WELCOME TO BRAVURA HOKUM
THE ONLINE HOME OF GUITARIST, SONGWRITER AND PRODUCER DARREN ROBERTS
LATEST NEWS
INTRODUCING - THE RAISE
Well....that big news that keeps being mentioned....It's been ten years since the demise of rootjoose but the pulse of the popular Cornish outfit still beats strong in the hands of Rob Elton and his new band The Raise. The Raise have recorded an album's worth of material and it'll surprise few to hear that a few of the tracks were initially destined for a follow up rootjoose record that never came to light. The Raise have a similar sound to that of the rockier side of rootjoose and have newer material which gives the new outfit their own unique voice.
The band will shortly be releasing an album and promise that their set will blow you away. After heavy rumors of a rootjoose reunion last year Rob realized that it was a no-brainer to get a band together to showcase his rockier roots."
The first live appearance of The Raise is on April 1st at Bunters in Truro, with Hyper (ex-Prodigy and Pitchshifter axe man Jim Davies and co) and The Sum Of, and the album will follow shortly!
This is the reason Darren has no solo engagements this year, and why work on the new solo material has fallen off the radar slightly. However, there will still be a new Darren Roberts album this year aswell!
Just to prove the April 1st gig isn't an April fools gag...
Photo by Joel Stinton
Darren plans to take a little while away from solo performance to concentrate on a very exciting new band (more about that soon!) but in the meantime there's the small matter of 2 albums worth of material to release, and the Stickmen project to finally complete, so keep your eyes out for news soon...!
The awesome photograph above was taken by Darren's close friend and photographer Joel Stinton, whose work can be seen here, so huge thanks to Joel aswell!
Next stop is Gaslights in Redruth for the last solo gig of the year, and possibly next year too, again with Gareth Bartlett, on November 20th!
THE 2ND ANNUAL SHELTERBOX BENEFIT CONCERT
Darren made an unplanned, impromptu return to solo performance at the Shelterbox Benefit, read about it on the Live page! There will be lots of exciting news coming very soon, so keep your eyes peeled!THE TOUR IS OVER!
Darren's Solo Acoustic Tour 2010 has officially ended, with the final date being played last night where it begain in May, at Gaslights in Redruth. Darren would like to say a massive thank you to all the venues he's played this year, to James Townsend, Beth Chapman, Brandon Reynolds and especially Gareth Bartlett for their wonderful support slots, and last but not least to everyone who came to the shows and helped make this a very special year.Darren plans to take a little while away from solo performance to concentrate on a very exciting new band (more about that soon!) but in the meantime there's the small matter of 2 albums worth of material to release, and the Stickmen project to finally complete, so keep your eyes out for news soon...!
LIVE IN FALMOUTH
Darren returned to the stage last night at Jacob's Ladder, for his second to last solo gig for quite some time. It was a cracking night for a number of reasons, not least because the show was opened by Gareth Bartlett. Gareth has piles of stuff over on www.garethbartlett.co.uk including lots of his brilliant original songs, so make sure you get over there!The awesome photograph above was taken by Darren's close friend and photographer Joel Stinton, whose work can be seen here, so huge thanks to Joel aswell!
Next stop is Gaslights in Redruth for the last solo gig of the year, and possibly next year too, again with Gareth Bartlett, on November 20th!
MUSIC TRURO
Darren has been added to the bill at the Music Truro festival on Thursday 16th September, where he will share the billing with old Blue Murder band mate Gareth Bartlett! The slot runs from 12:30pm until 2pm, so hopefully see some of you there!More dates should be added to Darren's itinerary for the coming months within the next week, so keep your eyeballs pointed at the Live page details of new shows as they're announced.
DARREN ON PENWITH RADIO
Thanks to everyone who tuned into The PM Show to hear Darren's interview and live set! You can read all the details from the show on the Live page, and hopefully the live performances from the show will be available online in the next week or two.Massive thanks to Kevin Godden and everyone at Penwith Radio, and once again to everyone who tuned in!
THE PM SHOW WITH KEVIN GODDEN @ PENWITH RADIO
Darren will be appearing live on The PM Show with Kevin Godden, on Penwith Radio, on Thursday August 5th! The show starts at 6pm, and aswell as chatting about his music and plans, Darren will be performing a few songs live in the studio!Be sure to tune in to the show, here http://www.penwithradio.co.uk/
HELSTONBURY 2010
So, alot of people have been sad to see the lack of Darren at this year's upcoming Helstonbury Festival, especially as it's the 10th year of the event. Well, good news, Darren will play an hour(ish) long solo set on the acoustic stage on Saturday 17th at 5:30pm! As it's Helstonbury, expect a couple of one off's and suprises....!Also, some video footage of the erased live album show has been added to youtube, have a look HERE to see "Shoreline" and "Borrow", and hopefully a couple more tracks will be added soon.
