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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: Keith Angel
Location: Doncaster, South Yorkshire
Instruments: percussion
Music: World fusion / English folk / Indian
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 ÌýÌýListen (9'55) to 'From Punjab to Pit Top', performed by Keith and his band from the album, 'Punjab to Pit Top' by the Angel Brothers & Satnam Singh, (Wrecking Ball Records, 2002)
Listen to Keith and his band, The Angel Brothers & Satnam Singh, in session on the Andy Kershaw programme, R3 on 7th February 2003
'Through our community music work, we're really making connections between English and Indian culture.'
How I came to this music:
As a teenager growing up in Doncaster I was in to industrial rock. Then in the late 80's I came upon 'world' music through Andy Kershaw's Radio 1 show. At the same time, there was loads of global music going on in Doncaster and the Dearne Valley. Once I heard all this wild music, I dug deeper and got involved in the whole Womad festival scene. I developed my interest in percussion and music production and eventually turned professional. I've since worked on albums with John Tams, Kate Rusby, Bill Jones and other singer-songwriter types.
About 6 years ago, I met Satnam Singh at a percussion workshop which was hosted at the Doncaster Arts Centre. We hit it off immediately and we've been firm friends ever since. Satnam was born in Delhi in the Punjab but has lived most of his life here in Doncaster in a pit village like me. We both attended tough comprehensive schools that were very mixed culturally, so he's as much a Yorkshire man as myself. What's interesting is the way that our awareness of each other's respective cultures has deepened our musical development.
When I was younger, there really wasn't much connection between the local English community and the Asian one. Now that's really changing for the better and people are opening up thanks to far-reaching local community arts work.
Where I play:
Satnam and I got a band together with my brother, Dave and a few other guys. We play all around the UK, particularly here in Doncaster at the Arts Centre. We've also performed at Womad as well as doing an Andy Kershaw session.
Community involvement is key to what we do so we regularly give percussion workshops throughout Yorkshire in community centres and schools. In that way, we're spreading the skills and the pleasures to be had from instruments like India's dhol and dholak, all the African and Latin drums including the djembe through to basic drum kit.
We've just released an album which is very much a reflection of our strong musical personalities rather than an attempt to cobble together different styles as some kind of fusion. It's all great fun.
A favourite song:
'From Punjab to Pit Top' sums up our Bhangradelic sound … we're joined on this number by Andy Cutting on accordion and Roger Wilson on fiddle. When ever we play it live, people go wild. Even on the album version, it's got the feeling of a live session about it which captures the energy of our band. It's also about our rich cultural connections that are as far flung as all the continents of the world yet they collide up here in the back waters of a Yorkshire pit village.
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