Spooky Men

Hm, no posts since April. That'll be because I've not started any new songs since then. A shame when singing gives me so much pleasure. So let's re-purpose the blog, let's turn it into a singing diary so I don't forget all those magic moments.

Everybody I sing with is having a summer break right now, but that didn't stop me having a great time last week when the Spooky Men's Chorale came to Leeds. These guys can sing all right, beautifully, but they come across as just straightforward straight comfortable unstagey friendly blokes. No divas, no flourishes, no barbershop glitz. Just something rather special when a shuffling throng of surly behatted men in black grimly clear their throats and launch into the tragedy of Kasey Chambers’ Am I not pretty enough.

I was lucky enough to join in their workshop before the concert. We heard a couple of songs and then learnt a couple from the easier end of their repertoire; three-part, quite simple and repetitive but with some Georgian (Caucasian) cadences that sounded to my unattuned ears a bit like Trio Bulgarka. Oh, and sung in Georgian to keep us on our toes.

Interesting technique too; the starting point was that we weren't going to do anything we didn't already do with our voices, and then we started deconstructing what happened when we cried and laughed. A great way to handle the larynx. I was very gently chided for trying too hard and sounding too singer-y, and quite right too.

Highlights of the concert, or to be more precise what I can still remember a week later: the Spooky Theme, Don't stand between a man and his tool, And I love her, Ghost riders in the sky, Lightpole (about the existential angst of what we Brits call a lamppost, with the distorted pathetic voice of it has to be said a rather cute soloist), Dancing queen, and some break-your-heart Georgian songs.

Catch them if you can.