Album Launch Oct 25th 2013

I had a really great evening to launch my new album At The Healing Tree. I had Paddy Uglow and Andrea Hernandez doing support sets then performed two sets of songs with the band I put together specially.

It was really good to play the tracks with the full backing of a band to do them more justice than when it’s just me and my guitar! Everyone did brilliantly and it felt like a turning point. I sold a few albums and also it’s now available as a hard copy on my website Chandra Moon and also for download on CDbaby, iTunes and Amazon.

Here’s a photo from the evening.

Next stage is to make some more videos and do some more live gigs and hopefully write some new songs!

 

Poster for my Album Launch in Bristol!

New Album At Last – At The Healing Tree

I am very happy to announce I have finally finished my second album At The Healing Tree and I am having a launch gig in Bristol on October 25th at The Halo Bar, Gloucester Road, 8pm – it would be wonderful if you could come.

The album features some wonderful musicians and I’m lining up a great band for the launch.

If you can’t make the launch or want to get your copy now, you can purchase the album at my website

• www.chandramoon.com

The album only costs £7.50 and I’m offering a very special deal of including my first album Full Circle for an extra £2.50 – so only £10 for two beautifully produced albums.

Of course, you can buy them separately too.

So, hope to see you at the launch or do visit my website to get your copy (or contact me direct if you’d rather pay by cheque). Thanks so much for all your support which has inspired me to get this far!

African Linx Festival June 22nd Taking Shape!

This is what I’ve been working on today! Can’t believe another year’s gone by and we’re organising our annual fundraiser for Kartong already!! Got a nice line up organised.

Christmas and Mad Magpie!

Had a really good family Christmas this year (I should say last year now shouldn’t I?). The only down side was that I managed to fall down the stairs on December the 19th and really sprain my right knee.

It was all due to a mad magpie that is intent on killing itself throwing itself repeatedly at my kitchen window. I presume he sees his reflection and thinks he’s his own rival then keeps coming back to check he’s frightened himself off! I was rushing around like you do at Christmas time – I’d stripped beds ready to re-make for people coming to stay and chucked the washing down the stairs rather than take it down. Suddenly I heard that pesky magpie banging the downstairs window – I rushed down to shoo him off, forgot the washing, caught my foot in the sheets and there you have it – a horrible accident. My knee twisted right under me and I felt something inside go ‘twang’ and here I am nearly 3 weeks on hobbling around like an old lady. It is improving now thankfully with the help of a good chiropracter.

Apart from that, what a lovely time we had. My daughter and her little girl came to stay for the best part of a week, my son joined us for a few days then P’s family and children came for the weekend after Christmas. We had a great time playing with the children with a fantastic toy called Geomag – we built the Eifel tower together and ate lovely food!

Christmas Lunch At Home

Building The Eifel Tower!

We had a quiet new year with neighbours over the road and generally relaxed.

This year (can’t believe it’s 2013 already) I’ll release and launch my second album which is nearly finished, we’re planning a trip to Russia and Ukraine in July to visit P’s newly found family, legalise our marriage on May 1st at the registry office (in private as we’ve already done our wonderful handfasting ceremony), various drumming things planned as usual and hopefully a first trip to Oz for P in the autumn or spring next year.

I need to overcome my musical lethargy – I haven’t written a new song in ages but it seems to be something that can’t be forced and at least I’m practicing and recording the old songs and getting tracks recorded that weren’t on the first album!

Happy New Year to all my bloggy friends and readers.

Lions of Africa – WOMAD

I’m just home from an amazing 5 days at WOMAD Festival UK held at Charlton Park annually. The line up of world class musicians was fantastic as ever with the final headliner being Robert Plant performing with the superb Juldeh Camara on riti (African violin) and Justin Adams on electric guitar. He’s still an amazing performer with all the enthusiasm of a young star!

We also saw the peerless Hugh Masakela and wonderful acts from all round the world.

I was lucky to be asked to play a set on the Lizard Stage (a small cafe stage in the fringe of the festival) and it was really a lovely atmosphere – I played a 45 min set to a small but appreciative audience and an old friend of mine sang lovely backing vocals as my keyboard player wasn’t available.

We were at WOMAD working with the All Singing All Dancing workshops with the incredible Lions of Africa, an act formed of several of our good friends from Senegal and Gambia – the pictures are fantastic on my Facebook page.

More pictures here! Lions of Africa

Middle Eastern Weekend and Other News!

