The Topic is at Groove Pad, 48 Saltaire Road, Shipley BD18 3HN. It’s a bar/coffee lounge on two floors. The Topic has exclusive use of the downstairs coffee lounge area on Thursday nights. The larger bar and room-space upstairs may be used for Guest Nights with a particulary high turnout. The bar serves a fine selection of drinks and does table service to the cafe area if required. Groove Pad is situated next to the Aagrah Restaurant on Saltaire Road. Easy street parking is available nearby and it’s only a few minutes walk from Shipley train station and the bus terminus.
Coming Soon
12 Oct
Jon Wilks
Jon Wilks is a prominent fingerpicking guitarist and singer who performs traditional English folk songs and broadside ballads. He often specialises in songs from Birmingham and the wider Midlands, of which he has recorded two albums, Midlife (2018) and Up the Cut (2021).
With his background as a former editor of Time Out magazine and contributor to Dazed & Confused, The Guardian and other publications, Jon has a keen eye and ear for storytelling. During his live shows, he mixes entertaining folk song performances with fascinating tidbits about the original singers and collectors that he has unearthed during his extensive research on traditional folk music in the UK.
Aside from being a talented musician and performer, Jon is also the founder and editor of Tradfolk.co, a website dedicated to the traditional music and ritualistic culture of England. He has released three solo albums, three albums and two EPs with The Grizzly Folk, and an album and EP with Japan-based indie band, Cut Flowers. He co-arranged and performed tracks on Jackie Oates’s Gracious Wings album and was a part of Slow Jane, the quartet that created videos of Nick Drake songs during lockdown.
In addition to his music career, Jon is the presenter of The Old Songs Podcast and gigs whenever he can. His talent has been recognized by Guitarist, one of the world’s biggest guitar magazines, which featured him as one-to-watch in July 2022.
Chris Brain renders songs embedded in folk tradition with a contemporary resonance. Hailing from Yorkshire, Brain finds inspiration from pastoral landscape and soaring figures from the natural world.
He released his debut critically-acclaimed and widely-distributed album, Bound to Rise, in 2022. Capturing 10 live performances of enthralling meditations on nature with glimpses of the confessional, Bound to Rise was driven by his distinctive fingerpicked guitar and warm vocals. He is now working on a second album to be released at the start of October 2023 and toured nationally in October/November 2023.
Brain is deeply rooted in the UK folk scene, running two folk clubs in Leeds where he resides, which attract a wide range of audiences and musicians alike.
Johnny Campbell emerged onto the UK folk scene writing self-penned material and delving deep into Northern English folk song and story.
A modern-day Billy Bragg - Tradfolk
The album From Hull & Halifax & Hell (2020) took him to the Faroe Islands where he recorded a live album on the island of Nolsoy. Since musical instruments hadn't arrived on the islands until the 19th century, this is perhaps the first time Northern English traditional song has been recorded there.
Nobody else seems to be doing what Campbell is doing right now, and his passion and determination deserve recognition - Jon Wilks
This album earned him album of the week with Blues and Roots radio and reviews with British folk press:
The spirit of the folk clubs in their heyday runs in his veins - Folking.com
I defy anyone not to be galvanised by the total integrity of his exceptional rendition of [Ewan MacColl's] Moving On Song - The Living Tradition
A truly entertaining work. Lose yourself in the true folk experience - Fatea Magazine
Led by Phil Cockerham, The Power of Three have been playing together across the UK for some years and have developed a reputation for exciting and original music, delighting and pleasing audiences wherever they go. Their name The Power of Three was coined during 2020 when the band recorded the live CD Windy Park Bandstand.
Dave Bowie Jr plays double bass and Dickie Dixon plays percussion and harmonium, accompanying Philip Cockerham on bouzouki and guitar, supporting him in creating original songs and tunes and performing refreshing versions of other contemporary songs. Their music is full of humour and fun, often thought provoking and always entertaining.
Under their old name The Phil Cockerham Trio they have played the Topic three times - in 2014, 2017 and last in 2020, when they played a couple of months before the first Covid lockdown.
