A Journey into Sound

2011-01-25 Ani Difanco at The Lowry, Manchester

2011-01-26T22:02:00.005Z

First gig of 2011 and here we are at Manchester's striking The Lowry to see Ani Difranco performing at the Quays Theatre - a small horseshoe shaped room all done in bright red with 3 layers of stalls around the edges. It's a hard room, and not the most comfortable either. Ani Difranco seems to attract a good crowd in Manchester, colourful and characterful, we feel almost rebellious being a straight couple in this company which more or less filled the Theatre.

Before we get to Ani though we are introduced to Liz Lawrence - singer, songwriter and guitarist, new to me and hiding behind her long fringe for much of the set, Liz Lawrence played nine of her own songs and held the audience well right through, but first I had to get over her time keeping legs - she seemed often to be marching on the spot, and when this was coupled with her upper body swinging figure-of-eights with a long guitar neck in hold during the up tempo segments, seemed slightly child-like, but represented the music taking full hold and didn't stop the songs being well worth a listen - clear lyrics, confidently and deftly sung over a rhythmic guitar with plenty of colour and variety. There were some strong songs in there - they weren't often introduced so I'm guessing titles, but "Trouble with My Sleeping Heart" and "Funny Old World", "Monday Morning" and "Cards on the Table" all stand out. A touching new piece dedicated to Liz's mother who was in the audience was a sensitive and thoughtful song too.

Ani Difranco is one of a kind. We saw her here a few years back and enjoyed a strong performance in this very theatre - tonight we'd have gladly settled for more of the same, but with no band and only a veritable collection of acoustic guitars on the stage, we were clearly in for something different. Off to a screaming start as the guitar lead pulled over the drinks and towels were put down, Ani set off into her set with "Anticipate" and started her onslaught against her guitar strings right from the off - huge bass string twangs fired off and fingers with heavily reinforced nails raking the higher notes with a major passion- a performance full of "piss and vinegar" as Eric Bibb once borrowed from somebody else. The guitar playing is never straight forward with Ani - and while you could hear her New Orleans home influencing her latest songs, those blues chords were soon being bent and twisted into a new key to fit the sound needed for the song. This effort driven playing, the bending of keys and the wringing of the guitar for that needed sound are all so reminiscent of Neil Young's electric playing, but this is no copycat act, Ani Difranco has her own way and her own mind. Lyrically thrilling, her mind so clearly used to thinking and reasoning, she delivers songs that make you question your own mind, and then a couple more that are so wonderfully tender, and then a comedic number but not without it's own hard centre.

Missing her young daughter and claiming to be not very chatty, we still got a fair bit of talk between songs, and Ani is as fond of the f-word as Gordon Ramsey, but "oh my, fuckety-fuck" was a new one on me, and a new song "If You're Not" had us all laughing with it's punchline "If you're not getting happier as you get older, You're fucking up!"

A great evening then, memorable - not perfect, the sound in the red tin theatre was not the best, levels up and down to try and cope led to rattling speakers and quite a lot of interaction with the "sound guys". You know it's been a good one though when the artist does a whole night without playing any songs that you know (apart from the very last) and none of your favourites, but it hasn't mattered at all.

Gilly found this very useful set list site for anyone who wants the full list:
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ani-difranco/2011/the-lowry-manchester-england-13d2d181.html

Earle on Townes

2009-11-06T13:07:00.001Z

A useful link so I thought I would share it here as well as remember where I left it!

Shrewsbury Folk Festival - Live!

2009-08-30T20:08:00.002+01:00

Sat in the comfort of our own home last night we watched Eric Bibb knock the socks of the audience at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival with a belter of a set - we enjoyed curry, rice and chips, wine, coffee, the internet, en suite bathroom, central heating, our own house... yes we watched it on the live video stream - brilliant! Better view, great sound, comfy chairs, no camping - great shows - Eric was on top form - opening up well with "If I don't get well no more" and on into a set of mostly original material. Backed by stand-up bass, drums and electric guitar, Erioc Bibb rocked the night away.

The only criticism was the compere who came on and killed the atmosphere flat when the audience were baying for more - he could have milked it a little longer even if there was a curfew and no time for an encore - no - just a litter announcement...

Anyway tonight it's Show of Hands and then the Dhol Foundation - should be worth tuning in. We will be - chile tonight!

Crosby Stills & Nash - MEN Arena Manchester

2009-07-12T13:40:00.002+01:00

Stood listening to "Wooden Ships" - the first CSN encore song at Manchester gave me a spiritual line directly back to Woodstock - these 3 guys are still at it, still enjoying it and still well able to deliver. Sadly the sound at the MEN Arena was not delivering and the whole thing was a little flat. Early on as the trio took us through some semi-acoustic songs, there was a dire hiss from the p.a. throughout and the guitar sounds were tinny at best - a great shame - and a disgrace really when the tickets are so expensive and the music is so good - these days there is no excuse for low quality sound.

There were some highlights - a Crosby - Nash duo was particularly good, and the one-off (because Manchester is his home town) Cold Rain was very well received by the audience. Stephen Stills was given due adoration for his guitar solos - one notable series of exchanges with the organ was particularly good - of it's day if you must, but I enjoyed it!

Most of the greats were there, and they slipped in Dylan's "North Country Fair" too - David Crosby was still reeling from Nash's attempts at explaining cricket (The Ashes having just started) but didn't let it detract from the music, Graham Nash was on top form, his singing obviously coming right through his body before it got out of his mouth - Stephen Stills not sounding quite so harmonious these days, but still fiery and still making those guitars howl.

Most of all we went to pay homage to a great trio - so job done there - shame about the sound - they could learn a trick or two from the 4th member of their other band who has recently proved that stadiums can sound good whether you play loud or quiet.

A short word about... Laura Marling - Nottingham

2009-06-26T00:42:00.003+01:00

Laura Marling was picked to support Neil Young again - after a slot at last year's Hop Farm in the rain - Laura seemed a bit shy and nervous opening with a few old songs - "My Manic","Ghosts", a little bit uneven in her delivery perhaps, but she settled down and Laura and her band delivered a really confident set - it was like listening to Dolly Parton for one of the songs - such a strong voice - sorry I don't have the set list.

I believe that her songs will out - Laura was robbed of the Mercury Music Prize - her debut album is a work of genius and all the more so for her age - if she were to stay on this plane she will be superb as she matures further who knows what heights she may reach?

Neil Young UNLEASHED

2009-06-25T22:25:00.003+01:00

From the moment Neil shambled onto the stage and hooked on Big Black, to the last dying cries of pain from the tortured remains of the same instrument, propped theatrically against his amps several hours later, we witnessed a “real treat” of a performance from a man on top of his form.

A deep groan emerged from the sound system as Neil led off with “Hey Hey, My My” everything cranked up to make sure the audience was fully alert to what was coming – he had apparently been on great form a few days earlier and now it was our turn to get a full dose of medicine from Mr Young. You will have read elsewhere about Neil shaking the guitar to death and stomping around the stage, and there was plenty of that, but tonight it seemed more agitated and more urgent than usual. Things may not have been as angry as first impressions may have suggested though as the many close ups of Young's now jowly face caught several knowing smiles between the trademark scowls and grimaces, this will be one they'll remember he may have been thinking.

If he was then he would be right- the set list reading like the track listing from the “Archives” with only one track from the recent few albums at all was certainly going to please and a near neighbour in the crowd raised his palms out and up in praise when Neil played “Words” on his great white Gretsch – who could have predicted that – many other old favourites were given an airing - “Are you ready for the country?”, “Burned” - a romp though this marvelous Buffalo Springfield classic which is having it's first live airing since 1966!

A few of the “regulars” were dished out on acoustic guitar, but there was none of that sitting in a circle of instruments and wandering around picking one up and lilting a song, this was all full on stuff. “Pocahontas” was much more electric and forceful than previously and “Rocking in the Free World” was even more of a stadium pleaser than ever with some 4 or 5 false endings and a great deal of playing to the crowd - “Cinnamon Girl” too featured a deliberate bout of showboating – Neil repeating the last chords sequences couple of times, waving triumphantly to each section of the crowd who naturally responded with vigour. I felt at the time that these were uncharacteristic actions for Young, not usually given to such gestures – and with such a powerful performance I wonder if we have witnessed something of milestone in touring terms? Was Neil bidding us farewell? Let's hope not.

A thumping version of “Down by The River” made it into something of a “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” tour – nearly all my favourite album getting an airing. Impressed? I most certainly was – even the sound was good enough, better than expected perhaps for a concrete stadium. Highlights? So many musical ones, but Pegi Young sipping on a mug of tea while Neil launched into one of his grunge-laden thrashes in “Hey Hey” was a treasure. Banjo toting Larry Cragg on “Old Man” was another.

We're not going to Hyde Park or Glastonbury so that's it for us this tour, but as Gilly rightly put it – we saw Neil Young – Unleashed in Nottingham.

Get the latest news and so much more:

http://www.thrasherswheat.org/wheatfield.html

Well we got ours

2009-05-23T11:33:00.002+01:00

Folking About Tori Tarts will be on tour in September - after a pugnacious call to Apple's UK Customer Service where an employee went the extra mile for us and went and looked up the individual codes (she was in engineering so we are VERY grateful for that extra effort) - we got our codes and we are booked in on row A in 3 venues! Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow.

It seems that the Apple systems are showing the emails as having been sent out but many of us didn't receive them.

I have spoken to our internet provider and they say it is very unlikely that they would block the emails, so where are they?

iTunes and Ticketmaster fail to release password - Tori Amos UK Tour

2009-05-23T01:35:00.004+01:00

Hundreds of disappointed UK Tori Amos fans are keeping vigil late into the night waiting for a "unique password" promised by an iTunes/Ticketmaster special offer when they purchased the new Tori Amos album "Abnormally Attracted To Sin" from iTunes. The password was due to be emailed out yesterday (22nd May), with pre-sale tickets due on sale at 10 a.m. today.

Tori Amos has a huge and totally devoted following and some fans are particularly upset having purchased both the CD and the iTunes download to ensure a chance of getting a ticket for the UK tour in September.

Both Ticketmaster and Apple have long since closed for the day in Europe and Folking About have failed to reach anybody in the Apple offices in the USA so far.

Farewell to a Queen

2008-10-12T20:46:00.004+01:00

A few nights ago we were stood on Seacombe promenade on the shore of the Mersey Estuary. As we watched, at about 11pm, the bright white lights that were the last visible sign of the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth II slipped out of sight beyond Fort Perch Rock and she was gone - this time for good. We had joined the throng for the official farewell - an impressive firework display that was heralded and acknowledged by the vessel' s deep throated whistle, but it was the more personal and poignant salutes that made the event for me:

Starting with the tugs that helped pull her off Liverpool's new landing stage, each vessel in turn sounded 3 blasts, and each was echoed in turn by the departing giant as she made her way downstream for the final time. Her blast is deep and mournful, audible for miles I'm sure, and it continued as she slipped gracefully past Liverpool's docks, escorted by the 3 operation Mersey Ferries, which added their salutes as they turned back for home, as indeed did every vessel in the docks. Goodbye old friend they were calling. Goodbye.

CD Review - Yonder

2008-10-11T00:11:00.004+01:00

The Art of Whisper

Turn it down is what Yonder do - music at number 1 rather than 11 on the amp - if they bother with such things. Yonder hail from Stockholm and play their own slanted version of traditional er, American, Delta Blues from the old days. I've had all kinds of airy phrases go through my head whilst trying to think of how to describe the music - doily was one of them - a paper disk with so many holes in it that it hardly exists as a disk - this is the sound of music distilled into the very essence of the sound and bottled, then miked up very gently to capture the result.

That result is the kindest, gentlest blues you might hear. Slow and easy, music with spaces in it, guitar, bass and vocals, drums yes - but they often seem to be playing in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Actually Mats Qwarfordt's vocals are really strong - he has a big deep voice but even this is gentle and never really threatens to move that needle near the red line.

The songs are a mixture of spiritual/gospel and sad love songs - April Snow is just the saddest thing, expressed in an ever so slow and melancholy way, with most delightful backing from maybe a zither on top of the guitar, there is a short instrumental on just slide guitar that just feels like the player is on the verge of sleeping it is so dreamy.

In Foggy Straits we find a boat adrift and feel the depair yet in such a beautiful way that it cannot possibly hurt or harm, and there must, please be a happy ending? The music is so pure and clear it belies the foggy, dangerous waters of the song.

I don't know how Gilly does it, but she keeps on finding these gems out there and brings them home for me to be amazed at. So many of them seem to be from Scandanavia too - look out for these guys touring the UK in 2009 and prepare to be whispered at - gently.

CDReview: what else but love - Jon Redfern

2008-09-09T23:38:00.015+01:00

Painful Beauty.

Jon Redfern's second album 'what else but love' has an impact that creeps up on you, you hear it for the first time and it's subtlety almost acts as self defence like a deep felt wounded soul that pushes away its warmest friends because of the pain involved. But listen to this album a second and third time and I guarantee you will find yourself having to listen repeatedly, for it repays you the effort and time with the deepest music to be found anywhere today.

Jon went through the trauma of losing his father during the gestation of this record, and the whole thing is simply dedicated "for dad" on the sleeve. This has naturally had a big impact both on Jon and on the
record - in fact "record" is a fairly apt description of the CD - it feels like it is a record of the period. The songs are littered with anxiety, fear, and the inexorable passing of time:
"so many years ago, so wrong, but how could you know,
so many miles apart, you always let me know that you loved me too"

The first track starts off in a reflective mood, Jon's voice low and getting lower, his distinctive guitar sound underpinned by co-arranger Pat Durkan's drums and piano, the song slowly builds and begins to sparkle, Jon's slide guitar and then with a heartfelt cry "Heaven - beyond the void..." Jon lets his voice go and soars with the melody before dropping back to a last unaccompanied phrase. Teaming up this time with fellow Tarras-man Joss Clapp producing, engineering and playing bass on almost everything, they have delivered a great record.

Second song "Part of you" reveals a hint of something of an aural trademark for this CD - Jon's voice is overdubbed with itself, but in the higher register, a technique repeated throughout, albeit sometimes reversed, the lower register providing the harmony, but the overall effect is rather pleasing. It returns triumphant for "play of fear" - though Joss Clapp has used his own voice for backing on this track too.

Instrumentally this is a relatively simple album, keeping to a core of instruments with a few excursions into strings, but there is still a big sound in there - the percussion remains a strong feature. Pat Durkin is also responsible for another of the strong musical themes here - a dark and sometimes threatening, grinding Wurlitzer can often be heard underpinning the whole sound - a beast in the basement determined to be heard - deserving to be heard too. The sixth track, "forever bound" is a bit of a departure with its jingle jangle dulcimer-esque sounds, a clock-like ticking and sublime organ sounds, a mighty wall of percussion that
becomes almost manic as the song wanders away into the distance. For track 8, "rowing away" there is a bit of an orchestral sound with Pete Tickell adding violins, but otherwise the core band manage to come up with a good spectrum of sound, drummer Sam Murray is key thoughout and the occasional use of Jon Redfern's harmonica adds real atmosphere to the sound.

Jon Redferns' voice reminds me rather of Robert Wyatt's at times - with a thin fragility that threatens to break, but it has a power to raise itself up a level or two when the song demands it and the passion flows,
so Jon is able to produce a good range of feeling throughout the record, with plenty of tension and emotion in the delivery.

By the end of the CD, the listener has run a gamut of emotion, so the final track is perfectly placed. A rather subdued, pained vocal over a basic piano starts almost dull, then the hint of another voice backing,
female brightens it slightly before she is given her own voice - and the voice is none other than Becky Unthank - a voice to melt the heart after all that has gone before: "I'll always love you, love you forever, how
ever long that is". Then, in chorus, the two voices conclude the song, the record and underline the title "what else but love"? It feel like Jon has finally reached that warm loving place he needs. A delightful ending to this CD that is chock full of painful beauty - of one man's pain turned, by some sort of musical alchemy, into gold.

Electric Picnic 2008 - Day 1

2008-09-07T22:50:00.009+01:00

It almost went wrong from the very start - the roadside sign said campervans left, the policeman was intent on waving us straight ahead - a quick reminder that we were actually a campervan and we were back on the right road - into Stadbally and turn right - no queues? No queues. A lot of people on foot - assorted luggage, many wheelbarrows - and hey! There's Ultan! "See you later at the stage.." famous last words. Within minutes we are on site and choosing a space to park in - all clearly set out and plenty of room - a very pleasant change from Womad! The worst bit of the whole weekend came next - one of out must see acts was the aforementioned Ultan Conlon - due on stage very early in the afternoon - almost opening the festival. Sadly he ended up playing to the crew and "the people planting flowers around the stage" as for whatever reason we were kept waiting at the gates until about 4pm, with no real information about why, or how long we might be kept waiting, we sat on the grass in the sun and watched the hundreds of other attempts to get in being rebuffed by the security staff for a couple of hours. And that concludes the low point - as the gate opened and we streamed into the living dreamland that is the Electric Picnic.

Start from gate X7 and keep left and you enter the Village Green - a kind of grassy main street with tented buildings either side - felt to me a bit like a surreal canvas version of the wild west. Not all canvas, the church was, er, inflatable and the "vicar" was quick to accost us and advertise the wedding service they were offering over the course of the festival. An old fire engine that looked vaguely cartoony was outside the fire station (of course!), a bandstand graces the main green, and suddenly the dream shifted and we were in an area of futuristic sculpture - metallic and jagged trees? Gas lamps? Later we would see that this was "Arcadia" a night spot where the trees belched fire, the branches all smoked and the central pinnacle had fire and water and a DJ both - oh and an MC on crutches which gave it yet another wierd twist.

Not much time to fit any more sight-seeing in - get over to the Main Stage to catch Kila. Instant mayhem!Front man Rónán Ó Snodaigh bangs away at his Bodhrán and leads this band through a multi-coloured cascade of sound and dance and airial ballet - not a phrase you usually expect to hear in relation to a band who play trad Irish music albeit with a bit of a twist, a dash of something, a hint of some of that, some of these, a few grains of this stuff, and at least half the packet of something else. They played a couple of what sounded like "skinhead reels" which seems an appropriate mix to me even if it I didn't quite hear it right! It's hard not to use an excessive number of exclamation marks when writing about the Electric Picnic, it's that kind of event - there are at least two more chances in the Kila set - the exotic troop of Brazilian dancers who paraded around for a latin infused number, and a single performer from, I think, Cirque de Soleil who climbed 2 red ribbons and performed an impressive arial ballet aloft. Did I mention the gospel choir, the stunning stage backdrop or the tick-a-tape?

