Royce Wood Junior and Stac

Hello. How are you? It’s been a while hasn’t it. I’ve been busy organising shows for OneTaste in London and New York. How very la dee da!

Other than that I’ve been working on a new musical project with one of my best friends Royce Wood Junior. We have been friends for half our lives and its taken us this long to work on some music together. Im not entirely sure why. We have made an EP called Second Lens and I am really proud of it.

Roycey has spent the last couple of years working on and playing on Jamie Woons album MirrorWriting. Jamie is a mutual friend of equal duration. We all met at school and have been buddies ever since. Anyway, Jamie, being somewhat recognised as audible gorgeousness by a fair amount of people worldwide had suggested to one particular DJ that they might like a mixtape of tunes Roycey had made over the last year called Gutter. This particular DJ loved the mix and asked Roycey to send over some tracks so that they could play some on their radio show! Who am I kidding? You know Im talking about Mary Anne Hobbs. Ive been banging on about her on facebook for the past 2 weeks! She’s amazing. Not only did she play ‘Edge’ on her saturday show twice but she also made it her Game Changer record which meant that she played it every day so far this week on her new XFM show, Music Response.

It’s mental. Ive only managed to listen to it being broadcast live twice, once on monday night and again last night. Both times I felt sick and my heart was racing like that of a recently escaped budgie. It totally doesn’t sink in. I tried to make it by reminding myself the whole way through that the music I was listening to was coming from the same station I used to listen to all the time as a teenager. It didn’t. Its just made it harder.

I thought I should load you up with Royce and Stac stuff. Here is our facebook page just incase you wanted to ‘like’ us. No pressure.
Here is a picture of us drunk on Royceys birthday earlier this year. Our drunkness was severe.
I remember calling my friend Katie up the next day and telling her that I actually thought I might die.

And that’s me done! I hope that you like our stuff.
Speak to you soon and hope you are all well and lovely.
Stac xx

Thank you Soundwave

Hello! I wanted to tell you just how good Soundwave was and urge you to buy a ticket for next year. So that’s what I am going to do.

It was AMAZING. I’ve never been to a festival as beautiful as this one before. Sun, sea (no sand) and seafood.

We got to the airport at half ten at night and we were greeted by Adam Ball, one of the organisers who drove us the half hour drive to our apartment, where we crashed out and woke up in the beautiful sunshine the next morning. We had previously looked at the weather forecast which read something like this…

Thursday – Shit
Friday – Shit
Saturday – Shit
Sunday – Slightly shitter…sorry.

But we had high hopes and we were not disappointed. It was glorious. Adam, Abi and I cartwheeled our way down to the festival site and claimed our spot which turned out to be ours for the entire weekend. The sea didn’t take long to entice us in. I do wish it has been slightly kinder on me though as I managed to fall over quite a few times and graze my left buttock on the rocks before I managed to get in. There are sea urchins you see and their sole purpose in life, I am sure, is to get bits of themselves into your feet, so its best to go in with jelly shoes. I went in with flip-flops. Don’t go in with flip-flops. Even though mine had 3 straps to ensure they didn’t come of, they did. Once we were in the sea I could not have been any happier. It was crystal clear and so salty that treading water whilst you listened to the DJs and punched your index fingers into the air (ironically of course) was real easy to do. Unless you are Abi Sugden who had to straddle a buoy to do so.

The music wasn’t bad either! Aly Gillani did an exceptional job of introducing us to Soundwave life with his DJ skilz. Ross PTH, The Nice-Up boys, Hoya:Hoya fellas and WrongTom were most excellent at getting the party swinging into action at the Beach Bar whilst we sipped our Pina coladas and on the main stage Laura J Martin did not disappoint, Bonobo was rammed, absolutely rammed and Jack Baker and Mike Lesirge blew most of the audience away with their sick improv tussle which was only bettered by the drop back into the tune (of which I am more than embarrassed to have forgotten the name of. I don’t think I am too good at writing reviews).

