ya don't quit

The Boxettes are auditioning!

2011-01-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

So after all the hype with the video has been put in motion and Christmas and New year is out the way, the Boxettes can finally focus on holding the auditions for the new 5th Boxette. If you haven't read my previous post, basically Harriet is leaving (the blonde Boxette) and we need to find the perfect person to become the 5th Boxette.

If you or anyone you know is an awesome vocalist up for joining an awesome vocal group that are gonna blow up (we are!) pretty damn soon, please think about auditioning. We need someone with experience as a solo singer and singing in a group, they need to have an excellent level of musical understanding, and they need to be able to fully commit themselves to the band. Please send a photo, a short blurb about your musical background and what experience you have, and an mp3 or video of you singing.

If you don't live in London you will need to consider re-locating, and we have a negotiable age guideline of 21 - 26.

For more info on this visit the news page at www.theboxettes.co.uk

LOVE.

Boxettes videooo!

2011-01-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

Finally released the first ever Boxettes video and studio recording (I say released... I mean put on vimeo!) Very very happy with it though! I saw it for the first time on Christmas Eve - I went to school with the directors and one of them lives right next to the pub that we go to every Christmas (I say lives... his mum lives there!). Anyway we sat and watched it in the living room and he was just there on the floor looking so nervous - I was a bit worried cos I'm crap at hiding my feelings and I know that if I didn't like it he would know straight away! Luckily, the video was so awesome that it brought a little tear to my eye... this really was a mile stone for the band and I'm so happy that it was done so well and with so much love from everyone involved! The childhood connection is really nice too. It means that we all feel proud of each other as well as impressed!

Luckily the rest of the girls were equally as excited about the video as me... I think we must have all watched it about a thousand times now!

So on the day we put it up... 5th Jan or something... support went through the roof! we posted it on facebook and our mailing-list at around 5pm, and by 5pm the next day we had 25,000 views! It was insane, whenever I logged into facebook (which was every 5 mins to check to progress haha!) my mini-feed was just a list of different people who had posted our video!

How lucky we are to have fallen into creating something that people like, and that everyone is so supportive of willing to push us. I think that the uniqueness of our concept is gonna allow us to bring a quirky edge into commercial music. well we'll see anyway.

without further a do, I give you "FREE". Track downloadable for free at www.theboxettes.co.uk (for a limited time only)

Super Tramp

2010-12-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

Happy and fulfilled from a quality day spent jamming with my UK beatbox brothers on the Southbank, exchanging beats and discussing the future and development of the community that grew us, I made my way home. It was that time of day on the tube; everybody feeling somewhat uncomfortable about the lack of space between themselves and the next - wishing it wasn't rude to offer some gum to the person next to them who'd clearly had sushi for lunch. 'T-E-N-S-I-O-N', spelt out the collective conscious of these many men and women neatly packaged in their stiff suits, faces tightened by self inflicted stress and resentment towards the very life they are living. Nobody says a word, yet the thick air is polluted by the busy chattering of brains seething with negativity. As the tube doors slide open and the faceless suits continue mindlessly on their meaningless journey, unspoken insults are shot silently through the air: "Get the FUCK out of MY way you fat BITCH". Greatly lacking in intellectual content or creativity, every disdainful thought and mutter fails to recognise or respect the journey of another individual, adding yet another gram to the weight on the insulter's heavy and jaded spirit.

As I turned out of the exit of Old Street tube station I heard the familiar words drift through the rush hour commotion: "Spare any change please miss?" I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out a coin and turned to hand it to the young Irish man sat on the cold hard floor. He was clutching his knees tightly to his chest in an effort to retain at least a little body heat as the sharp icy wind whipped and slashed at his pink cheeks. His eyes were darting from person to person as he peered up at the endless drones filing out from the station exit, avoiding eye contact at all costs. As his eyes met mine, this man who appeared to have nothing gave me more than the wealthiest banker could ever buy me in diamonds. His crystal clear eyes lit up like transparent windows into a soul as pure as an infant's. As the most genuine smile stretched across his face, he looked into my eyes and said "thank you". I don't know why, but at that moment we both laughed. I mean, we weren't roaring with laughter and I'm sure it wasn't even loud enough for passers by to notice - it was more of a giggle. But without reason, we shared a moment of meaningless joy. As I walked the rest of my way home, huge smile painted across my face, I thought "if only the scowling business woman next to me had spared a quid for that wonderful man sat on the floor amongst the cigarette butts and crisp packets. She may have smiled or laughed for the first time this week."

