Hackney Colliery Band released our debut single in July 2010, and we got plenty of good reviews and lots of radio play all over the world, including some nice coverage on Radio 1. Not bad for something we recorded as a demo for £50!

The single sold out its initial vinyl run and was re-pressed in November 2010. Vinyl copies should still be available from some record shops, and digital copies are available until at least September 2087 from the usual suspects including iTunes, Kudos Records, Juno, Picadilly and Spotify.

Hackney Colliery Band / Money 7" :: Debut single by WahWah45s

“I’m excited about the Hackney Colliery Band! Why?” Gilles Peterson (BBC Radio 1)

“Could well be the strongest single to date for the Wah Wah camp, that basically does what the Hot 8 Brass Band did for Tru Thoughts, or what Matthew Herbert did for the very British Big Band sound. Take the heritage of the colliery band/Salvation Army, mix with Mike Westbrook and divide by the National Youth Orchestra and you get the HCB. Their cover of ODB’s ‘Got Your Money’ adds weight to the cause. Go get.” Found Sounds (DJ Magazine)

“‘Money’ is a no-brainer, easy sure-shot, simple and plain!” DJ Monk-One, NYCT (USA)

“That Hackney Colliery Band is ridiculous. Can they get out to California very soon?! Played “money” on this week’s show, quite a pleasure to play and will be dishing this one out to the masses many more times.” Jason Pulaski (Ubiquity / Kuci 88.9FM, USA)

“I`m loving these Hackney Colliery tunes, that’s perfectly my sound for sure! Great work and another dope wah wah 45 release!!! Will be getting lots of spins for sure.” Karsten John (Vinyl Vibes, Germany)

“I think the Hackney Colliery must have been before my time, but their band is still sounding fat and very funky. “Money’ is on the money. Can’t say fairer than thout!” Russ Jones (Hackney Globe Trotter / Future World Funk)

“Beautifully funky, already spinnin over lisbon skies and today on Noobai Soul cafe weds dj set. Saucy!” DJ Tiago Santos (Spaceboys, Lisbon, Portugal)

“Wow! What an amazing great summer tune this is…Love it…Will play it everywhere.” Phil Wicked Jazz Sounds (Holland)

“The Hackney Colliery Band seven is a winner! It was my last track at Hi-Fi terapi last Saturday. People were going wild and screaming for more bad ass brass!!” Eivind Olsvik (Hi-Fi Terapi, Norway)

“Money is a monster tune ! Will play on my openair show (SOAS) airing next week (500 downloads per week) …and my occasional forays behind the decks at Favela Chic!” Chris Greenwood (Stop Making Sense)

“Can’t wait to play HCB at my regular Sunday afternoon in Hollywood. I love seeing their expression change from “What’s this?” to “Is this what I think it is?” to “This is fucking great”.” DJ Dave Young (Los Angeles, USA)

“Really feeling this! Can’t wait to play “Money” out!” Ross (Part-Time Heroes)

“I ruddy love the Hackney Colliery Band, heavy.” Capstone (Wah Wah 45s / Tru Thoughts)

“Brilliant releases as always. “Money’ will rock summer dance floors 100% sure. It’s a pleasure to support such talented brass bands on my radio show!” Enrique Domenech (Fusionova Radio)

“What’s The Time, Mr. Wasp?” I’d say it’s time for another drink! Love that drunken horn vibe on his b-side – it’s like they’ve staggered out of a Hackney pub at the beginning, and marched off down the road happy as Larry.” Paris Pompor (Sydney Australia)

“Money reminds me of the street art that The Hot 8 Brass Band brought to my attention. Contender for our next show. Now on frequency every week!” M.path.iq (Germany)

“Loving the concept of a Colliery band coming off the Hackney marshes with two quality cuts of Jazzziness to impress us with loving it.” DJ Abbo (Starpoint Radio)

“Pure fun! Nice brass sounds!” Markus Milz (Further In Fusion)

“The funkiest brass band I have heard in a while and both tracks brought a huge smile to my face!” Georgios Paraglou (Greece)

“HCB stepping up and showing all the brass bands out there how it should be done! ‘Money’ already spun on the show and will be getting repeats all summer long” King Tee (Elbow Rooms)