Finally, some new photos from the short acoustic tour have been added to the Gallery page, and work on Darren's much vaunted "Stickmen" project has finally resumed.... More soon!
LIVE ALBUM RECORDING
So, this Sunday sees the current run of acoustic shows come to an end with a performance at The Blue Anchor in Helston, outside in the garden. Darren has played in The Blue many, many times over the years and to mark the occasion, and also to celebrate the shows that have been played so far this year, Sunday's gig is to be recorded for release as a live album in the Autumn! So, hopefully see plenty of people there and lets make this the best show of the year, there's bound to be a few rarities thrown in for the recording!AWKWARD EASY - FREE DOWNLOAD
Darren's brand new single "Awkward Easy" is available to download now absolutely free! Click the picture below to download the track, and the front and back covers.
FIRST 3 SHOWS OF THE YEAR..
...all went really well! Darren played two epicly long solo sets at Gaslights and then over on the Island of Tresco, and followed it up with a cracking Bucket Of Blues show! Setlists, reports and new for this year, links to videos are all up now on the Live page!Darren would like to extend special thank you's to Robin Lawson and everyone at The New Inn, Tresco for being so fantastic, and also to Ashley James who stood in behind the drum kit with A Bucket Of Blues and brought a whole new dimension to the band. Cheers guys!
The new single is out next week, so keep watching BH!
2010 SHOWS START TONIGHT!
The first show of 2010 is finally upon us, at Gaslights in Redruth tonight at 9pm! This show was originally to feature support from Naomi James, but now there will be no support, with Darren playing straight through from 9. The new single "Awkward Easy" will be available to download absolutely free, here at Bravura Hokum in the next week, so keep your eyes out for that too!
Hope to see you all there!
A FEW BITS OF NEWS FROM DARREN
Hey everyone!Since my last little blog post on here quite a lot of things have happened, as you know the first few dates of the acoustic tour are in, latest one is Gaslights in Redruth on May 12, and hopefully I'll have 3 more confirmed in the next few days! So keep your eyes out for those. If you want a little reminder of what the acoustic sets sound like, you can hear some live tracks from last year here, and you can see some live videos here!
The other big news is while work is ongoing on the Stickmen project and album number 3, I'm releasing a single at the end of May to tide everyone over! The song is called Awkward Easy, and was originally intended to be on the next record. It will be available FREE to download from Bravura Hokum, and also at the acoustic shows on CD!
So, I'll hopefully have some more news for you all in the next few days, cheers for hanging in there!
Darren
2 MORE DATES FOR THE DIARY
Two more dates have been added to the schedule for 2010! On Saturday 15th May, the blues quartet A Bucket Of Blues return to The Harbour Inn in Porthleven, and on Thursday 3rd June Darren returns to Jacob's Ladder in Falmouth for a solo acoustic show, with support coming from friend and collaborator James Townsend. All details as usual can be found here.THE FIRST DATE OF 2010 IS IN
The first date to be confirmed for 2010 is in, and it's a very special one, as it's Darren's first ever performance on the Isles of Scilly! Darren will play a solo acoustic show on the island of Tresco on Friday 14th May, as the opening night of the Tresco Beer and Music Festival at The New Inn.All tour dates and details are to be found on the Live page, and keep checking back as more dates are to be announced soon!
NEWS UPDATE FROM DARREN
Hey everyone! Just thought I'd do a little update myself to let you all know what the plan is for 2010. I know it's been pretty quiet from me for a few months now, apart from venturing out on NYE with Stopsigns, but that's because I've been hard at work on new material. I have 2 new piles of work on the go, one is my actual 3rd album, the follow up to Peering Through The Bars. There are about 14 songs in various stages of completion at the moment, which I think is a few too many so the plan is to weedle it down to 10 or 12, and the others may come out on an EP or as singles or something, not sure yet. I'm planning on going out on tour (just me solo, not with my band) for a few months and playing some of the new songs, in the hope that it'll help me decide what to keep and what to ditch! Hopefully there'll be some news on the tour dates front in the next couple of weeks, keep your eyes here at BH for news on that.
The other thing I've been working on is a big 'un. While I was writing the material for the new album one of the songs got a little bit out of hand, and has ballooned into a 40 minute narrative concept piece about depression and people's struggles to find purpose at difficult times in their lives (usual upbeat subject matter!). It's entitled "Stickmen" and is by far and away the best thing I've ever done. We're looking into making a short film or series of films to accompany it, and put on a special performance for charity at some point later in the year (eg when it's finished). So, if anyone wants to get involved in this project on any level it would be hugely appreciated, drop me a line through the site and I'll get back to you.
Anyway that's you pretty much updated on what's goin on, keep checking the site for upcoming dates and I'll see you all soon!
