Honey Bee Blues Club 11th Birthday ft Crosscut Saw

Join us on the 27th of June to celebrate the Honey Bee Blues Club’s 11th birthday with an evening of outstanding music from artist featured since the the clubs inception.

Kicking off the night –  Fargo Railroad Company front man Jody Davies will be entertaining us with a solo slot that he recently used in a whistle stop tour of the North of England. No doubt dropping in the odd Fargo classic, Jody will be show casing some new tunes and old favourites of his own work.

Next up – a transatlantic collaboration with the amazing harmonies of Ash, Mark and Joe. From Austin, Texas but based in Sheffield, Ash Gray has played many a Honey Bee show with various incarnations (Couch Fire/The Burners/The Girls) as well as holding his own as a solo performer. Mark Allen is a Nashville based singer song writer who over the past couple of years has found himself in England working on a documentary entitled “Have guitar will travel” that is soon to be aired. Then to stake our claim this side of the pond, Sheffield’s very own Joe Armitage. Founding member of the brilliant band that is Buffalo Ghost, Joe completes the act. With acoustic guitars and harmonies, the trio invoke a feeling of Crosby, Stills and Nash but in no way a verbatim copy – these chaps have a sound and style all of their own as they meld their own individual talents of song writing, playing and singing into an experience not to be missed.

Head lining the night are a band that go way back to the very start of The Honey Bee Blues Club and who played on the second night way back in 2014. The power blues trio that is Crosscut Saw. A Crosscut Saw gig is a hoodoo rollercoaster of pure primeval power – no hype, no image, no posturing, no deception; just true alchemy. No two performances are ever the same, even the musicians themselves don’t know what potent brew will be cooked up. A three-piece blues roots, rock band from Yorkshire with Alex Eden –  lead singer, guitarist and harmonica player, drummer Richard Ferdinando and bass player Richard Green. The band glean inspiration from the likes of The Black Keys, Magic Sam, RL Burnside, Taj Mahal and Dr John.

Crosscut Saw have been self-managing, releasing and producing under their own record label File Under Noise. They produced their first album at Attic Studios Leeds in 2003, In Debt? You Bet! a reference to a decaying society propped up by debt.The 2013 EP Shake ‘Em On Down, a Mississippi Fred McDowell song, was promoted by a video created by Jason Elliot of Hebden Bridge Blues Festival, garnering thousands of views.

In 2017 the band released Jose, an EP honouring the president of Uruguay, Jose Ignacio, whose socialist actions resonated with the band. All the songs are original; Jose, Neighbourhood, Old, Milton. The band are currently working on two main projects; a collection of original material recorded and mixed to tape in their own Trapdoor Studios and a live album of the “Virtual Duck” performances – a series of live streamed events from Trapdoor, starting with a solo performance by Alex at the First Lockdown Festival becoming a regular, popularly anticipated date, temporarily replacing their Duck and Drake residency during the pandemic.

So join us for looks to be one hell of night and maybe raise a glass to the man who made it all possible – the great man Martin Bedford. The man who created The Honey Bee Blues Club.