Behind the scenes: Stringfellows shoot

‘An 8-piece band, all of whom sing and play strings’. I knew instantly that this was something I must see! I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek name and, approaching their old chapel building just outside Huddersfield, I wondered – is this going to be terribly brilliant or brilliantly terrible?!

Inside was chaos. Junk was strewn all over the floor. A toy car, plastic flowers, reels of wire, boxes. Stuff of all kinds. In the middle of the mayhem were 8 stringed instruments waiting to be played. We gathered all the lamps we could find amongst the dust and they launched into a crescendo of percussion (on found items – gas canister, tool box, whatever) and raw, earthy folk of the Northern kind, with lots of harmonies, a double-bass, ukulele, banjo, snare-drum, 12-string and 6-string guitars and a lung-full of philosophical ponderings.

The acoustics of the disused chapel, in the midst of renovations, were phenomenal, helping to blend the voices beautifully, and if you pick up reverb on the recording it’s all from the room, none was added in post-production.

A talented bunch who will no doubt see their audiences soar in numbers as word about them propagates. Terribly brilliant!

The String Fellows film marks a cracking start to 2012 for us, and with loads of great content in the pipe-line for the very near future such as Debian Blak, Katy Haymer, and the Masham Arts Festival, not to mention the return of Yorkshire Telly Live, I sincerely hope you will enjoy the films as much as we do!

If you’d like to be featured on the site or have a suggestion of an artist or act we could/should be giving some exposure to, please drop us a line on lewis@yorkshiretelly.com or on Twitter @YorkshireTelly