Join us for the ‘Sunday Service’ live music session featuring Jason McNiff (Band Show) plus support from Dave Sutherland.

Jason McNiff (Full Band Show)

Musically, Jason is influenced by the British acoustic guitarists (Jansch, Graham, Wizz Jones) and the great folk/rock troubadours of the 60s and 70s. He loves Mark Knopfler in the early days; the English teacher turned reluctant rock star, singing about Leeds and Newcastle and sounding like JJ Cale. For McNiff, the lyrics are central, and he has been especially captivated by those considered poets and writers as well as musicians. He loves literature and cites Hemingway, Chekhov and the aforementioned Cavafy, as major influences in his work. (He has ‘translated’ Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ into a song on a previous album, ‘Nobody’s Son’).

Jason McNiff was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1974 to an Irish father and Polish mother. Academically gifted, he did well at school and went to the University of Nottingham to study French and Russian. He fell in with the Folk & Blues scene in that city before moving to London in the mid-nineties to do another degree in English Lit. He was just in time to catch the Bert Jansch residency at the 12 Bar club. For 6 months, every Wednesday night, McNiff would be in the front row of Soho’s tiny club learning fingerstyle from the master. He would later sign his first record deal with Snowstorm Records, a label run by Bert’s brother-in-law and found himself opening for Bert on numerous occasions.

There followed a string of albums on various labels, including 2003’s Nobody’s Son (Americana UK album of the year) and 2011’s April Cruel (nominated for best alt-country album at the Independent Music Awards in the US.) He became interested in Italian music around this time and played all over Italy with the combat folk group, Modena City Ramblers. His brother is a tour guide in Vatican City, and for a spell, Rome was called home. He recently moved to Hastings in Sussex where he runs the popular Sundowner music event. Since March 2020 he has taken this online and is, at the time of writing, on show No.42.

Dave Sutherland

Dave Sutherland is a London based singer songwriter in the Americana vein, with nudges towards the country bluesy folk genres. His fingerstyle guitar, melodic vocal and London charm have not gone unnoticed. An accomplished performer filled with raw energy and emotion, Dave’s music speaks of life, love and London with the eye of an artist and the ear of a poet, and his presence on-stage is fresh and engaging.