Rhiannon... vibe with us at vibe bar tonight!

2010-11-21T05:10:00.000-08:00

We were gonna start the Boxettes auditions last week, but two things prevented us from doing so: firstly, half of the candidates couldn't make their audition times (eek!) and secondly, we have a little tour of the South West coming up (Cornwall, Bristol and Exeter)... and Harri wasn't up for it. We really don't want to have to stop doing Boxettes things while we're 'single and looking', so we decided to ask our friend Rhiannon to stand in for Harriet on the gigs she can't do. Luckily for us, she was well up for it and agreed to give up time for rehearsals and be a Boxette dep for the time being. What a legend!

So basically, we had a few rehearsals, and I'm telling you... this girl does her homework! she came to the first rehearsal having nailed half the set already. We've got a gig tonight with her at the Vibe Bar on brick lane so that she can experience being on stage with us, then we have two more weeks to iron out the wrinkles for the tour. So far, the whole experience of working with someone else in the group has really made me think about the way we're going to be auditioning. I feel like it's almost impossible to tell whether Rhiannon would be the right permanent replacement or not... and I think that if someone is really good , looks the part, and nails the parts then it's gonna be a more long term audition process with them. It might turn out that the final stage of the audition is that we use trained up deps (stand ins) for 6 months before we choose the final replacement. Wow this is gonna be HARD!

THTC

2010-11-20T05:03:00.000-08:00

I've been repping for THTC (The Hemp Trading Company) lately - an awesome ethical clothes label run by a lovely guy called Gav. As with many things independent, THTC is an under celebrated and struggling company needing as much support and exposure as possible from everyone who is concerned about the state of the planet environmentally and ethically.

If this is your bag and you are agreeable with the ethos of THTC and are up for helping them out, you can help a little by 'like' -ing as many of the artist pages as possible. Posting some comments requires signing up and logging in but also helps out a lot. And if you're really into pushing things for these guys, go to the "shop" page and buy something for yourself or someone else. They are awesome clothes designed by some top artists.

like this:

http://thtc.co.uk/bellatrix

welcome home...

2010-11-19T16:45:00.001-08:00

So caught up in not keeping up with anything in blog format, or indeed thought format, or any other sort of format... that there are lots of things missing here. One of which you've probably seen as it's spread across the entirety of the UK media at the moment. Eeek! In October I was part of this massive great big T-Mobile commercial, in the same style as the previous ones; massive flashmob. Only this time it was at heathrow arrivals. Basically, it seems like ages ago now so I ain't even gonna go into depth... but it was quite an emotional experience (I mean the rehearsing... sometimes I wanted to die and sometimes I wanted to kill people) and was long as hell, but the advert is wicked so I'm over it. haha! It features the Boxettes (me Neo Aly and Yve) the Swingle Singers and the Magnets and a shit load of the UKs top vocalists. The talent in the room was so insane it seemed like a bit of a joke that we were all stood there spending 9 hour days learning a bunch of drab choreography that pretty much didn't get used anyway... and living off the complimentary cookies and crisps as the nearest thing to a food shop sold... cookies and crisps. but the banter was great. I got to hang with loads of awesome people for three weeks, which made it all worth it in the end! Check it out - how many Boxettes can you see?!

Video shooot!!

2010-11-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Been workin out tough little asses off, and we've recorded our new track 'Free' and are now shooting the video! Been recording Free with Pierre, our french studio engineer friend, and the music video is being hooked up by Luke Treadaway and Ben Masson, a couple of guys I went to primary school with! It's really fun doing all this work actually... it feels great to be working on something that is a means to an end. I spend so much time on Boxettes admin work that is just endless and I can keep going all night and there's still more to do... but this is amazing - at the end of the day there is good hard evidence of the hours put in! Love it.

The video is looking insanely sweet... these guys are mad creative and interesting so I have a feeling this is gonna be just wicked. YES! But, we'll see. The plan is to put it out into the world in early January when people have the winter blues and need something to smile about. Watch this space! watch it.

