Sidney & Matilda Presents:
Louis O'Hara and His Burley Chassis + Serafima & The Shakedowns + Gem Stark
Louis O'Hara and His Burley Chassis:
Louis O’Hara is a singer-songwriter from West Wales, whose songs combine intimate folk songwriting with richly atmospheric arrangements. Influenced by Bill Callahan and Lou Reed, his music is rooted in poetic lyricism, memory and a strong sense of place. His debut album, A Peaceful Kind of Fun, was released by Libertino Records in 2025, with Clash calling it “quietly magical”, Hard of Hearing praising it as an “outstanding debut album”, and The Guardian describing his music as “unusually touching and truly lovely”. Since then, O’Hara has completed three UK headline tours and established himself as one of Wales’ most compelling emerging voices. A darker, more cinematic second album is due in early 2027.
Serafima & The Shakedowns:
Serafima and The Shakedowns finds influence in the likes of Johnny and June Carter Cash, Kimya Dawson, Lily Allen, Dan Reeder, and Cake – somewhere in there among the honest and the groovy. Her lyrics hit you in the heart and stick in your head – wry, time-twisting verses as deceptively complex as her protagonists and their experiences. She won’t lie to you, but she just might tell you a story … so keep up, folks, and let’s ride along.
If Serafima’s lyrics are so honest, they burn, The Shakedowns distribute the heat, electrifying classic elements from the Golden Age of Radio, honky tonk, and Russian folk. With drummer Jules Tennyson joining in 2023, and the arrival in 2025 of trumpet player Finn O’Hea, and second drummer Ian Davidson in 2026, The Shakedowns rounded out to a six piece, with founding guitarist Sam Burrows and bassist Joe McPhee, and Serafima on vocals and rhythm guitar. Onstage, they’re a party.
“I like to say it’s hunky tonk,” Serafima says. “Because my bandmates are all hunks”.
While tasty drums and steady-chickin’ rhythm guitar hold each song to the silver thread at its core, the other players spin, swell, and rise up in the mix in turn – melodic bass, country-fried guitar leads, hook-laden trumpet, gossamer pedal steel, and sparkly honky-tonk keys. It feels like a circus, a carnival, a house party.
Gem Stark:
Gem Stark’s moth-bitten folk tendencies are recognisable to audiences that have cried to the hum of a PAT-failed lamp in a second hand bookshop anywhere within the speculative radius of the Peak District.
£5 ADV / £8 OTD
Doors - 7:45pm