When it came to our set on the Sunday you’ll never guess what happened. It rained! It did! It bloody rained! So instead of playing the main stage drenched in sunshine and probably sweat, the entire festival was ushered into Barbarella’s, (a 1970′s, Italian discotheque) and play resumed. Although, it was a different kind of play. By the time we had set up our equipment the whole dance floor was populated and a rave was well and truly underway. Not the ideal warm-up for an acoustic act that consists of 1 guitar and two vocals. We asked the DJ to bring it down a little so he dropped some Nostalgia 77 and watching the dance floors reaction to this was hilarious. It was like they had all been woken up from a state of hypnosis and caught themselves doing something really wrong. I did enjoy that bit.

When it came to it, the audience were amazing! We had a sea of people beaming at us and dancing along. I couldn’t believe how much they appeared to enjoy it considering we had just wrenched them out of a rave and thrust them into some soft vocal lead, acoustic soul. Every song we played was met with a wall of hand claps, wooops and eager faces awaiting the next. I sound like I am bigging myself up here don’t I. I’m not, I am bigging the crowd up. Ive never been to a festival where the festival goers are so open to everything. They were there to have a good time and so that’s what they did. It really was a joy to be a part of and testament to a wonderful festival.

So, all that’s left to say is thank you Soundwave. Thank you for your good times. I like you very very much.

Stac x

I thoroughly recommend…

Hello, its me, Stac. Hello, how are you?
What a glorious day!

I feel like my life has been enriched by a couple of things recently and rather than just keep them to myself I thought I would share them with you and maybe you can enjoy them just as much as I do.

Here’s number one…

Tanya Auclair

Last week I went to Tanya Auclair’s ‘Origami’ launch party. Tanya is some kind of angelic musical beast. I don’t know if you heard her previous EP, ‘Thrum”? That was good but this new one is next level good. She’s really honed her sound and she gets better and better every time I see her live. So, if you fancy treating yourself, go listen to some songs I wish that I had written.

Number two…

A Penpal
I thoroughly recommend getting yourself a penpal. Preferably someone you’ve never met and maybe even someone that lives in a different country. If you get a really good one, they will send you treats, stories, books, music recommendations, advice and insights into some of the many worlds outside of your own. It’s a joy. And in a world where the purpose of communication, really, is to get from A to B as quickly as possible, its nice to get your waffle on.

Number Three…

Horns.
Two brand spankingly new and completely different albums from WahWah45s, plus an old school gem for nostalgia. The Colman Brothers, Hackney Colliery Band and Louis Armstrong. Maybe whilst playing a nice relaxing game of sunday scrabble.

And Number Four…

OneTaste
This is something you can definitely get involved with as it hasn’t happened yet. OneTaste is going home to the Bedford (Balham) for a rather wonderful show on the 19th June. I’m really looking forward to it. We’ve got a smashing line up including Holly Walker, Ray Antrobus, More Like Trees, Andy Craven Griffiths, Moats and Thrones and of course the OneTaste Choir! There are going to be some ace moments and my Mum and Dad are coming!

Right that’s it for now.

Oh, except possibly the most important recommendation of all…

A pint of Aspall.

Go have yourselves a thoroughly enjoyable week.

Stac x

Little Dragon

Hello!
How are you?
I’m excited! Still. On Wednesday evening Blue Daisy and I supported Little Dragon at Heaven. Oh my word what a night it was! The day was pretty hectic. We had a one hour window to soundcheck because I had a very important meeting early afternoon which finished at 3 and Blue Daisy was playing at Rough Trade early evening so it was pretty crazy. He had to soundcheck with me, run off to Rough Trade for a soundcheck then gig at 7pm and then leg it back to Heaven to be on stage with me at 8.30.

Blue Daisy’s nickname should be L8 because he always is, so I was really nervous that he wasn’t going to make it on time or that he would be running late, make the taxi driver drive recklessly, swerve a bicycle and crash into an Eddie Stobart and die.
Luckily though, at 8pm, the time I had told myself I was allowed to go out and check whether he was there or not, he was there on stage setting up his boxes of wizardry.

