Danny Green is the brains behind Laish an occasional blogger for FFS, he launched new London night ‘We Come Alive’ in 2014.
I started We Come Alive, a new musical night at the end of last year. I had been in London for over a year and realised it was about time I made more of an effort to bring people together. Being a musician often means, turning up, playing, having a chat and leaving. I wanted to get more involved. When I was in Brighton I promoted regular shows for The Willkommen Collective. One of my first shows was in a tiny room with the line up: Richard Dawson, The Leisure Society and Laish. All almost household names to the FFS readership. I also put on two intimate house concerts with Willy Mason, as well as hosting Rachael Dadd, Rozi Plain, Trembling Bells, Mariners Children, Farao and many others.
I love the feeling of bringing together a room full of excellent people to listen carefully to the most intimate sounds of people’s music that I adore. And that has always been my booking policy, music I love. Bands and songwriters I am truly excited to see with a keen sense of what kind of acts will compliment each other. I also have a strict policy of paying all the acts fairly. If you are an audience member, you pay a fair price to come in. If you are a musician, you get paid.
So when tasked with putting on shows in London I decided to start off in a similar way, and what better venue than The Harrison. It is already famous for its atmosphere. Such a warm and inviting space. The staff are always ready with a smile. The ales are tremendous. They serve the finest gastro pub meals ever. And the basement live room is a perfect setting for intimate shows. They have spent a lot of time acoustically sound treating the room to give it an excellent crisp sound, and I have chosen the best sound guy to ensure everything runs smoothly.
I had to come up with a name for the evening. Something cool, memorable, inviting, not too cheesy, not directly referring to any particular genre. It was a tricky task. I had pages of ideas. And at one point I was scouring through song titles on my music collection and I came across that excellent song by The Wave Pictures, We Come Alive.
“The room is spinning faster
Than a 45
And we come alive!
We come alive!”
I decided it was perfect and promptly emailed The Wave Pictures to tell them the good news, inviting them to headline the first event in November. Thankfully they were happy about it and agreed. I also asked one of my favourite singers, Rozi Plain to accompany the bill and I booked my own musical self, Laish to open the night. A solid bill I thought. The tickets sold out in 4 days flat and I was very happy to have such a vibrant standing room only for the first event. It was so much fun.
Someone tweeted afterwards that it was like being at End of The Road Festival, but in a pub. Perfect!
The next event is this Sunday. We have the excellent Welsh psych folk rockers, Little Arrow, who have been seen twice at the other great festival of the year, Green Man…
…Irish songwriter on Fence/Lost Map Records, Seamus Fogarty…
…and opening proceedings is Londonder, Lucy Cait and her new band, who many are predicting great things for this year…
It will be a splendid night and I hope you can join us for it.
Doors are at 7.30 and tickets are available from we got tickets.
I am running a competition for 2 pairs of tickets for the show. Simply email [email protected] with the words ‘I Come Alive’ to enter and two lucky people will win a pair of tickets to the event.
For details of upcoming shows, why not like our Facebook page.
Yours
Danny Laish (laishmusic.com)