Quiet start to the year on the gig front, but behind the scenes things have been manic as I try to write and record the next album before the gigs and We Shall Overcome suck up all the spare time.
There has been a slight change of plan in that the proposed ‘Potter’s Field’ album has been put on hold for 12 months following my reading two books by Brian W. Lavery about Hull’s fishing industry and the Hessle Road community central to it. My head went BANG and I wrote an album of songs in three weeks. With time on my hands I set about recording them and I’m currently 9 down out of 11 and looking good to be finished the first stage for Easter meaning I can focus on the live stuff after that.
If you’re interested in my progress, the demo versions are here:
and I’m hoping to have the album, ‘Headscarves & Hurricanes’ out this year as it is the 50th anniversary of the Triple Trawler disaster which sparked many of the songs on the record.
From next week the gigs come thick and fast, and if you want to catch me out there then here’s where to find me between now and the end of June.
MARCH
24th LEEDS – The Chemic (WSO)
30th SCARBOROUGH– Cask (WSO)
APRIL
13th MANCHESTER– Moston Miners Club (Labour Party Fundraiser)
14th WIGAN– IBMT Memorial Unveiling
15th CROXTON KERRIAL– Geese & Fountain
22nd MANCHESTER– Curzon Ashton FC Function Room (2pm)
22nd ROTHERHAM– Trades Club (Evening)
MAY
4th FILEY– Folk Festival
6th BARNSLEY– May day Festival Of Solidarity
8th DUBLIN– Liberty Hall
11th DURHAM– Old Cinema Launderette (with Grace Petrie)
19th BOLTON– Socialist Club
20th WAKEFIELD– With Banners Held High 2018
25th LEEDS– New Headingley Club
27th MANCHESTER– Strummercamp 2018
27th WARRINGTON– Old Town House
JUNE
2nd GLASTONWICK FESTIVAL 2018
3rd DONCASTER– Something to Smile About Festival – 2018 – Doncaster
5th MANCHESTER– Mechanics Institute (TUC 150 with Oysters 3)
9th WARSOP– Black Market Venue (with Blyth Power & Star Botherers)
10th SOUTHPORT– Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union – BFAWU Conference
15th DONCASTER– Bob Crow Education Centre
16th MANCHESTER– 0161 Festival
….and there’s more to come.
Plus all the plotting and scheming for We Shall Overcome.
and I’d really like the world to hear these songs so if you can see your way clear to giving it a play and a share that would be brill.
JOE SOLO POEMS
I have also released an album of my more topical poems entitled ‘Why Are You So Angry: Collected Political Poems 2016-18’. I get asked about these a lot so thought I’d record them for you and shouted myself hoarse banging them all out together last Saturday night. You can download here:
There’s a brand new bundle on Bandcamp which gathers all 11 of my albums since 2009 in a single purchase costing a bargain £35. This is everything from ‘Music From Potter’s Field’ right the way up to and including ‘Not On Our Watch’. If you are new to Joe Solo stuff then it’s a pretty good way of getting started in that there’s almost 150 of my songs there. You can get your mits on that here:
May Day Festival of Solidarity returns to Old School House in Barnsley over the weekend on May 5th/6th and once again Tony Wright and meself have pulled out all the stops to ensure you get the best in music, poetry and speeches from some of the finest live acts around and unions and campaigning groups at the forefront of the fight for equality and social justice. We have music from Merry Hell, The Wakes, Headsticks, Reg Meuross, TV Smith, The Moods, Under A Banner, Paul Carbuncle, Ribbon Road, Chuck SJ Hay, Tracey Curtis, Quiet Loner and Rebekah Findlay (plus The Hurriers and Joe Solo being as how we’re there anyway….); poetry from Kevin Titterton, Laura Taylor, Matt McAteer and the crew from Poetry On The Picket Line; a not-to-be-missed performance from Ian Saville The Marxist Magician; and speeches galore. Tickets are £15 for a single day or £20 for the weekend, and you can find them at:
And throughout the year we’ll be working towards the fourth We Shall Overcome campaign, begging and cajoling folks from up and down this land to join us over the weekend of October 5th/6th/7th when we’ll be looking to protest #ToryNeglect in #FoodBankBritain and try once again to put an end to austerity politics once and for all. If you want to join us, or can bring a gig to the party message me at: joesolomusic@hotmail.co.uk and please follow the gig guide at:
Throughout the year I’ll be slowly writing and recording songs for a new album returning to the ‘Potter’s Field‘ material and revisiting some of the old songs at the same time as adding a few more. I have asked Rebekah Findlay to look at three or four of the female narrated songs with a view to recording her own versions to give the album greater musical and emotional depth, and there will be a short tour in the weeks before the centenary of Armistice Day. More info as we have it.
