & extraordinary behaviour, revealing their beauty and ultimately making you smile.
It tells a charming story about the moments that mean nothing and everything in life’s daily routine. Combining the mundane with the absurd, audiences are taken on a trip down memory lane as the performers recount tales of youth, life and love.
Winner of the 2009 Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award & co-produced by barbicanbite09, this is the first time the work has been seen outside London.
This performance will be followed by a Q&A.
http://www.greenroomarts.org/archive/events/room-temperature-romance/
MAPS Festival Free Download!
03 May 2010
This news item is being written from the Debt Records stage at Manchester’s Northern Quarter Festival - MAPS (Music, Art, Poetry & Stuff). It’s a great day, we’ve already had Louis Barabbas and Al Baker playing stripped down sets, currently Still Down Gill are rocking everyone’s socks off and the wonderful Red Tides are on next.
Later on this mammoth all-dayer we’ll be hearing from Debt’s own Honeyfeet, John Fairhurst, Richard Barry and Becca & The Broken Biscuits, as well as Plain Sounds’ signature signing The Suns, Samson & Delilah from Little Red Rabbit Records, SR Gents and poetry from Matthew Wilson, Carol Batton and… of course… our very own Monkey Poet compering (and drinking).
To celebrate this monumental line-up we have created a special promo download, available free from our shop for a limited time only (no idea how long it’ll be there - until the next giveaway probably).
So head over to the shop and pick up yours. Or better still, get down to The Bay Horse on Thomas Street in Manchester and come watch some of these acts live!
News From Mexico
29 April 2010
For the last four months David Rybka and Honeyfeet’s Rik Warren have been touring Mexico with Debt’s creative associate Jon Bonfiglio. As well as the usual bars, clubs and festivals the pair have also been booked to play shows in a maximum security prison and the British Embassy. They are also working on an album with local musicians from Cuernavaca (which will be released on Debt later this year).
We finally caught up with Dave to get his thoughts on this latest tour, so far from his native Wigan…
“There is so much history, so much to understand… the Ruins and archeological finds are really inspiring. I have seen so much yet barely half of what Mexico is about. On my return I intend to delve deeper into its history.
And what effect has it had on your writing?
“It’s made me write songs that are very different to those ones I wrote back in England… the different climate, the scenery, the feeling - it all just adds to the creative flow that boils inside all of us.”
What can we expect from the new record?
“The project is with two Mexican musicians called Matisse and Andrea Valdez. We are producing a record consisting of two traditional Mexican songs and two European Folk songs, then two songs from each of the four musicians involved in the project. They sing and play on our songs and we play and sing on their songs, then see what comes out. It should be an interesting project for everyone involved.
And what are your thoughts on the prison gig?
“Blake wrote that the body is the soul’s prison unless all five senses are fully developed and open. He considered the senses the ‘windows of the soul.’ People in prison deserve a second chance most of the time, lets hope we awake their senses…”
Rybka and Warren will be reunited with the rest of the Debt Records community at Kuiperfest in North Spain this June before returning to the UK to get their Mexican collaboration album ready for a late summer release.
MAPS Festival Tickets in our shop
26 April 2010
Tickets for this year’s MAPS Festival (which takes place between 30th April - 3rd May) are available in the Debt Records shop
MAPS Line-Up
25 February 2010
Here is the line-up for the Debt Records Stage at Manchester’s MAPS Festival. Running order and stage times will be published nearer the event.
Where: The Bay Horse, Thomas Street, Manchester Northern Quarter
When: 2pm-10.30pm - 3rd May 2010
- JOHN FAIRHURST
- DAVID RYBKA & THE VICTORIAN DAD BAND
- SAMSON & DELILAH
- THE SUNS
- MOLLY MACLEOD BAND
- AL BAKER & THE DOLE QUEUE
- RICHARD BARRY & THE CHAPS
- SR GENTS
- BECCA & THE BROKEN BISCUITS
- STILL DOWN GILL
- LOUIS BARABBAS (acoustic)
Compere: MONKEY POET MATT PANESH
- DJ Sets from ROXBY’S WONKY DISCO
- BBQ (weather permitting)
Join the MAPS Facebook group here to be kept abreast of the latest festival developments and Manchester Arts news.
Al Baker is On The Move
24 February 2010
Our good friend Al Baker, much-praised radical folk-punker and leader of The Dole Queue, is teaming up with revolutionary leftfield hip-hop artist The Ruby Kid for a short tour of the UK next month.
The dates are as follows:
THE RED SCARE TOUR March 2010
Friday 12th - Brighton - Caroline of Brunswick
Saturday 13th - London (Stoke Newington) - Ryan’s Bar
Sunday 14th - Bristol - The Croft
Monday 15th - Leeds - The Pack Horse
Tuesday 16th - Manchester - The Corner (compered by Debt’s own Matt Panesh with DJ sets from Roxby’s Wonky Disco and appearances from celebrated Debt Associates!)
Wednesday 17th - Nottingham - Chameleon Café
Thursday 18th - Cambridge - The Hopbine
Upon their return, Al and the band will be locking themselves away inside PlainSounds Studio and laying down (at long last) their maddeningly anticipated second album. The record will be released through Debt later this year.
More information on Al Baker & The Dole Queue can be found at www.albaker.co.uk
Latest Becca Dates
20 February 2010
Becca & The Broken Biscuits have just updated us on some new gig dates, including a performance with award-winning folk sensation Jim Moray in North Wales and a mainstage appearance at Cumbria’s much loved Solway Festival.