£7 (£6 members)
16 Nov
Singers and Musicians
Sing a song or play a tune or just listen.
£1 entry
23 Nov
Dave Ellis and Boo Howard
With regular appearances at festivals and folk clubs, Dave & Boo are now an integral part of the British acoustic folk scene and firm favourites with audiences up and down the land.
Dave Ellis left Liverpool and headed to London with his guitar at the tender age of 18. He was soon headlining at major venues, getting rave reviews for his extraordinary guitar playing, duetting with Gordon Giltrap and touring with his hero Bert Jansch. Melody Maker listed him as “one of the 6 best guitarists in the world.”
With the release of his solo album, radio and TV beckoned and after a spot on the Old Grey Whistle Test, Dave decided to form The Dave Ellis Band. Boo joined as the bass player and soon became the main singer. The pair became a solid partnership renowned for their unusual blend of powerful songwriting, exquisite guitar playing and beautiful harmonies.
Dave & Boo’s latest album Time (2022) gets a 5-star review in Rock n Reel:“Whenever I listen to a new album from Dave and Boo I invariably find myself staggered at the sheer quality of the songs and the wonderful way that the pair arrange and perform them. The vocals and musicianship are of a knock-your- socks off calibre...this is a master craftsman and craftswoman at work.”
£7 (£6 members)
30 Nov
Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne
Described in The Living Tradition as "captivating, bold and striking", Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne is at the forefront of his generation of English folk musicians as both a powerful and commanding singer and a masterful player of the Anglo concertina and melodeon. He burst onto the folk scene in his teens with the energetic and much-loved trio Granny’s Attic, along with schoolmates George Sansome and Lewis Wood, and in recent years has embarked on a solo career alongside this.
Cohen is going to premiere a special show for us on this date.
"The show is focused primarily on English folk songs that entered the African-American and Caribbean musical traditions, exploring a little known offshoot of the English folk tradition.
“The subject is something I’ve been interested in for years. A research project in 2020 and 2021 supported by the EFDSS allowed me to explore this subject in some detail for the first time. The final product of that research was an educational resource aimed at secondary school teachers to incorporate in their curriculum. While the educational resource was well received it has a fairly limited audience, so the idea for this show is to present some of the material I discovered in my research project (much of which didn’t end up in the final resource) along with material that I’ve discovered since.
"Of the songs I’ve discovered, I’ve probably performed half already, and these have been very well received, with many audience members asking more about the subject, which has made me consider the idea of putting them into a full show more seriously.
"In terms of the format, I envisage it taking the form of two sets of around 40-45 minutes. Really it will follow the format of my usual folk club sets, just with quite a different repertoire and possibly slightly more speaking to outline some of the contextual details of the music (although these days I tend to do quite a bit of chat between songs about musical history anyway…)"
£7 (£6 members)
07 Dec
Singers and Musicians
Sing a song or play a tune or just listen.
£1 entry
07 Dec
Kimber’s Men have appeared at festivals in Ostende, Appingedam, Portmagee, Portsoy, Fano in Denmark, and all over the UK. Featured twice on Sunday brunch for Channel 4, they also starred in the BBC2 and BBC4 production of Sea Songs, with Gareth Malone, which was the most viewed programme of the year on BBC 4.
Kimber’s Men possess probably the finest bass singer on the British folk scene today in John Bromley. John has been singing folk songs since he was 16 and has sung in several folk bands and is a solo artist. John plays guitar, whistle and bodhran.
Neil Kimber has been performing and singing since the late sixties and has a massive repertoire of songs at his disposal. He plays guitar and is the only real sailor in the group. Neil and Ros Kimber composed the wonderful song ‘Don’t Take The Heroes’, which is now being sung by many shanty bands all over the world, and describes the aftermath of the Penlee lifeboat disaster.
Kimber’s men are lucky to have long standing member Gareth Scott. He has a powerful and bluesy voice and is an accomplished guitarist, bringing another dimension to the sound they produce. Steve Smith, sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist, completes the group with his high harmonies.
Singers and Musicians