Other than that I’ll be out there ranting and raving and campaigning harder than ever for the cause. This is a make or break year I feel, and we need to take some of the momentum gained in 2017 and force home the political advantage to first blunt the worst excesses of this government and then defeat it once and for all. I can only brings words and music to the party, but I’ll be there.
I recorded a 16-strong download-only album of poetry last night compiling my topical stuff for those who like me ranting.
Entitled ‘Why Are You So Angry: Collected Political Poetry 2016-18’ it is available to stream for free, or download on ‘Name Your Price’ (click 0.00 if you want it for nowt) and you can get your mits on it on this link:
“It leaves us with the certain conviction that we owe it to those who came before us, and, indeed, to those who come after, to continue to fight oppression and inequality in all its many forms and to make the world a better place in whatever way we can.”
An excerpt from the Yorkshire Gig Guide review of ‘Not On Our Watch’.
Brilliant day launching my new album ‘Not On Our Watch’ at WSO Central, The Station Hotel in Ashton-Under-Lyne. I cannot think of a finer way to send an album out into the world than in trying to help change lives and that’s exactly what we did.
Pauline Town had put together an amazing bill featuring my Punk Soul Brother Daniel Lucas, the fantastic Tony Auton, Dan Hetfield, Nina Gerstenberger, Chris Neale, Steve Davis, my WSO Brother Jamie Bramwell (who sadly fell ill and couldn’t make it….get well soon, comrade!) and Josie and John Caton-Greasley; and the whole event was run as a We Shall Overcome/RMT Solidarity gig with all proceeds going to help house some very vulnerable people. Thanks to a donation from Sean McGowan and the RMT, plus the funds raised by the WSO Xmas Party in York already in the pot, we needed to make £500 from the gig in order to fulfill our aims and we SMASHED IT!
The day was made all the better by the arrival of a mini-bus containing assorted Hatfield Brigade reprobates who later joined me onstage to sing ‘They Could Not Break This Town’; and I also had the honour of singing ‘Halo’ with Daniel once more, which is always a special point in any set.
The most moving moment though has to be singing ‘Keep The Faith’ unplugged. We had made this ‘The Sandra Lanaghan Memorial Gig’ and to sing THAT song once more for Mick and Karl and Kerry and all who loved her so much was very special indeed.
The day was also recorded by Michael Lee Toas who had travelled from County Durham to capture some of the gig for the forthcoming WSO Documentary. Incredible solidarity from a superb young filmmaker, and we can’t wait for the results.
Not much could better a night like that except the outcome. We were £35 short of our target as I left, but arrived home at 2.30am to find a message from Bandcamp telling me there had been £41 worth of downloads while I’d been out and I’ve since sent that over to Pauline to see us over the line.
This is the very essence of what We Shall Overcome is all about, a demonstration of street-level solidarity, a grassroots fight against austerity from people who DO give a damn and WILL step up when needed.