Another major feature of The Picnic was also becoming apparent - there were 35000 people there - and they were all lovely! We met so many friendly people - not a word of aggression anywhere by the way - complete strangers would just ask how we were doing, whether we were enjoying ourselves, discussed the bands and everything. Any accidental collisions in the crowds were met with most profuse apologies.

Next up were favourites Tinariwen from Mali who fielded a full team and played a blinder - their set hasn't changed much for a couple of years, but the music gets into you and you enjoy the trance like rhythms every time. Well enjoyed by a big crowd.

Back to Irish music for our next choice - the legend that is Christy Moore. We arrived, after his gig had started, at a tent that was too small for the crowd that had gathered to adore their god. You could feel the love for this man as strains of "Motherland" leaked out from the tent - I say tent - it was a huge big top kind of affair and it was full of very hot people, some of whom stumbled out into the cool evening air, unable to take any more - these were instantly replaced by newcomers, keen to join the worship inside. It was quite clearly an event - the whole crowd joined in on "Ride On" - a sea of mobile phones in the air recording it from every angle. Quite a vibe.

A common aspect of any festival of this size is an anxiety about what you know you are missing while you are enjoying one event, because you have to make choices when there are so many venues running in parallel, not to mention the stuff you miss that you didn't expect to see. Conversely there are many, many good things that you see because they just happen as you are passing - and our next event was just one of these - Strange Fruit outside the Blue Room - eerie music attracted us towards a crowd that had gathered to watch ... what? Floodlit people dressed in white floating above the crowd on balloons? Closer examination revealed a group of people atop of paper spheres on bendy poles performing the most beautiful slow ballet. Every slight movement seemed to affect the balance of the dancers and the grace of the movement was impressive enough, the fact that they were all in sync with each other made it something else all together.

Many, many people turned up to watch Sigur Ros close down the main stage and who performed an impressive set, complete with a white top hatted and uniformed brass section - a loud and very full sound - maybe a little too loud to be clear? Marked vocals that soared over the impressive sonic backdrop and some powerfull electric guitar sounds made a great impression on me.

The main stage may have packed up but the rest of the site was just getting going - Arcadia was bouncing, flaming, smoking and loud - there were discos, clubs and dancing everywhere. Time Machine was playing it's updated-old-music-fayre behind the chain drapes, and in the onion domed pavilions of the Body and Soul area, Helios Jive had just taken over from S.S. Lucent Dossier and we found a phone....

A final few things before we turn in at the end of day 1 - somewhere along the way we enjoyed our first taste of festival food Ireland style - pie and mash - the pie was great, the mash was awesome! So good we went back for more. Heading back to the van there was no sign at all that it was night time. There were streams of people coming onto the site from the campsites, there were huge tents with djs and shows in the campsites, the cinema rolled on day and night, the giant ferris wheel just kept on turning, there were lots of people who had done their best to consume the 30-odd cans per person alcohol ration in one day, but everybody was happy and you felt like you should go on all night - we had just about settled in for the night when that phone rang ...... and we trouped back to the site to re-unite it's owner with the poor lost thing.

John .....

A breath of Fresh Air - Emil Brynge at GreenRoom, Manchester

2008-08-21T23:38:00.005+01:00

A breeze of expectancy has blown across the FolkingAbout, that proverbial breath of fresh air has blown the dust off the laptop and here we are again half a year later..... It has been some time (clue!) gathering, but a number of interesting events have got me going again, starting with this young man from Sweden:

Emil Brynge is a mere 21 years old, yet he already has a confidence about him that belies his years. After some years of listening to his MySpace offering, Gilly's radar picked up on his gig at Greenroom last night and off we went. Greenroom is an Arts place built into railway arches in Manchester and the gig was part of S'Not P'Inc.'s World Music night.

Emil, tall, blond and slightly restless as he got set up to start playing, quickly became Emil, musician with something to give. Opening with a brand new song, composed only the day before with his equally new musical partner - sorry no name (yet) - Emil gave us a demonstration in the use of multi-layered repeating phrases via a box of tricks at his side - nothing new in itself, but well done with his acoustic guitar and the partner's violin building well, with additions of glockenspiel, shakers and bells adding to the effect, and both player playing over the effects it was quite a sound. Afterwards Emil confessed that suddenly having access to all these effects and instruments made him feel like a kid in a toy shop and he felt obliged to try and use all of them at least once!

More often a guitarist and singer, Emil Brynge is a serious Nick Drake fan and there are some obvious influences in some of his phrases and melodies, but this is no clone, his own songs are , to coin a phrase, original and genuine. Drawing on his earlier studies in art history, "Maiastra" combines mythology and an art work to produce an intimate and haunting song - the only song to survive from this early period, he professes to write mostly happy songs these days and his last song "My Farewell" is a very affirmative demand to "Give me life in time!"

Many of his songs have interesting structures, pauses long enough to draw early applause at least once, less of the verse/chorus than usual, and his guitar playing is clean and technical, with more than a nod into his other chosen instrument. This beast stood hidden in it's case until the last song, when out came the sitar - and again with a layered backing from the effects, we got a hint of what I assume to be Emil's target sound - the sitar adding another dimension over the guitar - of course he can only play one or the other (without the effects) live, but recorded, there is a lovely interplay between the 2 instruments, the sitar introducing an element of sadness into these happy "songs". Tonight the violin was used where a flute appears on his 5 track CD and the live performance was very much more confident and strident than the CD, not better or worse, just different.

We should touch on his voice too - it is deeper than his age would suggest, with an accent that has enough Swedish in it to make his very clean English attractively different, his singing clear enough to make the lyrics heard.

Emil Brynge is a man on his way - next week he plays sitar in Cardiff with Mark Fry, and he is moving over to London from his home in Sweden so there should be plenty of opportunities to catch him again before too long. We'll be paying big money for his tickets soon enough!

Stay tuned to FolkingAbout and find out what arrived in the post this morning....

Willing to Work, but lets celebrate first!

2008-02-02T11:34:00.000Z

A great feeling of positivity seems to be sweeping through the Martyn-o-sphere at the moment. John is, as I write, en route to London to collect a major accolade - The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award - and about time too! We wrote here back in August that last year's winner, Danny Thompson was leading the charge, calling for John's work to be recognised from the stage at last year's Fairport Cropredy Convention. Danny could be heard last night on BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme imploring that John be might get well: "We just want our mate John back." - he speaks for so many.

A few weeks back it seemed so unlikely that John's poor health would even allow him to attend the award ceremony, but the good news is that John will not only attend, but will perform 3 songs with the full band - highlights of the whole event on Mike Harding's show this Wednesday evening. (And let's take a moment to mention that Rachel Unthank & The Winterset are up for a clutch of awards too - good luck to them.)

After all this well deserved partying it will be back to work and recording is to continue back in Ireland with at least John, Spencer Cozens and Martin Winnings in the studio - and there is a buzz about that carries a determination to get Willing to Work finished, an enthusiasm which will hopefully carry everybody along with it and get the job done - and, there is even talk about - the next record after this.....

PS There's a rumour too that John will be visiting another old friend who is playing in London and maybe, just maybe, he'll come and play on the record...?

Willing to Work - at the crossroads.

2008-01-21T23:12:00.000Z

The news that John Martyn is to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards on February 4th was announced recently and of course everybody agrees that it is about time. Even better news is that John is recovering from his recent bout of illness and is determined to get down to London to play at the Awards, the band is playing too so we wish John well and hope that his fitness continues to improve so that he can take his rightful place on the night.

The news on the long awaited new record - "Willing to Work" is that there is a big debate going on as to whether the keyboard layered takes of the songs should be finished for the album, or whether to go back and re-record with acoustic guitar and piano. The inevitable result is that the record is going to be a little longer in the making, but from what I've heard, it will be worth the wait. The dilemma facing the production team is a complex one - there are many voices who want to hear John Martyn playing acoustic music, yet John has been recording with the band, and they have already put down some pretty pleasing music with strong inputs from Spencer Cozens' keyboards - indeed Spencer is often in there at the outset, playing along with John as he sings the new songs for the first time, and I suspect that John likes these takes.

Personally, I would declare on the the side of the keyboard versions - although I haven't heard the acoustic tracks as such, it is the power of the music - the big sound that Spencer (or indeed Foster Patterson) and the band get in the live environment that most appeals to me about John's music, and John's electric guitar can bring me to tears. Gilly suggested putting out 2 versions of some of the songs on the same album, which would be fascinating, but the thought of having to finish 2 versions of everything might be a step too far at this stage!

Perhaps going back to pure acoustic music would be too much like a step back in time for John Martyn, who has after all been innovative throughout his career, and has never shied away from doing what he wants to do, I don't know where his heart lies, maybe he wants to return to his folk roots.

So thats my tuppence worth - I'm hoping to spark a debate because I know that the folks "Doon the Cellar" are listening and maybe John is too - any offers?

One More Thing .... Pandora Radio

2008-01-20T23:36:00.000Z

"We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative."

This is a disgrace!

The fact that some money grabbing executives in the "music industry" think that streaming music across the globe is bad for "their" business is depriving U.K. based music lovers from using this most excellent technology.

Pandora lets you start from a given point - say a song or an artist, and will play you tracks that relate in some way to the starting point. You can add and subtract artists, change the bias towards certain styles - it is brilliant - and if I was allowed to use it, then I would most likely have spent yet more money on CDs or downloads. Now that I can't - well the "music business" will lose out because I shall continue to cut them out and wherever possible buy direct from the artists.

The "Music Business" is trying to kill Music.

Long Live Pandora!

METROCOUSTIC - 16th January 2008

2008-01-20T21:10:00.000Z

Back to Liverpool again for our first visit to the Metrocoustic night. Held in Metro, Victoria Street, this is a regular event, run by one of Liverpool's adopted daughters - Kaya. The Metro bar is in the basement of Fowlers Building - a fine example of a brick built vaulted cellar and as a result it has a big open area with no pillars and a low ceiling - result - excellent sound and a cosy atmosphere.

It's a late-ish start - 9.30 pm - and as the start time neared, the place began to fill up - Kaya started running around getting the p.a. set up and gathering people to add to the line-up, and before long she was ready to open the proceedings with a J.D. Loudermilk's good old blues - "Turn me on" which even Kaya admitted was a little rusty! No problems after that though, and her take on "These Boots Were Made For Walking" was very well received. "Follow that Kev!" went up the cry as Kev and Mally took to the stage for a short set of Kev's self-penned songs with Mally providing some very nice indeed guitar backing with Kaya's bassy Ovation(?). Kev's songs turned out to be rather good, sensitive and lyrical - sung in his restrained - possibly overly so - high register voice - very smooth. His lyrics are often dark, but his songs are well worth a listen to and I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Next up was Stuart Anthony who played a mixture of of his own songs and a couple of Nick Drake covers, then Kaya came back on with her own "Fairy Tale Blues" - a big blues song delivered in a BIG blues voice which hardly seems viable from her small frame!

The next short set was from Guitar Mal (Mally) - declaration of interest alert - we're almost related! I spent a couple of songs with my right ear next to the speaker taking pictures for him, but when I retreated to switch to video, I was better able to hear(!) and enjoyed a nice rendition of "Me about You" which Mally picked rather than strummed and came out well. "Happy Now" is another of Mally's "cheerful" songs. He's probably fed up of us saying this by now, but when Mally holds back a bit vocally, it seems to work rather well, but you see how much he is enjoying performing and that is after all what it's all about.

What happened next was a big, big performance from Kaya - calling in her friend Laura for some backing vocals, Kaya gave it everything and so good was it that I failed to write down the song! But it was bursting with colour and passion, with Laura looking a little overwhelmed by it all but she hung in there well. The next song - maybe it was called "Perfect" was equally good, but slower and less frantic. Kaya was clearly excited that the mixes had just come back for her album and they are already beginning to appear on her MySpace. If they are anything like as good as this performance tonight, the album will be a real treat.

Letters In Red are a young four piece band who where quite impressive too. With 2 acoustic guitars playing intermingled with each other, violin and female vocal, they played a competent set which produced a couple of neat musical twists - they are particularly good at endings! They use the violin as lead guitar in places and it was a nice change to hear a band without drums or keyboards. They clearly need a little practice at stagecraft - seemly a little shy of the microphone at times, but they showed lots of promise and again I look forward to hearing more from them.

That was it for us - the night rolled on and they play until about 1 a.m. but we had to leave early - it was a good night and I think we'll be paying Metrocoustic a few more visits in the near future.

LIVERPOOL 08 - The Peoples' Opening

2008-01-20T20:08:00.000Z

It has been an awful long time coming, but 2008 arrived with - a delay. I was amazed to find that Liverpool was not launching into 2008 - the year when the grand old city becomes European Capital of Culture - with a great firework display. So we had to make do with the myriad domestic displays that were visible from the top of Thurstaston Hill. We were also treated to a countdown, a piper, and some singing. The fireworks were great, and there were some really good ones over in Anfield, but one rather felt that Liverpool had missed a golden opportunity in ignoring the date, especially following on from the spectacular display they put on for the City's 800th birthday a few months back.

A fortnight later then, the official start of the Capital of Culture year began with the People's Opening - a small matter of 45-50 thousand of us gathered on St George's Plateau, and spilled over into the surrounding streets in a pleasing if rather cramped turnout for the big event. Billed as the day when Liverpool's "Big Dig" - a controversial attempt to rebuild the City in one fell swoop - turns into the "Big Gig", there were all manner of music and arts promised for this glittering launch event, and sure enough, there were indeed all sorts:

A great phalanx of rock guitarists, impressively arranged in lines atop many of the buildings around the Plateau, backlit and smoked, poured out what was probably somebody's idea of a rock anthem, but the sound didn't match the image, maybe the p.a. wasn't up to it where we were, but what looked like a great oceanic wave turned out to be more like the Mersey on a choppy day - a bit rough and very muddy.

Much more atmospheric musically was the choir which put out a rather ethereal wash of sound, and with the great visuals of local school children bringing their caskets of treasured things, each one containing a light, things improved tremendously. Even more delightful was the harp which often danced around over and above the other music. There was much play on Liverpool's links with shipping, containers flying through the air, acrobats up ropes and on frames suspended from cranes, all flagging semaphore messages in unison. We saw some film, a few celebrities came out and waved - though none were introduced and we couldn't tell who most of them were, and local popsters The Wombats came out and did a song, or maybe 2.

By now the crowd was getting the better of some of our party and we had to try and find somewhere less cramped - not easy as it turned out, so the remainder of the event was experienced in less than ideal circumstances as we tried to squeeze through layer after layer of crowd! Ringo too came on and did his Liverpool 8 song from in a box on top of St George's Hall and then that was it! I was surprised it was over so soon - but everybody seemed to have enjoyed it and it looked fab on the telly the next night. The official web site has loads of great images too if you want to see for yourself.

The next night they got the new stadium - The Echo Arena - open for "Liverpool - The Musical" which seemed to go down well too. The Arena is one of the first of a great many new buildings to open in Liverpool - a city which is in the process of taking a giant step to one side, moving the shopping centre towards the waterfront and adding The Arena to the already impressive Tate Liverpool and so on at the Albert Dock. It's a huge undertaking, and much of it remains under construction, so it may be that culture, rather than shopping, does take first place in 2008!

Stay tuned for more Culture!

Happy New Year?

2008-01-20T12:51:00.000Z

Firstly - all the best for 2008 from FolkingAbout - lets hope for lots of great music and maybe some peace and goodwill too!

It has already been a momentous year with news reaching us of Denny Bartley's decision to quit the fantastic Last Night's Fun - typically enough their website claims it is because he cannot face sitting next to Chris any longer, before alluding more seriously to Denny's young family and we would wish every happiness to Denny, Karen and the children. (Maybe Denny will have a few spare minutes to finish his own album now....?)

More shockingly, news is breaking of Belinda O'Hooley's parting from Rachel Unthank & The Winterset. This is, on the face of it, terrible news. Belinda speaks of relief in her blog, coupled with disappointment that all fans of The Winterset must share because Belinda was an integral part of the group - her music first, her humour, her presence and for, me the care she put into the live performances, her accompaniment of Becky's singing - captured here at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2006 - is so sensitive and intense. Belinda will be hard, probably impossible to replace - certainly The Winterset will never be the same again. I hope they have the courage and strength to move on and find new facets rather than try to emulate Belinda's unique contributions.

Talking of which - The Winterset have been receiving many plaudits and end of year honours, and are rightfully nominated for 4 awards in the 2008 BBC Folk Awards to be announced on February 4th - I hope Belinda receives her fair share of the honours here, because she has been a major force in this act and she will be much missed.

FolkingAbout wish Belinda well in her new career, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing Rachel, Becky and The Winterset somewhere on the upcoming tour.

It's not all sad news though! Liverpool has just launched into 2008 as European Capital of Culture - FolkingAbout was there to witness the "People's Launch" - more on that and some interesting new acts coming up next.

Folking About "Doon The Cellar" Magic in progress...

2007-10-03T22:17:00.000+01:00

Cajun accordion? No that's Harry Potter working his keyboard magic. We're back "Doon the Cellar" listening to a track we'll call "Sitting on My Front Porch" - it's the one we mentioned in our first report. There is a real cajun lilt to the music and the accordion is really Harry Potter's keyboard - we're busy hinting that our good mate Ginger may be the man for the job but it looks like they have some other bloke in mind - sorry Ginger but it's - well I can't say - I'd be for the high "Jump!"

This brings two points to mind - the first is the dedication of the SnugL to bring in real musicians to play real instruments, as here with the accordion, it costs too much according to Big Frank, but the better sonic is worth the cost and often this wins out. Elsewhere on this album, we may well be hearing steel drums - real ones of course - played by none other than - Harry Potter!

Which brings us nicely to the second - and that is the integral part that Harry Potter plays in the process of creating the band's sound. My notes are full of quotes about how he is a "genius" and every track we heard - bare bones even though they were - featured yet more of Harry's magic with the keyboards, managing to get a feel for the groove and provide instrument parts that other people will come in and play later, if they can manage that is..... I have - I think - a recall of SnugL saying sometime in the early hours that HP & Big Frank are a genius couple - but Frank is the master and HP will always be the apprentice. Big Frank will always be the master.

