Bit short notice, I know, but his new group Ollie Forrest is playing in London tomorrow night (Sat 22nd) at the Sebright Arms just off the Hackney Road (nearest tubes Old Street & Liverpool Street).

Online tickets seem to cost £6 plus 10-15% fees (it seems to vary from agency to agency).

The four piece group includes the lovely Sewuese on keyboards and vocals (Ollie also sings), which means there are two good reasons for checking it out if you can. Here's a Youtube clip as a taster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb1H1r1h ... tube_gdata

I have spent today wondering why he had changed his name to Ollie Forrest

Someone told me that Forrest is his middle name, Roxy...

Ah ha, that might explain it! Thanks Smudge.

I wonder if the change of name (sort of) heralds a change of direction for Ollie and a break from Bryan Ferry? It seems likely he is not part of the tour band for 2014 and a recent photograph of BF performing at the Prince's Trust Gala featured two new male guitarists in the band who I imagine were not just hired for one night!

I follow Cherrise on twitter and the clues in some of the tweets seem to indicate the two guitarists photographed could be Jacob Quistgaard and Steve Jones. Guy Pratt is also back in the fold. It looks like the new touring band will be quite different from the past few outings and sounds pretty interesting.

Emily Dolan-Davies on drums by the way

I didn't get to the recent gig after all, but have found two more forthcoming Hackney appearances: the Sebright Arms again on Thur 20th March and the Macbeth on Tues 29th April.

Will hope to get to one or both; will report back here if I do.