Thanks to this event, and all who bought CDs/downloads in the week leading up to it, and WSO York and the RMT, we have been able to find a young woman facing a life sleeping rough a flat; get a man who had lost access to his daughter through his homelessness somewhere to live and reconnected him with his little girl; and moved a family in a very dangerous situation into a new house where they are safe and can raise their unborn child without fear.
What a way to start the year!
‘Not On Our Watch’ has been sent off out into the world with the finest of starts, and this is how #WSO2018 means to carry on.
Delighted to announce May Day Festival Of Solidarity returns to The Old School House in Barnsley over the weekend of May 5th/6th bringing together voices from culture and politics to celebrate International Worker’s Day.
The festival co-run by Hurriers-frontman Tony Wright and myself is now in its third year and we are very excited to bring you a PHENOMENAL bill of music featuring Merry Hell, The Wakes, TV Smith, Headsticks, The Moods, Under A Banner, Reg Meuross, Chuck SJ Hay, Ribbon Road, Tracey Curtis, Quiet Loner, Rebekah Findlay and, being as how we’re there anyway, The Hurriers and Joe Solo; we also have poetry from Laura Taylor, Kevin Titterton, Matt McAteer and Poetry On The Picket Line; plus a performance by the peerless Ian Saville The Marxist Magician.
And as always we welcome guest speakers from a range of unions and campaigning groups at the forefront of the fight for social justice and worker’s rights.
Tickets are priced £15 for a day or £20 for the full weekend, and are available on this link:
Delighted to announce the launch party for my new album ‘Not On Our Watch’ will be held at The Station Hotel, Ashton-Under-Lyne on Saturday February 3rd 2018.
There’s really no other place I can hold it than the beating heart of We Shall Overcome, and the event will be making collections of food, cash and clothing for WSO as well as being an RMT Solidarity Event showing our support for the union, fighting daily for passenger safety on the rail network. The RMT have made a donation to the pot and together we are looking to raise enough money to house some very vulnerable people facing life out on the streets. I can’t think of a better way to launch an album out into the world.
We have an incredible bill for you with sets from my WSO brother Jamie Bramwell, Daniel Lucas aka Boss Caine, Tony Auton, Steve Davis, Neil Edwards, Dan Hetfield, Josie Caton-Greasley and John Caton-Greasley, Chris Neale and more tbc. There will be music early til late and all are welcome.
It’s free to get in, but please bring a donation to the cause. Doesn’t matter how much or how little. The door is open.
We have contingents from the RMT, a mini-bus full of thirsty Hatfield Brigaders, and as many people as we can ram into Pauline Town‘s pub.
The whole day, like the album, is dedicated to the memory of Sandra Lanaghan.
We Shall Overcome 2018 hit the ground running this weekend as my gig calendar started with an absolute blast.
On Saturday I played The Community Enterprise Centre in Hull as a fundraiser for Hull North Labour Party and the local food bank. Against all the cliches of January being a bad month to run an event like this the place was packed and first Tenfoot Ukes, and then the legend that is Joolz Denby, raised the rafters as well as much-needed supplies of non-perishables. I had a cracking time on stage from start to finish and Kev Horler and all involved in running the night should be damn proud of a job well done.
I put copies of the new album ‘Not On Our Watch’ on sale for the cause and we managed to raise another £95 for the food bank with CDs.
Sunday I joined my WSO brothers Ste Goodall and Jamie Bramwell for a WSO Solidarity event helping to raise a fighting fund for the Mears workers striking for their jobs and livelihoods over in Manchester. Great to see so many turning out in solidarity on a Sunday afternoon, and again ‘Not On Our Watch’ managed to raise more help with an extra £90 from CD sales going to the cause.
Cracking weekend, and the best possible start to not only #WSO2018 but to an already hectic gig diary for the year ahead out there doing Woody’s Work where I belong.
The new Joe Solo album ‘Not On Our Watch’ was released on CD and download on January 1st.