The third is the quality of the core band - "hand-reared" is a favourite phrase of SnugL's when discussing them - and they have something special - that mysterious musical intimacy that is only really found amongst players who have played together for years. Frank has had more than his share of managers fall out with him, but he has kept his band - the "girls" - for years, and like Neil Young with Crazy Horse, they add up to more than the sum of the parts.

So with cajun accordion and steel drums are we seeing a return to Big Frank's "One World" era? That may depend on who is willing - and able - to work.

FolkingAbout "Doon the Cellar" is a series of short articles resulting from a series of interviews with those concerned with the making of Big Frank's next CD, and maybe from the one before and a few before that, but mostly this one. Stay tuned for more...

Get well soon Big Frank - from all at Folking About

An Evening With David Sylvian - Manchester Bridgewater Hall - 14/9/2007

2007-09-16T22:33:00.000+01:00

It was hard to believe, but it was finally happening. We walked into the foyer at the Bridgewater, tickets in hand, and yes, sure enough - it WAS happening. After 27 years, I was indeed going to witness David Sylvian live on stage. I know he's been around occasionally before, but this time I heard about it and got the tickets in time......

The Hall was just about full - there was an almost church like hush in the auditorium and music played very quietly over the p.a. - so quietly I couldn't really hear it. Add to that a predominance of black-clothed audience, the impressive array of organ pipes and the hard chairs, and it could have been a church. This impression was broken as soon as the 5 band members strolled out onto the stage in the dim light. The crowd applauded - and applauded more- in fact we applauded for some time while things got sorted out on stage.

Sylvian himself - quickly check with the binoculars - yes it IS him - sat on a tall chrome legged stool, centre stage, feet on the rails, perched, almost hunched, cradling an electric guitar, his effects and water bottle laid out before him on a scrunched up black sheet, like a rather well presented busker might appear in fact. The whole band were dressed in black, Sylvian seemed to have a jacket on and a pair of what he would never call "drainies", and a very swish pair of white shoes that later evoked a cry from the crowd: "Where'd you get yer shoes David?"

When they started playing you knew it was going to be just fine. A grand piano, the top strewn with electronics and a further keyboard, sheet music and a laptop nearby with it's own keyboard, an alto sax, bass and a rather sparse looking drum kit with yet more keyboards and a cymbal imbalance completed the line-up behind - no repeat of the "just 4 keyboard's" we, and others we heard, had worried about beforehand. First up was "Wonderful World" - the single from the debut release from Nine Horses - "Snow Borne Sorrow". This was going to be good - the arrangement of the song for these rather more acoustic instruments was sparse and yet the sound was rich and repaid listening. David Sylvian's guitar was gentle and the Takuma Watanabe's piano was just so - the bass and drums providing a good solid base and the lovely sax seemed to weave in and out of the texture laid down by the others.

Bassist Keith Lowe alternated between electric and one of these modern body-less upright jobs - resplendent in kilt and boots and for some reason stationed on his own little plinth, Lowe was seen at one point to duck and weave as if he was - dancing - we'll have none of that here! I have not yet been able to discover who was playing the flute and sax - he is not listed in the tour brochure - (and more on that later!) - but I think it was Theo Travis.

"World Citizen" demonstrated the careful inter-weaving of the band's electronic sound, with "live" percussion from Steve Jansen mixing it with the programmed sounds which I suspect Steve was in full control off from the look of his array of black boxes mixed in with the drums.

It is David Sylvian whose name appears on the tickets - and it is David Sylvian's voice that leaves the biggest impression on the listener - not in a harsh LISTEN-TO-ME-excited kind of way, but a sweet, deep, autumnal and melancholic sound that he produces with hardly any visible effort and reminds one rather of a really good chewy pint of dark bitter. In "Ride" - a song "from the eighties" - released on the 2000 compilation "Everything and Nothing", his vocals were backed by the flute, I just noted down a sigh. I know David has been a smoker in the past, and may still be, certainly his throat sometimes has a sound that may well be a smoke induced growl, yet later he sang - in fact "Atom and cell" ended on - such a low note that came over so smoothly.....

The range of material we heard was impressive too - I had expected to hear a lot of the new Nine Horses material, and there was plenty of that - yet Steve Jansen's latest "Playground Martyrs" was included (to great applause) and we had already had "Ride", so I was delighted - nay thrilled! - when a piece that I didn't know experienced a key change and suddenly there was "Ghosts", but not as I've ever heard it before, with piano and - well it was almost going to be "Nightporter" judging by the sound of it, but "Ghosts" came out and afterwards there was rapturous applause, even my neighbour, who up till then had just been rapt, suddenly burst into clapping mode and we exchanged approval! There was more "old stuff" to come - "Waterfront" and "Mother and Child".

A word for the lighting - or the backcloth projection which was a themed display of abstract images, sometimes still, sometimes moving or slowly changing - all executed in a suitably subdued palette and sometimes overlaid with spots of light, perhaps from a camera aimed at the lighting gantries, but I couldn't be certain. It certainly fitted in well with the atmosphere of the music.

The audience, by and large were enjoying the music and there was a real sense of respect for what was going down here, although a number choose to ignore the requests to stay seated except between songs and to disturb everybody while they edged along the rows to get out - then back in again. Gilly and I agreed later that at the very least we would have preferred a cozy sofa for this gig - even better if it had been in our front room - it was that kind of night - and then they stepped things up a bit in "History of Holes" which built up very nicely with Steve Jansen giving a very sharp beat indeed. Things calmed down again with a return to more historical material - the long flute notes that introduced "Before the Bullfight" producing welcoming applause, and there was "Nostalgia" in there too, both from "Gone to Earth" before the end came (so soon?) with the clock like lilt of "The Librarian" and finally David got down off that stool and gave a slight bow before waving and leaving the stage.

By now the brain was ticking and while we clapped and clapped for more, I wondered what the encore might bring - no need to guess for long as the distinctive opening notes of "Any Colour You Are" drifted up from the stage - it was a beautiful, haunting rendition of this dreadfully sad song, aided by the flute and then to heap sugar onto the pie, there was a verse or two of "Riverman". We demanded - and got - a second encore - after some considerable time and the band rounded the night off with the apt "Wanderlust" which contains the lyric:

And we’re out on the road again

It’s given us this wonderful wanderlust
It’s given us this wonderful wanderlust
It’s given us this wonderful wanderlust
I don’t doubt it, I feel it

I no longer doubted either - I had felt it, heard it, seen it and bought the tour brochure - at 20 quid maybe a bit steep - but with a hard cover and a CD with collectible cuts it seemed a fitting souvenir. Come back soon David.

Folking About "Doon The Cellar" - The Missing Earl?

2007-09-12T21:47:00.000+01:00

There's at least one name missing from the credits listed on the album sleeve of "On the Cobbles". James Hooker no less, a keyboard player and singer who "has a very famous history in his own right" according to Nanci Griffith in Dirty Linen - and she should know! The story goes that Big Frank was at a party one night where he ran into Hooker and got reminiscing about their early days and before long had SnugL ordered out of the party (despite loud and persistent protests) and into the studio to record some keyboards. Some of them ended up on "Cobbles" - but - according to SnugL - Tools missed him off the credits.....

Hopefully though Hooker will get his just desserts for his contribution to "the new album". On "Sugar & Spice" he plays a deep, dark clavichord part under the vocals - and they are another story in themselves. Harry Potter recorded the clav on his trusty laptop.

James Hooker in Nanci Griffith's studio 2004

FolkingAbout "Doon the Cellar" is a series of short articles resulting from a series of interviews with those concerned with the making of Big Frank's next CD, and maybe from the one before and a few before that, but mostly this one. Stay tuned for more...

Folking About "Doon The Cellar" - Saved!

2007-08-27T23:29:00.000+01:00

Ireland is the setting for the next tale from our visit to "Doon The Cellar" and illustrates the trials of recording and getting that all important track down:

SnugL had the studio set up in Theresa's sitting room and is getting the beats going, he and Big Frank had already started on the port, and when they found a bottle of potent Wray & Nephew White Rum, they did that too. There was much banging into things and falling about, but Frank started to sing somewhere along the way, the vocal was good and has to be recorded. More chaos ensued throughout the session and finally, after SnugL fell over and banged his head, sleep followed....

.... the next morning, checking the studio revealed the good news - the vocals were saved, despite everything!

"Stand by me" is one of Frank's pain songs - you can feel it in the music, the vocal, no doubt fuelled by the energetic consumption of port and rum, has a mournful edge to it, the lyrics speak of loss and grieving.

Later additions to the song, recorded at Liverpool's Parr Street Studio, include John Giblin on bowed double-bass giving further depth to the mourning, and a "genius" contribution from Harry Potter, who manages to play a soul-rendering sad electric guitar anguish-howl part over strings - ALL on keyboards.

"That," exclaims our host, "is pure SnugL!" he means the sound - it's all done on his terms, the sonic is as he wants it. The apparent comedic interlude with the falling down water masks a genuine commitment to getting it all down as it should be, and this is a good'un.

Folking About "Doon The Cellar" - The Prophet in the Church With One Bell.

2007-08-23T20:14:00.000+01:00

Not long into our visit to "Doon the Cellar" in Birkenhead, producer SnugL underlined his policy on sound recording - "I try to record what's there - I go for the purity" he said, and later we would get to hear some of the results.

What follows is the first of a number of reports stemming from this visit, and a number of interviews and other visits relating to the music of John Martyn today. John has very kindly allowed us a preview of many of the rough mixes from the new album, and we will be telling some of the stories behind the tracks, talking to the musicians, engineers and producers involved and telling their stories too. Some of the names used are the familiar names used by the protagonists.

"This is my gaff." said SnugL leading us into his studio - "more of a cutting suite really.", but this is where it happens. This is where many of John Martyn's songs are assembled; some of the tracks have even been recorded here.

We hope to be able to bring a complete technical description of the rig, and describe some of the processes involved in recording an album in the not too distant future, but for the time being lets just say that the editing is done on one of an ever growing collection of PC's - currently an AMD Dual Core with 8Gb RAM - a significant step up from what SnugL dismissively described as a Pentium II word processor that they used to use. Next in line may well be an anonymous laptop lurking near the desk - "I can do everything on that now - may as well flog this lot." In fact SnugL reports that John has been very keen on using the laptop himself and suggests that HE will produce the next CD, SnugL is fired and Tools can be the tea-boy if he is lucky.....!

We'll start our stories with a trip back in time, 5 years or so when John still had the "Church With One Bell" studio up in Scotland. Big Frank is sleeping up in the church gallery, but is awakened by SnugL and Harry Potter getting a new groove going down in the studio, the air is heady with incense from Scratch Perry's burner as Frank thunders downstairs to find out what all the row is about. Anger soon melts as the incense and the music combine to inspire Frank into a creative mood, and he is soon stood naked and fired up at the ever ready microphone, lyrics tumbling out, Spencer playing along. Some of the lyrics would prove to be prophetic - "How can you stand when you're sitting?" and "Sitting on the porch, me and my little dog."

Events would soon see these premonitions materialise, within months John had part of a leg amputated and now spends most of his time sat down, and he now has Gizmo - his own little dog.

There's more to say here, we fast forward to 2007 and a day's recording in Parr Street, Liverpool. Arran Ahmun and Alan Thompson are laying down drum and bass tracks to this vocal - John is sat there, encouraging, conducting, "master of ceremonies" and "much more like his old self." This is the on day after the band's amazing performance at John's Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall appearance - click here for our review. The results are terrific, soulful vocals follow the groove, the bass impassioned. SnugL suddenly stops it, winds the track back a few bars and laughs - "Listen to that, that's Harry Potter taking the p*ss with his da da daaa, da da daaa... on the keyboard."

It's a small insight into the way a song is born - others follow - some can be told here - stay tuned for more tales from Folking About "Doon the Cellar"

Danny Thompson lights a fire at Cropredy?

2007-08-12T22:06:00.000+01:00

A lovely, warm summer's day and the audience at Fairport Cropredy Convention are gathering for a third and final day of this 40th anniversary celebration. The sound crew have relented from playing their compilation CD over and over again and we are being treated to John Martyn's soulful "Rock salt and nails" over the PA. A inner feeling of warmth joins the outer sunshine as we recall that today it is 12 months since John's magnificent gig on this very stage.

"Big Muff" follows and today's compere, Danny Thompson strides out onto the stage to greet the crowd; "Wotcha Cropredy! - How good is it to hear the great John Martyn?" Danny, long time musical partner, drinking partner and frequent sparing partner with John Martyn delighted us with yet more: "I love that man. You know in these days of awards and knighthoods and all that, isn't it time that John Martyn was recognised for his remarkable musical contribution? How many people agree that John Martyn should be rewarded in some way?" A huge cheer rose up from the ever growing crowd - the campaign for Sir John Martyn has started!

John Martyn & John Smith at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall - Liverpool - 1/6/2007

2007-06-03T22:52:00.000+01:00

It was always going to be a good night - the last date of the tour, in Liverpool on the first day of flaming June. It proved to be a very good night - meeting a couple of very old friends, making new friends and some very good music.

John Smith sauntered onto the large Philharmonic stage, hands in his suit (!) pockets and harumphed into the mike - there was a pleasingly good sized crowd even at this stage and John got a rousing cheer just for coming on - not bad for a support act - but them he is on his adopted home turf and we have had the pleasure of his playing several times of late, so his following is growing fast. His opening song is the stunning ballad "Cut throat Mountain?". John rips this song out of himself with every performance - such is the venom, angst and regret contained therein, his voice not just raw but seriously grazed sounding, his guitar stroked, stummed, stressed and finally warped to get the sounds he needs. It is a tour de force and deserves to become a folk standard with it's high body count, extreme weaponary, serious love and absolute revenge. He continued with a good variety of songs interspersed with ever more confident banter with the crowd, he comes over quite natural and quietly comfortable on stage, his soft voice and hushed tones giving no hint of the storms in his songs.

The songs themselves are a varied lot, a notable cover in Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" sung with gentle bottleneck guitar, Smith's own "The Green Man" with the bass string being constantly re-tuned to drag out some marvelous sonic effects and ending in a great slap happy descending twang. "Winter" completes many sets with the guitar becoming a percussion instrument and a hammered dulcimer as it is swung onto his lap. John's style is unique, his voice a powerhouse, yet he manages such delicate passages too, and often sighs to himself mid-song.

At the end, to a big cheer, he saunters back off the stage, job done.

A short interval and we are back in our seats, the hall is full, just about sold out I think - we are promised a good night and a few surprises by one who knows and here come the band, and John Martyn wheeled on as ever with his wing arms out, BUT he is clearly in a good mood, "It's a lovely day" he sings as things get plugged in around him, Fender on let's go. "Cooltide". It's the end of tour end of term feeling, things seem well and good, the crowd in good voice give John a good Liverpool welcome, lots of shouting, just like John Martyn crowds used to be, "Come on fatso!" being met with a smile and an admission - "That's more like it!" It's going well, Martin is blowing well on the Sax, Foss Patterson has his eyes closed and head back as "Lookin' On" progresses, Arran Ahmun keeping an almost continuous hi-hat beat with one stick throughout the song, and each of the band took a solo - all well received. The sound was pretty good too, the instruments well separated, although the bass was a bit boomy and the sax a bit quiet - it was good to be able to hear all the instruments even at full tilt.

John's speaking voice seemed clearer than usual too - he even joked about it himself, breaking into complete incomprehensible mumbling deliberately at one point. Introducing the Solid Air section John claimed never to have "stickled" and therefore the album would all be played, but not in the original order. And played it was, in fine style too, with some nice touches including "May you Never" which started out with just John singing with his acoustic guitar and ended up being almost anthemic with the full band joining in as it went along.

The highlights for me were probably "I' d rather be the Devil" which had the full echo effects on and it all sounded just spot on, and "Go down easy" which had a sublime bass part from Alan Thompson and was very gently handled with Martin Winnings playing his surprise "secret weapon" - the clarinet - very sympathetically.

After the title track "Solid Air" John stopped playing any guitars and just sat and sang his heart out on "Rock Salt and Nails" and then "Never Let Me Go" closed the night, John being wheeled off well before the band had finished playing - and with much of the audience on it's feet to bring the tour to an end properly. It was we agreed afterwards a very subtle, melancholic reading of the set tonight, and we were, as is always the case, feeling the loss as the crowd dispersed.

We learned later that the band had been playing under the shadow of tragedy and frankly it was a wonder they played at all, and a credit to them that they pulled off such a good gig in the circumstances.

And so endeth the Solid Air Tour 2007 - the original London gig being extended to an 11 date tour, and then a further 8 being added on as the powers that be came to realise how popular the Great Man still is. More tours are being mooted - lets hope so - John Martyn is a living legend and his music seems timelessly fresh - Solid Air was released in 1973 and can still fill concert halls today - long may he run.

The Cafe with the best view in the country - The search is on!

2007-05-29T23:20:00.000+01:00

For some years, it has been a strongly held view in my head at least, that the cafe at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall has the best view in the country - with a fantastic cove, blue or stormy sea, seals, dolphins, the theatre behind - you need to go some to beat it.

However, a late decision saw Gilly and I drive down the road from Broadford to Elgol on the Isle of Skye last week and as a result, the Minack has lost it's crown. The Cuillin View Gallery & Coffee Shop at Elgol has got all of those things, but it also has the magnificent Cuillin and that does it for me! Not only that but John and Gail serve good coffee, play fantastic music and have a warm welcome for their customers. I expect the cakes are good too, but my diet forbade me to try them that day!

Contenders to top all this are welcome to put in a bid, but I don't expect a flood.....

The Isle of Skye Music Festival 2007 - Day 3

2007-05-29T20:25:00.001+01:00

The second day of the festival was brighter and less wet, and with a lunchtime start following a 4am-ish finish the night before, we arrived to find a fairly subdued crowd, many probably recovering from the night before. This sad state of affairs meant that lots of punters missed the great set that The Low Miffs put out on the Mainstage in the early afternoon. You have possibly guessed by now that I hadn't done much homework for this festival, in fact I can honestly say that with one or two exceptions I had no clue at all about who the acts were, so it was all a bit pot luck as to who we saw, but this lack of forethought provided a day full of surprises - and this was the first. The Low Miffs are 5 young men, fronted by the diminutive but marvelous Leo Condie from Glasgow, played song after song of energetic music, performed with passion and showmanship, Condie first sitting on the edge of the stage with his silver topped cane, then racing around the stage, next leaping the fence to sing his impassioned appeals to the audience before returning to have guitar duels with his sidesman. Special mention to Thomas Brogan whose saxophone adds major extra dimension to the guitar heavy sound. Besuited and rather like a mini Llewelyn-Bowen, Leo Condie is a star on the rise - his voice is unaccountably large for such a small frame, goodness knows where he gets his energy from, but I hope to see lots more of these Low Miffs and I hope nobody ever tells them to slow down!

