What the Papers Say...
TIME SPANNERS – TEN YEARS OF TIME SPANNING DVD
Review: R2 (Rock n Reel) National Music Magazine- September 2011
Reviewer: Dai Jeffries
Time Spanners are a community band from Berkshire. Twenty-two strong, thirteen of their members are disabled or have learning difficulties, which makes them more community than most.
Together they play festivals and public events, multi-media shows, run workshops and write music. This DVD tells their story.
The film opens with a slightly surreal video of ‘La Rotta’ followed by ‘Africa’, written and led by David Jackson, formerly of Van Der Graaf Generator. Time Spanners do attract some very special people.
Mark T., who directed the film, is musical director; Tim Hill, Charles Spicer and Fran Wood are regulars and Richard Westall is the group’s poet in residence providing most of their words.
The first half of the film consists of several such clips without comment except for a couple of introductions and captions, so the music takes pride of place, but I was fascinated by some of the kit, particularly Jackson’s Sound Beams.
The second half is a documentary and again it consists of film clips interspersed with comments from the participants. The professional musicians stay in the background but it’s clear that much of the group’s success is down to the teaching of Paul Midgely and Greg Cox who continue to work with the drummers and percussionists.
The music is an eclectic mix of styles from the past 500 years – there’s a CD available too – but if you do nothing, visit their web-site. I think you’ll be impressed.
What a celebration this was for the 10th anniversary of Time Spanners, surely the most important group of musicians in the area.
It was marked by a sense of relief too, because last year Time Spanners nearly had to call a halt to their music-making as funds were running dangerously low.
“We put out a final cry for help and miraculously, people responded,” said Mark T, the group’s main organiser. “Newbury Town Council were generous, Greenham Common Trust gave us £9,000 over three years, Lord Lloyd-Webber gifted £4,500 and other private individuals dug deep, some signing cheques for £400.”
This wonderful concert showed that the money was not wasted. After a witty speech from Newbury Mayor, Ian Grosse, we were straight into Hang on Spanners, which echoed the ‘60’s song Hang on Sloopy. Then came the tribal beat of La Rotta, led by bagpipes.
An eerie poem Time by Richard Westall was augmented by a bewitching liquidly-orange lightshow and Kon Tiki was a composition by Mark T himself, showing what a skilled composer he is in his own right. Stingo, an English tune which has nothing to do with a Midlands-based barley wine drink of the 1970’s, followed, before Disco It to Dancing a heavy dance number.
Another poem by Westall, which cleverly dwelt on the scene in the library at that very moment, led up to Sun Arise, the Rolf Harris song which is guaranteed to charm anyone form Glastonbury to Greenham.
Time Spanners have come a long way in the past 10 years.
“Obviously, I’m pleased at the way our member’s musical skills have improved” said Mark T.
“But above all, I’m proud that the members have taken ownership of the project themselves. It was originally my brain child but now the group would continue without me. That’s good – that’s the way things should be.”
This remarkable musical ensemble, who perform about 20 times a year at various venues, have been nominated for a Queen’s Award this summer. I can think of no organisation more deserving of such recognition.
Fred Redwood
Time Spanners Winter Show - 10th December 2006
The Clock is Ticking ...
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A Show Full of Heart
Many people will have encountered the Time Spanners before.
They formed as a Millennium community arts project, based in Thatcham, and worked
with people with disabilities. Now with their Sunday night presentation at Newbury
Town Hall, the Time Spanners are venturing into new, more adventurous, territory.
To begin the show council representatives were commissioned to make a laudatory address. This is part of the Bardic tradition – a theme taken up later in the performance. The mayors of Thatcham and Newbury duly presented their compliments while the chairman of the council looked on approvingly.
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Then, on with the show. If Time Spanners had a motto it would be ‘out of the ordinary’. Crammed together in the Newbury Town Council Chamber, the programme took place in darkness. The light came from a screen on which were projected the details of the performance and the performers themselves, sometimes hands, sometimes faces, mixed with images from the internet. Every now and again the pictures dissolved into random patterns, brought about by a chaos machine.
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Confucius said that if we wanted to extend ourselves, we must start by extending other people. This sums up the spirit of Time Spanners very neatly.
Rehearsals are a process of questioning and debating the content in detail, so thet the assumptions that underlie conventional drama or dance or mime are drawn off into different spaces and directions.
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In addition to drama and live video, the show included Native American drumming, sound beam manipulation poetry, Fran Wood (Basingstoke’s very own Medieval Babe) singing in Middle English, and Some Hunt, the premiere of a new short film by Richard Westall, Roger Pugh & Mark T.