Tying up these ends!

2010-11-03T10:16:00.001-07:00

Soooo... I think the Boxettes have pretty much come up with a plan of action for the next little while. Basically, we want to tie up a few ends with Harri, as we've bin through so much together as a group and she is currently one fifth of what is the Boxettes. It has worked out that up until now we haven't managed to get together any decent audio or visual material, meaning that in future, there will be no proper visual evidence of Harriet's part in the Boxettes and how important she has been to the distance we have come so far.

Our aims are to get our EP recorded, and to get a couple of videos shot (viral, music video, mini doc). This way, we have some decent stuff out there if we go through a dry period whilst auditioning and training the new Boxette no. 5, and at the same time, Harri will never be forgotten.

During this process we'll put out some feelers... well actually if I'm honest we've already done that... and get some ladies together for auditioning. In fact, we've already had an amazing response and it seems like peeps are really fuckin up for this. so hopefully, hopefully, we'll find the right person. To be honest, not finding her isn't an option. so basically, we will find the perfect new Boxette.

woman down...

2010-10-18T12:48:00.001-07:00

So, during the late end of the festival season one of my beloved Boxettes came out with the news that she's decided to leave the band. This was a very difficult thing for me to learn, as the Boxettes is my creation and the manifestation of my heart, soul, and a hell of a lot of sweat. Never the less, the wonderfully talented and beautiful Boxette Harriet has my blessing to follow the path that she has chosen for her life and she will always be my soul sister wherever the world takes her. This fact has kind of taken over my head lately, and as we decided to keep it under wraps until we'd had time to think about things I've just felt like blogging would be totally in-genuine and conversation would be half of the truth. I'm crap at that.

Anyway. after lots of talk and tears etc we've come to reach the reality that we have to find and audition a fuck load of awesome women to become the new Boxette. It's kinda weird as although if anyone was going to leave I knew it would be Harri, and I thought I'd covered that in my mind, when it came down to it I'm just like... Fss... I dunno. I feel strange as hell! We actually have to spend the time finding and training another girl, and she has to sound great, look great, feel great... she needs to have a great mind and a great soul... shit! where does one find such a woman!

So, that's that. we've pretty much got our work cut out for us now. I really believe that the Boxettes have big things ahead of us, but the most pressing matter has now become to find a fifth Boxette that can fill this space with a different, but equally as bright and shiny light. There. I've said it.

Festivaaaals!!

2010-09-16T17:09:00.001-07:00

After a ten hour journey, half of which spent sat at a total stand still on the M4, I'm finally back to a bed, toilet paper, and the welcoming option of washing away all sorts of ungodly smells that have been strengthening by the day. Yep, you know the ones - I don't have to say it.

I think this has to have been the most hectic summer I've ever experienced... not a weekend went by where I wasn't playing a festival or two, and there were some weekends when I played three festivals. As usual the weekdays managed to find themselves jam packed full of various rehearsals, gigs and general 'this and that' leaving not a moment to spare. And I was homeless.

Despite the bags and boxes that are littering the floors of my new flat, I can't tell you how good it feels to be grounded again... there never really seems to be much routine in my life but a daily shower, bass practice and fresh greens are enough to make me feel like normality has begin to re-settle.

Most of my festival stage experiences this year were shared with either the Boxettes or Dizraeli and the Small Gods, although I did a couple with Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra and Ventriloquists' "Tongue Fu" (playing bass bahind various spoken word artists). It was nice to play as much bass as beatbox at the festivals this year... that made me very happy indeed!

There were so many absolutely awesome gigs and fun times, but one of the first highlights that springs to mind has gotta be playing bass with Dizraeli and the Small Gods on JAZZ WORLD at Glastonbury baby! (yeah alright I know it's not called Jazz World any more - it now goes by the name of the "West Holtz" stage... but it will always be Jazz World to me). Daaaayum that was a buzz. The previous two weeks had been so unbelievably hectic for various reasons - and I'd just had my end of year exam at Guildhall on the Friday, judged the UK beatbox championship grand final straight after my exam, then dragged my ass on a train to Glastonbury for the first of two gigs on next to no sleep... The Jazz World/West Holtz backstage was pretty much something to brag about. We got a free massage! (I say we got one... I never had mine, but I could have). It was all decorated like fairy land. Very nice indeed.