From the sublime to the ridiculous - Barry Peters - DJ extraordinaire with his "son" Kevin and partner in dance Derek Japan were pulling in an excited crowd in the non-stop stage tent. Side-splitting humour from Barry ("I've never been on stage this f@@@g early in the afternoon before" ) - who knew everybody and had been everywhere, and amazing dance routines from "Double Penetration" to the very best in disco music kept us rooted as the act unfolded to include a roller skate dance routine, break dancing and finally Barry's return from retirement to dance again as a trio - off came the pants to reveal sparkly gold tights and away they went - you really had to be there, we were, enjoyed a real feast.

After a break to recover from all that excitement we took up position in the Non Stop Stage tent to see the main event. But first there was Mark Olson, a man in an un-enviable position. Mark's music is mostly "acoustic" - guitar, fiddle and a little percussion or piano - and he was in a tent between Mungo's booming bass and the Union of Knives on the Mainstage, plus the crew was busy putting the gear together for the next act, so it was quite a triumph that we could hear and enjoy this lovely set from a man who sings American country style music with heart and soul, and to me he has more than a hint of favourite Dave Mallet in both music and lyric - check out his stuff on MySpace - it really hits a spot for me.

And so to the main event - at 5:45 pm in a side tent, the legend that is John Martyn was wheeled onto stage and set to for an hour - yes we had come some 400 odd miles and spent a small fortune on getting to this place for just this moment... John is nearing the end (Liverpool, Friday, we will be there!) of a hugely extended UK tour performing the album Solid Air in full, topped and tailed by other favourites, and having been to a few of the gigs, we thought we knew what might be coming. First change for this leg of the tour though was the inclusion of Foss Patterson in place of Spencer Cozens on keyboards, Spencer is currently on tour with Joan Armatrading. Foss is an old hand having played with John Martyn off and on for years,so it was good for us newcomers to see him live as well.

Martin Winnings is still doing sax duty, and while he has his detractors amongst some of the cognoscenti, but I like the way he watches John like a hawk and plays to his signals. Martin plays with a real passion too and has been a real asset to the lineup.

John was on great form and started out as expected, exhorting the band "Come on girls, hurry up!" before launching into "Cooltide" but was soon ripping up the running order, sending back his acoustic guitar so that he could hang onto the Fender to play "Lookin' On" and later "Big Muff". From our vantage point we could see everything going on between John and the band and see the joy and pain in his face, and I hope he saw the tears that he put in my eye's too - tears of joy and wonder - John's music always invokes something in me that is more powerful than the sum of the notes and words alone - and the distance, cost and time were well worth every last bit as far as I'm concerned.

AlanThompson's bass and Arran Ahmun's drumming where as impeccable as ever and after a delighted crowd sang along with "May You Never" it was the passionate, electric, growling "Rock Salt & Nails" that closed this all too short set and left us once again bereft of the great man - at least 'till Friday.

The small tent was packed and the crowd keen and vocal - the sound from where we were - right at the front under John's nose - was less than hifi but good enough considering how everything is put together in the wings and wheeled on without there being time for a real soundcheck, and the reception for John was as huge as ever, we cheered and hollered and we nearly got an encore, but it was just too late for the schedule to be held up.

After all that there was nothing for it but to recover, eat and head back to the Shipping Forecast for some dancing - oh and Seth Lakeman - Folk's new superstar who we have managed to miss up to now - not by design you understand, just never been in the right place. This year though he is following us around the festivals! There was one of those interminable delays while they got the kit sorted out, then suddenly out rushes Seth from behind the stage and they're off on a musical romp with violins guitars and mandolins everywhere, horse hair shredded from his bow, earnest, solid looking and ever so confident, Seth took the big crowd for a white knuckle ride and wore us all out jumping and dancing. I have to confess to being slightly pre-occupied with trying to get the perfect Seth Portrait having found a new setting on the camera (judge for yourselves.....) but Gilly loved it and I promise to pay more attention at the next gig honest.

What did grab me and hold my attention though was the stunning set played next by Session A9 - four fiddles, keyboard, guitar and new drum hero Iain Copeland on snare - Iain's playing was so laid back yet en pointe - I was captivated - the rest were pretty good too!! Dougie Maclean apparently said they are "the best band to come out of Scotland in a hundred years" - so there!

And that was it - well there was more, but we had peaked and it was time to go wake the campers again back at base. A quick word about catering - there wasn't much, but there was a refreshing mix of decent fast food available, including fresh fruit smoothies, salads, chips, falafel, porridge and baked potatoes - a welcome change from burgers and more burgers! A good day indeed - special thanks to new friend John for the coffee and the special stageside access for Seth Lakeman. We'll be back to the paradise that is Skye for sure, the festival will have to try a little harder though.

The Isle of Skye Music Festival 2007 - Day 2- part 2

2007-05-29T18:58:00.000+01:00

The first tent on the right - and certainly the one with most consistent full on bass beat was Mungo's Sound System - a ramshackle booth with genuine tidal debris and some very home made but effective bass bins provided reggae lovers with a permanent haven in which to groove and catch whatever Mungo was serving up at the time. I have to say that Mungo seemed to be a permanent fixture too - a marathon session of mixing that put the other DJs in the shade - those bass bins never stopped pounding, whether the tent was empty, or heaving, Mungo just played on.

As the day wore on, the programme changed tack with rock and pop giving way to big beats, trance, and all manner of DJ sessions.

We caught Pipeheid in the Non-stop tent - 3 screens giving a visual backdrop - often slow motion water drops into puddles - aptly reminiscent of the large puddle at the back of the dance area - whilst the 2 DJs provided a soundscape to dance to - which lots of people where doing and clearly enjoying the mix - it was interesting to see how the 2 guys performed together, a lot of sideways glancing went on to check settings and to syncronise beats. Later on at the Mainstage, Mylo was doing his bit with a cuddly toy collie dog on the desk and a bottle of water on the turntable - once again there were lots of happy dancers.

Happy dancing too back at the Shipping Forecast - all manner of traditional music being provided using pipes, fiddles, whistles, accordions, you name it. One notable instrument was a 21st century version of the pipes similar to Nick Scott's uileann pipes - which always look like the contents of a plumber's scrap bag, but these were all chrome and plastic, and very modern looking. The dancing by the way was frantic by turns, other times it was almost tea dance sedate, but it was always happening and it was very noticeable here that the majority of both players and dancers were very much the young generation. By the time we had finished we had had a turn at the Gay Gordons, witnessed a very eager young lady capably organise a set to Strip the Willow, only to collapse in a drunken heap at the first hint of a swing, and so on and so on.

It was raining quite heavy off and on, but the site was coping quite well when we called it a night, needing our cuppa and a sleep in readiness for THE BIG DAY. Sorry, did I not mention it? John Martyn - oh yes - due up on stage tomorrow evening.....

Pictures by Gilly

The Isle of Skye Music Festival 2007 - Day 2- part 1!

2007-05-28T22:32:00.001+01:00

Let's get the moaning out of the way first! FolkingAbout gets about a bit and we are quite happy to rough it out in festival toilets and wade through mud and beer cans to get around, but the organisers of the The Isle of Skye Music Festival could do with a re-think when it comes to camping facilities. We arrived in our caravanette to use the advertised "dedicated site" - only to be guided to the "quarry" - ie a hole in the ground, part filled with water, part with fly-tipping waste and with no water, no toilets and no security - no thanks! No sleeping in the car parks either - a health and safety edict apparently driven by the fear of our setting open fires and burning all the cars down. So we ended up forking out for a berth at a caravan site some 15 miles away, which meant no beer, more money - and our arrival back to the caravan site just before dawn - and even in stealth mode "Harry" is no ballet dancer! The good news is that we had toilets and hot running water - but really we would think more than twice before going back if nothing changes.

The festival itself is run at the south end of runway 25 at Broadford airstrip, the mainstage being on the threshold and the remainder of the site stretching northward along the runway. So there was a goodly amount of solid tarmac under the feet, and where the runway ended, there was fairly well drained hardstanding which got wet and muddy, but not the deep swampy stuff you get in fields - thank goodness because it did rain a bit! The site is also compact with 4 stages and a sound-system tent all within yards of each other, all very handy, but it did lead to problems for musicians not playing with their amps on number10, especially in the traditional music tent "The Shipping Forecast".

All this messing about with campsites had sent us a bit sideways and we needed some music to get us straight again - Step forward Ash who - ok we admit it -we thought at first were Kasabian, 'til they played stuff we knew was by Ash, and who we then managed to miss due to a diary failure! Ash played what the NME rightly called a "rapturously-received set" featuring the hits - including "Girl from Mars" and "Angel Interceptor", and ending the show with "Twilight of the Innocents" - the title track of the next CD - a really exciting and almost prog departure for the trio whose repertoire is mostly guitar based pop songs, they had to resort to backing tracks for this, but we'll let them off because it sounded great and the large crowd really did enjoy it. The set was confident and triumphal, and the new single "Polaris" sounds to be a cracker.

It was a short step from Ash to Fiona Mackenzie who appeared with a guitarist whose name I didn't get, and keyboard player Rick Taylor who was excellent. Fiona sings many of her own songs, often in Gaelic, and her final piece - a trilogy composed by herself with lyrics from her poetic sister was really fine. Fiona has her debut CD coming out "sometime this year".

Outside in the rain, something rather good was going on in an old caravan - the DUKesbox is a mobile folk group with their own stage, sound system and transport all rolled into one - 3 chaps in splendid suits play the audiences choice of cover versions, selected via an old typewriter device, and they played all day and all night in their very own style. Check out that website for more.

Back with more from this day soon.....

All pics on this page - except for the green Ash one which I took - by Gilly.

The Isle of Skye Music Festival 2007 - Day 1

2007-05-28T21:52:00.000+01:00

Gilly and I set out for the Isle of Skye Music Festival with plenty of time to spare, making allowance for delays and the ponderous pace of "Harry" the caravanette, so we were delighted when we found ourselves in good time to catch the regular Thursday evening session at the Plockton Inn.

Nine or ten musicians gathered in the corner by the bar and treated us to a range of good music, entirely unannounced, but well received. Highlights included John Prine's "Unwed Father's" and Linda & Richard Thompson's "I Want to see the Bright Lights Tonight." Plockton is a great place for music as it houses the The National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music at the High School. Shepherd Neame's Spitfire Ale is also well received at the Plockton Inn.

CD REVIEW - Jon Redfern - May be some time

2007-01-15T22:43:00.000Z

It took a little while for Jon Redfern to break into my psyche, but once he did, it was a first class seat that he claimed for himself, right there in front of the fire with his feet up and a glass of something very pleasant and no plans to leave! My first real contact was at the Reveal Records gig for Amnesty International at Derby at the tail end of last year where he and his band struggled against some strange sound system problems for a while, but were nevertheless impressive enough to make me fork out for this CD, complete with limited edition bonus tracks and a signature. (Behind as ever, me, Gilly was already a firm MySpace friend and earned a warm smile and handshake while I stood quietly behind....)

The CD is a proper package - The cover image is a striking photograph from Iceland and inside there is a booklet with lyrics and photographs - even time signatures - for the 12 tracks on the album. The additional information for the bonus tracks is cleverly included on the usually redundant back side of the rear cover. I mention all this because too many CDs just have a thin bit of paper with a track listing and nothing else - but not this one I'm glad to say. Rant mode off!

The music (at last!) is just a pleasure to listen to. If this CD had been released in the days when vinyl wasn't just the preserve of enthusiasts and dj mixers, then my copy would already be wearing out fast - few days have passed without at least one play, if not more. Jon is a good writer of both tunes and lyrics, and he takes all the credits for these on "May be some time", as well as joint honours for the string arrangements. The CD opens with "I'm still young" which features no less than ten instruments, including Jon's acoustic guitar. This is a big band and Jon has used it to tremendous effect. It's always tempting to review a CD and say this sounds like a mix of so-and-so and someone else, but in Jon Redfern's case it would be a long, long list, there are so many differing styles here, but let me throw in Nick Drake and John Martyn , laced with a smattering of jazz and a pinch of Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band in this colourful curry.

It's no hodge podge though, the CD flows beautifully, and sometimes even seamlessly, from track to track, the music is mature and very well crafted, with no sign of the current trend for using lots of instruments because we've got them, rather than because they fit in. Jon's lyrics too are memorable, intelligent, snappy, sometimes witty - "Couldn't get rich quick, if you paid me" for instance and "Have you ever been searching, all your life" appealed to me. Track 3 "lost", has a lot of percussion, a bass and two guitars played with both hands up on the neck - mildly distorted vocals which might have been too murky and damp sounding, but the whole thing is brought to life by Patrick Durkan's glockenspiel which sparkles over the top.

Those arranged strings open "All this time 1" on track four which also has the brass section in action again - this is a magnificent piece which builds gently but insistently with the 6/8 beat, a train like rhythm and a swirling guitar over the horns and strings before suddenly fading out like "the dream has gone forever". This is followed by a short but exciting instrumental "Demons I", just Jon's guitar, a snare drum and lots of "orchestral percussion" which has a real firework quality to it, and leads into "Demons II" which continues the musical theme, but also has a delicious sax solo which later turns all a bit Pink Floyd for a minute towards the end.

Lyrically, the whole album has a touch of Peter Gabriel's "Salisbury Hill" to it - "I want to live my life, I don't want to live no other" and also "Got to let go of this feeling" - Jon sounds like a man who has made up his mind where to go and he's on his way - and - well I've been putting off trying to describe Jon's voice because it's just his own really - unique, understated yet powerful, stuffed full of feeling - clear - yearning, certainly never dull - tugging at your emotions all the time, whether up or down.

"Can't take the heat" finds Jon in a Youngish mood with a simple, rhythmic piano part, sung over, beautiful Rockets like violins (Lou Peacock), but with the Redfern touch making it something else altogether - a harmonium unpinning the second half of the track giving it depth and warmth. The harmonium is played by Jon's musical partner - multi instrumentalist Patrick Durkan - and Patrick is also responsible for much of the album's distinctive percussion sound, as well as being the other half of the arrangements team. The band also includes a cellist (Sarah Gill) and assorted brass, bass, piano and a cittern. The single - "I love the sun" is a lovely slow 3/4 instrumental with a short vocal in the middle - a hymn for lost friends perhaps is an absolute delight. This almost merges into the concluding track "Somewhere" with another great beat, more long brass chords and a mournful vocal before the mood suddenly brightens, the pace quickens, the glockenspiel shines again, the tension between the pace of the beat and the long restrained brass holds out to the end when suddenly, as if the clockwork has run out, the brass stops and a slowing rhythm section clatters to a halt and thats it. If you are anything like me, you'll be winding it up and listening again, and again, and again.

Of course if you are lucky enough to have one of the 5000 limited edition copies, you still have 5 tracks to listen to which include a "band version" of "can't take the heat", a complete, and aptly named "Departure" and Jon's heart-wrenching version of "Spencer the Rover" which ranks up there with Beckie Unthank's "River man" for poignancy, backed by Jon's gentle guitar and Roger Illingworth's silken tenor sax. This alone makes it worth tracking down a copy of this edition.

Useful links

Amazon will sell you one here

Jon Redfern's MySpace

STOP PRESS! UltanJohn to feature on BBC Radio2 Mark Radcliffe programme

2007-01-06T13:29:00.000Z

Great news is that all being well, UltanJohn's much praised new single (see blatant plugs to the right of this article) is being scripted into Radio 2' s Mark Radcliffe show for this coming week - Monday to Thursday 10:30 pm to midnight.

This is all down to Gilly's unrelenting efforts to get the single publicised - so well done Gilly!

Any further information will be posted here.

May I take this chance to wish everbody who bothers to read this a very happy and prosperous new year for 2007 - I have a large backlog of updates in my notebook, and I am hoping to spend a fair chunk of next week catching up - not least because it's back to work, we're broke and we're worn out after a fab holiday period!

Stay tuned

John

LAU - Derby Assembly Rooms - 2/12/2006

2006-12-04T23:37:00.000Z

Earning themselves a slot of their own and jumping the queue in the FolkingAbout backlog, it is an absolute delight to report that with Lau, there is something new under the sun, and it's er, .... Scottish traditional music. No, stop, sit back down and wait a minute, listen! Lau had the task of ending our long weekend of music that started back on Wednesday at Bromborough Folk Club, passed through Allan Taylor and John Wright at Parkgate, Last Night's Fun in Sheffield and had already involved Jon Redfern and Rachael Unthank and the Winterset - most of which will get separate reviews shortly - and being completely un-prepared for what followed, I was just about to relax into a pleasant session of acoustic music from this plain looking trio with guitar, fiddle and accordion when they started to play a jolly piece, rather like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, lively and sparkling with intent. A brief pause to introduce the next piece, "The Stuart Thompsons of Fairisle" and WHAM! I'd pretty well given up writing any descriptions down after this - it started gently and lulled us into a nice cozy, peaceful mood and then became something else, something most unexpected. After about 5 pieces I had to jot something down and here it is:

"wild, controlled, sleek, dirty, fast, slow, calm, gentle and rip-roaring, breakneck white-knuckle jazz strewn folk."

Add to this the frenzied antics of Martin Green, whose head was banging in the Motorhead sense of the word, hair following half a second behind, legs kicking up and about, his accordion suffering abuse after abuse as the bellows are twisted and pulled and it's keyboard pummeled! You had to fear for his neck lasting the night, never mind his instrument.

The other two members are Kris Drever on guitar and vocals, and Aidan O'Rourke on fiddle, a player so good that he was awarded Scottish Trad Music Instrumentalist of the Year as he was entertaining us - a suitable bottle and a note being passed onto stage part way through the set - causing him much blushing and gaining a huge round of applause. The band have lots of roots, I won't go on here, you can look them up in the links.

It's not all frenzy either, there is some sublime stuff on offer here, the "Hill behind Cromarty" providing a gloriously evocative slice of Scottish countryside in aural form, Aidan's fiddle emulating the birds wheeling around your head as you walk up the hill. This was so heart-wrenchingly beautiful, precise and fragile, windswept and biting , and a perfect gentle phase before they demolished us with "Hinba", Martin moving on from fingering and resorting to running his palm up and down the keyboard! - Standing ovation, much cheering, exhausted.

Lau should carry a health warning - they are so good for you!