The end piece was an exploration of the chakras, led by Kymberly Solari. Though not strictly central to the Time Spanner theme, the sound of the biggest bowl nearly had me on the floor with its intensity. I found out later that this vibrated at the sound frequency corresponding to the heart chakra. All of which goes to prove that, if this show has anything, it has heart.
Patrick Cogswell
Newbury Weekly News Arts Review
Thursday 14th December 2006
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........Reuben - A Spanner & A Thespian!...............................Our special guests: Interakt with the Mayor
Now you have read the review... here are a few comments from the audience:
On Sunday evening I was back at the Town Hall to see the Timespanners Winter Concert. The Timespanners are a touring percussion band, comprised mainly of disabled adults. I have seen them perform many times, but this concert was something different - they were accompanying poetry and digital images on the large screens before us. It was unique and quite avant garde. There were guest performers too - including a woman who played huge crystal bowls to clear our chakras!
From the Mayor of Newbury’s Web- Site
14/12/2006
"With a stimulating mix of media, music, dance and poetry, Time Spanners
once again provided an evening of uplifting entertainment"
Angela Turton, West Berkshire, Arts in Education Development Officer
12/12/2006
Mark.
Really enjoyed the concert last night. Please pass on my thanks to all the
Time Spanners. I loved the Hands & Faces pieces, and ‘The Clock is
Ticking’ was very moving.
Refreshing to see a group of artists trusting simple things.
Take care,
Tim Godwin, Thrift Theatre Company
11/12/2006
Time Spanners - Drive the Cold Winter Away
Newbury Library 19th November 2005
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Time Spanners staged their first ever multi-media event to a capacity audience at Newbury library last Saturday.
In attendance were Councillor John Chapman, Chairman of West Berkshire Council
The Mayor of Newbury, Councillor Val Bull and the Deputy Mayor of Thatcham Councillor
Alexander Payton.
The Time Spanners show was based on their, now familiar, mix of early music
and twenty-first century technology.
For Saturday’s performance, however, they were augmented by data projected
images, movies and theatrical lighting compiled & operated by new Time Spanners
Gemma Bryan, Barry mason and Simeon Barnes.
The centre point of the event was the thirteenth century song ‘Mirie It Is’ sung by Basingstoke’s very own Medieval Babe Fran Wood to a backdrop of images produced by Ray Bartholomew.
‘Mirie It Is’ compares the joys of Summer to the cold blast of Winter and Ray’s kaleidoscope of treated and untreated images of last Summer provided a perfect foil to the song.
Another high point of the event was the late thirteenth century English song ‘Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene’ sung, once again, by Fran Wood supported by another special guest Charles Spicer (of the Mellstock Band) on early English bagpipes and Tim Baker and Carl Barnes on Sound Beams.
The combination of Fran Wood’s haunting vocals coupled with the multi-layered drones of the electronic sound Beams and the evocative blue lighting controlled by Gemma Bryan produced a unique Medieval Chillout experience.
The Chillout experience quickly turned into a roller coaster ride as the Sound Beams took us out of the song and, by way of numerous key changes, into the Rastafarian Chant ‘Nyabingi’ featuring Tony Doak and Mandy Hassan on Surdo drums and Alastair Hutchinson on Chinese gong.
This in turn led to a vigorous climax to the whole event: Richard Westall,s homage to music: ‘Disco It to Dancing’. Few songs claim the starting lines: Some mornings, Mozart strokes me open with exquisite fingers… sings my limbs into wings complete with strings and yet end with an impersonation of Johnny Rotten!
This first ever multi-media event has proved a resounding success for the Time Spanners and was given a rapturous reception by the audience.
Newbury Weekly News - 24th November 2005
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New Theatre Space Launched
Morpheous Theatre, at Newbury Day Centre, Newton Road, Newbury, on Wednesday, October 13, 2004
MORPHEUS Theatre’s launch at Newbury Day Centre was a huge success. The idea of the theatre, which is situated on Newton Road next to where Sandleford Hospital once stood, is to provide a space professional theatre groups, amateurs and educational groups, notably those at Newbury College. Most importantly, it is to be a centre for Timespanners community music group.
I have been an admirer of the Timespanners since they formed more than five
years ago and under the tutelage of Mark T. their performance skills have now
sharpened immeasurably.
Last Wednesday, dressed all in black, they made
dramatic silhouettes on the stage and they used lighting to marvellous
effect.
At the core of their performance was the soundbeam instrument which
creates a kind of ethereal, high-pitched sound which is controlled by the
fluttering of the player’s fingers through the beam itself. Percussion backed
this instrument, together with keyboard and vocals.