Being on stage was even better than being back stage... the audio experience was incredible; I've never had such an easy gig with these guys in terms of sound. It's no secret that we're a nightmare to engineer and the West Holts guys really nailed it. Which is just as well, when you consider that it is one of the main stages at Glastonbury festival. And the best stage, if you ask me! Here we are doin our line-check. The stage was so epic there are no photos of the full band on it. haha. Big ups to Gav at THTC for giving us some cool t-shirts to wear ;)

A load of the Boxettes gigs we've played with Chai Wallahs this year, which has been an absolute pleasure in every way, I must say. All of our Chai Wallahs gigs have been absolutely bangin, and every time I came off stage I'd smirk to myself and feel extremely smug about how I have the best job in the world ever (except from maybe Bestival when we were programmed to play the same time as Prodigy... BAD TIMES!). Nobody really knows about the Boxettes yet, as we're still a pretty new band and don't really have any decent media online yet (not for long though..!), so the beginning of every gig would see a really attractive but distinctly empty great big festival venue gaping before us, decorated with the odd hippy doing a tree-fire-moon dance across the empty dance floor, or the odd fucked person spooning out amongst the fag buts. Every single time, without fail (except Bestival... haha) by the second tune in the tent would be totally rammed and heaving at the edges with a bluddie great big beautiful screaming audience! Love it. love love love it. We've had so much amazing feedback from people, which is lovely cos it's left me really believing this is gonna go somewhere BIG!

So after spending the best part of the summer either in a tent or the Trevmobile (Trev is our sound engineer turned driver and general legend, who we love more than the world... the Trevmobile is his 'trusty' camper in which you must not fall asleep in unless you want to suffocate yourself... I'm not joking) I feel strangely enriched, and somewhat raggedy around the edges. I have a feeling that next year is gonna be more hardcore again, and I'm well up for it. At least now all the Boxettes have seen everything there is too see and smelt everything there is to smell (there is something to be said for sharing a small tent with four other people...) we know all there is to know, and there is absolutely no sugar coating what so ever. And we still love each other.

Chai Wallahs

2010-08-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

This summer the Boxettes (and Dizraeli and the Small Gods) did a whole load of our festival gigs with Chai Wallahs - this awesome venue that tours the festivals and hosts an array of top quality underground music acts. When I contacted Chai Wallahs initially I was pretty much on a bit of a mission to get the Boxettes to as many festivals as possible. I'd hung out in Chai at previous Glastonbury festivals and noticed that there seemed to be really special vibe goin on; I thought it seemed like the perfect place for the Boxettes to be doing our first ever festival season. Playing at Chai Wallahs wasn't just a string of gigs. It was like becoming part of a big beautiful family of likeminded individuals, and falling in love with every single person involved. How could we not fall in love with these people? They are a bunch of the most wonderful people, and for every drop of love of and energy we gave, we got back times 10. What really struck me about Chai Wallahs in general was the rare combination of passion, creativity, and absolute efficiency. I mean, speaking from a great deal of gigging experience, what usually lacks in organisation is made up for in soul and vice versa. I have to say, after becoming acquainted with the Chai boys and learning how much love was behind the whole project I wasn't expecting it to be particularly on it in terms of organisation. How wrong I was! Everyone involved in Chai Wallahs were (or appeared to be!) totally on top of everything they could possibly be on top of. Sometimes it felt like I was in one of those supermarket commercials where all the staff focus their attention on one shopper for the smoothest ever shopping experience... we were looked after so well and given everything we needed and more to be happy and comfortable. But on top of this there was a beautiful level of humanity, where we felt like people were lookingafter us because they care, not just because it was their job.