I'll leave the final words to Gilly, who took the FolkingAbout notebook during one frenzy stage and just wrote: "HOLY SHIT!!!!"

Impression of Martin Green - copyright Gilly Farrie 2006

Moondust - Book report

2006-11-27T20:44:00.000Z

I just want to mention in passing that I am currently reading "In search of the men who fell to Earth - Moondust" by Andrew Smith. A simple concept - to interview the surviving astronauts that have walked on the moon, well executed. Smith is the same age as myself, and whilst his childhood interest in the space race was somewhat more limited than my frank obsession, he makes up for it in later life by seeking out those men that held us rapt in those heady days and looks into how the experience of walking on the moon, and the "afterlife" has affected their lives.
It has already been enlightening and inspiring - Amazon may well do well out of it as I come across other titles that sound interesting, it is well written, funny, moving and "a great read."

Rachael Wright - De Bees - Winsford - 11/10/2006

2006-11-27T00:42:00.000Z

A trip out to Winsford to catch one of Gilly's MySpace friends - Rachael Wright fronts a trio consisting of herself on vocals and guitar, Tim Wright on guitar and Bob Burton on electric bass. The two acoustic guitars sound sweet together, with Burton's bass used sparsely - Rachael has a voice that seems somehow familiar, strong certainly. Opening with "Honey" and moving on to "Storm in my Heart" where we find Rachael's voice soaring and reminiscent of Mindy Smith, and Tim providing intimate guitar backing. The crowd was growing steadily now as the music gathered people away from the football on the many TV screens in the bar, and they were treated to some beautiful music, the twin guitars, both picked on "Tall Ships", Bob's surprise use of a tiny xylophone adding occasional sparkle behind.

A short but sweet set, we particularly enjoyed a new song: "Loosing Hand" which has definate potential, the trio are deservingly picking up lots of gigs, not just locally, but all across the country.

CD REVIEW - Last Night's Fun - Live from the MAC - 2006

2006-11-17T22:00:00.000Z

Last Night's Fun - Live from the MAC - LNF Records - LNFR006

I have often felt that live recordings are the best kind that artists can make, capturing the fire and the hunger that makes the music come to life, and recording the atmosphere - the crowds' applause and the performers' own reactions.

This is a second live CD from Sherburn, Bartley and Scott's Last Night's Fun, recorded earlier this year at Birmingham Arts Centre MAC and released to coincide with the current UK tour. The sparse sleeve notes point out that the album was recorded straight from the mixing desk and Chris Sherburn was keen that I let you know that apart from removing his introductions, this is a faithful reproduction of what went on that night - "and it hasn't been near a computer either!" This is unusual in this day and age, when you can take a track to bits on a computer and re-assemble it any number of permutations, no overdubs, no retakes, not even a collection of the best bits from a tour, just one gig and just one recording.

That said, how does it stand up as a record of the gig? Well I wasn't there that night, but I have heard Last Night's Fun a few times this year and they are still using a similar set list for their live performances, and this is a fair representation of what an audience would expect to hear, although there are a number of favourites missing, but to include everything would probably require a double CD. Sound wise, this album is a joy - there are only three instruments and one voice when the band is in full flight, and the recording has captured each one of these well, Nick's pipes and Chris' concertina blending well but remaining separate, and Denny's voice strong and clear. If there is anything wrong with this recording, it's that Denny's guitar looses a little of it's lovely bass tones - and this is a mild criticism I would level at most of the Last Night's Fun albums - this is a shame because there is much to loose. The other voice on the CD is that of Chris Sherburn who "conducts" the band verbally, and this unique aspect is well captured, his acerbic introductions and merciless ribbing of Nick Scott are mostly cut, although the keen eared will be able to pick out and recognise a few tidbits that are captured behind the music at the start of some tracks, and there is one left in where all three of them get a turn.

Traditional and contemporary, instrumentals and songs, the mix is very representative of the current live sets, with haunting rendition of "Whiskey in the Jar" being one of my highlights. Mind you, it's hard to pick out highlights, this is a brilliant album, packed full of delights. Each of the players is a master of their instrument: Denny's guitar style is unlike anything else you will hear, his voice is, as I recently described after seeing them in Lymm , "when Denny opens his mouth it feels like a storm blowing in across the room, something else all together, it's a powerful force with a major emotional crack in it that is not at all sentimental, but sounds like its been hard won from a difficult seam." Nick's pipe playing is exemplary - his control over his complex and cantankerous instrument is masterful, and Chris's concertina playing can range from barely audible drone-like backing to breath-taking runs and all stations in between - and the result is, for me, one of the most enthralling live performances currently to be had.

Last Night's Fun make music like good coffee - strong, rich, smooth, soothing when you need it, with a nice bite to energise you, a long lasting flavour - and it addictive in a nice kind of way!

Van Eyken at Hendre Hall, Tal-y-bont, Bangor - 8/11/2006

2006-11-17T21:34:00.000Z

A thin crowd were scattered around the edges of the impressive stone walled hall, a few warming themselves on at the large fireplace where a wood fire was crackling away nicely and one or two were buying drinks at the bar. The lights had been dimmed for some time, and then, without any introduction or pre-amble, a band appeared in the room and took to the large stage, already crammed with instruments tuned up, and began to play - actually there wasn't a clear boundary between the tuning up and playing because the first song Van Eyken played has an introduction of tortured electric guitar, clattering percussion and other eerie sounds with Tim Van Eyken picking out the tune on his acoustic guitar. Its not raucous, but it's not your standard folk intro! I can't verify this, but I suspect that the band might have had more instruments on the stage than there were people in the audience, such was the diversity of the "weaponry" available to them. The bass player alone had 3 different basses to play, and a euphonium.

The sound in Hendre Hall was great - clear and loud without being overburdening - it was a real shame that more people didn't make the effort to attend. The high roof and wooden gallery all add to the special atmosphere in the venue, which is staffed and run be friendly and helpful people who are obviously trying hard to make a real go of this venture. My only real criticism of the venue would be a lack of signage when you arrive - we ended up using the tradesmans' entrance - but this is a minor point really.

Van Eyken then brought the same 5 peice band that we saw earlier in the year at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival, and they played a 2 part set consisting mostly of tracks from their current album: "Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves" It's a great line up too - Tim Van Eyken plays acoustic guitar and several concertinas as well as having a really strong a distinctive voice that is a pleasure to listen to. Tim shares the front of the stage with the near legendary Nancy Kerr, top viola player and vocalist in her own right (and probably the only member to stick to the one instrument too - which at least made it easier for her later when packing up!) Behind them, Colin Fletcher on upright, acoustic and electric basses and euphonium, Pete Flood on percussion - loads of it - and Oliver Knight on electric guitars.

The band have a very distinctive sound - or perhaps I should say a range of sounds, because it's a very flexible outfit. Whether Tim plays one of his various boxes or guitar, or just sings, or which bass is used, and whether the viola is used or not - there are many combinations available. One particularly marked aspect of their sound though is the use of the electric guitar, often enhanced by various effects, but virtually always used subtley rather than as a sledgehammer, and providing a layer of sound onto which the rest of the band can hang the tune. This is used to great effect in "Bold Fisherman" where an simple phrase played with an echo effect underpins the entire song.

In truth you could say that Van Eyken is very much a band of individuals, each of which could be singled out here, but it would be wrong not to mention the fantastic percussion that is used throughout the performance. Watching Flood play is a real treat - he has a small drum kit but it is surrounded by a vast array of instruments, toys and household items, all of which can be either banged, shaken, rubbed or, well just plain dropped - to give that precise sound that is required, and I'm sure I witnessed the cymbals being hit by pan lids at one stage. This is no playtime melange though, it's, well thought out and expertly performed, witness to the piercing and eerie use of bowed cymbals also used throughout "Bold Fisherman", along with the ultra subtle tapping of a bodrhan with just fingers in the same song. I could go on to mention Nancy Kerr holding the viola like a guitar and plucking the strings, the first use I have seen of a semi-acoustic bass on stage, the euphonium, the wind up toy, but I'm sure you're getting the drift by now!

By the time the band marched off the stage - still playing - leaving us banging away at the various bits of percussion that had been handed out, we were in little doubt that out conundrum over which of some half a dozen events we should attend on November 18th had been settles - Van Eyken at Whitchurch - we'll be there!

=Playlist=

Worcester City
William at Waterloo
The Pearl Wedding/Nancy Taylor's
Fisherman
Pretty Bessy Milkmaid
Gypsy Maid
Barleycorn

=Interval=

? Glory
Young Alvin
Australia
Pie (Fair Ellen of Ratcliffe)
The Taylor and the Flea
Bonny Breast Knot/Barseback Polka
Babes in the Wood

=Encore=

Twelve Joys of Mary

UltanJohn & Sabrina Dinan

2006-11-06T20:56:00.000Z

That explains the keyboard then....

Just imagine for a moment if you will, FolkingAbout arrive eager and excited at Slattery's in Dublin, order up the Guinness, confirm that the gig upstairs will start at 9pm and settle down after a long day, early start, drive to Holyhead, ferry to Ireland, train to Dublin, trams and buses, check in at the hotel and all has gone so well. Only to be told at 9pm that we were in THE WRONG PUB! "UltanJohn? Not playing here mate!" Despondency sets in - it seems as though the FolkingAbout's first international gig may have gone horribly wrong at the last minute - fearful flashbacks of other recent debacles cross our minds as we troop back down the stairs - questions, questions "Why would anybody do this to us?" UltanJohn have been Gilly's MySpace friends for so long that we felt like we knew them already - so where are they? Or have we been set up for one massive practical joke? We regroup - sup some more Guinness, ask the barman - no, he's never heard of them either - but maybe they're playing at the OTHER SLATTERY'S? Other Slattery's? You mean there's two? One quick phone call later and the Guinness is downed in one, the barman profusely thanked and we're in a taxi hurtling across town to where, at last, we are enthusiastically greeted by Ultan, John and Bernie the band's publicist.

Upstairs at MB Slattery's in Rathmine Road is a lovely warm place, long and thin with open fires and warm people - the wallpaper is ancient, painted glossy dark red and with dark varnished wood everywhere - the decor is aided by two posters - one for Nick Cave's fantastic double album "Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus" and the other for Jeff Buckley of whom, more later. We were first in and soon being "made a fuss of" by Bernie and the band. More Guinness and soon it was time to settle down and do what we'd come for - listen! Bernie said that "before the boys play, there's somebody else going to do a spot who I think you'll enjoy." So listen we did, to Sabrina Dinan who wandered on and picked up Ultan's guitar, looked up at the crowd and breathed a few deep breaths before admitting to some serious nerves before playing anything. I had honestly assumed that she was "just a friend", or a relative even of somebody who was just setting out, so nervous and unassuming she seemed, but when she started to play and sing, all that changed in an instant. No starter this, Sabrina's songs are fine things, her guitar playing is positive and dexterous, her lyrics are marvelous. I was busy trying to write snippets down during her first two songs, but failed to do them justice, anyway we bought her CD later so I could hear them all again. Sabrina played 5 or 6 songs, three of them used the capo on the 6th fret which I suspect is unusual, but it provided a nice ringing sound from Ultan's Taylor guitar, her voice earning positive comparisons to Billie Holiday, although she looks for all the world like Janis Joplin. "Train Song" came mid-way and is powerful both lyrically and musically, but is also delicate and fragile at the same time.

The crowd were being quite noisy behind us, lots of loud chatter, and it was to their credit that both Ultan and John placed themselves in front of Sabrina and gave her plenty of visible support, even turning the PA up a couple of times to help with the background racket. It's a shame the chatterers weren't listening because they missed a real treat. The Billie Holiday influence shined through brighter as Sabrina sang her own bluesy "Captain's Little Mama" and finished her set with Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing", took the guitar off and almost ran off the stage! Lots of well deserved applause followed her back to her seat and we drew breath and agreed how good she was.

Later we learned that Sabrina is already well on her way, having toured with Luka Bloom in the USA, but not before we said goodbye as she rushed of into the Dublin night at some unearthly hour, apologising for having to rush as she was due in work at 7.30am later that morning. Rock and roll eh?

So we're well prepared now, and into the groove for the main feature. UltanJohn are John Conneely and Ultan Conlon, John is a refugee from Charis and Ultan is a singer/songwriter in his own right, the two joining forces recently when Charis split up. Both are singers and guitarists, and the two play mostly their own songs. Gilly and I have nearly worn out MySpace's copies of the 2 songs UltanJohn have put up there, so we knew the first song right away - "2019" features John's immediately recognisable distinctive voice and Ultan's flowing and delicious guitar playing. Next up, "The Will" reverses the vocals, with Ultan leading and John providing beautiful soft, high harmonies, a real feature of this duo is the way the 2 voices blend so well, whichever takes the lead, the other is weaving around the melody somewhere nearby, and in "Flying", next, we find them singing in the round!

Ultan seems more shy and quiet, dark and brooding, whereas John has the more striking look and hardly stopped talking all night, it's a good pairing. "All I need now" then "Dark Desert Sky" in which John's voice sounds like the winds blowing around those tall rocky spires out there in the desert, then, after "Without You", we get the new single "Really Gone". The single features vocals from none other than John Martyn, and whilst he wasn't at the gig, the 2 voices managed to provide something close to the gravelgrowl of the man himself. It's a fabulous song, and it's just out, available any time now from the band's website, and, apart from having John Martyn on vocals, it also features some achingly good trumpet playing from Stefano Muscovi. Back with the live version, Ultan was playing his heart out, his knees knocking together as his legs jumped around to the tune! "Old and Wise" is a slow burning song, and was followed by "I don't want to know about evil" a classic John Martyn song done well and then a lovely close vocal performance in "Niall T." The band were still struggling a bit with people chatting loudly at the back, who were asked several times to "shush!"

Suddenly though there is a change. John had told us earlier that they had been up late the night before, following the launch of the single, and that they were feeling a little jaded, but that sometimes he got the energy while performing that allowed him to go on longer and... well at this point the energy clearly arrived. A Tracy Chapman cover (sorry it has escaped my notebook which one - "Behind The Wall" - thanks Bernie!) was neatly dovetailed into "Minnie the Moocher" and suddenly there was a buzz in the room - the crowd finally shut up chatting for a bit and joined in and it was like somebody had lit a fire under their stools. "All that I believe" produced some Dylanesque phrases, then an energised version of "Isn't it Clear" - the other track from the CD/MySpace and "Something to Give" took us up to the band's closer - a cover of Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" which was sublime - John's vocals becoming Anthony (and the Johnsons) like, ripped apart by emotion and finally giving out on the last phrase - a very rare event apparently.

A long break for us all to recover before the band returned to finish us off with Tom Waits' "Heartattack and Vine" then "Whiskey Bar" to end the night. It's hard to describe the high that we all felt after that - it was a truly good night of music - and everybody milling around afterwards seemed to agree.

UltanJohn should be a big thing - if they can keep up the energy they will be - there is a unique quality in their music that deserves to be heard everywhere - and they are really nice people too. We'll keep you informed of any developments and especially if any of the plans for UK festival dates come off, as we'll be there for sure!

Keyboard? Well, UltanJohn don't use one and we wondered why one was taken upstairs at the first - wrong - Slattery's- that explains the keyboard then!

FolkingAbout with (l-r) Sabrina, Ultan, John and Bernie

Last Night's Fun - Playhouse 2, Shaw, Oldham - 6/10/2006

2006-10-08T00:51:00.000+01:00

Regular readers (I believe there are a few!) will not be surprised to know that Last Night's Fun have been added to FolkingAbout's list of bands with that special "must see" rune, and so it was that we organised ourselves to get over to Shaw (an undertaking not considered without some gravity as it involves getting around Manchester in the rush hour and the rain) to see the lads play their second gig of this Autumn's UK tour. The Playhouse 2 in Shaw is a lovely venue, small and friendly with a good size bar with comfy seats, cheap beer and a singing barman. We found ourselves on the very front row, which, for some reason the locals seem to shun and sit a few rows back, but it meant that we were literally on the stage and close enough to catch Denny's cold should he sneeze too much. LNF were very ably supported by local duo "Better Late" who warrant a separate report which will follow later, but it was with keen anticipation that we cheered Denny, Nick and Scott onto stage and wondered what the night might bring.

Chris was on form with his introductions and banter, merciless to Nick who remains the butt of so many comments, the audience taking some stick tonight s well, but once the first notes of a piece are played, the laughter is put aside and their 3 faces become intent, their eyes sometimes closed, their fingers and elbows and lungs and minds all become part of one entity, that of Last Night's Fun, whose sum exceeds that of Sherburn, Bartley and Scott as individuals. It was a joy to be so close to the band - it meant that all the usual distractions of movement and other peoples' heads being in the way were gone, and we could concentrate fully on what was unfolding in front of us:

A trio of instrumentals to start, then Denny's voice came to life for "The Moving On Song", thankfully not showing any ill effects from his cold, and his fingers working their stuff on his strings, visibly bending the notes, his strumming hand a blur. Nick's piping gained a genuine and warm compliment from Chris (it's not all banter, see) following another set of 3, including "The Tempest" , all of which had Nick to the fore, then it was back to Denny for "Next Market Day". I reckon Denny must have one of the most talented little fingers anywhere having watched it reach across the fretboard and pin down a string seemingly miles away from any of his other fingers, and his use of the lower strings as a bass while the strumming the higher strings plays the rhythm is quite remarkable. Meantime Chris was lovingly drawing out long notes from his concertina, barely moving at times, and we could see him mouthing the words as he was drawn into the song.

This song progressed into a sort of jazz guitar/concertina instrumental, slowly raising the ante, then, with a snatched word from Chris, they change up a gear, Nick's pipes start to soar and Denny slides his capo up 2 frets mid-strum and they're off into another fabulous tune! In "Roseville Fair" we find Chris playing a flute-like part on his concertina during the singing, the band joining together to end the first half with a cracking instrumental. Many of these are un-announced so I'm not able to tell you what they're called.

The second half started as the first with a few un-announced tunes before we were treated to the more subtle side of the band's output, Denny singing "Sammy's Bar" with Nick providing bass drones on his pipes and Chris using his concertina very gently to play those long quiet notes over the drones. In "Doxford Hall" things were much more up-tempo and I swear Denny was producing some bass notes without touching the strings! It was fantastic, no other word.

