Australian Spooky Men come to Sheffield

The Spooky Men Chorale, based in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, will be performing in Sheffield for the first time in July. Having already established themselves on their home turf with a debut CD, on the music festival circuit and plenty of radio airtime, 14 members of the all-male troupe will be embarking on their second UK tour in July.

Their eclectic repertoire, exquisite harmonies and polished performances have a universal appeal. It is the combination of humour, maudlin pathos and plain goofiness in their singing that puts them in a class of their own. Sheffield audiences can catch them in action at Sheffield Library Theatre, Surrey Street (off Tudor Square) at 9.00 pm (Doors 8.15 – bar available) on Wednesday 18 July. Tickets for the main event cost £10 / £5 concessions. Tickets are available from Jack’s Records on 0114 276 7093 or on the door.

The Spooky Men will also be conducting an all-comers singing workshop (no experience needed) at Victoria Hall (Methodist Mission), Tudor Square, from 7.00pm – 8.00pm on the same day, for a maximum of 75 people. This involves an hour of intensive tuition and fun, the ticket price is £4 / £2 on the door only. ( Please call 0114 266 6555 to book workshop places.)

Last year’s gruelling tour of the UK saw the Spooky Men do 28 performances in 23 days, from packed village halls to a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They were warmly received by capacity crowds on main stages at large Folk festivals, to a standing-room-only gig at London Music Hall. The upcoming UK tour includes five Folk festivals and concerts in London, Bristol, Brighton, Cambridge and Sheffield. They will also perform in a dozen smaller towns and villages where local choirs will host the event. This year the Spooky Men will also perform in Dublin on the grounds of the Guinness family seat Farmleigh.

Their musical ethos can best be described as a celebration of the ‘pointless grandeur of the male condition’. The repertoire is grounded in Georgian male vocal traditions and spiced with director Stephen Taberner’s quirky original songs and arrangements of appropriate classics. Popular original works include the Spooky Theme Song and Don’t Stand Between a Man and his Tool. (See www.spookymen.com.au.)

The Spooky Men are as much a visual feast as a musical one. The studied deadpan which underlies the most hilarious of their songs gives way at times to maudlin pathos and despair, bristling indignation, cowboy exuberance and mock Slavic-Russian inscrutability as the choir explores the minutiae of the male experience.