Live in concert

For one night only, Pouring Beans presents The Porcelainettes LIVE on stage in the concert auditorium below the bell tower. Don’t miss this once in a lifetime chance to catch one of the world’s most hotly tipped up-and-coming ceramic bands in the plush surroundings of this website!

Featuring great covers of classic sing-along hits such as:

“Livin’ Doll”
Nina Simone’s “Little Girl Blue”
Kraftwerk’s “The Model”
“Achey Breaky Ceramic Heart”
“Tiny Dancer”
Annie Lennox’s “Walking On Broken Glass (And Pottery)”
“Statue Got Me High” (it’s a TMBG song, I don’t expect you to get the reference, it’s just for me really)
“Fade to Grey (Hair)”

And many many many more.

Book now!

Underneath my car

We are truly living in the future now. In the past, when I’ve taken my car to the garage for one reason or another, the mechanics have done things to it and given it back to me, and it looks the same. I just see the shiny outside of the car and not the rest of it.

Well, no more. My new car came with a service plan and yesterday it had its first annual service. And now, apparently, the annual service doesn’t just mean that the car gets checked over and serviced inside and out – it also means that the mechanic takes a video of the underside of your car while it’s up on the ramp so you can see the bits of it you can’t normally see. Then they text it to you and it’s there for you to watch on a special website for ever and ever.

Obviously, I found this thrilling, so I’ve set the video to some music and invite you to join me on a voyage of discovery as we travel… underneath my car.

Mandolin – A Song

Let’s crack off 2019 with something that I should have done in 2018.

I set myself a challenge whereby I was to write and record a song about a Mandolin (the chocolate bar, not the musical instrument) using a Mandolin. I wrote the song words, or lyrics as they are commonly known, and even worked out a basic rhythm with which to astound the listeners with. Sadly, when I tried to record it all on my very primitive phone, it was not good enough. I did expect this to happen, as I don’t own any proper recording equipment like everyone else does, so the project was duly shelved. That said, I do not want to deny the public what is a very beautiful song. Here we are then. Make up your own tune. It’s yours for the taking:

“Hit me, mandolin,
You don’t think that I can handle him so
Hit me, mandolin.
My arms bent over like a pangolin so
Hit me, mandolin.
You see that growing? It’s a dorsal fin!
That’s right, yeah, mandolin,
It’s much, much bigger than a phantom limb.

Oh, trick me, mandolin,
Writing my way to the loony bin.
So strict, yeah, mandolin,
The nurse on hold for my next of kin.
I left my mandolin,
Picking up pieces of a mandarin.
You’re on me, mandolin,
Hiding in shadows like a mannequin.
So leave me, mandolin,
I’m sick an’ tired of ya panderin’.
You heard me, mandolin,
I’m done, it’s over, time fo’ finishin'”

If Pharrell Williams or Dr. Dre are listening, I am free in March to collaborate on any future projects you may have.

The Best of the Papples

Minutes of the initial scoping meeting for the recently proposed “Best of the Papples” album project, held at Pouring Beans Records Inc. head office, as recorded on a tiny piece of kitchen roll.

Four Word Reviews: Eyes of Innocence

Do you remember the 1980s? Do you like 1980s music? Are you keen to hear all the many sounds of 80s pop music on a single album? Yes, yes, yes and yes: the album for you is Eyes of Innocence, the 1984 debut from Miami Sound Machine, better known as Gloria Estefan plus her husband and some guys who would be quickly forgotten about as her solo career took off. Me? I like some 80s music, yes, but I generally don’t require all of it to be performed on a single album by a single band. And yet that is what I got when the postman pushed this through my door.

How the magic starts

What is a Mandolin?

A wise person once asked, “Where is my mind?” I often find myself coming back to this question as a reference point during the day because I know where my mind is physically, however there are times when certain acts of stupidity make me question whether it is really there at all.

You must remember to question everything. Nothing is for certain anymore. If you’d have told me fifteen years ago that I would have a tiny device in my pocket that could download cute videos of cats walking around like human beings at any time during the day I would have laughed right in your face. YOUR. FACE.

Do you know what a mandolin is? If you think it’s a stringed instrument in the lute family then you’d be so wrong I would have to stand on a precipice and tell the world. This is actually what a mandolin is:

It is a small, thin chocolate bar from across the sea, from a world where other chocolate bars clearly don’t exist. Quite what music shops have been selling all these years is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they have all been misspelling it all these years and those instruments of 6, 8 and 12 strings are, in fact, mendolins or mandolines, or possibly something else. If the decision were up to me, I believe a mandoloin would be an excellent name.

Faced with the possibility that all those times I have been getting mandolins all wrong, I have therefore proposed two outcomes to this predicament:

I will write, perform and record a song using the aforementioned chocolate mandolin;
I will eat one of these other “mandolins” you find in music stores.

It is the only way to find balance and harmony between these two vastly different things with the same name. If I am only half successful then the whole thing will be a total loss. If I can achieve both then the sun will come out and there will be a tomorrow to look forward to.

Wish me luck.

Four Word Reviews: Christmas with Mahalia

It’s been the hottest April since records began, or something, with temperatures up to 28°C here in the tropical south last week. The flowers are out in force, bees are buzzing around and the sky is a clear, vivid blue. With all that in mind, then, I am unable to explain why this might be a good time to review Christmas with Mahalia, a 1968 album featuring ten gospel versions of Christmas songs with rich orchestral and choral accompaniment. But evidently it is a good time, because here we are.