Sunday 21st Feb - Nordoff Robbins Charity night @ Oddest, Chorlton.
Sunday 28th Feb - Appearing on BBC Radio Manchester (95.1fm) Andy Crane show. 12-2pm
Saturday 6th Mar - Supporting Jim Moray @ Trelawnyd Memorial Hall, N.Wales.
Sunday 11th Apr - Green Bohemia @ The Green Room, Manchester.
Saturday 24th Apr - Hope Mill, Manchester.
Sunday 2nd May - MAPS Festival @ Night’n’Day, Manchester.
Monday 3rd May - DEBT RECORDS STAGE at MAPS Festival @ The Bay Horse, Manchester.
Saturday 3rd July - Ymuno Festival, Conwy N.Wales.
Sunday 29th August - Solfest, Cumbria.
For up-to-the-minute news on Becca & The Broken Biscuits visit their myspace page or contact us to be added to their mailing list.
David Rybka & The Mexican Dad Band
13 February 2010
David Rybka is currently on tour in Mexico. He is the latest in a line of Debt songwriters to cross the Atlantic and bring the new Manchester sound to North America (the first being Louis Barabbas last November - the next will be John Fairhurst later this year).
He is touring with author, producer and raconteur Jon Bonfiglio, recently seen in these news pages in the context of his own world tour. In addition to the live shows Dave will be teaming up with a number of Mexican musicians (plus Victorian Dad drummer Matt McNicholas - joining them in March) to record an acoustic record fusing his own style with those of the local artists. The record will be released on Debt in the Autumn.
Last we heard Rybka and co were about to rent a truck and speed off into the mountains.
Let’s hope they actually get some work done.
Here are a selection of live dates:
13th Feb - El Limonero (Cholula), 26 Feb Galeria Rahel (Mexico City), 7 Mar Black Horse (Mexico City), 13 Mar Caso Spencer (Cuernavaca - Distrito Federal), 28 Mar Oaxaca, 8 Apr UNAM Morelos (Cuernavaca), 10th Apr La Turbina (Tepotzlan), El Hijo Del Cuervo (Mexico City).
For a full list see The Victorian Dad Band myspace page
Movement & Memory
04 February 2010
Debt Records Affiliate and Creative Consultant Jon Bonfiglio is currently touring the world with his talk On Movement and Memory, a project that began in the fictional world of his latest play Midnight, When Trumpets Cry but now has a life all of its own.
The subjects of history, identity and collective memory feature in the talk though two are never alike, each one being written on the day of performance (usually on transient objects such as newspapers or menus).
Bonfiglio is regularly twittering about the lecture series. Here are a selection of his recent posts:
Photographs only ever display earlier versions of us, make us constantly aware of what we used to be. Little wonder the weight of the past. 12:57 PM Jan 30th
The central paradox of Gibraltar is in its physicality, at once tiny yet also visibly a colossus, to the Spanish a perpetual inverted scar. 11:34 AM Jan 27th
We do not mourn strangers because they cannot recollect our lives - whereas our lovers…; without their memories, we find ourselves erased. 12:22 AM Jan 12th
To follow Jon on twitter follow this link
Alabaster Abroad
20 January 2010
Debt’s resident absurdist wordsmith Alabaster Deplume, last seen buried in his home studio with Homelife’s Paddy Steer and members of Honeyfeet, has skipped town to play sax with Liz Green on her tour of Continental Europe. Below is a selection of their dates:
- 19 Jan - Fokus @ Jöngköping Bibliothek, Jöngköping (Sweden);
- 21 Jan - Fingerböllet, Kopenhagen (Denmark);
- 22 Jan - West Germany, Berlin (Germany);
- 23 Jan - Paris Syndrom, Leipzig (Germany);
- 24 Jan - Werkstatt, Chur (Switzerland);
- 25 Jan - better2gether, Reutlingen (Germany);
- 26 Jan - Graf Hugo, Feldkirch (Austria);
- 27 Jan - Rocking Chair, Vevey (Switzerland);
- 28 Jan - Papiersaal, Zurich (Switzerland);
- 29 Jan - Kohi, Karlsruhe (Germany);
- 30 Jan - Salle Ockegheim, Tours (France);
- 31 Jan - Mofo Festival, Saint-Quen (France).
Bedlam Break
15 January 2010
Debt’s in-house band The Bedlam Six will be taking two months off from playing live shows while they work on their second album.
After three years of near solid gigging they’re eager to recharge batteries, make plans and work on new material. Louis Barabbas, the songwriter, says “we’ve been playing the same set for months, it’s becoming slightly robotic. There are tons of songs ready to go, we just need to rehearse them. Also we’re determined that the next album won’t take two years to release (like the last one did) so we need to get going on that - it won’t record itself!”
Their last show before the hiatus is at the Dancehouse Theatre on Saturday 16th January.
We will, however, keep you updated with news and photographs from the studio, fresh recordings and upcoming live dates.
The Bedlam Six will return in March to play their first and second albums live - back to back!
Debt comes to Mexico
10 January 2010
David Rybka, the enigmatic and unpredictable frontman of The Victorian Dad Band (currently performing in North Spain) is to be the latest member of the Debt Set to attempt to break into the Mexican music scene.
The tour has been organized by Debt Records affiliate and arts promoter Jonathan Bonfiglio (founder of the Spanish acoustic festival Kuiperfest). Bonfiglio organized a similar tour for Louis Barabbas in late 2009 and will be doing the same for John Fairhurst in April 2010.
Signed
It looks like you don't have flash player installed. The flash player is required to listen to media on this site.