Chai Wallahs is not (YET!) a big organisation - the two blokes who run the whole thing, Si and Barney, literally run the whole thing. They get to the festival midweek and set up, when the festival starts they spend the days and nights making sure everything is running smoothly, they get two hours kip a night at best, then stay on after the festival is finished to pack down. Both these pics were taken right at the end of Bestival, the last festival of the season... neither of these men had been to sleep

properly for a good two months and they're still smiling. That is pretty much the vibe with these two – and no matter how much they’ve got on their plates they’d always find time to take us up to the Chai kitchen and sort us out a delicious Chai Pie. Right up until 6am on the Monday morning when us Boxettes had to leave for the ferry back to mainland and Neo, who was driving (legend), wanned a red bull to help her out a bit. I got this husky and broken sounding voicemail from Si, who was still up tying Chai Wallahs ends together from the night before, to let me know that there was a redbull waiting for us in the Chai kitchen. I say no more. There is a new massive great big place in my heart for these two.

The Chai techies are also a super stelar bunch of friendly and proficient legends. This is Roberto, who would go about his techie business backstage throughout the festivals, seamlessly setting up, packing down, band after band and never so much of a grumble uttered.There is something very zen about the way this guy works... everything would just get done, and it wasn't an issue or an ordeal but an efficient and calm process that was just there. And again there was the level of humanity and the smiles.The Boxettes took Trev with us to the festivals (Trev is our beloved sound bloke), so in terms of getting a good sound I felt like we were pretty much at the mercy of the sound system they have in Chai Wallahs... and as it happens, whatever equipment they're using, it was the best case scenario. That system is PHAT and beautiful. It is very refreshing to be able to rock up to a gig in total confidence that you're gonna sound awesome - providing you don't fuck up the show. The lighting was also wicked. I don't know who was dealing with the lights but night-time Chai lights were the secret ingredient to a bangin vibe on and off stage. When I did Chai gigs with Dizraeli and the small gods we worked with the in house sound engineer at Chai - lovely bloke called Harry. Based on past gigs, I get the idea that we can be a bit of a nightmare to engineer, as there are so many mics and instruments on stage, many of which are acoustic. Generally I've learned to accept that I'm not gonna be able to hear myself properly, and if I wanna hear Lee, the guitarist, I may as well leave the stage. When we did our first gig with Chai Wallahs at Sunrise festival in June I actually couldn't believe how crystal clear and beautifully easy it was to hear everyone on stage just right! Harry is clearly a top notch geezer who knows exactly how to twiddle a knob right. Another reason why the Chai Wallahs stage has been one of my favourites. Thanks Harry.

Lurking in the Chai depths, or darting about the stage with their top of the range camera bits, were Joshi and Sha, the Chai film crew. They’ve basically been filming every single Chai gig so that at the end of it all, each band gets a great little promotional video cooked up for them, with an interview and all! They showed us some of the footage they’ve captured, and oh my it’s lookin good so far! The quality is insanely high, and I couldn’t help but notice how creatively everything was shot. It was particularly cool, because it can sometimes get annoying when there’s a camera constantly in your face, but it wasn’t like that with these guys – in fact it was really nice to have them there with us on stage. Most of the time I wouldn’t notice any cameras at all, and then occasionally there’d be a cheeky face grinning out from behind the camera as one of the boys was contorting himself into some weird position trying to get the right artistic shot. And then we got to sit on the top of a massive lorry lookin out over the whole of Bestival, eating carrot cake and smoking a shisha whilst Sha Joshi and Jamie filmed us talking shit. And the occasional piece of informative chat about how we got together etc.

I feel I have probably gone on a bit too much in this post… It’s hard to be concise when you wanna spread the love across the whole lot, but if you’re still reading at this point, I just wanna give props to the Chai kitchen cru and bar staff. Wonderful food, wonderful service, wonderful smiles. I love you. I really hope that at some point very soon the right people can recognise what an amazing thing is going on here, because Chai Wallahs have been pushing a massive boulder up hill for long enough. They really need financial help to keep this baby afloat and continue to promote new music and a new mentality. As seems to always be the way, if they didn’t have to worry about money then they could really do some great things for music. I think it’s meant to be, and It’s gonna happen… Bring it, Chai Wallahs!

My mic sounds nice... Check 1

2010-08-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

Spent the afternoon in the studio with the Boxettes today testing out mics for recording, and it was no news to us that successfully recording any of our stuff is gonna be way harder than recording your average band... which is mostly my fault as beatboxing is a bitch to make sound good on record. We want it to sound as big fat as it does live, but also to preserve the organic quality that comes from the sound of the human voice.

