Our monthly "Ashcroft Presents" showcase welcomes local favourites, up-and-coming artists and special guests. Discover a wealth of talent on your doorstep. Try out new music, unearth local gems and expand your playlist with our varied quality selection of live music each month.
Nigel Wearne
Nigel Wearne saunters after dark in the music of the night, blending blues, jazz and Americana-noir. Hailing from Gunditjmara country in the deep south of Australia, he's a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with diverse influences such as Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones. A deep thinker and truth seeker with a penchant for all things peculiar, he sings of human frailty, grace and the cosmos; songwriting that cuts to the bone.
Nigel has toured Australia, New Zealand, the US, UK and Canada and he's performed at a long list of music festivals, including Cambridge Folk Festival (UK), MerleFest (USA), UK Americana Music Week, Old Settler's Music Festival (USA), Port Fairy Folk Festival (AUS) and Adelaide Guitar Festival (AUS).
His sophomore album, Black Crow garnered wide critical acclaim including a 4-STAR review in Rolling Stone, a nomination for Best Country Album at the Music Victoria Awards and debuted at #1 on the AMRAP Charts. Singer-songwriter, luthier, poet and gleaner; Wearne paints lyrical pictures with “the narrative-fuelled prose of Paul Kelly” – BEAT MAGAZINE.
Warmth flecked with grit...beauty awaits
Rolling Stone
Image (c) Ian Laidlaw
With support from
Simeon Hammond Dallas
Simeon Hammond Dallas was born and raised in the rich musical and cultural melting pot of
Camden Town. Growing up listening to her parent’s eclectic record collection that spanned
artists from The Cranberries to Ella Fitzgerald, Simeon’s own music traverses genres and
draws on a broad palette of lived experiences to create songs that take her listeners on a
rom-com rollercoaster through stories of love, loss and liberation. Through a catalogue filled
with intersectional storytelling, hypnotic melodies and poetic lyricism, Simeon Hammond
Dallas gives voice to a generation wrangling with the complexities of modern life.
A match for the best voices on the UK scene
Country Way Of Life
Roy Peplow
After years of playing in bands Roy recently decided to get back to basics, and the reason he started playing; his guitar and stomp box and a return to writing new material.
Since then he has been playing across the south coast including Victorious and Wickham Festivals.
Event: Friday 2 February, 7:30pm
Bar open: 6:30pm
Tickets: £7 advance / £10 on the door / £5 young person (14-25)
