Mallory Knox

34 | October 30, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

the critical list: more hot tickets ROUND UP

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ALBUM RELEASE

ɀ AT this Friday’s Cambridge Folk Club, Lady Maisery will be supported by Tom Conway.

Lady Maisery is made up of singers Hannah James (accordion), Hazel Askew (harp and concertina) and Rowan Rheingans (ďŹ ddle and banjo), who “explore vocal harmony to breath-taking effectâ€? and know more than a few ballads.

Acoustic guitarist Tom Conway should get you nicely warmed up.

Pop along to the Golden Hind, Cambridge for 8pm. Tickets are £12 on the door. ɀ DON your ares and backcomb your hair for a 70s/80s charity disco at the Hidden Rooms, Cambridge on Saturday from 7pm. You’ll be able to dance away to some of the biggest hits from the decades that seemed to have the biggest hair‌ Tickets are £10 on the door and all proceeds will go to the Teenage Cancer Trust. ɀ ON Saturday, the Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey is hosting its annual Autumn Fair.

On from 10.30am until 4pm at the Waterbeach site, it’ll be a chance to stock up early on Christmas presents. Wrap up warm, nibble cake and sip cups of tea and get your shopping done – produce and crafts will be available.

Usual admission applies.

Contact (01223) 860988 for more information. ɀ SHE’S supported Tom Jones on tour, and now Leddra Chapman, below right, is headlining in her own right. The up and coming singer songwriter, who makes “pitch-perfect acoustic pop� according to The Independent is playing at The Portland Arms on Monday at 7.30pm.

Tickets are ÂŁ8, and the long-lashed musician is set for big things.

Catch her hi C hh while you can.

Mallory Knox: Joe Savins (back left)

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ast Anglia has become something of a go to area for breakout rock and alt-rock bands.

Norfolkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deaf Havana and Cambridgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lonely the Brave are already radio favourites and have been raking in fans. Joining their ranks is Ely ďŹ ve-piece, Mallory Knox.

Forming in 2009, the band â&#x20AC;&#x201C; made up of frontman Mikey Chapman, Joe Savins on lead guitar, Sam Douglas on bass, drummer Dave Rawling and rhythm guitarist James Gillett â&#x20AC;&#x201C; released their debut record Signals in 2013 and earned themselves a sell-out tour and a nomination for Best British Newcomer at last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kerrang! Awards.

Still based in Ely, despite the lures of London (â&#x20AC;&#x153;we go out on tour so much, the house would just be sat there empty,â&#x20AC;?), Joe, Mikey and James met at Ely College, and got to know Witchford Village College students Sam and Dave through a mutual love of alternative music.

This week the lads are celebrating their second record, the ambitiously personal Asymmetry.

Joe, who used to work at the News, explains how they got to this point: Really we were forced into going full time.

There was never a point where we said ok, right weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re comfortable enough now to go full time. It was just a case of, if we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave our jobs now, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never do it. That was January 2012.

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think any of us could have foreseen what was going to happen. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a feeling

As Ely rockers Mallory Knox release their new album, Asymmetry, guitarist Joe Savins tells ELLA WALKER how they almost lost the record in a studio ďŹ re and what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like hanging out with Biffy Clyro of isolation where we lived. All of our friendsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bands that were doing well were London or Manchester based, even Glasgow. When you come from Ely, well, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not many success stories in music around here. We did feel isolated, so when we were recorded out debut album and it hit and did quite well â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we had a bit of chart success on the opening week â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it was just insane.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lead onto literally touring the world and playing stages we dreamed of growing up, like Reading and Leeds, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just been insane.

Ever since we quit our jobs it hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stopped.

I already know that our fans like the new record [the band streamed Asymmetry on the Guardian website for free a week before it was

HOT TICKETS WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ON Knox: TICKETS WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Mallory ON HOT Asymmetry HOT TICKETS WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ON is out now.

WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ON HOT TICKETS released], now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m really excited that they get to own it and live with it and next time we tour we can play these songs, and touch wood, people will be singing along.

We recorded it at Moles Studio in Bath.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite a legendary studio, the last band in it before us was Maximo Park. You go in there and there are all these old original tapes of Robert Plant records. We were in there for three and a half months and we went home one weekend, on the Friday night. Saturday morning I woke up to 80 texts and 15 missed calls from our producer Gil Nortan [Foo Fightersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; producer], and I thought: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not good news. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never ever good news when you wake up to that many texts and missed calls.

Basically what had been our home had smoke billowing out of it, and about nine ďŹ re trucks outside. It was like oh my god, what is going on here. We had about ÂŁ10-ÂŁ15k worth of guitars and amps. Luckily they caught the ďŹ re before it got too far and we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lose anything. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d hate to go down in history as the band that were in the Moles Studio when it died.

We moved to a place called Monnow Valley Studio in Wales, which is where Oasis recorded DeďŹ nitely Maybe and Stereophonics did all their albums; we ďŹ nished up there. As cools as it was to see that studio â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Oasis are my favourite ever band so I was freaking out the whole time, me and James our guitarist were walking around the studio just playing Oasis songs, it was so cool â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it was stressful. We were

Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | October 30, 2014 | 35

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COMEDY

TALK

Tony Law THE always absurdist Tony Law is a comedian with a knack for the sublimely life affirming, as well as the maddeningly surreal.

