Tehachapi News

David Nigel Lloyd: A gypsy caravan of a concert

Start: Dec 5 2008 - 23:00
Time: 7:00pm
Price: $12 presale/$15 at the door
Contact: Mama Hillybeans | 822-BEAN
Location:

Picture a Gypsy caravan: At the reins, a professorial eccentric plays an old octar and sings strange, haunting and hilarious songs. The caravan is adorned with figures contemporary and mythic and the words, "Anglo Celtic American Dionysian Antiquarian Folk Music." That's a David Nigel Lloyd concert and you can see him live at Mama Hillybeans Dec. 6 at 7 p.m.

According to the LA Weekly, folk musician and songwriter David Nigel Lloyd is "some serious traditional fun."

He sings of pumpkin kings, fairy queens, East African juju men, idiot  presidents, divine drunkards, eternal wanderers, prisoners both great  and small, and ancient Irish warriors in dusty oil towns.

"A strongly individual musical and poetic mind is at work here" (beGlad, UK).

In performance, DNL frames his songs with wry commentary and the  occasional surreal folk tale. He has performed from California to the UK.

"As much American influenced as British" (the LA Times), DNL accompanies himself on the 8-stringed octar and on steel and gut strung guitars tuned differently. With his "spirited singing and full-bodied playing" (Dirty Linen), "Lloyd uses traditional tunes and themes where it suits his purposes" (Folk Roots, UK).

Music from his five critically acclaimed albums has aired on many college and NPR stations and once on Late Night with David Letterman. On his latest CD, Rivers, Kings and Curses, DNL is accompanied by Celtic music legend and Incredible String Band founder, Robin Williamson; and by West Coast Blues Society Hall of Famer, Nat Dove.

In the late 1980s, David Nigel Lloyd and His Mojave Desert Ceilidh Band became LA's only Celtic folk rock band. In 1993, he played Feste in Spike Stewart's magnificently obscure feature film "Shakespeare's Plan 12 from Outer Space" [Twelfth Night], rewriting the music to Feste's songs.

DNL leads a workshop on the traditional muse, entitled "How to Write a Traditional Song." He has also delivered performance lectures entitled "The Truth of True Thomas" about the famous medieval Scottish ballad.

Over the last 15 years DNL has taught ballad singing in California's  Tulare and Kern County public schools. He currently directs the Arts in Education programs for the Arts Council of Kern.

Born in the British East Africa of the Mau Mau uprising, David lived in England and Germany before immigrating to America in 1962. His early music career in the LA New Wave and Post Punk scenes, found him in bands with the likes of Jethro Tull's Glenn Cornick and Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Billy Bass of Parliament Funkadelic.

During the 1990s, David and his wife raised a daughter in a tiny village in the Southern Sierra Nevada.

Tickets for the show are $12 presale at the shop or online- www.hillybeans.com or $15 at the door. Be sure to come for this terrific  show!
Mama's is located at 426 E. Tehachapi Blvd. (661)822-BEAN.