As ever there is limited distribution so if you want CD copies you need to be at Bandcamp, or better still, one of this year’s gigs. If you’re happy with downloads ‘Not On Our Watch’ is available from all the major online outlets at fixed prices, but Bandcamp lets you ‘Name Your Price’ so you can get it for FREE if you’re struggling to make ends meet. Just set the price to 0.00 and it’s yours. If you CAN afford to buy it, all download money from Bandcamp goes to help Pauline Town fight poverty in Greater Manchester; and all funds raised from the likes of Amazon and i-tunes goes to the DN7 Hardship Fund helping those struggling in the former pit villages of South Yorkshire.
I think they call that putting your money where your mouth is.
Tracklist is as follows:
Not On Our Watch
You Take On One Of Us
JFK (1/28/17)
The World Won’t Change Itself
Retribution Blues
Now’s The Time To Rise
Black Snowflakes
They Could Not Break This Town
Keep The Faith
More Fool You
Charlottesville
Land Of Hope & Glory
Adelante (The Ballad Of Clem Beckett)
Many of these songs have been played live over the last few months so there will be plenty you know already on there.
Please buy it. As ever, blood, sweat and tears went into it and I’m really made-up with the result. Rebekah Findlay sprinkles her magic dust on six of the tracks, The Hatfield Brigade on another, and Kevin Pearson‘s artwork makes it a proper nice package.
I keep thinking that one of these years will be a quiet one. Musicians have those. For some reason we just aren’t what the year needs. Sometimes we get two in a row. Sometimes three. Sometimes we quit before our time comes round again. Sometimes we keep the faith and our patience is rewarded. One thing’s for sure though, we never escape unscathed. We all get the quiet ones, and my time will come round again.
Thankfully, 2017 wasn’t that year, and a MASSIVE thank you to all you cheered, sang, applauded, shook, rattled and rolled; to all who bought CDs, downloaded, played videos; to everyone who booked me, did sound and lighting, fed me, watered me and put me up…..and put up with me; to all who encouraged me, messaged when times were hard, commented on threads, shared and retweeted; to all who supported We Shall Overcome, donating to causes up and down the land and helping untold numbers of people when they needed it most. You all keep me going.
The year started with a new album. It usually does. This time around I was really proud of it and I knew it contained my best songs, and best poems. ‘The Future Needs Us Now’ was officially released on 6th January and both the title track and ‘Blue Town’ were played by Tom Robinson on 6Music, and the poem ‘Why Are You So Angry?’ went viral several times on live videos. I recorded some of the key songs, and some old favourites, with Michael Lee Toas and the resulting 23 videos were released as ‘The Shed Sessions’. You can find them under the header elsewhere on this website, but the aforementioned poem is here:
The album was launched at The Station, Ashton-under-Lyne at a big WSO All-dayer which raised enough money to help Pauline Town get a number of people off the streets and into accomodation; a great start for the record, and if that was all it had achieved I’d have taken that. It was a cracking day and set the tone for another hectic year on the road.
I managed to haul my way through Doncaster, Dewsbury, Scarborough, Wakefield, Salford, Nottingham, South Kirkby, Milnsbridge, Pickering, Barnsley, Leicester, London, Sheffield, Hull, Carlisle, Manchester, Saltburn, Chesterfield, Belper, Glastonbury, Southport, Middlesbrough, Blackburn, Newcastle, Redcar, Wigan, Stockton-on-Tees, Selby, Belfast, Huddersfield, Bolton, Louth, Bradford, Warsop, Stainforth, Portslade, Leeds, Durham, Liverpool, Goole, Scunthorpe, Otley, Darlington and York…..many of them more than once; and once again I was met with amazing people trying to change the world for the better. On the way, on top of all the We Shall Overcome campaigns the gigs were supporting, I helped Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, the Labour Party election campaign, Punk 4 the Homeless, Love Music Hate Racism, International Brigades Memorial Trust, Hope Not Hate, and several campaigns supporting refugees to name but a few, but some of the help we raised was for individuals struggling with health or housing and these matter as much, if not more as they show the direct correlation between live music and help on our streets. As I keep saying through the mic, gigs are one of the few places we gather as a community with a shared purpose, and they can be used for so much more than just selling CDs and t-shirts and expanding a mailing list. It matters.