So today we spent most of the session testing out different mics on each of our voices. The engineer was a french student called Pierre who saw one of our gigs and asked if we were up for doing some sessions with him for his course... he gets his homework done and we get studio experience and hopefully a couple of decent recordings at the end of it. Both things we are in desperate need of.

The studio was absolutely sick, and judging by the massive room full of top of the range iMacs this college clearly has a lot of money at its disposal. Lucky for some.Having been allocated our microphones we decided to record some takes of our tune Hatty (hit the rock), as it is voice-heavy and has no filthy sounds like lip-bass (we had the feeling that perfecting the sound of lip-bass was gonna take some practice). Despite the severe lack

of sleep and vocal fatigue we were all suffering from the past few days' hecticness (festival season can really take it out of you!) I think we sounded pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself! Although it definitely wasn't the one, it gave me hope that it is gonna be possible for us to record an E.P within the next hundred years or so.

As well as spending some good time in the studio we plan on bootlegging our live gigs... and hopefully amongst the sets there we will knock out a few EP-worthy performances.

At one of the festivals this year we swore an oath to Thabo

Mkwananzi, front man of another Chai Wallahs band 'Extra Curricular' that he would have The Boxettes EP within 9 months... so consider that a time span.

Time to up my game...

2010-08-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

Since I began a four year course studying jazz double bass at music college I've had an eerie feeling that the world of beatboxing has been rapidly evolving and growing around me. Three years into the course and I'm so far removed from the beatboxing scene that grew me, that when I judged the UK beatbox championship grand final in June I was totally unprepared for the absolute beatbox shred that has apparently been taking place. The highlight of the night for me was a battle between Reeps1 (defending champion, who kept the title at the end of it all) and new(ish) comer on the scene Laythe.

Both of these guys are absolute technicians. A combination of a vast repertoire of NEW sounds (and old, but it's always good to hear a new sound you don't know how to make), rhythmical precision and perfectly executed routines (I'm not sure how much was prepared and/or improvised) and real crisp power behind their lips made this battle one of the most tense I've seen. Everything was fast, full-on and totally in your face.

I've never really felt like something was out of my reach before, in that if I want to get it all I have to do is work for it. I have the advantage of being a trained musician - I know how to practice and I have certain musical tools a lot of beatboxers probably don't have. After watching this battle, however, I was left wondering if I could ever reach a level of technical proficiency that would match the best guys in the world.

As the female world champion sometimes I feel like it’s my duty to be a better beatboxer than I am. I know that I’m a pretty good beatboxer and I can definitely put up a pretty good fight, but if I were to battle Reeps tomorrow I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell. This doesn’t sound very good for female beatboxers when their world champion couldn’t battle the UK champion. Check out the expression on my face as Laythe spits. Haha.

Having said all of this, when it comes down to it battling isn’t making music, which is something I can do. One thing I noticed a long time ago is that the good battlers with the crazy technique weren’t necessarily the guys you’d want to jam with. (this is in no way a reference to Reeps or Laythe, I’ve never jammed with either of them and I’m sure they’re both great) A couple of French beatboxers I know called LOS and Ezra for example, don’t have all the mental new technician shit together that I all the rage in beatboxing these days, but I enjoy any time spent jamming with these amazing people. Beautiful musicians who just want to make beautiful music. Lovely people too. Check out this clip of their new duet project. It’s sick.

I guess the ultimate beatboxer would have it all – unbeatable technique and chops with an equal amount of musicality, taste, and creativity. Both can be worked on forever, but for me it’s obvious where I need to put the hours in. And just a reminder to myself: do not underestimate the power of practice… I’ve just made a decision to up my game.

The Boxettes up until now

2010-08-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

So anyway. After this quite weird gig at Boxcon '08 we continued to work on our style... things really started off pretty obviously; we were 4 singers and a beatboxer. We had next to no bass in our tunes, as we're all girls and can't sing particularly low. Gradually we began to experiment with different sounds. I discovered that I could make a tuned bass sound using my lips. Our music became more and more interesting and we were no longer 4 singers and a beatboxer, but five vocal synthesizers with a world of possibility unravelling before us.