What a busy and hectic time it’s been – but brilliant.

The Middle Eastern Weekend was wonderful – I was part of a melody group playing flute and we learned two gorgeous pieces of music as well as having my first ever go at belly dancing which was great fun.

The evening entertainment was fantastic with visiting musicians as well as lovely music from Maren and Chas the event organisers.

Meanwhile, Peter is now back from his extraordinary trip to meet relatives in Russia – quite life changing for him.

Next week we’re off to WOMAD festival and I’m thrilled to have been asked to play a set on one of the side stages called The Lunched Out Lizard Stage.

I’m on track 9 of the new CD and now working on track order and thinking about design for the album cover. Onwards and upwards!

Come and Celebrate Mid-Summer at African Linx One Day Festival, Cropredy, Oxfordshire!

Come and celebrate mid-Summer on Saturday June 23rd at The Brasenose Arms, Cropredy, OX17 1PW from midday till late for the annual African Linx Festival!

We’ve got a great line-up of music including the marvellous Oxford 22-piece Cuban band, RanKanKan and the lovely Louise Jordan, as well as Africa Junction and Sankofa, Chandra Moon and Paddy Uglow and DJ Fare to name but a few!

There’ll be wonderful stalls, cakes and food and more entertainment in the pub to finish off with from 9.30pm till late. For those that want to make a weekend of it, there’s camping only a few minutes away for vans or tents (let us know please if you’d like to camp).

We’re aiming to raise at least £1,000 towards the Kartong Festival in the The Gambia, so please can you do your bit by coming if you can and telling as many of your friends and family all about it and encouraging them to come along too – it’s a very inexpensive day out!

If you can’t make it along yourself on the day, would you consider making a donation (however small [or large ha ha]) made payable to African Linx (please email us to request the address for the cheque).

African Linx Facebook Event Page

Kartong Festival etc

I’ve been back in the UK for nearly a week now and thankfully it’s been mainly warm and sunny which is always better when you come back from somewhere hot – last year we came back to freezing conditions.

The Kartong Festival was brilliant this year, mainly because for the first time the Kartonkas themselves did most of the pre-planning and organising! This gives us great hope for the future of the festival. They’ll still need some technical help next year – especially with lighting and wiring but they planned all the programme and artists, food for artists, publicity. We helped with providing a stage manager, electrics and ticketing/wristbanding but pretty much everything else was locally run. We’re planning on returning in November to do some training/pre-planning and then not attending next February for the first time as the only way to really make the festival happen without us for the first time – sink or swim but we believe they can swim now!! It will be the eighth year after all!

For the first time, I played at the festival myself – flute with my kora playing friend Moriba Kuyarteh.

Here’s a video of us jamming with some other musicians at Tesito Ecolodge – the sound’s not brilliant but you get the general idea. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great festival this year

Chandra and Moriba at Tesito With Moussa and Chris

Dombondir and Kartong Festivals

Well at last it’s that time of the year again when I pack up my bags, try and remember everything we have to take, sort out the things we leave behind for a few weeks and fly off to the Gambia to help organise and support the Dombondir and Kartong Festivals.

Dombondir takes place in a beautiful quiet village in the Casamance area of Senegal bringing together amazing music, dance and wrestling in an extraordinary, colourful explosion of joy and culture! This is happening at the end of January closely followed on Feb 11th – 13th by the vibrant Kartong Festival just over the border in the Gambia.

We are very much involved with the organisation of Kartong Festival and gradually encouraging the local people to take more and more of the responsibility for it so that eventually it will hopefully happen whether we’re there or not! This year will be the sixth one so they’ve got lots of experience now.

I always feel a bit nervous going and leaving home for so long (back end of February) but excited at the same time and looking forward to seeing old friends and no doubt making some new ones. The music and dance are just wonderful and I’ll have the chance to play flute with my friend Moriba who plays the Kora (African harp) and hopefully we’ll play a set at Dombondir. We’ll also be having a week of sabar drumming workshops with Modou Diouf at Mama Sanchaba’s too.

We’ve said most of our goodbyes and have only tomorrow left for any last minute panics or shopping then it’s off we go from Birmingham airport early on Tuesday.

I’ll be sending text updates to Twitter regularly which will automatically update my Facebook status even without being able to get to the internet very often and hopefully be able to check my email every week or so but in the meantime goodbye for a while – keep well and I’ll bring back lots of lovely photos in a few weeks time.