Darren
PS Here's a picture of what Stickmen looks like..
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
A very merry christmas and a happy new year to everyone from Darren and Bravura Hokum. 2009 has been a great year for Darren with the release of the acclaimed "Peering Through The Bars" album and some really good shows, in particular the launch party for the new album which was one of the highlights of his career so far. You can see some footage of this show along with a few others over at Darren's YouTube page
Darren has taken a couple of months off but returns on new years eve with Stopsigns, live at the Harbour Inn in Porthleven, and is soon to return to work on new material, with currently about 2 hours worth of new music already in various stages of completion!
So, thanks to everyone who bought the album, who bought the first album, and who came out to the shows in 2009, and lets have an even better year in 2010!
MORE NEW SHOWS ANNOUNCED
3 more shows have been added to Darren's calendar for the rest of the year. First up Darren will play 2 consecutive solo acoustic shows with the awesome Tony Haven, the first in Hayle at Smugglers on September 25th and then the following night in Falmouth at Jacob's Ladder, and then on new year's eve, Stopsigns will be playing at The Harbour Inn in Porthleven, which will be a huge party and should be an awesome way to bring in 2010!All gig details, including the set from last night's A Bucket Of Blues show are to be found on the Live page.
A BUCKET OF BLUES
A Bucket Of Blues returned to the stage last night and Darren, Mark and Chris would like to extend a massive thanks to Mark on drums and Distan on sax for coming and playing with us, and making it such an awesome, funky and unique show.LATEST GIG REVIEWS AND PEERING THROUGH THE BARS SALES NEWS
Updates from all Darren's recent live performances, solo and with Stopsigns, are available on the Live page, with all recent setlists posted. Don't forget that Darren's next live performance is Saturday 12th with the blues quartet "A Bucket Of Blues" in The Harbour Inn, Porthleven, at 9pm.Latest news from the shop floor is Peering Through The Bars has exceeded first month sales of Tipping The Bridge, and the initial print run is well on the way to selling out! Thanks to everyone who's bought it so far, remember it's still available on iTunes, click the link on the widget a few stories down, and on CD.
STOPSIGNS TO HEADLINE BLUE ANCHOR BEER FESTIVAL
STOPSIGNS have been lined up to headline this year's beer festival at The Blue Anchor after their showstopping performance at the Helstonbury Festival this year. The show is this Friday (4th September) and will kick off at 9pm, so the band hope to see you all there!To celebrate this show there are a whole pile of new photographs in the Gallery from Stopsigns' last performance, at Helstonbury Festival '09, so check them out!
LISTEN TO AND BUY BOTH ALBUMS WITH THE NEW WIDGET
The new Darren Roberts Widget is now available! Click below to listen to songs, download the albums from iTunes or click share to add the widget to your homepage!PEERING THROUGH THE BARS IS FINALLY RELEASED WITH FANTASTIC LAUNCH PARTY!
Peering Through The Bars was finally released on Saturday August 8th with a fantastic launch party at The Angel Hotel in Helston, attended by 70 specially invited friends and family members of Darren and the band, and was a massive success!
Darren wished to give a massive thanks to everyone who came out, bought the album, Dan and Dave at the Angel, the band and in particular Grant and Tim for the sound, light and generally making it all so good.
More information, photos, news and hopefully some video from the show soon, click here.
Peering Through The Bars is now available on iTunes and on CD!
STOPSIGNS AT HELSTONBURY AND ALBUM LAUNCH UPDATE
Darren, Sam and Martin would like to thank everyone who came out to this year's Helstonbury Festival, and in particular Paul Turton for his usual hard work in putting it together! The band hugely enjoyed themselves! There should be some photo's up soon, and details in the LIVE section.The release of Peering Through The Bars draws ever nearer, with invites currently going out. Invites are +1, and dress code is formal, for anyone who wasn't sure!
Finally, Darren is delighted to be returning the favour and opening for the amazing Tony Haven at The Angel on August 21st! Another date for everyone's diary.
Check Tony's amazing playing out here :
www.myspace.com/tonyhaven
PEERING THROUGH THE BARS NEWS
The release date for Peering Through The Bars is confirmed as August 8th 2009! The album will be available on CD and to download from iTunes, and from the online store which is coming soon here at Bravura Hokum.
The release party is being held on launch night, upstairs at The Angel Hotel in Helston, and is strictly invite only. The Darren Roberts Band will be performing material from the album at the show which is also being professionally filmed for a future video release!
STOPSIGNS AT HELSTONBURY
STOPSIGNS Helstonbury 2009 slot has been confirmed as 9pm on Sunday 26th July, making them the second to last band of the weekend. The lads are on after Not The Beatles and are followed by Riptide.More info at www.helstonbury.com