history
In 2003 Charles created charleyville to showcase his songwriting. It started with a support slot at the sanctuary cafe in Hove. Tom de Grunwald played double bass and Susanne Lambert on percussion.Soon after Rosie Holmes joined as a backing vocalist and percussionist and Susanne moved to kit drumming. Bela Emmerson began to contribute electric cello regularly and Dave Ronchetti became regular bass guitarist.Tom morphed into lead guitar and lap steel player and the great carousel of charleyville at that time began its unwieldy orbit.
Our first serious gig was at Christmas 2003 at the Komedia in Gardner Street, Brighton and was entitled Cave of Gold. We joint headlined with Luke Adams for which this was to a rare live appearance. The evening was to be a high point which the collective struggled subsequently to equal.
Apart from local gigs at The Sussex Arts Club, Hanbury, Joogleberry, Loft and other less favored venues, charleyvile's most signifigant live achievements were staged in the barn at Fosters, a 15th century cottage deep in the heart of rural Sussex.Here in spring 2004 Charles began recording what was to become the '100,000 Boyfriends' EP in a drafty cobweb laced cowshed. Microphones were held up with twine and amps sat on seamen's trunks, asagais and moth eaten kilims. The recordings that emmerged were remarkable, full of bridsong, rain on the roof, and smiles on the faces of the musicians involved. Andy Santonas on hammond organ, Ed Kurjian on guitar and backing vocals (and co-producer on Like A Train), Luke Adams on keyboards and backing vocals and Robert Villiers on piano are some of the contributors to the sessions whose out-takes massively outnumber the three tracks that eventually reached the mastering stage.
At the height of this creative and enjoyable time the first 'Chastock' spontaneously came into being. It took a barrel on Fosters and the magical appearance of 'Bareskin Rugs' on a full moon night in July to make a very memorable evening. Their mellow west coast melodies transported all of us high into the stars. And so Chastock was born.
In 2004 and 2005 We repeated Chastock, inviting many bands from Brighton and London to perform in the old barn, whose wide, roof high doors formed a perfect stage to the garden when thrown open.
Video artist Tony Gammidge contributed lighting and video installations and Radio 4A broadcast the occasion live on the web. Tony also created the superb abstract video to accompany our song 'Last Stand' which is viewable in our video section. The track that accompanies the video is a spirited live performance which was intended to be a temporary substitute to a decent studio recording - maybe that will occur.
Among those whose appeared during those years were:
Stars of Aviation, Shoreline, Diamond Family Archive, Ellie Osborne, Ginclub, Bareskin Rugs, Audioporn, Marc Abiss, Sharon Lewes, The Robot Heart, and Barnaby O'Rourke.
Poets, storytellers and theater was also staged. The seeds were sown for a little cultural blossoming.
However, charleyville, who headlined the festival and were at their most unpredictable and epic was to change with the exit of Bela and Tom. Dave also left soon after confronting Charles, Rosie and Susanne with the challenge of performing and recording a remarkble backlog of songs.
They were helped in this respect by the acquisition of studio premises in Kemptown at the Foley Centre. Here during the icy winter of 2006/7 they recorded a virtually live set of tracks which became the 'Invisible Sword' EP. The engineer was Sherry.
The production of this EP spurred the trio into organizing a tour of the west coast of the US and in 2007 they were on a plane to San Francisco.It was during this time that the musicians began to get a feel for the very first time of what they were capable of given the conditions of prolonged immersion in music and plenty of practice. The harmonies became rich, the understanding on stage prodigious. They were generally very well received, their delicate Englishness bruised and cajoled by the rowdy and vocal American audiences.
It was with some sense of satisfaction then, that we were able to bib farewell to Susanne, who moved to Bristol in 2008. Charles had recently married and the band played at the wedding in France. They did a lovely little radio session just after it full of tenderness and sparkle. Susanne, ever loyal, was not leaving the band however, and since then we have convened regularly to continue our ambition to record a set of songs that really does justice to what we knew was a remarkable live bind - and a fine set of songs.
The first song in the recording list is also (probably) the most ambitious. To date 'Skin' has 23 sections. The recording is being handled by seasoned professional Joe Watson at Peppercorn Studios in Kemptown. Wish us luck and stay tuned to more of what I'm sure will always be an epic and entertaining story.