The next hurdle was the real clanger (possibly). The first tune we played was All or Nothing (Blue Daisy remix of course) and the first half of the tune is seriously scary because there are no drums and massive amounts of delay. You try keeping in time to something that is purposefully out of time. I found a way though which consisted of me twisting my hips and banging them with my palms (basically looking like an idiot but I was prepared to suffer for my art). I did it! We got through the hard bit and I could therefor look forward to enjoying the rest of the set. Errrrr until Blue Daisy pressed the stop button accidentally and we had to start the whole bloody song again.

Its at moments like those that you realise humans like humans. Everyone likes it when people on stages, no matter who they are show themselves for what they really are! Humans. Humans fuck up. We fucked up and it was brilliant! It made me feel much more relaxed and actually I think we had the better gig for it. Luckily Blue Daisy is one of the most chilled out, down to earth humans I know. He takes everything in his stride and simply pressed play again while I asked the crowd who wants a rewind and we were off again.

I loved playing with Blue Daisy and I loved having a little dance at the end of the set to Head on Me. I think that was my favourite part. I love his beats and he really is a pleasure to work with so I am going to ignore the fact that he ran off with all our money and I havent heard from him in days.

Oh, Little Dragon were awesome too. Can’t wait to hear their new album. Apparently its even better than the last.

Stac xx

What a week!

It’s weeks like these that make me love life!!!! I sound like a hippy. I love it and the more stuff I do, the more I love it. Spirals work upwards too you know. Thats been my realisation over the past few weeks and its a good one!

So what have I been doing? Singing and organising. Basically.

Last week The OneTaste Choir played WahWah 45′s massive night at the Queen of Hoxton. We sang to about 150 people on the roof overlooking the city. It was hilarious. Only about 30 people could hear us because the wind kept sweeping our voices away, (presumably to keep them for himself) but it was SO much fun.

Here we are…in action before we all fled downstairs with our pints of Rose to dance the night away…

When we played OneTaste Festival a group of guys asked me if I only let good looking girls join the choir!

On Tuesday 26th OneTaste and The Wheel hosted our first night together called FLOCK. Oh. My. WORD it was ACE. There were so many amazing acts playing Dimbleby & Capper, Box Open, Cerwdson and of course ESKA. The OneTaste choir performed a song with Moats and Thrones who are Alice Grant on vocals and Tom Herbert on Double bass. It was so beautiful I almost cried. ESKA actually made me cry. Fully formed tears. If you missed this one, you should definitely come to the next but be warned, even if you are our Mum, it was totally sold out before we even opened the doors so book your tickets in advance to avoid sitting downstairs disappointed and waiting to see if you will be let in.

Tomorrow night I am playing a very special gig at the Borderline supporting the ever-so wonderful Gideon Conn. Id like it very much if you could attend. What else are you going to do? Watch the wedding?

Im off to ride my new bike for the first time. Her name is Louise and she is ACE.

Have a lovely weekend.

Stac x

Free Downloadarahma.

Hello Ian!
Are you enjoying the sunshine? I am. Yesterday I went for a walk for 2 hours in it. It was delightful apart from the lesson that was forced upon me that I am going to impart onto you. No matter how comfy your sandles are, your feet will not like you if you walk for 5 miles in them. I can still feel the burn!

Anyways. Im not here to tell you about the blisters on my feet. Hell no! I am here to tell you about the free music on offer. Do you remember me telling you about the remix competition we ran? Well we have decided to make the remixes that came oh so close to winning available for download for free, and so, therefor, from this moment on decided to dub the runners up, ‘Second Winners’.

You can get your Second Winner’s remixes from here

Hope you enjoy, I certainly do!

Im off to bask in the remaining rays. Stay safe in the sun. Maybe put on a little hat.

Stac x

http://stac.bandcamp.com/album/free-dl-remix-competition-runners-up