Mal had buttonholed Chris early on and requested a song, so at this stage we got "May Morning Dew", sung by Denny, no guitar, eyes closed, hands reaching out imploringly at times, simply accompanied by a pipe done and a few concertina notes, Denny's voice has a power that does more than justice to the songs he sings, and this was a major highlight, such control and passion in his voice - and all done without notice or rehearsal - just sublime. The song was actually preceeded by Nick playing a solo "I am asleep, please don't wake me" which gave us a chance to concentrate on his playing, and watching his fingers it seemed that they have evolved into pipe playing fingers, somewhat more agile than most and able to quiver and shake under control to wrest the magical sound out of the instument.

Then a dose of what Chris called "Double Garage Music" - "The Cliffs of Moher" in which his concertina seemed to develop into something much bigger and produced a huge sound, and suddenly the half was over.

For an encore they started with "Autumn Child", Nick managing to on his pipes slide between the notes on his pipes in a beautiful and haunting manner, a "top in" from Chris - he was locked into this piece now, you could see it on his face, and as they progressed the tunes featured call and response between Nick and Chris, the atmosphere was incredible, the players were rapt, Denny with his cheek on top of the guitar listening hard as he played, eyes closed, Nick too, eyes closed, head back, feet pounding the floor and Chris was bouncing on his seat, side to side and rocking as his feet too joined the rhythm - the sound was almost orchestral, "so much energy here" I wrote and the air must have been crackling as they drove on to a climatic ending.

It was a huge cheer they got at the end, and the band were buzzing after that, they had it seems, reached that extra level where everything was just en pointe and all three minds, souls and bodies moved in absolute union to produce something so special - an experiment Chris said later, and one that worked!

FolkingAbout are scheduled to become LNF groupies over the coming weeks as the tour regulary comes in range - join us and catch them if you can - three men in the rare altitudes of ability - one top group.

Tour dates etc at http://www.lastnightsfun.com/index.html where you will also find details of the new live album "Live from the Mac"

Rachel Unthank and the Winter Set - Shrewsbury Folk Festival - 27/8/2006

2006-10-03T22:22:00.000+01:00

It was a bit of a suprise to find that Rachel Unthank & The Winter Set were going to be on first, it was after all the main reason we were at Shrewsbury - Gilly had picked up on them beforehand and marked their name with a special rune that allows no obstacles to our attendance! The running order for the afternoon had been re-arranged because somebody was absent, or late, so we had to settle down quick and concentrate hard. "Quick! They're on." Rachel Unthank sang solo and unaccompanied "A Man Like Johnie" and the other 3 members of the Winter Set stood or sat slightly self consciously while we all tuned into Rachel's voice. No standing around for the next number though, Cyril Tawney's "Monday Morning" used 3 voices and the piano - and yes Belinda was deliberately sitting on that metal case as a cushion on the chair while she played piano, they must have left the stool at home! The two Unthank sisters and viola player Jackie Oates sang a verse each of this weekend drinker's lament - the harmonies different each time, sometimes two part, latterly in three and always beautiful.

Instantly noticeable was the rapt attention that pianist Belinda O'Hooley pays to the other artistes, her eyes wide and steeley as she immerses herself into the song and places her notes just right, her playing is skilled and sensitive and is a major feature in the band's sound, often more like another voice than a backing instrument. O'Hooley's other assett to the Winter Set is her dry humour, whithering put-downs and acerbic asides keep the audience happy between songs, the band's close friendship's showing through well - they are all clearly close and comfortable in each other's company, on and off stage.

A few numbers into the set saw the sisters change into clogs and dancing, and then Rachel (back in her wellies) switched to cello for "My Donald" - whaling from the wife's point of view. This song brought out Becky Unthank's breathy vocals and then the band became almost a chamber orchestra during a dramatic instrumental break. The effect was spoilt slightly by the intrusion of some loud drumming going on nearby - a complaint I heard metioned several times from various sources - something for "the committee" to sort out for next year.

Later on, Becky would appear mid-piece, and, all clogged up, dance a brief impetuous dance like a child vieing for the attention of grownups, too usy with something else to appreciate her moves. A swift, low bow and she was off again to shed he clogs before re-appearing for the next piece.

Further highlights included "For Today I Am A Boy" sung by Becky and accompanied by Belinda, followed by Alex Glasgow's poignant "Twenty Long Weeks" - again Belinda's sparse piana comlementing rather than backing the vocals. A rowdy "Away from Hexhamshire" concluded the afternoon set, an interesting and exciting first view of the band, and certainly enough to ensure that we would see them again later in the day.....

..... in the smaller marquee in the evening in fact, where we managed to get front row seats in a fairly well attended concert. "Thanks for coming to see us rather than Eliza Carthy" they quipped, but not without the hint of self-doubt as somebody added "or couldn't you get in there?" Well we were there by choice, and I suspect a fair few of the others were too.

Rachel sang "Cruel Sister" with just piano accompaniment and then the marvelous "Monday Morning". I have one small complaint of the Winter Set, they have tendancy, and it noticeable here, to abandon the last note of a number just a tiny bit too soon - I'm sure it's just a nervous thing, but it grates a little - they need to just savour that last note a little longer, let the audience hang on it before downing tools or stepping back from the mike. (Incidently the same is true of the CD, where the tracks have next to no silence between them.)

The sisters' father is no mean musician either and his "Tar Barrell in Dale" was a good highlight (and currently available as a free download on the band's website) The evening atmosphere seemed to suit the set - Beck's "My Donald" was hauntingly good tonight, with Rachel's cello adding to the instrumental section. "I wish" was fantastic - featuring Jackie playing a Sanuté purchased from eBay - a complex piece of light and dark with some excellent vocal harmonies, and then Becky delivered the coup de gras with Nick Drakes' "Riverman". Becky sings this lovely song with such a fragile vocal that you want to treat it like precious porcelain, breathy and once again with the ever attentive Belinda providing the piano part - this was just brilliant and will be one of the top songs of my year for certain. Again there was sound, particularly deep beats leaking over from the main marquee that slightly marred this fraglile performance.

After such a pearl we were brought firmly back to earth by the next song "Til I'm Cold and Stiff", introduced by Belinda and her Irish Auntie and including a fair chunk of "Abide with Me" before the Winter Set left us again with "Away from Hexhamshire".

What can I say then? Gilly was right, they were terrific and left us eager for more. It's been a great year already and this was one of the highest of the highlights, the Unthank sisters and their friends will be a bright star in the folk firmament for some years.

Here's one we prepared earlier....

2006-10-03T00:45:00.000+01:00

This is no gig, this is Gilly on MySpace with her first recorded song, recorded in our bedroom, mixed by Mally and available for you to listen at :
www.myspace.com/gillyfarrie

Congratulations Gilly!!!!!

I'm surrounded on all sides now by Farries playing music, with Gilly and Mike here, Mally over in Wheelock and Peter down in Exeter - not to mention Thomas and Katie coming up in the next generation - look out the Wilsons and the Coppers, the Farries are coming!

Update:

There are some new reports nearly ready to post, I've been really busy of late, (recording this song for instance) and there are some exciting irons in the fire for later in the year.

I'm delighted to see that Folk North West magazine have printed my report on the Kate Rusby gig at New Brighton in the autumn edition. This is the first time in print for FolkingAbout!

Keep it live!

John

YouTube - Fun with Treadmills

2006-09-20T01:05:00.000+01:00

Yes I know there's been a drought on this blog - I have a couple of major reports part done, I promise to get on with them and get them here before the autumn tour madness starts.....

Meantime, enjoy this:
YouTube - Fun with Treadmills

dance with a new element - made me laugh and it's very well done indeed.

Thanks to Gilly for finding it for me.

WOMAD - Rivermead, Reading - 27-30/7/2006

2006-09-01T22:55:00.000+01:00

Thursday July 27th and we cover the 200 miles to Reading without any major problems, despite the intense heat, arriving on site at about 19:45 to find that the 2nd dedicated campervan field is already full. We just about manage to fit in a corner with some help from a steward and pretty soon we are configured and cooking up a fine meal. We decide to crash out early to prepare for the rigours of the following day.

Friday July 28th. Another very hot day, Gilly is rather unwell so we sit around listening to the cricket on Test Match Special before setting off to the arena at lunchtime. Its a long walk but we soon have our festival wristbands (no queue to speak of here thank goodness) and find ourselves drinking green tea in the Tiny Tea Tent and talking to Dave and Jude from the Tannat Valley who told us all about the Workhouse Festival. After that we sat ourselves down in the already dusty field and listened to Verba Buena from New York who delivered salsa with a twist of what used to be called fusion. I made special note to look for a track called "Sunshine" (Solar?) which was heavier than the rest. Anyway they went down well with the crowd. Straight from there across to the big blue Siam Tent that was already packed out for Salsa Celtica - with a small band of hardcore fans stood up at the front and several thousand others sat in anticipation of the start, we managed to find a slightly shaded spot. The set seemed to be more Salsa than Celtica at first, then there was a sudden change in direction, the pipes firing up and the sound becoming guitar and accordian led. We couldn't see very much at all being sat down and surrounded by a constant flux of people at the edge of the tent, but you could tell that the band were going down well, and I felt the applause was stronger for the more celtic pieces. A huge cheer for a guest appearence by Eliza Carthy to sing on Grey Gallito - a beautiful and heartfelt performance. The band gave a brilliant encore which really had the crowd moving and they were rewarded with well deserved massive applause.

The arena is already very busy, people bustling around constantly, the car parks outside heaving, its really hot and dusty, but the good news is that there are real toilets here and so far they seem to be working well.

Back soon later to the Siam tent for one of our top picks for the weekend:Värttinä

Lined up at the back of the wide stage, 6 men dressed in black, playing violin, accordion, bpuzouki, bass, drums and guitar, whilst up front, three women dressed in all white with a touch of colour in the form of reddish woven belts. There is instant high octane singing and backing music, being familiar with the latest album, "Miero" we knew what to expect and we weren't dissapointed! Despite singer Mari Kaasinen being away to have a baby, there was no compromise in vocal performance because producer Aija Puurtinen had stepped in to provide the middle voice.

Using the close and distinctive harmonies that come out of Finland, the 3 singers roam around the stage and the movement is often theatrical with gestures between themselves and out to the audience, with plenty of facial expression to further the effect.

For the song "Maaria" the 3 women were joined by fiddle player Lassi Logren in a beguiling a'capella, his voice almost wailing above their harmonies like a distant voice echoing in the hills. Truly beautiful. Earlier Logren was to be seen playing single notes on just one string of his instrument, but he was bringing the bow in from being arms length outstreched away from him and almost whipping the string. Bassist Hannu Rantanen provided super bass, but seemed to me to be dissatisfied with his back row status and was constantly goating about and trying to be noticed more.
Drummer Jaakko Lukkarinen was a different matter though, his beats in order and without histrionics, In "Maaria" (I think) I caught him pushing the head of drumstick across a cymbal, resulting in a dreadful screeching noise, bad enough for him to grimace across to the stage sound crew then smile, but later he became a one man earthquake as he switched to brushes but beat every skin and cymbal he had for all he was worth, the podium and all upon it shaking fearfully.
Later we were taught the Finnish equivalent of "La La La" which predictably enough seemed to have at least 12 syllables!

The encore to this super set included both saxaphone and a lovely instrumental section with the accordian and violin sounding well together. A very well received performance from a great band. Definately a highlight!

After a meal from Leon's, accompanied by Bellowhead on the outdoor stage, a concept which works a little better in this large arena, but still sounds unwieldy to me despite it's ability to put a spring in people's steps, we sampled a few shops and an ice cream before returning to the outdoor stage for Los de Abajo - a 10 piece band from Mexico who seemed to have blended Cuban music with Madness. We heard them play "The Lunatics have taken over the asylum" before we could see them and when we did there was somebody on stage with a huge bass drum, making me smile and think -"They'll hear the bugger now....!" The crowd up front were going manic and towards the end we realised that none other than Dennis Rollins was playing trombone with them. Wish we'd been up front for all that really.

Back over at the Siam tent, The Gotan Project had draped the stage in white and were dressed up to the nines and stood in front of back projected images and movies playing subtle and interesting music that demanded a conentrated listen. Sadly the area outside the tent was already 20 people deep all trying to get a glimpse, so we filed that one away for a future date.

This crowdedness was becoming really noticable, with a great deal of mobile phone traffic "I'm by the 4th flag on the left" and so many people - I'm sure there are more than last year. My feet are filthy with the dust, there are still golf balls in the ground and there is a constant smell of food, most of it really tempting! The general atmosphere though is wonderful - you can dress up as anything (and many do!) and everyone is laid back and friendly, all out to have a good time and enjoy good music.

Salif Keita was so much easier to listen to, his bluesy African style cutting through the night, and later we would find oursleves, as ever, attracted to the tent selling lamps next to the far side of the Siam tent, a magical place at night, made more so tonight because of the fitting atmospheric music of Anoushka Shankar next door, playing her own amazing compositions to a mainly seated and rapt audience, her Sitar being accompanied by various percussion and vocals providing a good musical end to the first day before we set off on the long trek back to the van.....

Saturday July 29th

We walk in through the tent city that makes up the camp site, and then past the rows of stalls with all sorts of things on sale, then through the steam fair (more on that story later!) and on into the main arena where there are yet more stalls.... The retail therapy oportunities are really immense at WOMAD and nearly every stall has it's own music - the colours are vibrant and there are really some pleasant smells eminating from some of them - eg The Soap Gallery - where you can buy soap that looks and smells good enough to eat!

It's really hot again and we are dressed for the weather and seek out the shade of a flag near the mainstage to see "Think of One" from Belgium. A funky rhythm section with brass and vocalists with big drums and dancers. In fact there was mayhem on the stage - at least 9 people at any one time - but they produce a great heavy band sound, accompanied by the host of WOMAD flags rasping in the stiff breeze. Now a tenth member appears, a large black mama singing to a crazy brass section playing fast with a barrage of percussion behind, a small energetic crowd was bouncing at the front, while many others were enjoying lunch in the sun to this frenetic music.

At the end of the set all 12 members were just either singing and/or playing percussion in an African manner, then a Ram like trumpet sound came over, and a strange Magic Roundabout style trolley came on, bearing a pole with 4 loudspeakers on the top - no idea why, or anything, but it was just one more mad thing from a band with a good show and energetic music.

After the set, the crowd ups and moves to the next venue like the Israelites moving in the desert with all their chattels! For us it's back to the Siam Tent for "Etran Finatawa" and more desert blues. Here though we have the Niger version - with amazing costumes and face paint. The 6 members are arranged with 3 of them sat cross legged on the stage playing assorted drums, including gourd and water filled gourd I think - the standing members consist of one electric guitar and vocals, electric bass and one vocalist (who had a tambourine like device strapped to his ankle).

The music is trance inducing - not unlike Tinariwen in some ways, slow, steady, relentless, the vocals being enhanced by a much higher, almost wailing kind of singing from the central vocalist, who also manages to move around the stage as if on castors, he is so upright and smooth in his movements.

Sometimes the guitar sounds just like Neil Young bashing away on "Down By the River", but strangely transposed to this African scene. The set is very well received by the large crowd, then it's off again to.....

"Emmanuel Jal and band" on the main outdoor stage ... you get the drift - 20-odd thousand people on the move every hour - we've seen Emmanuel before, but this band has a nice sound, quite Fugees-like and of course his great message of peace and hope "I have lots to say about war in my country and everything", he says, "but in the end I believe we are going to party!" His strong message is forcefully delivered in the modern style, lots of rap and samples and so on alongside the great music. Emmanuel gets stronger and more confident each time we see him, look out world, he's coming!

Our next choice was one "Billy Bragg" - The Progressive Patriot as he styles himself these days, but not to sing, no, we sat down, and listened to an hour of high quality oratory by the man concerning the basic human rights, on why his home town voted in the BNP in the local council elections, and on child torture. This was part of one of WOMAD's other faces, there were many speakers, many petitions and lots of issue based groups with information, books, t-shirts and so on, and some free peanuts too!

Following this I trekked off to Cavensham to find a cash point, despite what it says in the program there were none on site that I could see, and none of the marshals I asked knew of any either. This is a major oversight in an otherwise well run festival, especially one were you can spend so much money so easily! Got back just in time to catch the end of a very loud and lively set from the great "Kanda Bongo Man" on the mainstage.

"Toumani Diabaté and his Symetric Orchestra" - in the Siam Tent. Incessant - like the festival, it feels like you are always missing a lot if you just sit down. We ARE sat down for this - the tent is full, we can't see a thing but it sounded great. There at least 9 people on the stage, the music was very much kora driven and as you'd expect - many tracks from the latest album, but most interesting was the beginner's guide to the kora given by Toumani himself, in broken English, explaining how each finger played which part and then he put them all together and left us in no doubt that a) he is a master of his craft, and b) the kora is a complex but wonderful instrument.

After this we enjoyed coffee at the One World Tent getting some more serious stuff in, before returning to the Siam Tent to hear "Nancy Griffith" who delighted us by singing "Gulf Coast Highway" just as we arrived wondering if she might, going on with "From a Distance" and "Listen to the Radio". Her band had the standard lineup - bass, drums, piano and guitar, but they were a good band, and Nancy's voice was terrific. Here songs were all strong too, no froth here, just time for a dance then before....

Back to the mainstage for "Ska Cubano" - "This is like a musical trolley dash" said Gilly as we once again tromped from stage to stage with countless others, meeting countless others making the opposite journey... take the Buena Vista Social Club and cross them with Madness and you will understand how this band sounded.... but by now we were suffering from music fatigue and decide to wander around a bit - to Carter's Steam Fair where we had a go on the gallopers - powered by an 1890 steam engine with a steam organ and everything. Talking to the man at the firebox door, I discovered that there was a very similar device still extant, built only a few weeks apart from this one, and both had recently suffered the same problem with a broken main crank - built in obselescence after a century of work? Sadly the weather turns rather wet and we return to the arena to seek shelter and to see "Femi Kuti" on the mainstage. Femi is a powerhouse in the Afropop scene, and he was sounding great, but this fatigue had really set hold of us, and we just felt inclined to wander - ending up almost inevitably at the lamp tent and catching a little of Indian superstar "Trilok Gurtu" next door in the Siam Tent - again wonderfully atmospheric and calming after a hectic day.

Sunday July 30th

Another right sunny day - and a day that was to become Floppy's - you can read all about that here - Floppy's WOMAD blog - but first we enjoyed listening to the neighbour's comments about The Archers omnibus - and then the other neighbour put on some great music - a good way of selling it - which was exactly why he was doing it - sold 1 CD for a pound!

