Saturday, 8 January 2011

Who are Half Evil Promotions?

Here is a little about Half Evil Promotions by Jeffarama 

Cheers

Andy N (Half Evil)

'Half Evil came to life in 2008. It was more of a challenge when a few friends (Jeff, Bob, Jools & Joolz) got together with the aim of making local gigs better than the ones they were attending! The idea was to organise events better, with a personal approach, better publicity and use a variety of acts and genres to ensure the audience had a great time! The first proper gig was a charity night at the Soundhouse in Bolton called Bands 4 Babies; this was a great success attracting 250 people to see 6 bands and rasie over £1000!

Following on from that we staged several other gigs at the Soundhouse for bands such as The Salford Jets, Punk/Ska outfit The Naughtys from Manchester and singer/guitarist Tom Hingley from the Inspiral Carpets, and Indie nights for newer bands. Things didn't work out quite as we expected, and because we all had day jobs we decided to go our own way and concentrate on things that were closer to our hearts, poetry and acoustic music.

After a few local gigs which combined the two, we decided to go on tour in 2009 (9 dates around the north west. We called this 'Busking 4 Beer'. The gigs included open mic, then special guest poets and musicians. Gigs were compered by Jeff Dawson (Jeffarama!) and included Julie (Booth) doing several acoustic sets with Bob (Wight) doing most of the stuff behind the scenes. The Busking 4 Beer tour was a great success enjoyed by all and led to the 'Jammin with Jeffarama!' tour of 2010. This was a similar format but in addition to the local gigs in Bolton, Wigan, Salford, Manchester and Hebden Bridge the tour went further afield with gigs in Birmingham and Leeds!

Following 'Jammin with Jeffarama!' 2010 then saw a change in line-up at Half Evil, Bob took a back seat with the poetry and acoustic scene to concentrate on fundraising events and shows we are staging at Bolton Irish club. Because of that, we have recruited poet Andy N (who was a former co-arranger of the Poets and... Night in Bolton from 2008 - 2010 and vocalist of the band 'Wordmusic') to assist Jeff with his latest venture 'Guitar n' Verse' which we now hold first Thursday each month at Butterflies Bar in Bolton. Andy is now proving to be a valuable asset to Half Evil. This has already become a great success and Decembers gig saw Dave Sharp (ex Alarm guitarist) headlining.

2011 is looking like an exciting year for Half Evil. In addition to Guitar n Verse, Half Evil, will be holding an acoustic night (last friday each month at Butterflies) again with special guests and compered by Jeff with Andy N assisting. Bob will continue his stuff at Bolton Irish Club again with Jeff as MC. Jeff is also now co-ordinating poetry evenings for Writeoutloud in Bolton, while he and Andy have formed a spoken word/music combo called 'A Means to an End'. As we like to say 'It's all go at Half Evil!'

2 comments:

  1. Lookin good! - Here's to a great year @ Half Evil and some great nights especially all poetry & Music nights at Butterflies Bolton! Looking forward to the charity nights, more A Means to an End gigs and see what Bob comes up with too! Pleasure working with you Andy, cheers Jeff

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  2. Hi guys - how can I get in touch? D'you have a website? It's about a gig you have later this year :-) catch me on wood dot words at virgin dot net, please.

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