It sounds cheesy as hell, but I don't care. I went from feeling like the project I was destined to lead would not and could not ever be as good as a bunch of blokes doing it, to feeling like blokes would be gutted that they can never be a part of this awesome project.

Very steadily the Boxettes grew as a band in every way. Musically and socially we grew together and started all pulling in the same direction. It's not just me any more. We are a collective who are working together on something that we have, that nobody else in the world has. At least I don't think they do anyway - not like this.

The birth of the Boxettes as we know it

2010-08-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

In September '07 I started a four year course in Jazz double bass at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. Every year around one or two of each instrument of the idiom (bass, drums, guitar, piano, horn and vocals) ... ish ... are accepted onto the course making up a new year-group. Obviously the year groups start out pretty small, and it is almost inevitable that at least a couple of people will either leave or get kicked out before making it to the end. Anyway. It was around Christmas time that I accepted the end of old Boxettes. At some point early on in 2008 I was asked if my band the Boxettes would play at the 2008 international beatbox convention at the Southbank Centre, London. At this point the Boxettes consisted of me and my dreams, but I said yes anyway. I hadn't really spent much time with many of the singers at Guildhall yet as I was only just getting to know the people outside of my year group, so I made it my business to get to know these girls and see what they were about.

The first Boxette I got to know was Harriet Syndercombe Court. She was the female singer in my year (we had two singers, but one is a bloke and that's no good). She was friendly, but seemed very wary of everybody and kept her distance at first. I knew she could sing; I heard her every week in our group tutorial classes. She had perfect intonation and a powerful voice full. Her groove was right in the pocket - she could sing A'cappella and it'd feel as if she's singing over fatback taffy.

Next I got to know Alyusha Chagrin. She was a bubbly and sociable character, always speaking to a different person and attracting a lot of attention. It was obvious that a lot of people liked her a lot; she was often the centre of attention and although she clearly knew it, she dealt with it very graciously. Alyusha was the only Boxette I didn't really hear sing until later. I think she was having physical problems with her voice at the time. But she started going out with one of my best friends, and I knew she would be good, so I asked her if she wanted to join the group. (just in case you wondered, Alyusha turned out to have a voice even more enchanting that her beautiful face! And you will hear more about that in the future I'm sure).

I met Yvette Riby-Williams for the first time when we were put together in a band project at Guildhall. It was quite obvious that she did not like me much at all. I was in first year and I arrived to every rehearsal with a hangover. I would see the corner of her mouth twitch as I stumbled into the rehearsal room just in the nick of time, in a fluster dragging my huge instrument behind me. After I'd worked with Yvette on this school project however, I didn't care whether she liked me or not - she had to be in my band. I'd never before heard a singer execute such a descriptive solo over changes, and with such a subtle timbre yet still evidence of time spent in church groovin it out with the Lord!

Neo Joshua was clearly the singer of the moment at Guildhall. She was certainly not shy with her voice and I'd heard her sing many times before I got to know her. I remember watching her exam performances and being completely taken aback; I'd never really seen a singer who was really into bebop like Neo; at the time I remember thinking she sounded just like Ella - her playful personality reflected this too. Neo also sang lead vocals for what I saw as the "3rd year soul function band" at the time (their actual name is Citizen Soul). They'd play covers of massive tunes at parties in the SU bar, and Neo would belt the shit out of it and love every minute. She agreed to join the Boxettes even though she hardly knew me at all.

So that was it! My five girls, randomly thrown together at a guess. Could this happen to be one of the most exciting and successful projects of my life? Not for a while yet - we didn't find our collective voice straight away!

For the Boxcon gig we performed an arrangement of Cole Porter jazz standard "It's all right with me" that our friend arranged for us. It was a great arrangement on a take 6 tip, but it was an absolute vocal roast (apparently - I just beatboxed). I'm not sure if it ever got nailed in the end, but I remember the arranger offering to spend some time on it with us after he'd seen the performance (in a "you need to do some serious work on that" kind of a way)! Bad times haha! We also performed a free improvisation. I think somebody's response to the video on youtube was something along the lines of "Oh Jesus now I have ear-cancer". So. That went well.

this is the ear cancer video ... our first ever gig:

The first ever Boxettes

2010-08-16T02:29:00.001-07:00

I decided I wanted to start a female vocal/beatbox group in Summer 2007. It made sense for me to do because it was something that I'd never seen done before. I mean, I'm sure it has been done, but I'd never heard of any female beatbox groups and I'm sure as hell most other people hadn't considering the amount of people who tell me they'd never even seen a female beatboxer before.