“Had the privilege of seeing the Hackney Colliery Band perform at the Wah Wah Joint at VIbe Bar before moving to Canada.  I knew from your reaction at the show that they would be added to the already stellar Wah Wah artist line up.  Best of luck with the release, it will without a doubt do very well, hope it makes you lots of MONEY!” DJ Tom Mannix (Canada)

“I love the HCB! Would be great to see them in Brighton!” DJ Kappa (Brighton)

Radio play from Gilles Peterson (BBC Radio 1), Jason Pulaski (Kuci 88.9FM, USA), Markus Milz, Further In Fusion, Ennio Styles (3RRR, Australia), Pete Isaac, Jelly Jazz (Phonic.fm), Phil Lvene (Eclecticjazz.com), Tiago Santos (Radio Oxigenio 102.6FM, Portugal) & Enrique Domenech (Fusionova Radio)

Being MD for Robin Ince's Book Club at Latitude Festival was pretty much a highlight of the early part of the summer. As well as doing a few short comedy sets where I tried out some bits of my Origin of the Pieces show, I also ran a couple of epic cockney knees-ups, one in partnership with Kevin Eldon and featuring performances from Gavin Osborne, James Dowdeswell and Josie Long on the swannee whistle. It was, in the words of Chas and Dave, a Lovely Ol' Job, if I do say so myself. Getting 500 people doing the Hokey Cokey on the last night was, to put it mildly, fun.

Other Book Club stuff included various incarnations of an improvised musical about crabs taking over the world with Robi/yns Ince and Hitchcock, accompanying Robin reading a bedtime book for kids alongside Josie Long (swannee whistle) and Helen Zaltzman (toy glockenspiel) and an impromptu duet with Ben Goldacre playing my MIDI trumpet.

Speaking of which, was also good to perform with a laptop and live electronics hooked up to my trumpet/voice/melodica for the first time properly, even if it was in order to make lots of extremely silly and/or spooky sounds.

Latitude was especially busy for me in 2010 because I was also performing on trumpet and electronics with Ron Jetson, and doing the music/dance game Segue that I co-devised earlier in the year. Both went extremely well, thankyou very much, and here are some photos and a video to prove it.

(download)

Click here to download:

latitude-festival-dbxCmJfEjbJnHdstvkcf.zip (37.65 MB)

This is a piece of composition/sound design that I originally designed for the interactive theatre game Echo (dir. Mel Cook) in March 2009.

Echo was inspired by the Echo and Narcissus myth, and was commissioned by SPID theatre as a piece of interactive community theatre. It featured live musicians, actors, video projection and an interactive set as well as the sound collages and compositions that I designed for the show.

After interviewing members of the community living in and around the Trellick Tower in west London, I produced a series of narrative audio clues to guide players around the Meanwhile Gardens, a community space underneath the tower. The 'goal' of the game was to get to the final location, where we had produced an audio-visual installation which was triggered by a touch pad, which in turn triggered a camera and projector, projecting people's faces onto the side of the Trellick Tower, whilst a sound collage made from fragments of the interviews played through hidden speakers.

The piece was such a success that we re-ran it in September 2009 (which also featured me 'duetting' on trumpet with a fire juggler!), and again in modified form for the Latitude Festival in July 2010.

Here are some of the bits of sound design that I did for the show.

This one used a Tibetan singing bowl and shakuhachi flute along with some organ that I played.

Echo - Lionel by stevepretty

This one used lots of found sounds, and was played through a big PA in the skateboard park within Meanwhile Gardens:

Echo - Mace by stevepretty

Did a few other bits with Robin Ince over the summer, including a School for Gifted Children where myself and some other musicians improvised a soundtrack to Phil Jupitus' reading of erotic poetry. Pretty much the usual, really.

Both HCB and the Bollywood Brass Band performed at the Durham International Brass Festival in July, which was superb. Bands from all over the world converged on Durham for some loud blowing down bits of welded plumbing. It was a heavy weekend of playing, with a total of 12 sets between the bands and jam sessions until 4am. Great to see what other brass musicians are up to all over the world; the answer is: lots of spectacular stuff. Which makes me feel both good and bad.

In July, we performed Segue at the National Theatre as part of the Hide & Seek Festival, which was hot (a word which, in this context, can be used both in its literal and ‘something to shout during an impressive jazz solo’ sense).