About
Acoustic Architects are an acoustic rock/folk band based in North Kent. We mostly play our own songs but usually mix in a few covers from the likes of REM, Crowded House, CSNY and Simon and Garfunkel.
We used to be called ‘Homage’, because we sounded like other people, but we changed the name as it sounded too cheesy (fromage).
We were also caught on film at ‘From Page to Stage’ at the Avenue Theatre, Sittingbourne, on 1 October – an event to launch the book ‘Strange Fruits’, by Maria C. McCarthy, published by Cultured Llama for WordAid in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support:
10 out of 10
Lounge on the Farm
Good Day
Drifting Away
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Nice review of our gig aboard the SB Edith May on Friday 28 October 2011, by Matt Care of The Cambria Trust:
The Acoustic Architects do “acoustically driven rock music” or folk-rock stuff basically. Two acoustic guitars, a bodhran player (dustbin lid sized Irish goat-skin drum, pronounced ‘bow (rhymes with cow)-Ron’) / main vocalist and the electric bass make up the standard line-up but there are frequent changes by song, with all of them doing lyrics at various times, the bass player grabbing a mandolin for “Fisherman’s Blues” (Water boys), bodhran player wielding a variety of percussion kit, and guitarist Bob Carling switching to mandolin or a mandola named Nelson. This gives all the folk stuff a nice bit of raunch and gives the rocky stuff (up to and including Led Zeppelin!) a nice folky homeliness.
We loved the covers of Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon and Garfunkel and the Water boys and Led Zep, nice sing-along ones like “I’ll be your Baby Tonight” and “Float like Cannon Ball”, folky stuff by Steve Knightley and Phil Beer and the band’s own material – Good Day and Back to the Smack (pub!) being memorable plus “Lounge on the Farm” about a music festival. All the music was intercut by a genuinely funny and enjoyable level of banter between band members and jokes with the audience. They also handed out a variety of “shaker things” so that we could join in with percussion on some of the songs.
A brilliant night had by all and I should thank the Gransdens and Edith May herself for being such good hosts and the band for being so entertaining. I really hope that we, on Cambria, can do something like this.
http://www.cambriatrust.org.uk/cambria_volunteers/detail.asp?ID=686
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Members of the band:
- Dave Woodward (vocals, guitar)
- Bob Carling (vocals, guitar, mandolin, mandola, bass)
- Steve Allen (vocals, bodhran)
- Paul Upton (vocals, bass)
- Patrick Killeen (harmonica)
Bob Carling
Bob started his musical career when he pestered his mum for a guitar in his teens, because he hated playing the piano! He’s been playing guitar ever since. Initially he tried to copy the Beatles, Ralph McTell and loads of other now rather ancient singer-songwriters.
He plays acoustic and electric guitar and bass guitar – and more recently mandolin and mandola. And he has aspirations of getting hold of other more exotic stringed instruments…
He has been in various bands, over the years, but he started seriously gigging when he lived in Southampton and started a band in 1999-ish called Kairos, which had some local success.
In the summer of 2005, when Bob moved to Canterbury, Dave Woodward came up to him at an open mic night after he had sung a couple of Simon and Garfunkel songs. “Do you like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young?”, he asked, to which Bob said, “Yeah, but that dates both you and me!”. But that started a fruitful musical relationship because we both liked that “acoustic-ey” rock thingy. This was helped by us both going to a superb song-writing workshop where the tutors were none other than Steve Knightley and Phil Beer of “Show of Hands”, organized by the wonderful Debs Earl of “Folk in the Barn” fame. That workshop inspired us to write our own stuff rather than just do covers of other people’s stuff (although we do that as well). And at least it got round the age-old problem of new bands doing the pub thing… do we do covers or our own stuff? We do both, but mostly our own stuff – and we introduce the latter by saying “this sounds like…”!
At about this time Steve Allen joined the band and we started calling ourselves “Homage” – because every time we sat down to write a song, we kept saying to ourselves “that sounds just like…”. So we thought, sod it, why not roll with this and say that we sound like other people – and so the name was born. Homage is not a bad name, but sounded a bit cheesy (“fromage”!) so, after a lot of bandying around loads of band names, we re-named ourselves “Acoustic Architects”.
Steve Allen
Steve was a backing singer for various bands his early years.
He was involved in the Manx music scene (Isle of Man) since 1988 as a bodhran player at many a session or during ‘Yn Chruinnaght’ (the island music festival).
He teamed up with Dave Woodward around this time as a singer in the band ’4 Play’.
Dave and Steve were also prominent players at the original ‘Penny Theatre’ in Canterbury.
He spent most of the 1990s as a front and backing singer (plus percussion) in one of Kent’s leading party bands ‘The Groovey Band’.
Steve had a brief spell singing with Dave Woodward again at various pub open stage nights as the aptly named ‘Dave & Steve’.
In late summer 2005, Steve met up with Bob Carling and Dave, Steve and Bob named themselves ‘Homage’, but in 2009, round about the time that Paul Upton joined the band, we renamed the band ‘The Acoustic Architects’.
Dave Woodward
Dave is Kent born and bred. And he wants very little to be known about his identity, except that he’s a great fan of Crowded House, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Simon and Garfunkel and Led Zeppelin.
He’s our main songwriter, coming up with very clever hooks and lyrics. (Only don’t tell him that, cos he’ll get an even bigger ego than he already has.)
He’s been around the music scene in Kent for many years, playing and singing with various people, including Steve at the legendary Penny Theatre in Canterbury and in the band ‘4play’.
His songwriting blossomed after going with Bob to a singer/songwriter workshop led by Steve Knightley and Phil Beer of “Show of Hands”, coming up with “Good Day” and “Back to the Smack” in quick succession. The latter was as a result of moving away from Kent briefly and missing playing and singing at The Smack, a pub in Whitstable.
Paul Upton
Paul is a staunch armchair Derby County fan – Derby born and bred, thick of arm and thick of head (he says). He thinks the only good thing to come out of Kent is Shepherd Neame and the road to Derby.
His favourite quote is “if you do what you’ve always done, then you’ll get what you’ve already got”… (Who said that? Probably Paul.) His favourite record is “Big Yellow Taxi” – the version by Half Man Half Biscuit – and his favourite song is “King of Rome”. And he’s proud to say that he didn’t know about Leige and Leaf until 2008.
Patrick Killeen
We have more recently been joined by Patrick, harmonica player extraordinaire.
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