The Pairs - Liam Fender - Doug Levitt
The Pairs - Sunday To Tuesday (Live version at EMAC).
Family is what ties The Pairs together. With soaring harmonies, they share stories of life's hope, hilarity, and hardship. An honest, quirky stage presence and their unbottled chemistry quickly connects them with their audience. The line between the stage and the crowd becomes blurred as if we've all pulled up a seat around their lively kitchen table.
As musicians, our work takes us away from home and many people that we care deeply for. It’s a challenge to find a balance between a life of roaming on the road while still nurturing the kind of loving relationships that we each long for – Lead vocalist Renée Coughlin.
The Pairs' new track, "Sunday to Tuesday," was written in a time when Renée was attempting to carve space in her life to be able to hold on to all of the things that she loved. While close relationships at home didn't see the benefits of a Friday to Sunday weekend, and free weekday evenings, Renée imagined all the love that could fill the days between Sunday and Tuesday, when The Pairs weren't on stage.
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Musician and Newcastle native Liam Fender releases brand new single 'Time Comes Around' alongside his most ambitious music video yet. Following ballet dancers Hayley Walker and Owen Kennedy as they dance through the centre of his hometown in North Shields, Newcastle the video features a host of North East cameos from a mixture of local artists and personalities.
Incorporating beautiful guitar-led melodies, softly lilting drumbeats, strings, and poignantly genuine yet feel-good lyrics, Liam notes that 'Time Comes Around' is 'in essence a song about things coming good after a period of prolonged sadness.'
His latest release from his highly anticipated debut EP, lifelong musician Liam Fender has affirmed himself as someone who has music simply coursing through his veins. Having grown up among the people, voices and stories of different musicians, creatives and free spirits of the North East, Liam has an intuitive ability to combine highly articulate and genuine lyrics that are deeply rooted in his own life experiences with stunningly emotive instrumentals - making him a songwriting force to be reckoned with.
The accompanying music video for ‘Time Comes Around’, directed by Sam Gannie, is in keeping with Liam’s authentic songwriting philosophy and is his most ambitious yet. Filmed in his local high street, with many characters in attendance, the video is a very natural and authentic snapshot of life in the town where Liam grew up. Alongside a host of 'blink and you'll miss it' moments, the music video stars ballet dancers Owen Kennedy and Hayley Walker as they swoop through the town centre. Owen choreographed the video’s moving routine and has previously worked with seminal choreographers such as Christopher Bruce, Thick and Tight, and James Wilton, and Hayley has toured the UK with works by Sharon Watson and Joss Arnot as well as having worked with artists including Nina Nesbitt and brands such as Reebok.
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Singer-songwriter Doug Levitt has released his debut album Edge of Everywhere. Across 12 powerful tracks, Levitt invites listeners on his ongoing Greyhound bus journey over the last decade, sharing the inspiring stories of folks he’s met along the way with more than 120,000 miles logged on the road.
To date, Edge of Everywhere has already garnered praise from the BBC, American Songwriter, Glide Magazine, Music Connection Magazine, Americana Highways, and Americana UK who gave the album a perfect 10/10 while hailing it as “one of the most important albums of the 21st century.” Produced by GRAMMY Award-winner Trina Shoemaker (Brandi Carlile, Josh Ritter, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris), Edge of Everywhere at its core is about empathy and connection, colored by touching vignettes of the human condition as shown on highlights like the poignant “Cold Comfort” and the cathartic “Highway Signs." The album’s stirring narratives range from a parent who faced the law after running from it to a father who blames himself for his son being shot in a drive-by, and more.
In March, Levitt brought the impactful stories from Edge of Everywhere to life at New York City’s Lincoln Center, where he launched his new partnership with Guitars for Vets. Proceeds from that show along with future tour dates and sales from the album will benefit the organization, which provides guitars for veterans and teaches them how to play. Levitt also recently performed at the men’s and women’s prisons in Attica, NY, which was filmed for an upcoming BBC TV and radio documentary (the second in a series).
With a bourbon-rich baritone and a range that reaches the heights of a falsetto at times recalling Cat Stevens, Levitt brings listeners along on a transcendental trip in which we are all travelers on a bus writ large. Perhaps it was suffering tragedy as a young person which made Levitt so receptive to other people’s stories. When he was 16, he tragically found his father dead by suicide. For years, he says, he couldn't cry and turned to music as an outlet. But before using that music to reflect the journeys of others, he set out on his own, first at Cornell, where he studied Critical Thinking with Carl Sagan, and then as a London-based foreign correspondent for CNN and ABC filing dispatches from such places as Iran, Rwanda, Bosnia and Gaza.
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