On Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st January the Hidden Door weekend art festival will be taking place at the Roxy Art House in Edinburgh.
My music will be featured in a poetry performance “Red Like Our Room Used To Feel” with Ryan Van Winkle. There will also be a follow-up album release, with downloads available to come on this site.
There’s also a pretty amazing line-up of musicians, artists and poetry over the whole weekend, so buy your tickets now!
I am playing at the Golden Hour at the Forest on 18th October.
“Spoken words, interesting music and visual rubbish in a beautiful space…
stories from Danielle Mantia,
music from the Gut Bucket Blues Band,
theatre from Miroslav Mitrovic,
and featuring our very special guest RAGLAND!”
Poster by Magda Boreysza
Tonight I played a few songs at the Golden Hour event, held every month at the Forest Cafe in Edinburgh. Here’s a pic:
Played again at Out Of The Bedroom #152 on 17th February 2005. Only time for one song – “It Could Happen Anytime”. Here’s the review by John Barclay:
“Gareth Warner’s squashee song was heavy in the true sense, dripping and dark, his guitar parts colliding with his bleak lyrical imagery of ghost towns and descriptions of Thatcher’s Britain or maybe some Far Eastern province teetering on the brink of social disaster. The song rolled along, bits of Jimmy Page’s Kashmir riff nicely leaking into it in places. Mystical!“
Played again at Out Of The Bedroom tonight, 25th November 2005. Here’s the review from Big Jim:
“Rounding off the night, and having waited patiently for a fair while, was a rather cheerful looking Gareth Warner. Fighting his way through the ten person strong audience and up to the stage he joked “Can everyone see me at the back?!” His first song was “Let the Sun Shine” which started with a slow creeping chord sequence and lead to a refreshingly bright and sunny chorus. His second song was more upbeat throughout, and lyrically it had a daydream quality to it with the opening “Have you heard about the bird that flew up in the air and never came back down?” His third song, “Shine” again had that catchy pop chorus that really brightened the song and underscored the song’s title.”
Tonight I played a gig with a Japanese group from Nagoya, Jon No Son, at the Forest in Edinburgh. Sota is over in Edinburgh studying and his friends came over to tour Scotland. Here are some pictures.
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Upon returning to Japan the group recorded one of my songs, which at that time was called “Churpleday” and has since morphed into “Ragland Theme”.
On 29th April 2004 we made our first performance at the 117th Out Of The Bedroom an open mic night that has been running since 2001, specifically to encourage new songwriters to perform their material in a supportive live setting. Every week someone reviews the performances and here’s the review written by Susanna Macdonald:
“Tonight was certainly a night for debutantes at OOTB, as our next act Gaz and Dham took to the stage. Their pleasant countenance and confidence shone through their set very much endearing them to us and we hope to see them again soon. They began with a well-structured song, which had a simple yet effective melody. Light pure vocals singing that ‘so much has to pass till the moment comes at last’ and of ‘talking about the news that hasn’t happened yet’ gave clarity to conveying the nature of the relationship being sung about. The guitar had a good sound accompanying.
The next song was an unrequited love song. Though they needed sheets to read from this didn’t detract from the performance. With great discords on the guitar complimented by a gentle floating melody reflected the ‘flying to catch the dawn’. There was much sustination which showed off a classical tone to the vocals, before the melody took an interesting track and made good use of dynamics with ‘You’re reflecting in my pond, I reach into the water and you’re gone’ to an unresolved ending, which is always a good thing.
They finished with a much sadder song. The guitar part was a play on a chord to a melancholy and bitter personal lyric. ‘When soldiers come home I will be the only one alone’ led onto tell a political story where ‘for me peace is still to come’. This was succinct and emotive and all the more impressive as it was the first time Gaz had played these songs in public.”
Welcome to the new Ragland website – www.ragland.co.uk
Ragland is an island of musical adventures, collaborations and compositions where musical adventurist Gareth Warner has found himself shipwrecked…
Enjoy exploring the island!