Anyway, being a girl working in a blokes world I thought it'd be fun and interesting to start up a female vocal group. I was the only beatboxer I knew at the time who was capable of doing it (all my beatbox mates were bloke... most still are) so it was on me to get it together.

Initially there was actually a different formation of the Boxettes as we now know it.

The personnel was made up of :

Blythe Pepino, one of my favorite singer in town... and out of town too, probably. (check out the band BIZALI http://bizali.coM they are immense - I used to play regularly with the drummer Daisy Palmer, who is absolutely killing and now plays for Goldfrapp, amongst many other awesome projects. She grooves hard. Blythe also has her solo project going on; it's still only a baby but I really believe it has a touch of genius and will blossom: http://www.myspace.com/pepinoband)

BIZALI music video:

Gracious B (Grace Savage) is a very old friend - I mean, she's my age, but we went to school together. I taught her some beatbox technique at some point, and have always urged her to practice. At the time she was the only other female beatboxer I knew and so it made perfikt sense for her to be a Boxette. In the past couple of years she's been putting some more time into her beatboxing and improving a lot. She's been involved in some great projects now including Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra's Boxed production. Check her out: http://www.myspace.com/gracious_b

T-Lace (Tanya Lacey) was the final Boxette. I found her through Bristol based female hip-hop collective Dutty Girl when we we put on stage together at a gig at the Croft in Bristol and jammed it out. She's got a great voice and a wicked bubbly personality - an absolute pleasure to be around. I haven't spoken to her for a while an have lost her contact details, but word on the street is that there are big things in store for her. Keep your eyes and ears open.

We had our first and only gig as part of Shlomo's music through unconventional means series in the QEH at the southbank centre. It was fun, but something wasn't working. Perhaps it was the severe lack of rehearsal time as we all lived at different ends of the country, perhaps the chemistry was not just not quite right.

Anyway as it became clear to me that getting this lot together for rehearsal was gonna be expensive I had to re-think my plans for the Boxettes. I still really wanned to do it, but I wasn't up for paying for 3 train tickets to London every week for a project I wasn't sure fitted together quite right.

I called the girls and explained how I was feeling, and that was the end of that. I was left feeling slightly deflated and wondering if my dream of an awesome all female beatbox group would ever and could ever come into fruition.

You're pretty good for a girl...

2010-08-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am a female beatboxer. I hope that people consider me a good beatboxer and a good musician but I'd be lying if I claimed my success so far has had absolutely nothing to do with my gender.

It can be a bit weird knowing that the first thing that goes through everybody's head when they hear me for the first time is probably something along the lines of "Wow, how can she make all of those noises... she's a GIRL!", but then again I've probably got quite a lot of work out of that very thought, so really, I'm not complaining at all.

I always hoped that the people whose opinions I really cared about would get over that pretty quickly and see the things I've actually worked on (having a twat came pretty naturally after all) like groove, time feel and other more musical as well as rudimentary aspects. I'll be honest; whilst sound was always very important to me (the quality of the sounds I make), my repertoire of sounds has had some neglect throughout my beatboxing career.

I'm not claiming myself to be innocent when I say that because people are so impressed to see a half decent female beatboxer, the girls never reach that level of real brilliance. Or so it seems anyway. There are definitely certain sounds that I can't make as well as my contemporaries (all blokes, by the way), perhaps due to my weaker female facial whatever... or perhaps due to my laziness as I don't need to practice because I already have a load of gigs and recognition and I'm supposed to be the best girl in the world, so why bother?

It will be a long time before the best girls in the world are on a par with the best guys in the world, but only when girls realise that it is an option, not an unbreakable law of nature, (when I won the female world championship a particularly cynical friend of mine sent me a text saying "So you're the female world beatbox champion. I bet that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth... a bit like being the world strongest woman." ... for some reason I actually really like this bloke) will the balance start to change. Or perhaps it's just down to testosterone.