There were obvious highlights out there. I loved both trips to London, first for The Clash 40th anniversary gig….
and then for the Betsey Trotwood all-dayer where I did both a set of songs AND my very first poetry gig, and I can’t thank Chip and Nadia enough for making that possible. Nor can I thank Lynda and Ernest enough for finally making me get on a plane and play Belfast! I had a phenomenal couple of days with them being shown the sights of an incredible city, and I’ll never forget my time there.
May Day Festival of Solidarity was once again a blinding weekend and putting that bill together with Tony, and watching set after set of musical genius, is something I hope we can do together for many years to come.
And of course, Glastonbury Festival where, thanks to Billy Bragg, I got to play the Leftfield stage, and soak up an unforgettable weekend of music and comradeship.
I gave Glastonbury my all, but then I did the same in Wigan a few days later, and the town after that. Some of the gigs were rammed, others a little more intimate, but I know you always got everything I had, and I don’t treat one gig any different from the next because you are never playing for who isn’t there, only ever for who is. Glastonbury was great, but they only come round every……well, for me, thirty years! There was more work needed doing.
We Shall Overcome exceeded all our expectations, and we finish the year having clocked up 700 gigs in 142 towns and cities across nine countries on three continents, all since we kicked it off in May 2015. Those events have raised an estimated £350,000 worth of food, cash, clothing, bedding, furniture, tents and electrical goods for those suffering at the sharp end of austerity; and as #WSO2017 makes way for #WSO2018 we take a big deep breath before launching ourselves headlong into the fight of our lives, because if we are going to change things for the better in this country I believe it is now or never. Socialism has struck many blows this year, not least in the June election, but the fight is far from over and if we rest on our laurels, the powers that be will rally and defeat us. We cannot allow this to happen, and We Shall Overcome will be there for anyone who needs us whether supporting the homeless and hungry, helping raise funds for striking workers, or just reminding people that our own fates depend on those of our friends and neighbours, that communities need the encouragement and heart of people active within them in order to survive; that together we are stronger.
The General Election brought a flurry of gigs and campaigning, and I raised funds for local CLPs as well as playing a number of dates on the Stand Up For Labour tour. I recorded two songs for the Corbyn campaign and loved hearing those choruses coming back at me in every town I visited.
I was proud to play a small part in turning the tide over that few weeks in May and early June, and I will continue to support the fight against the Tories in whatever way I can, however long it takes.
ButtonMakers Pattern Template
I finished the year releasing another single with The Hatfield Brigade. ‘They Could Not Break This Town’ was great fun to record, and will be a live favourite for years to come I am sure of it.
The video is here:
and the song can be found on the new album.
Which brings us right back to where we started. On Monday January 1st I launch another record. ‘Not On Our Watch’ was recorded in breaks between the madness, and completed with the addition of Rebekah Findlay‘s magic dust in November. I can say hand on heart you get everything I had to give this year, and I am very proud of it. I hope you give it a whirl and find something on there that reaches out and plucks on your heartstrings. That’s what I make them for.
So there we have it. That was the year that was. As the new year turns we start where we left off. Benefit gigs, solidarity gigs, WSO organising, another May Day Festival of Solidarity, the exciting prospect of MLT Productions launching the We Shall Overcome documentary film…..I’ll be out there doing Woody’s Work as always and it would be great to see you.
……oh, and look out for The Armistice Tour in late October/early November. I’ll be playing the ‘Potter’s Field’ songs for the first time in nine years and there will be an accompanying album. So watch this space x
Joe Solo 