The first number was Sun
Arise – the song with which Rolf Harris has a hit in the 1960s. With the
assorted instruments conjuring up the echoing magic of the Aboriginal bush, it
was a wise choice. It also gave Mark T a chance to take charge of proceedings
and calm nerves.
On the following items, timing and synchronicity were spot
on, particularly in the final number of the set which was a long percussion
piece, demanding and getting maximum concentration from performers and audience
alike.
Fred Redwood NWN
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Cuckoo Suite 2005
THATCHAM Nature discovery centre welcomed the return of migrant birds to the
nature reserve at Thatcham Reedbeds last Sunday with its Summer Birds
Celebration.
The highlight of the day was a performance of the Cuckoo Suite a
medieval celebration of spring performed by local music group the Time
Spanners.
They performed a series of dance tunes and songs combined with
modern poetry written especially for the event.
Thatcham News, Spring 2005
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CD Review from Taplas Welsh Music Magazine
Autumn
2004
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Mayor’s Drive to Chaddleworth House is Enjoyed By All
A TRADITION that has been taking place since the Second World War happened
yesterday when more than 1,000 of west Berkshire’s over-75s set off on the
mayor’s drive and tea party.
About 1,200 of the districts oldest residents
took the scenic drive through the countryside to Chaddleworth House with Newbury
mayor Val Bull, where they took afternoon tea, and shook a leg to the music
provided by the Time Spanners Samba band.
Newbury Weekly News, Summer 2005
Toe-tapping for the ‘over -75s’
… all the while entertainments were presented by the well-known Time
Spanners Band, the musicians encouraged us to appreciate their particular
technique of movement to sound, which proved so therapeutic an experience for
everyone and kept toes tapping to the beat – good fun!
Letter to the NWN
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A Band With Great Ability
THE samba band Time Spanners has shed its community arts project image to become a “phenomenon” on the South East’s music scene. DAVID GILES speaks to founder member MARK T about the group’s first CD, Beating Time
THEY began as a community project to help people with learning disabilities,
but now the Time Spanners are just known for their music. This is the most
satisfying part of the job, says Mark T, a professional musician and founding
member of the West Berkshire-based samba band. “People at festivals would hear
the music we were playing and come over to dance. It was only them they realised
it was a group of disabled people.”
Fans keep turning up to see the group,
whose music blends samba, blues and rock and roll. They have performed all over
the South East, but came from humble beginnings. “we started out a bit rough and
ready but we’re becoming a phenomenon,” adds Mark.
The band began four years
ago, starting of as part of Time Span, a Millennium run by Thatcham-based
community arts project Circle of Sound, giving budding musicians – including the
elderly, school children and people with learning disabilities – the chance to
develop their talents. When the original project finished, the disability group
wanted to carry on playing, and the Time Spanners were born in 2001.
Now the
band has just released their debut album, Beating Time, a fast-paced album with
relentless drum beats that litter the music like punctuation. “This CD is a fair
reflection of our music” says Mark. “The first half is loud samba beats that we
play in summer at outdoor festivals, and the second half is quieter chill-out
stuff that is better for indoors.”
A wide range of influences appear on the
album, from Hendrix guitar licks to Paul Simonesque folk music. Only the drums
are ever –present, providing the infectious beats that have got people dancing
throughout the South East.
Beating Time was released this month, and the band
are now waiting to see if they can get a publishing deal which will make the
record widely available. The initial signs are good. The CD is getting good
airtime on local radio, and has been featured on television.
Mark, who
organises rehearsals and holds workshops, plays in the band alongside fellow
professional musician Paul Midgeley and about 20 disabled percussionists. All
the musicians love playing, and their audiences love listening, says Mark: “I’ve
never seen a group so committed. Everyone turns up to every rehearsal with
amazing dedication.
“The people that watch us aren’t just supporting disabled
musicians. We get booked for gigs and invited back year after year because
people love our music.”
But as their status increases so does the pressure.
“We don’t mess around. If someone isn’t performing we tell them. It can be a bit
like Spinal Tap,” says Mark, who is used to the high pressure lifestyle of the
music industry. He was a performing musician for eight years, touring England
and Europe and releasing five albums of world music.
Mark plays guitar and
keyboards in the band, but the 20 disabled musicians add plenty more musical
texture. Along with saxophones, bagpipes, singers and drums there are two
soundbeams – “invisible keyboards” that sound like synthesisers. They work by
sensors making sounds that change in pitch by reacting to the player’s hand
movements.
Mark says the Time Spanners performances are “guided
improvisation”. The band decides what key they are playing in, and the style of
the piece, and then work out a melody.
And it works. The band’s schedule is
jam-packed over the next few months, including Thatcham arts festival in
October.
DAVID GILES NWN Main Feature
Summer 2004
