Friday 30 January 2015 First Anniversary Members Show Featuring Mike Whellans & Dave Arcari
The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh
To celebrate the first anniversary of the club, we will be holding an anniversary show exclusively for the members of the Edinburgh Blues Club.
Mike Whellans
Born in the Borders at the end of WW2, Mike began his musical life in the late 1950s/early 1960s playing his father’s drum kit, and by the age of 14 was playing in local dance bands. In 1969 he decided to turn professional and very soon released a first solo album. With Aly Bain he supported blues legend Son House at the Leith Theatre in 1970.
In the early 1970s, Mike was a member of the traditional Scots-Irish band, Boys of the Lough, and worked in a duo with fellow-Boy Aly Bain for about three years, playing amazingly clean and crisp flat-pick guitar behind Aly’s fiddle; a very dynamic duo!
In the 1980’s and 90’s, Mike then moved to live in Denmark and toured all over Scandinavia and in Germany and the Low Countries, as well as working back in the UK with those madcap Scottish musos, The Vindscreen Vipers Skiffle Group (Tich Frier, Bill Nolan, Malky McCormack and the late Danny Kyle).
Now, Mike’s living back in the Scottish Borders again and working as Scotland’s only (as far as we know) one-man blues band – and there aren’t that many in the UK either – with his guitars, mouth-harps, vocals and drum-kit – and of course his show-stopping, “mouth percussion”; a real tour de force. Mike is a regular sell out at the Fringe and a popular draw at blues and folk clubs within Scotland, Scandinavia and beyond.
Mike is an astounding guitar picker, equally at home on 6, 12 string or electric guitars, and is an amazing mouth-harp player too. And the other things he can do with his mouth? Well, you’ve just got to see and hear his vocal percussion to be convinced. Added to this; he sings, is a drummer of no slight talent, writes songs, seems to have boundless energy, and you’ve got a great entertainment in prospect with the most dynamic one-man blues band any side of the Forth delta.
http://www.mikewhellans.com
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Dave Arcari
Slide guitarist & songwriter Dave Arcari’s alt.blues sounds owe as much to trash country, punk and rockabilly as they do pre-war Delta blues and have been showcased via eight internationally-acclaimed solo CD releases.
His latest album – Whisky in my Blood – was released on Finnish record label Blue North in March 2013. As well as showcasing Arcari’s trademark National steel guitars, the release features performances on banjo, regular guitar and cigar box which help capture the full breadth of Arcari’s song-writing and performance.
Arcari’s debut US tour – six weeks, 30 shows and 7000 miles taking in the east coast, Tennessee and the mid-West – in summer 2013 was an overwhelming success and the foundations laid for future tours across the US.
Arcari’s festival appearances include Glastonbury (UK); Peer Festival (Belgium); Moulin Blues (Netherlands); BluesAlive (Czech Republic & Poland shows); The Great British R&B Festival; and Augustibluus & ViruFolk (Estonia).
He has also played industry showcases at the North by North East music festival in Toronto, Canada and he was a finalist the UK Indy Music Awards reaching the top four in his category (best male solo artist).
With more than 100 UK dates a year plus regular shows in Finland, Estonia, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland and Canada, Arcari is one of the hardest gigging live artists on the circuit. A series of shows with folks including Steve Earle, Alabama 3, Seasick Steve, Toby Keith and Jon Spencer along with his relentless UK and European tour schedule have established Arcari as a formidable international solo performer who is fast building a media reputation as a ‘hell-raising National guitar madman’.
Arcari’s growing reputation was endorsed in Spring 2007 when he was asked to put music to Robert Burns’ (Scotland’s national poet) poem Parcel of Rogues for a BBC Scotland special to mark 300 years of the Act of Union between Scotland and England. He also presented the programme, interviewing many high-profile political figures, musicians and historians along the way.
In 1996 he quit his first proper band role as guitarist with Summerfield Blues (which won the Alexis Korner memorial trophy for ‘Scottish Blues Band of the Year’ at Edinburgh International Blues fest in 2003 – the same year the band released it’s debut, and only, CD album Devil & the Freightman) to concentrate on his new found National steel guitar. It wasn’t long, though, before he was joined by harmonica player Jim Harcus and the intended solo career went by the wayside as Radiotones started to form and evolved into the force it is today. So while the electric Nationals and Marshall stack are on the back burner for Dave’s solo appearances, his hard-hitting gravel-laden vocals and slashing bottleneck steel guitar make for an aggressive, dynamic blues-based sound that owes as much to punk, rockabilly and trash country as pre-war Delta blues.
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This show is exclusively for members of the Edinburgh Blues Club. There will be the opportunity to win one of the brand new Edinburgh Blues Club shirts in a raffle and complete a short survey to outline your desires from the club.
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