Giddily infectious and nonsensical, the Canadian stand-up is visiting Cambridge Junction with his latest show, Enter the ToneZone, which Time Out described as “relentlessly silly. He never quite finishes a thought before gliding into the next topic, creating a sense of loose, ill thought-out chaos. It’s all highly controlled, of course, even if the comic seems confused by his own thoughts. It’s Law at his best.”

Winner of several Chortle Comedy awards and nominated for the Edinburgh Award in 2012, whiskery Law is also rather great mates with Cambridge University professor Mary Beard after the pair worked together on the history of jokes and surrealism for a BBC radio show. See, he’s dead smart too.

We especially like the 44-year-old because he’s funny on Twitter, bemusingly so.

He can be quite random: Quite. A. Day. Dressed my first deer in a decade. Good to be back.

But also emotional: My dad will never know how much paint I poured down gopher holes. I have to live with this always.

Practical: Yurts. Let’s all get yurts and move to golf courses. If we all went at same time they couldn’t shift us. I’ll bring lawn darts.

And encouraging: I’m on tour soon. Come along for the rhythmic gymnastics.

He’s a fantastic storyteller: My neighbour Darcy used to eat soft white bread and talk about his day at the abattoir in a Slavic accent sitting on his porch between 4-5.

And very clever: Twitter is a perfect way to send messages to an army of killers as long as you are discreet. Shhhhh “don’t do no killing yet!”

“I’d hate to go down in history as the band that were in the Moles Studio when it died.” only a week away from finishing.

We get a lot of stick from our fans for not playing Cambridge, but there’s a lot of world out there, you know what I mean?

It’s been insane being compared to Biffy Clyro and Foo Fighters, but it’s been even weirder being in close proximity to them. We supported Biffy Clyro at a show Samsung put on, and Simon the singer came up to me, and I was really embarrassed because I thought he thought I worked at the venue. He was like

David Starkey ON telly, historian David Starkey is roundly considered to be a loud mouthed show off as well as contemptuous, bigoted and rude.

In fact, the critique of rudeness largely comes from his days on Radio 4’s debate show The Moral Maze, which earned him the title of “rudest man in Britain”.

He’s not let that hold him back though – nor a myriad of other controversial slips. In recent years he’s been lambasted for misogyny over his opinion that focus on Henry VIII’s wives has “feminised history”, as well as racism for comments he made on the 2011 London riots.

And he’s a regular contributor to Question Time, so it’s no wonder he frequently finds himself in scrapes.

Now nearing his 70th birthday, he’s the author of reams of non-fiction on the Tudors, a topic he became obsessed with while studying history at Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam College on a scholarship.

He’s called that swathe of the past “the most glorious soap opera, with the whole future of countries turning on what these huge personalities felt like when they got out of bed in the morning”. It’s his passion for the glam courtliness of that time, as well as his career to date – which has taken in political standing, Although sometimes forgetful: Anybody in Jyvaskyla Finland who has a trombone?

I need one today. Thank you.

And occasionally morbid: Went lake dredging in Southport. Good fun. Only found one foot though. Still. It’s the taking part.

Don’t miss him.

HOT TICKETS Tony Law: Enter TheWHAT’S ToneZone, CambridgeON Junction, Friday, WHAT’S HOT October 31 at 8pm. Tickets £13 HOT TICKETS WHAT’S from (01223) 511511 / junction.co.uk.

WHAT’S ON HOT

‘alright mate?’ and nodded to me. I was like god he’s going to ask me to get him a towel or something! And he just said: ‘I really like your track Lighthouse. Well done on your tour selling out.’ He was in touch with the scene and he knew about our band and he was obviously quite into it! I think that’s been the weirdest thing for me, the fact that these people even know who we are.

I’m a bit more comfortable in the surroundings now, I think we all are.

I remember last year when we played Reading and Leeds we opened the main stage. I grew up going to Reading as a punter; I used to be the kid that sat there an hour before tickets went on sale refreshing the page. The first time we got there, just to even be in the backstage area, [with] my idols coming through the gate and just chilling, it was like, what am I doing here? When we sound checked, I remember standing on stage thinking it’s crazy that I’m even allowed up here, let alone play.

HOT TICKETS For One Night Only… AnWHAT’S Evening With David Starkey, Cambridge Theatre, Sunday, WHAT’S ONArts HOT November 2 at 7.45pm. Tickets £12.50-£22.50 HOT TICKETS WHAT’S from (01223) 503333 / cambridgearts theatre.purchase-tickets-online.co.uk.

WHAT’S ON HOT

tea with the Queen (he’s not her biggest fan), and many a spat on Newsnight – which he’ll be chatting about at Cambridge Arts Theatre.

Part of the venue’s For One Night Only series, get serious, ask questions and mind your Ps and Qs.