Alex Mayor | Alexander's Festival Hall

Not From Above! – book now out to pledgers!

Hi all,

Exciting news… after many months of preparation, and some deft copy-editing and cover designing by the lovely team at Unbound books, ‘Not From Above!’ is finally being mailed out to you, dear pledgers.

An influencer-ready photo of ‘Not From Above!’ accompanied by a fashion-forward pale ale and kickstartered cycle helmet, YES.

The official publication date is Thursday 25th April, but supporters of the project receive their copies early. The 12″ ‘Not From Above!’ EP is still being produced, within a vinyl pressing plant deep in the wilds of the Czech Republic, and should be with you in mid-May. (I’m blaming Record Store Day for the delay, and you should too!).

If you’re not a pledger, but would like to order a copy of the book it’s available from:

> Amazon
> Waterstone’s

And you can pre-order the album at
> Bandcamp

Thanks again to all who have supported this music-on-paper project!
AFH x

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Next gig: 23rd March – Union Chapel, N1

Hi all

AFH return to the stage on 23rd of March 2019, for one of those lovely Daylight Music sessions. We’ll be playing songs from the new album ‘Not From Above!’, featuring a few friendly guests and reading some extracts from the book. Should be a lot of fun! Also on the bill, the wonderful Fiona Bevan and others.

Daylight Music is a free lunch-time concert, and starts at midday. Hope to see you there!

Alex x

Coming 29.04.2019: “Not From Above!”

Yes indeed, the new album and book of stories are finally scheduled for release! The book has been corrected, errant apostrophes told to go to their rooms, the cover chiseled and honed… The album has been mastered, a vinyl EP is being worked on in a distant European factory, good lord, we’re even learning to play the songs!

More details as we get nearer, but mark your diaries: 29th April 2019.
(insert minor whooping noises here).

Ax

Fake novels and strange buildings: Instant City

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AFH DJ Set: Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club 9th Nov

Who doesn’t love those spinning black platters, chiefly the type that matter? Yes, I’ll be playing a rarer-than-hens-teeth DJ set at ‘Brace Yourself!’ – a night of singing and cabaret and dancing hosted by my good compadres in ChapsChoir. I’ll be among the merry throng singing some fun songs in the ace Bethnal Green WMC, along with SHE Choir, Len Blanco and others. Then self and comrade Rob will be playing an all vinyl 7″ set of daft disco, synthpop and various rug-cutting favourites. Absolutely no blow-wave or tech-house, but you’d guessed that 🙂 .

Advance tix here (for a darling discount)

We made it! Thanks to everyone…

They said it couldn’t be done. They said we were dreamers. They said no-one actually buys short-stories-backed-with-an-actual-album-of-songs.

Well… together (SFX: swelling music here)… we proved them wrong!

Ahem. Thanks to simply everyone who supported the crowdfunding campaign for ‘Not from above’ over the summer. Some of you went digital, some ordered the paperback, some were up for the vinyl 7″ (more on that soon), and eleven of you even ordered a personalised song. It feels a bit like the arts should be, a nicely interactive back-and-forth.

Next up: we go into the book production process now with the nice people at Unbound. More details on precise release dates once we have them…

Much love,

Alexander x

Book excerpt: “Things that happen on islands”

Krowdfunder klaxon: we made it to 50%!

“We made it to… fifty per cent…” A lot of people shy away from the use of statistics in songwriting. They say it’s a little dry, a tad cold, but there are … ways.

Ahem. So huge thanks to everyone who has pledged and got my book-and-album to 50% funded…! More ways to support the project, including a gig round your house… visit unbound.com 👉🏻 “not from above”.

A few weeks left to go!

Alexander

x

These are the New Zounds!

Here’s a little teaser video I made to kick off the crowdfunding campaign for ‘Not from above’ this summer. The music is an instrumental from the new record, called ‘New Zounds!’

Zounds, (or “Zounds!” as it is more commonly exclaimed) is one of those words I think I first encountered in P.G. Wodehouse. A sort of upper-class, toff surprise word. As the graph below clearly demonstrates, it’s been on something of a losing streak for the last century, but… there’s been an uptick. One that tracks with a certain bunch of useless horrors currently running the country. Ah well. As I say, faced with that set, the only solution is dancing… The full song is a kind of musical theatre-goes-disco love letter to house music and ballads, if that’s conceivable.