January 24th, 2012
Peter Maynard, founder member and former bass player/ singer with the Baghdaddies sadly died on the 23rd January. He was a huge part of the Baghdaddies for over 12 years, wrote some amazing songs, gave performing his heart and soul and prowled the stage like no other. We will be paying tribute to him with photos, video and music over the next few months, please send us any contributions or comments.
To Peter!
January 6th, 2011
Happy New Year!!!
We had a fantastic night playing with Bellowhead at the SouthBank in London for New Years Eve and were very well looked after by their splendid crew. Here is a 4 star review of the evening in the Guardian by Robin Denselow
Bellowhead/Baghdaddies – review
Royal Festival Hall, London
The New Year began at the Southbank with a circus-themed lock-in. Some of the audience had come dressed as ring-masters or lions, and no one could get in once the venue had been blocked off to control New Year revellers.
Bellowhead are artists in residence here, and celebrated with a slick six-hour party that made use of every inch of the building except for the main concert hall. Upstairs areas were transformed into disco or folk clubs, while the ballroom was decorated like a circus, with trapeze artists and two stages, on which Bellowhead alternated with the Newcastle group the Baghdaddies.
Each band played three varied sets replete with good musicianship, energy and humour. The lesser-known Baghdaddies more than held their own. Despite their name, the five-piece are influenced more by eastern Europe than the Middle East, but can’t be accused of leaping on to the Balkan bandwagon as they have been together for 14 years. Their rousing brass work was carefully fused with ska, jazz and Indian influences, and made the case that they deserve a far bigger following.
May 4th, 2010
Our new album is ready and on sale from this site, at our live shows and is available from many shops and for download on iTunes.
This has been a very busy year for the band. As well as the album and the usual gigs up and down the country and in Europe we’ve been busy working on various challenging projects and collaborations.
One of the most exciting of these was the Baghdaddies Big Band which performed at the Glastonbury festival and at Sage Gateshead. We invited some very talented friends to join us, namely Brendan Murphy (percussion), Peter Tickell (fiddle) and Julien Batten (accordion). Also on stage were Monica from Colombia and local lass Claire – our lovely belly dancers.
We also travelled far and wide with The Flying Dragon Circus spending a month in Beijing before touring in England and finishing the run at the world expo in Zaragoza, Spain. The show, directed by Pierro Bidon, was a blend of western and Chinese circus styles and performed by English, Chinese, French, Brazilian, Mongolian and Israeli artists. A lot of the music was written specially by Yang Le, a highly respected Chinese composer. The band was joined on stage by three Chinese classical musicians playing pipa, arhu and bamboo flute.
During the year we’ve been rehearsing and arranging material for our mobile brass band. With the addition of a sousaphone, we hope to incorporate the brass band into our live stage shows in the near future.