North Tyneside Council proudly present Martha Wainwright with support from Tom Hickox (Mouth of the Tyne Festival 2017)
The PLAYHOUSE Whitley Bay, in partnership with North Tyneside Council, is delighted to announce that Canadian-American folk-rock singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright will appear as part of the Mouth of the Tyne Festival on Saturday the 8th of July.
With an undeniable voice and an arsenal of powerful songs, Martha Wainwright is a beguiling performer and a refreshingly different force in music. Martha began building a buzz with her well-noted EPs, prior to her 2005 critically and commercially successful debut LP, ‘Martha Wainwright’.
In 2008, Martha followed with her sophomore album, ‘I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too’, which showed her great musical maturity and talent as a songwriter. In 2010 she toured the world promoting her third album, ‘San Fusils, Ni Souliers A Paris: Martha Wainwright’s Piaf Album’. This extraordinary album, an homage to the great Edith Piaf, was received with glowing reviews, leaving audiences stunned by Martha’s incredible range and talent. Her album, ‘Come Home To Mama’, produced by Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda, was heralded by Mojo Magazine as a “substantial and brilliantly sung career best.” ‘Goodnight City’, released in November 2016, returns to the rawness of her first release and includes songs by Martha, as well as songs written by notable artists to highlight her incredible voice. These songs are written by her friends and other great songwriters such as Beth Orton, Glen Hansard, her brother Rufus Wainwright, Michael Ondaatje, and Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs.
Martha was born in New York City to folk legends Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. She is Rufus Wainwright's sister and they often collaborate in shows and on records. Martha is also half-sister to Lucy Wainwright Roche and they recently made a record together, ‘Songs In The Dark’ to much acclaim including a JUNO nomination. Martha tours her music around the world to sold out audiences on several continents. She has spent time on the silver screen playing characters in Martin Scorsese’s “Aviator” and more recently in the HBO special “Olive Kitteridge” alongside Frances McDormand. Currently Martha is finishing up a book titled “Stories I Might Regret Telling You” which, like her songs, is a window into her life without artifice, pretension or fakery.
SUPPORT: Tom Hickox
Following the release of his 2014 debut album War, Peace and Diplomacy (Fierce Panda) Tom Hickox released his new album, Monsters In The Deep, at the end of March 2017.
Monsters In The Deep is a major artistic leap. Both lyrically and musically, the songs see Hickox stretching out and fully availing himself of the possibilities presented by each song. This time around, Hickox held back from making the piano the prominent instrument on the album. Together with his life-long friend and co-producer Chris Hill, he played with different ways of presenting the songs. Time and again, it is an approach that brings out the best in Hickox: the fin de siecle consolation chorus of Collect All The Empties; the keening exhortations of Mannequin Heart which seem to locate an exquisite equidistant point between Tilt-era Scott Walker and a lost David Lynch soundtrack of the same period.
A key objective was to create an album that you could play for the first time and not have any idea what the next song would sound like on the basis of the one before it. As a result of these open-ended sessions, The Plough found its natural place away from the piano, its spare acoustic arrangement leaving a sense of space which echoes its protagonist’s awe at their own insignificance beneath the cosmic canopy. Certainly, it couldn’t be more different to the two songs that sit either side of it: the sybaritic schemer exhorting his companion to come and make a fresh new start in Istanbul; and then, the bright rhythmic rhapsodising of The Dubbing Artist.
Hickox’s fascination with the infinitely complex machinery of the city and our attempts to come to an accommodation with it is also abundant throughout the album – The Fanfare is an apocalyptic two-and-a-half minute exploration of that and of global tensions. And seemingly a world away from the lyrical slide show of that song is Perseus and Lampedusa. In 1972, Randy Newman recorded Sail Away, ostensibly a pretty song about escaping to a better world, but actually written from the perspective of an American slave trader, attempting to lure indigenous Africans onto his ship. In Hickox’s song, the key phrase is also “sail away”, and as with the Newman song, anyone clocking little more than the chorus might be forgiven for thinking they’re listening to a pretty piece of escapism. But, of course, in recent years, the Italian Island of Lampedusa has become known as the destination of the most dangerous route for north African migrants fleeing their own war-torn countries.
Each song on the album is multi-layered. The story is what’s on the surface, but the bit that connects is what underpins the story. Korean Girl In A Waiting Room is really a song about homesickness, written after Hickox witnessed the girl passed out and imagined her waking up surrounded by doctors a million miles from home, and she doesn’t speak English.
Herein lies the paradox that awaits you at every turn on this extraordinary album. For someone who clearly enjoys observing the never-ending human drama unfolding around him, Tom Hickox manages to reveal an awful lot of himself in that process. “We’re all trying to get through the day”, explains this most genial of artists, “and sometimes the odds seem insurmountable. But I’m a great believer in the human spirit. That’s why I love cities. That’s why I love *this* city. The bright lights entice you in and tell you that you can start over, not just once, but every day. That’s priceless for someone like me. It means that every day, I want to write. How could you not?”
“This one’s a keeper.” MOJO
“A remarkable album...Literate chamber pop at its most haunting, poetic and complex.” Sunday Times
“Hickox’s second album combines magnetic storytelling with vibrant melodies… with an underlying current of melancholy reminiscent of John Grant.” Uncut Magazine
“A dark mixture of Scott Walker and a David Lynch soundtrack.” 9/10, Louder Than War
Public safety continues to be our priority. We’re doing all we can to keep you safe at our venue. Please remember we do not permit backpacks or large bags and you will be screened upon arrival. Read more about our safety policy here Read more