Amazingly we discover a whole area of the site that we' managed to completely miss during the first 2 days - plenty of new retail oportunities in a sea of noise and colour, but it's so hot and I'm feeling rather under the weather myself, so it's hard to be too keen! Floppy manages to wade through it all and makes lots of new friends and we struggle through to the Siam tent just in time for Mali's Djelimady Tounkara - a very hypnotic and colourful band with a slow, wandering, rythmic sound, all dressed in very colourful get ups and a female vocalist in shiny pink. There is some dueling going on between the musicians, some of it with really long phrases, sometimes reminiscent of Habib Koite, sometimes with convoluted vocals, but nearly always over a nice slow rhythm, just right for the heat of the day.

Japan provided one of the musical highlights of the festival in the form of the Pascals who managed to go from that famous opening few bars of the theme to Jaws into a streetband style dance tune , then they had a violin piece in the manner of Ed Alleyne, then somebody playing the saw and melodica - as Gilly said - a really good soundtrack to the setting that is WOMAD. Top notch stuff.

The blurb for Laura Veirs suggested we find a quiet corner to take in her act - some hope! We managed to squeeze in on the edge of the huge crowd around the village stage - but it was worth it - she plays a lazy Niel Young style electric guitar and sings a bit like Suzanne Vega at times. Her band of piano, bass and drums is augmented with a trombone on some of her older songs, an interesting effect. A bit of a nod towards country and western too at times, but the sound suffered from a bit too much arpeggio keyboards. Otherwise a good set.

Konono No. 1 were the last band to get any notes - and sadly they were not up to expectations - it frankly sounded like a tinny a.m. radio on too loud and was a bit repetitive and far too grating for me today! I know it's supposed to sound like that via the homemade gear, but it didn't do it for me - maybe I was just too tired and hot! Having said that they had some magic rhythms and Floppy seemed to enjoy it!

Festival fatigue was now firmly established and we had had enough of all this dashing around so we chilled out (shopping and eating!) before settling down at the now cooler and slightly damp Radio 3 stage for the last act of the weekend - Moussu T e Lei Jovents from Marsailles - now you should soon be able to hear this set for yourselves on the Radio 3 WOMAD page - but it's not there yet. It was interesting, the band's CD player kept breaking down, exposing that backing tracks were in use, and letting the set slowly descend into anarchy - the damp crowd didn't seem to mind much, and the bird puppets got a few laughs, but we felt that they didn't live up to the promise of the billing as "Andy Kershaw's favourite live act" or indeed up to what we could remember of them playing on the radio, but it was quite good really - not too taxing!

After that we took one more round of the site and discovered a few stalls selling off stock very cheap so that they didn't have to pack it all away, spent the last of our cash there and set off back along the path to the van for the last time on this event.

Totally worn out but content, we discovered the day after that we couldn't leave for a while because the queue to get off the site was just solid until mid-afternoon, no problem, we enjoyed chilling, our neighbour sold us another CD and before long we were heading home, or at least until Oxford where the traffic jams began, but Floppy kept the blues at bay, entertaining the other motorway users and gaining many new friends in the process!

So that was WOMAD 2006 - so much music, so little time, so many people, so little peace, so much food, so few meal times, so many shops, no cash machines. Would we do it again - oh yes! Maybe we would approach things differently, and hopefully in better health, but we'll be back (unless we get tickets for the Cambridge Folk Festival....!)

John Martyn and his Band - Fairport's Cropredy Convention 2006 - 11/8/2006

2006-08-15T00:26:00.000+01:00

Just had to do this straight away, the rest of Cropredy and WOMAD will follow soon, but....

There some names who have inexplicably remained in a distant orbit around my life for all of it's 45 years to date - Bill Bruford, Wishbone Ash, Steeleye Span and, until now, John Martyn. Up until very recently, had you asked me about John Martyn, I would have conjured up a mental image of a bloke in a beard (circa 1975) who plays guitar and sings with a bit of a reedy, high voice, and that would have been it. Advance notice of an impending celestial shift came a few weeks back when John Martyn appeared on Mark Radcliffe's evening show on BBC Radio 2, which provided an updated image of an older, rather cantankerous bloke in a beard, and a wheelchair, who still sings with his distinctive voice and plays guitar, but that he does it all rather well and with a good band.

On Friday 11th August 2006, the distant comet that is John Martyn was torn out of his far orbit and flung Johnwise to within a few yards of me, an event of such gravity and magnitude that I am still reeling from it.

Start at the end - John Martyn has just finished his set, with a wave and Tommy Cooperesque ha-ha-ha, he is wheeled offstage to deafening applause - there is no encore, he leaves us there ruthlessly, stunned, to bleed slowly, to stand with many others uttering expletives, immobile, shattered and knowing that life can never be the same again, that tomorrow morning, there would be a new star to consider and to gaze at, to listen to, and maybe even to worship......

We had wanted to be in the thick of it, and we managed to get quite near to the stage in what was a big crowd standing at the front of the arena. It all started pretty normally with "Cool Tide", John was sat next to a selection of effects, one of which was clearly defunct as the ever attendant roadie was called in to sort something out before the second song "I couldn't love you more" which featured some of John's famous echo effects.

The band consisted of 5 members, including Gerry Conway guesting on a vast array of percussion instruments. I couldn't tell you who the rest were right now, except that the bassist was Thomson and his work on the fretless electric was magnificent - I wrote it down at least 3 times in two pages! The next song was slower and thoughtful ("Lies?") and while you could see the pain on John's face at times, it was more than apparant that he still has his humour very much intact, the song's lyrics sounded very Dylanesque to me. Ben Harper's "Excuse Me Mr." followed, with Gerry Conway's cowbell sounding throughout.

Things turned more jazz like at this point, with each of the players taking a solo in "BabyFace?" and then another song which seemed to include some chord sounds from a Police number, but it finished on a chord that just took off with such power - "A creature in his natural environment" muttered Gilly astutely - "Rocksalt and Nails" with a great organ sound and then what I now know to have been "Big Muff" - starting a bit funky and leading up to scorching guitar solos over a swirl of hypnotic sound. The comet was approaching! A heckler shouted something and John laughed back, "No, not over the hill, I'm just hard to kill."

The anthemic "May you never" with mostly just John's acoustic guitar over the bass followed, then "Don't want to know" (more great bass!) and the comet arrived - I have just written "OH YES!" across the notebook page - after that its a blank so far as song titles go - there were at least 10 people at the side of the stage by now, all getting their fill from the best vantage point, "I'm going to measure you up" was in there somewhere. The maelstrom took hold, took over and then he was gone - gone! That's it - gone - left us hungry, wretched, delighted, blew all our fuses and left.

Compere Geoff Hughes ("Twiggy","Onslow",Eddie") just couldn't shut up the applause, the cheers and the demands for more went on and on, even when it was clear that we weren't going to get any more. "Always see him at night" I have written down - darkness suits the music well, not that it's dark necessarily, but darkness takes away most of the visual sphere and all you have is the stage lighting with John and band in the centre and the music swirling around you.

That was it then - 10CC who followed had no chance with us - there was no room to take anything else in. The next day was definately overshadowed by what we had just witnessed and music since has had a new standard to match up to. Amazingly, Gilly had managed to have the forethought to order "Live at Leeds and More" on CD a few weeks earlier, so we were able to get JM fixes in the van. So it was that the next day then I heard "Somewhere over the rainbow" for the first time, thankfully we were spared John performing that song on Friday, because I think most of us would have just passed on to another life there and then....

Thanks John and band - I think you can safely say you have us hooked - don't wait too long before giving us another chance - and now over to Amazon for a back catalogue ordering session.......

Postscript: There are, for the time being, some amazing clips of this gig at YouTube!!!

Floppys stolen the laptop - and my WOMAD report

2006-08-02T21:38:00.000+01:00

Floppys stolen the laptop is the name of a new blog started, as he has rightly described it in the title, by Floppy when he managed to get hold of the laptop while I wasn't looking!

He has kindly provided a link from his blog to mine, so I am reciprocating! I will add a sidebar link too shortly Floppy. It's full of fun and very popular!

All this means my WOMAD report will be a few days yet, because he insists on having first go of the laptop - after all he's getting more hits than me!

Here HE is in all his glory:

Kristina Olsen at Biddulph Town Hall - 18/7/2006

2006-07-21T00:51:00.000+01:00

Remembering our previous attempts at finding gigs in the Potteries, we set out early and managed to arrive a good 2 hours before the start - so we bagged the best seats and went and had dinner!

It was one of the hottest days for about 100 years (really!) and everybody was feeling it, but the hall filled up nicely and lots of people had brought food and drink, so it felt quite festive. First up tonight were "Loud Mouth Women", in what is becoming a regular slot for them at the end of their summer rehearsals period. "Loud Mouth Women" are a local womens' free access singing group and when they came on, they had to line up in front of the stage because there were so many of them - 34 we counted, plus Mary up front leading. We weren't sure what to expect, and to be honest I was dreading the possibility of the worst kind of church choir performance I used to endure, but when they started their a'capella act singing in an African language a song slightly reminiscent of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", but much better, my hopes were lifted, followed by my spirits and my enjoyment! They sang their hearts out, sometimes in unison, sometimes split into 2, 3 or 4 parts, but always smiling and putting everything into it.
They sang "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it" (Fun Boy 3/Bananarama version), "We are one" (most appropriately) and a further selection of African style songs, all sung by heart and a'capella. Great stuff.

Eric Cox then introduced Kristina Olsen - I should declare a bias here - I like Kristina Olsen - we caught her twice at the Bridgnorth Festival last year and she made a big impression, and we said then that we would make a point of catching her again if she came within range. Well here she is, and here we are! Ann and Jim had also made the trip, and another couple had come down from Heswall so obviously there is quite a draw.

Kristina chose "Part Time Love" to open and was instantly in trouble with the guitar pickups which continued to give problems all night, but nothing daunted, switch to a microphone and carry on... The song features some complex guitar work not unlike John O'Connell's solo in the middle of "Moondance", and this is her opener - she hasn't even had time to warm up yet, and from where we were sat we could see and hear the expressions and little sounds Kristina makes as she and her guitar communicate with each other, and they with us. Her guitar playing was really intricate, some notes bent sooo far, and lots of well used harmonics too, the whole song is held together by the constant heartbeat on the bass string. Then, for a few moments the guitar is slung round behind her and "Love Kristina" - a short, light-hearted a'capella song. The instrument is returned to favour for the next "Dangerous" - but it probably wished it hadn't been, because she hammers hell out of the strings at times, no wonder she wears plasters on her right hand fingers! It's a great song though, loud and emotional.

My favourite off her last CD - the exquisite title track from "In Your Darkened Room" came next - a much smoother and darker sound, enhanced by the tiny sighs and occasional tuts from Olsen as she continues to wring that guitar. I can't say enough about this song - it grabbed me right inside when I first heard it at Bridgnorth and it continues to grab and twist and pull at me every time I hear it. I don't recall Kristina ever saying anything by way of introduction, but whatever inspired her to write it certainly exerts a major charge and never fails to niggle away at my emotions. Watching Kristina perform it close up here, and later even closer on her live DVD, I suspect she still feels it deep too.

A few songs later the long suffering acoustic was laid aside in favour of the big red one, playing bottle-neck slide blues on Robert Johnson's "Come on in my kitchen", using the bottleneck to suggest more and more of the lyrics as the song progressed, aided by "knowing looks" towards the audience. All this singing was of course peppered with Kristina's own brand of things to say between songs - some of it biographical, a few jokes, a kind of aural blog, including the recipe for her potent cold- relief - hot chilli tea, which she consumed throughout, all of it somewhat more brash than you usually experience in folk clubs. "Didn't think it would happen tonight" concluded the first set ( time for a second brew?) with a bit of audience participation and a really loud vocal.

Part two of the evening commenced with more joy from the Loud Mouth Women - various "Generic African" call and response songs followed by "Don't worry, be happy", "I'll fly away" and the Crystals' "There's nobody like my baby". Finally they sang "We're going home" by The Mighty Zulu Nation and after a few verses they began to parade slowly off and around the side, still singing their joyous song and waving as they went - just brilliant.

Kristina re-appeared with her hair tied up - quite literally as it turned out - she showed us how after the gig - bluesing about on her acoustic again with "Stop Doing So Well" and then "The Truth of a Woman". The 'tween song chat caused some embarassed giggling from around the room when mentioning finding someone to neck in the carpark, and hoots when it moved on to talk of life classes....

"New Love" was a classic Olsen penned song - sometimes you can just tell - maybe there's a batch from a certain time, or perhaps it's just "her" sound, anyway, the next one, a very new song, "Move On" was rather more unique and as the little blue practice guitar had also failed to work with the sound system, came played on the acoustic for the very first time - "character building" as Kristina said afterwards. There were problems with the sound all night, "poltergeists in the pickups" but it didn't seem to harm the performance any - the mikes worked just fine anyway. Only one song with the concertina tonight - "If I stayed" and that short but sweet.

"The Man with the Red Car", then a lovely instrumental played on the red steel guitar "Phoebe's Iceburg" - written on a train and very beautiful indeed - before ending up with "Big O" featuring those Loud Mouth Women again, who, having had 10 minutes to learn the chorus all crammed into the kitchen, may have been a little surprised at the remainder of the lyrics - certainly there were some interesting expressions when light dawned! Plain speaking songs are what you get here, often with pretty complex instrumentation, but always straight forward.

We got 2 encores - "Cry you a waterfall" - a happy/sad song for a departed friend, then the fun filled "Better than TV" which rather understates the level of entertainment Kristina Olsen had provided all evening, with help from the Loud Mouth Women - thank you all very much indeed.

Kristina Olsen returns to the UK in October with cellist Peter Greyling (tour dates here) and Folking About WILL be there!

John O'Connell at The Pollards Inn, Willaston - 16/7/06

2006-07-21T00:38:00.000+01:00

Just a brief note really to say that John is playing a whole series of local pub gigs at present - The Tap - Eastham on Tuesday 25th July, The Dibbensdale Hotel, Bromborough on Thursday 27th are the next 2, and they are in addition to his regular spots around Liverpool at the weekends.

John was brilliant at The Pollards, maybe a tad too loud for the space, but we were sat at the front! The set was pretty much as usual, but John's repetoire is big enough to allow him to vary the content from night to night, so no Van Morrison tonight, but a lovely rendition of Damien Rice's "Cannonball" stood out for me, amongst others. Gary Hennesey(?) came and played mandolin for a spot, so we got Rod Stewart's "Mandolin Wind" and U2's "Losing My Religion", both with poor Jimmy sat off in a side room, but still playing bass, and then Dylan's "Little Sadie" and "Whiskey In The Jar" a la Thin Lizzy.

Another very good night from John - see him if you can.

Eric Bogle & John Munro - Parkgate Folk Club - 8/6/06

2006-07-12T01:11:00.000+01:00

This isn't going to be too easy to write - Eric Bogle is after all a superstar in folk terms - but lets wait a moment and comment on a new rising star that appeared in the Wirral Folk on the Coast Festival - Big Bob - Bassman came on with club organisor Eddie Morris to sing "Kelty Clippy" and play along on "Can't do right", and then this new duo abandoned their instruments to sing "The old pool" a'capella to geat acclaim. We didn't manage to photograph this event, but here's Bob enjoying a quiet moment earlier in the Festival. The duo were joined by another local legend and registered wreck, Don, with his bones for "Making Songs". We look forward to reporting on more gigs by this new act in the near future!

Eric Bogle and John Munro - not one but two superstars that had sold out the Parkgate Folk Club months ago and had poor Eddie's phone ringing day and night for weeks as people became more and more desperate to get tickets. So the upper room at the Boathouse Hotel was jammed tight with expectant folkies from all over, the temperature was high, the air was still and the air conditioning not up to much.... Eric advised us early on that he was suffering with a cold, but he battled on anyway. With Eric on accoustic guitar and John Munro on mandolin, they introduced themselves with a little comic number "My name's Eric" which had us all laughing. After that things seemed to be more serious as the pair worked their way through their set. Eric rumbles away, leaning back a touch, head back, eyes closed when he's singing, whilst John sings higher, seemingly nonchalant. The sound is very crisp and accomplished, and John's mandolin playing got special notice from me several times, particularly during "A good man died today" and "No man's land".

In the second half John sang his own great song "Cross the border" in fine style, then "A reason for it all" found the duo singing alternate verses with some great guitar work, building up to the amazing finale where both men sang separate words in opposition to each other to end this moving and powerful song which had lots tears in lots of eyes, men and women alike. This section was the highlight of the set, which, while I often wrote down things like "nice guitar" and so on, ultimately failed to light my fire. The balance of the songs was heavily towards the protest, miserable and maudlin, the mood between songs similar and the whole thing felt a bit heavy and disappointing. Not bad by any means, but certainly not up to the star billing I'd expected. I said at the start that Eric had a cold, so maybe that was getting him down, and the room was very hot and airless, not a great help in the circumstances, so fair enough, I'd see them again certainly, but I'd hope for something more next time.

The good news is that John is returning to the UK and Parkgate with the great Australian band Colcannon next year, we'll be there!

Doghouse Skiffle Group - Telfords Warehouse, Chester - 30/6/06

2006-07-10T20:24:00.000+01:00

A balmy Chester evening saw the Doghouse assemble to entertain the bright young things that frequent this popular night spot. Not being due to start until 10:30pm, there was plenty of time for a few pre-show drinks and socialising while we celebrated Gilly's 50th birthday - I wish I could say this had been specially arranged, but it hadn't so I won't- but it was a good excuse for an impromptu party with our favourite skiffle trio from Hull.

At the appointed hour then we gathered in front of the small stage in a low ceilinged room to the side of a packed but noisy bar, and witnessed the DSG in another mode altogether. Unable to communicate directly with most of the audience, many of whom were still in the bar, Garry was forced to leave out much of the between song banter and let the music do the talking. Reviving the old favourites and applying their own peculiar style of skifflisation to modern classics, the band played their hearts out and pretty soon the room was full, as the crowd came over to see what on earth was going on. At the front meantime, we were dancing the night away in a whirl of bright lights, very loud music and lots of gyrating bodies - and all in a very confined, very hot space! "Sixteen Tons", "Rock Island Line", "Train, Train", "Fulsome Prison" all churned out one after the other, Alan became the local hero for the several young men dancing away in front of him, as the crowd grew, Garry was able to work in a few quipps and got a few laughs. Soon the place was bouncing and "A day in the life" was rolled out, but the crowd was in for yet more treats when they got into the "The Legend of Jesse James", complete with held breath, reverse singing and the amazing "Bohemian Rhapsody" mid-section. "Cigarettes, Whisky and wild wild women" piled on the fun (complete with gigantic drum stick - my favourite bit - "You'll hear the bugger now!") and then ....

