Straw Bear

It’s never easy trying to gain recognition for your work as an artist, whether you’re producing visual art or performance art, the vast majority of good work sadly never reaches the wider public. Many artists feel driven to communicate via their art and when the avenues of communication are difficult to open up, it can be frustrating, especially when those avenues are often available to lesser quality work in respect of populist commercial exploitation. However, great work does find its way out there, as history corroborates, and occasionally an artist gets a break. This was certainly the case for this issue’s featured band Straw Bear

Two school friends, guitarist Chris Gray and vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Ian Ray, formed a fledgling music project back in 2004, and it was while Ian was working at Peterborough Evening Telegraph as a journalist that he became familiar with the Straw Bear Festival and the project was promptly named after it. For the uninitiated, the Straw Bear Festival is a local pagan celebration that began way back in time during a period of which no-one appears to be sure. The popular annual festival still takes place to this day in Whittlesea, or Whittlesey as it’s now known.

Whether intentional or not, the band and the festival both share common themes. The fact that Straw Bear have been adopted by certain factions of the folk music world and recognised as a band with an earthiness and a connection to their environment fits well with a festival that has its roots in folklore and the produce of the land.

Asked if he felt that the band were strictly folk orientated, Ian replied

We’ve never really set out to be a folk band as such and have not defined ourselves at all. It just happens that some folk magazines have been writing about us and we’re happy to encourage that. We have influences such as Fairport Convention, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, but are equally informed by many other genres and artists

Possibly Alternative Indie Folk might be a closer label, if labels are indeed even necessary.

Straw Bear has not specifically been following the folk circuit, but did apply to play the Cambridge Folk Festival and was refused after ironically being told their music was not folk enough. However, gigs do not seem to have been hard to come by and the Cambridge Folk Festival may be something for the future. Playing live to appreciative audiences is a priority for the band and recent developments with national airplay have assisted them greatly in achieving this.

Ian said:

We uploaded a few songs to the BBC Introducing uploader, which is a great way for new bands to get airplay on the BBC. We had just completed the recording of our second album Black Bank, and sent Kitty to the the BBC . To our surprise and obvious delight, Tom Robinson really liked it and played it a few times on his show

That airplay was followed by an invite to perform a session on Tom’s BBC 6 Music programme and led to further national airplay, BBC Radio 2’s Whispering Bob Harris and Dermot O’Leary playing Kitty Along with Absolute Radio and XFM, among other national and regional stations.

Tom Shipp, the bass guitarist who also doubles up on six string for Straw Bear recalls:

The session was great. We all went to the BBC at Great Portland Street where BBC Radio 2 and 6 music are based. We’re delighted with how the session went, Tom Robinson was lovely, and it’s really helped us get the word out about the album

The song that captured the imagination and ears of these legends of the music broadcasting fraternity is but one of several very strong tunes on the Black Bank album. “Kitty” was named after a
friend’s newborn daughter, but deals with unrealised artistic ambition. The song has a quality that is by no means unique to the other tracks on the album, but after several listenings, was certainly a good choice for a single. Tom Robinson called it “An understated gem”.

The respected Sam Inglis of Sound On Sound magazine recently reviewed Straw Bear’s Black Bank album as a whole and said: “Quite possibly the best thing I have ever reviewed in these pages, be assured that I bloody well mean it”. High praise indeed and justifiably so.

Another release taken from the Black Bank album is being planned and the band hope for a similar response to it.