Well this is our first national tour, an exciting and scary moment where we get to find out whether our mix of words and music works on the road.
We've had some very positive recent press on the project, including a 4* star review in Songlines. We were also Rachel and Becky Unthank's top tourbus tune on Radio 2 last Wednesday on the Mike Harding Show.
But we're all itching to get this on the road... We've sold out at The Barbican Pit, which is great, but I'm most looking forward to seeing The Penistone Paramount Cinema (What a name!) with its Wurlitzer organ. I'm hoping they'll give me a go, but have a feeling it'll be under lock and key beneath the floor.
Ian and I have written some new pieces for the tour. They include one about the potential closure of several arts centres round the UK due to Arts Council cuts. We'll be finding out whether the places we're going to are affected by this. The piece was broadcast by Ian and me on the Today programme on R4 a week ago, but the band helped us arrange it into something a lot more strident and full of protest.

Cross your fingers for us.

Luke.

The Ian McMillan are on tour next week in the UK. Feb 4th-Feb16th.

Following considerable airplay on national and local radio, and on ITV's South Bank Show; this is The Ian McMillan Orchestra's first UK national tour:

A 12 date non-stop whizz round England and Wales. It starts in the Midlands and ends, alongside The Stranglers, at the Buxton 4/4 time Festival in the Peak District. We take in London's Barbican, The Sage in Gateshead and the gloriously named Penistone Paramount, which is home to one of the UK's best Wurlitzer organs.
Please check our myspace page or our band website: www.theianmcmillanorchestra.com for more details.
We really hope to see some myspacers in real life and real time.

Ian McMillan says:

The Ian McMillan Orchestra is a meeting of words and music; a place where poems become songs and songs become stories and stories work their way into your imagination so that you think you knew them all along.

Words and Music have always complemented each other; in The Ian McMillan Orchestra they share the same space, drive the same train, inhabit the same tent. And it's a big tent. Let's listen in at the flap: ah yes; words and music...

Peace and Poetry,


TIMO.

Sunday 18th November

The Ian McMillan Orchestra

This is still quite a new project. Ian and Luke Carver Goss have been working together for a number of years as Flipchart and Squeezebox. Working in Hospitals, schools, colleges etc. we devised instant poems, poems with music, and 'musicals-in-a-day'. The audiences have always been positive, and a great deal of hilarity has been had along the way.
Late last year we both decided to invite some brilliant musician friends along and try making more of the idea. The idea was to work around Ian's amazing words and voice, and combine it with Luke's folk-influenced music. The result is a mix of poems and stories with music, songs, things that are in-between songs and rhythmic poems ('Speak songs'....?) and one or two instrumental numbers. Some of the numbers are fully composed and scored, others are much less so, and some are completely improvised.

Poems, stories and music have a long history of working together, right back to the time of the troubadours. There's quite a few bands about doing this sort of thing today who are well worth listening to. Check out Mark Gwynne Jones and the Psychic Bread. In fact, I reckon words and music are on the up!

Ian says: "The Ian McMillan orchestra is a meeting of words and music; a place where poems become songs and songs become stories and stories work their way into your imagination so that you think you knew them all along".

"Words and Music have always complemented each other; in The Ian McMillan Orchestra they share the same space, drive the same train, inhabit the same tent. And it's a big tent. Let's listen in at the flap: ah yes; words and music..."

The Band:

You can see who the band are by looking at the main page. They're all multi-instrumentalists, so the band has a huge palette of sounds to draw on.

The Ian McMillan Orchestra Website

We're in the middle of designing a new website for the band. The address will be: www.theianmcmillanorchestra.com Watch this space!

Myspace

Just so you are under no illusions, this page is being managed by Luke Carver Goss, not Ian McMillan. Believe me, I've tried getting Ian up to spped with this wonderful resource, but he's just too busy. So if you don't get a personal reply from Ian, you know why.

Comments

Thanks to all of you who've posted really nice comments about us here. I recently did a dumb thing, pressed the wrong button when I was trying to delete a spam comment, and all of them disappeared. Doh!

The Ian McMillan Orchestra has it's first two week tour!

It starts at the Barbican on Feb 6th 08 and ends at Buxton Festival of Live Music on Feb 16th, via the Sage in Gateshead on 15th Feb. I hope some of you can make it. Ian is very entertaining on stage!

CD Reviews for Sharp Stories.

They've all been great so far, and we've had a fair amount of positive radio airplay, including Late Junction and Mike Harding on Radio 2. We're keeping our fingers crossed for the Songlines review which is coming out in December.

Many thanks for your support,

Peace and Poetry,

Luke.