It was all over in a flash - the set ending with "Goodnight Irene", the traditional "Tigers!" chant being replaced by a topical "England!" at the end, a gesture which seems to have upset the management, but never mind eh? Once again the Doghouse had triumphed over adversity, a great show under difficult conditions.

Ewen Carruthers - Bromborough Folk Club - 28/6/06

2006-07-08T22:52:00.000+01:00

A very welcome return to Bromborough for Ewen (see last year's report here) and he was given the whole second half to entertain us. Ewen only plays his own stuff, and his opener was "Old Dog" - a bluesy number which is all based on one riff repeated many times. In "Mr Anderson" Ewen proved his writing talents by managing to rhyme "great war" and "snore", and played in something of a Mark Knopfler style with a nice delicate touch. His voice, mellow now, but retaining his North Eastern accent at times was pushed to something more hoarse in "Hey Katrina", Ewen's hurricane piece and his guitar style seems to involve wrestling the sound out of the instrument at times, not quite with the venom Neil Young would use, but there was some major effort put into the sound.

"Love Birds" and "One More Story" followed and then, after an explanation that this is about Joni Mitchell, Ewen played "In Your Studio" and there was a very definite gear change, both in lyrical and musical content, a much richer sound which made us sit up and pay even more attention.

Ewen calls himself an easy listening folk artist and many of his songs fall into this category, but his lyrics can be quite deep and deserve to be heard - for example in "Lonely Little White Cloud":

"California living's great,
Until you start to shake"

Marvelous!

Winding up with his well known "Rubenstein Remembers" (as recorded by Allan Taylor) which had everybody going, Ewen was well received and so long as he keeps returning to England, he will be welcome back at Bromborough.

Cream of the Barley et al - Bromborough Folk Club - 7/6/2006

2006-07-08T00:44:00.000+01:00

Just how many acts can you squeeze into one night at a folk club? Bromborough's contribution to the Wirral Folk on the Coast Festival was a specially extended version - kicked off early and finished late, packed to the gills and sold out weeks in advance.

It was down to the resident irregulars -"The Illych People" to get things off the ground, and then regular resident Phil Chisnall competed with the bells from next door's campanologists' practice session, sometimes aided by Chris Wilcox on violin, a mixed set of his own work and covers, finishing with a nicely done version of the popular "Caledonia".

Next up - Sally Williamson - this time with an electric bass and percussionist who added an extra dimension to her sound. Five songs, mostly her own compositions, all delivered in Sally's very polished, clean style - her guitar playing is always very accomplished, and sometimes I find myself wanting Sally to go one stage further and whip up a bit of a lather. At one stage during a quiet song, the drummer John Lancashire gave a great heave of his shoulders, paused as if counting down, and I thought "here we go..." But no, he was just having a stretch and while the song built nicely with both the bass and later bongos, the sound stayed on the ground floor.

It's actually harder to write this kind of thing down about folk who you meet quite often (very often in Phil's case) and I trust that everybody takes it in the spirit it is meant - I'm just saying what I think - and you may get your chance to turn the tables one of these days...

Fourth in line was our local Urban Troubadour - John O'Connell - regular readers will have picked up that I like John a lot, and tonight he played a short but well defined set, Gordon Lightfoot, Cat Stevens and Janis Ian covers, his own "What a day..." and then he sat down and played an instrumental "One Time Swing" which had everybody craning their necks to get a glimpse of his technique as he rocked his way through the tune. "Moondance" concluded a set full of passion and confidence, in which he controlled the 'temperature' of the music to perfection. John has developed a fine crack in his voice too and he used it here to great effect over his rich guitar sound.

The John Dowling Bluegrass Band - John D, Russ Williams (bass) and Ian (accoustic guitar), played a laid back set with the ever modest John Dowling redefining the banjo standards with more than adequate support from his 2 friends. "Gypsy Jazz" highlighted Ian's accoustic guitar, and then, once they had agreed the key, "Red Headed Boy" and "Red Bull Boogie" followed. "Lady Madonna" gave each of them a chance to solo, and the audience was singing along, but there were problems with the sound that marred this set somewhat, and they finished on a bluegrass high with "How Mountain Girls Can Love" before John O'Connell returned to duel with John Dowling in the now standard "dueling Banjos".

And so to the top of the bill - Cream of the Barley - eagerly anticipated by those who caught them at this event last year - and by those who heard what they had missed, the place was crackling when Shay brought them on - now most of the bands I've heard who play this style of Irish music work up to a frenzy and play out with "Irish Rover" - The Cream of the Barley STARTED with this song and took us up from frenzy to whatever's next! There was uproar for "The Leaving of Liverpool" and "Maggie May", there was "Ride On", Shay got invited up to sing along on "Whisky in the Jar" to great applause. When they started to play "The Boxer" in the wrong key, there was a quip - "He wasn't that poor- start again" and off they went, playing the most unsubtle version of this song your likely to hear - it felt like a Sherman tank being used to crush a grape - later the banjo broke a string and the rest of them just carried on while he went off to change it, until he came back - whereupon they hurled abuse at him!

A slight rest while they calmed down for a moment playing "Carrickfergus", and then it was back to uproar for "Nancy Riley", with the sweat pouring off the players, the floor bouncing and some rarely spotted smiles from some of the regulars!! And through all this, Keith the fiddle player stood and smiled his contented smile and played away as if this was all just normal....

They closed with "Holy Ground" and an instrumental I didn't write down the name of, but by now there was dancing too and Peter, the landlord of the Bridge Inn came and finished things off with "Danny Boy"

Wow - I'm worn out re-living this as I type it out - it was another cracker of a night - well done John Coleman and everyone for sorting it out - and it was only Wednesday - half way through the Festival...... That's six acts by the way - not bad at all for under a fiver!

Bromborough Folk Club meet every Wednesday evening at the Bridge Inn, Port Sunlight, Wirral - all are welcome.

Last Night's Fun - Lymm Folk Club - 2/7/2006

2006-07-06T01:13:00.000+01:00

Ably but perhaps un-necessarily supported by Bernard Cromarty, Last Night's Fun played 2 short sets in a room which, despite Stuart's emergency air-conditioning, was so hot and airless that one rather wished that the gig had been held in the car park! Bernard Cromarty is one of Lymm's stalwarts and he managed to prove his billing as a multi-instrumentalist by playing a different instrument for nearly every piece - starting with "Dark Island" which he had talked up for us before hand because it showed off the full range of his piano accordion. Sure enough it built from a few quiet notes to a fearsome roar before dying down again, and the last note was beautifully controlled. Bernard went on to cover "Put up a parking lot", and Cyril Tawney's "Sally, free and easy" amongst others, his voice adding it's own particular colour to the performance.

I mentioned earlier that the support was probably unnecessary, and certainly, without taking anything from Bernard, who has his own night later in the week during the Lymm Festival, we could have done with allowing as much time as possible for Last Night's Fun, a band who, as we were soon to find out, need a lot of time to tune and regroup - and a tell a few jokes, and ask a few questions, and pass the time of day, and all of this between each song or tune. Indeed, when Mal was suggesting we made the trip to this gig, I was a bit worried that the "banter" might be a mask for some otherwise dodgy performing. A listen to their album "Dubh" seemed to dispel this thought though, and whilst I have opened my notes with the words "much fun", I would soon be listening to a collective of musicians who have overcome their geographical differences to gel into a marvelous performance unit.

The three piece band have a way of playing that is conventionally built around the rhythm section, but convention ends there because the rhythm section is Chris Sherburn's left leg and Denny Bartley's guitar, with verbal instructions being issued in short bursts by Chris Sherburn which might have been intrusive but for his sensitivity to the mood. Gilly even whispered to me that she thought the way he controlled the music, urging it on, and sometimes emitted soft sighs, was quite sensual. My less feminine thoughts were more of listening to the Red Arrows commander Red 1 giving his split-second cues - "round again - GO!" Denny Bartley, the other half of this section, plays his guitar in so many different ways it's hard to single anything out - certainly his bass strings are used to great effect at certain times, whilst at others he'll be tapping gently on the body to simulate a bodrhan, and then he'll strum hard and fast and then he'll be sounding like Juan Martin for a minute - and that's just the rhythm section folks....

They opened with a tune: "Downham Market?" which was great, then Denny opened his mouth and sang Ewan McColl's "Move Along" and it felt like a storm blowing in across the room - Denny is slight but his voice is something else all together, it's a powerful force with a major emotional crack in it that is not at all sentimental, but sounds like its been hard won from a difficult seam.

So you will appreciate already that this was a good night and I was really "digging" this band. I havn't even mentioned Chris' concertina either. Denny's voice is put to great effect in "Next Market Day", which starts with just his guitar, then Chris adds some very subtle concertina sounds in the background which turn sublime at the end, and then they change gear again, directed by one of Chris' soft commands, Nick Scott powers up his nuclear pipes and Denny starts hammering away at his strings, capo on somewhere around the seventh fret, fingers down around the twelth and strumming it for all he is worth.

The final song of the first half, "The Roseville Fair" sounded to me like a Bruce Spingsteen lyric:

"You were dressed in blue, and you looked so lovely

Just a gentle flower of a small-town girl

You took my hand, and we stepped to the music

With a single smile, you became my world." from "The Roseville Fair" - Bill Staines

Brilliant.

For the second half we decided to stand up - we were sat at the back anyway, so it wouldn't harm, and the better view seemed to improve the sound too! We got "Sammy's Bar", another of Cyril Tawney's songs, then a self penned tune "Doxford Hall" in which we witnessed the band's total immersion in what they are playing - often all 3 have their eye's closed as they play, and certainly the effort they put into their playing is tangible in the sound they produce.

One piece of deft work saw Denny whip his capo off the frets mid tune, place it on the end of the neck and carry on playing without it affecting the flow at all - you wonder how often it ends up on the floor, but I suspect it's one of those things that you can just do after a while when you can play so intently.

The last song - yes they only managed to fit 3 in - was "The Autumn Child", but before this Chris continued to rib Nick and his pipes in his dry, cutting way, ending with an almost whispered, "Play that funky music pipe boy!" This humour is a staple part of the LNF act, it's all well meant and seems to be accepted without any rancour from Nick, who seems to take the butt of most of it. Chris certainly has the quick wit and keen eye that you need to produce the kind of hilarious off-the-cuff quips he deals out, and his long drawn out tale of eating an Opal Fruit was funny enough, before he delivered the coup-de-gras and said that this story was included because they had received a complaint that they didn't give out enough detail between songs!

The all too short set was completed with 2 encores - "30 foot trailer" and a tune called "Akward" I think - "more?" said Chris - "you can tell they've paid ten quid to get in!"

Did I mention Nick's pipes? Well, apart from being the target for much lighthearted abuse from Chris, they are a wonder to behold. Just sat on the floor you would swear that somebody had left a heap of old recorders and bits of trombone laying around. Closer examination would allow you to suspect that a fishing rod might have been included, and that maybe a snake charmer had left his pipe there too. In Nick's hands (and elbows too) though, they turn into a thing of great beauty, the drones working with the chanter, the sound erie and yet melodious. I'm told these things are hard enough to play in tune, never mind play well and in tune. Nick manages to play VERY well and in tune and, despite the fun, he is an equal talent in this rich lineup.

Just one final illustration, the tune "The Autumn Child" starts with a complex and exciting section featuring Nick on the pipes, it drew a round of applause much like a jazz solo, which almost drowned out the silky smooth transition from pipes to concertina - a real highlight for me in a night that felt like one long highlight, and a performance that left Gilly overcome with emotion, so intense was the experience.

There are a some acts that we enjoy, others that we look out for playing locally, and some that we feel we would travel a long way to see again. Last night's fun are very firmly in the latter category and I hope it won't be too long either.

- Addendum - I don't normally do this, but today we listened to "Tempered" - the most recent studio album from the boys and we was robbed not hearing them play this! - "Whiskey in the Jar" on the CD is such a fine rendition - far and away removed from the hurtling fevered version put out by Thin Lizzie, this is a sensative and moving ballad that would have been fantastic to hear live - catch them if you can, and insist that they sing this song when you do!

AFRICA OYE! 2006 - Sefton Park Liverpool - 17-8/6/2006

2006-06-28T03:22:00.000+01:00

Hurrah for Africa Oye! You know that summer is due when the brochure appears, usually about a week before the event! This year ours arrived in the post, and their website had been up to date for some time, so things seemed to be looking up! The Saturday dawned sunny and warm and we all packed up our picnics and suntan lotions and went in convoy to Sefton Park - even managing to get a good parking speck this time. Walking across what is known locally as the "old farmers field" towards the stage, it was apparent that there were even more stalls, food shops and so on than last year, although the BBC were noticeably absent. A new feature for this year was the camera crew from the Africa Channel - filming the whole event for the tv channel.

The line up for this year was as eclectic as ever - and just over one hour later than scheduled, Cabruera kicked off for Brazil (and that's the closest I'll be getting to mentioning the football World Cup!) Poor Cabruera had to put with a most dreadfully unready sound system for most of their set, but despite this they managed to attract a good size standing crowd - always a good measure at Oye! - with their mix of Brazilian percussion, folk and rock. The lead singer, Arthur Pessoa often played his heavily fx'd acoustic guitar by rubbing the strings with a ballpoint pen - producing something of a trademark sound, a little reminiscent of The Cure perhaps, at other times they reminded me of early Rush! Once the sound was sorted out they sounded great, always very rhythmic and often very rocky, but sometimes very traditional too. The finale saw all 4 group members hammering away on the bank of percussion. Good stuff.

Actually I will just briefly touch on football again for a minute because it was really noticeable that many of the crowd were wearing football shirts - but from all over the world, making for another colourful aspect of the crowd, which is always a great mix, with a good showing of African style dress as well as the usual festival wear!

Even Floppy made an effort, ditching his usual hoody in favour of this designer Africa Look shirt!

Another positive change this year was the huge increase in the number of bikes - Sefton Park has long been one of the centres of Liverpool's cycling routes, but there were bikes everywhere this year - fab!

Mozambique is the home of Eyuphuro - an eight piece band featuring a very laid back African style electric guitar player and a mass of percussion, with a female lead vocalist. The whole act was very clean and polished and had everybody doing lazy dancing in the hot sun - very pleasant indeed.

Nuru Kane came from all over the place - Medina, France and Mali amongst others, and they got a big crowd dancing to their Tinariwen like tunes (desert rock are we calling it nowadays?). Nuru Kane has more traditional instrumentation than Tinariwen's electric line up and they sported some really colourful costumes and draped the equipment with throws and flags from their various homes. Then Bonga (Angola) kept the dancing going through the scorching heat of the afternoon with accordion tunes played over traditional African guitar rhythm's.

After this, a large crowd gathered - in fact it was by our reckoning one of the biggest crowds we've seen at Africa Oye! 40,000 according to the website - that must be over 2 days surely? - in anticipation of the arrival of Luciano and friends. It was well worth the wait - starting with a short showcase by ace saxophonist Dean Fraser which was sooooooooooo good, followed by Andrew Tosh, son of the late great Peter and following very much in his shoes. Great classic style reggae with real heart. And then, Luciano - in his mock military general uniform (why?) and superstar antics played us out - I've written down "no notes, just lots of great stuff" which is what Africa Oye! is all about - great music from all over the world, great weather, friends and a peaceful, happy time in the field, having a dance or a chill or a veggie special from Quinney's.

Day 2 dawned dull and cooler - we're getting used to this pattern of weather and we went prepared for anything - what we got was Cabruera (again) sounding better today, louder and clearer, though being first up they still suffered for a while from a hollow sound quality. These relatively young lads put on a good show, some chanting, some rapping, both over quite a rocky backing, with more ben/guitar antics as previous. By now it was raining (it's day 2 so it must be!) and they played a suitable song "The Rain it Falls" before ending with raucous Brazilian folk songs, just vocals over percussion.

Afel Bocoum from Mali played next - an older looking group than most of Oye's usual fare, but no less good for that, more colourful costumes and a fine line in hats, the 6 piece band consisted of 1 percussive gourd, 3 guitars and 2 traditional string instruments - one of these sounded like a scratchy violin at first, and is in fact bowed with a tiny little bow, but the sound was great Mali desert rock, layered, hypnotic and well suited to yesterday's weather, by the end it was raining quite hard.

Nothing daunted, Omar Pene and band from Senegal soothed us with his soulful voice and some lovely subtle guitar backing. Two percussionists provided a powerhouse behind this music, one of which looked very much to me like Amadou & Miriam's djembe player who we have seen several times this year already and have been very impressed with his style and energy. Omar himself joined in with a tambourine - and a word here too for Omar's very impressive pink getup. One standout song - "Saturday" during which things got really heavy for a while.

Yet more rain followed and the festival was drawn to a close by "Reggaeman Supreme" Tiken Jah Fakoly from Ivory Close - a great set, characterised by a very laid back bass player providing the backbone and a mysterious lead guitar man (dark shades) who seemed to switch from effortless looking playing to mad, frenzied, exciting, leaping playing, and back again at the flick of a switch. While the set wasn't as exciting as the previous day's closer, it was a good'un and there was a good crowd right to the end - at which point the sun came out for a few minutes. Ah well.....

Another great festival from Paul and the team - really they all deserve some major praise for organising this thing year in year out and to an ever higher standard. Africa Oye! 2007 is going to be even better, and goodness only knows what they'll do for 2008 - Liverpool - European Capital of Culture.

Calico Jack's Annual Music Festival 23-5/6/2006

2006-06-27T23:02:00.000+01:00

Calico Jack's is a small jewel in the festival calendar, held somewhere in the rural nether lands of Northwich in Cheshire, it's a nice mix of bluegrass and country music, there's no stalls, one chippie van, real flushing toilets and it's all for charity.

This year the British Heart Foundation will benefit from the takings and the various raffles and auctions that went on during the weekend, which kicked off on Friday night with a line dancing extragavaganza. We didn't arrive until the Saturday afternoon, but thank goodness we did, because we were just in time to catch duo Breeze and Wilson who played a great acoustic set of country and blues, finishing with "our most cheerful song" which was "Papa loves Mama" - in which betrayed trucker husband murders wife and lover by driving his rig into the motel..... A nice touch was the introduction of Toby Wilson's young son for one number, following a Wilson family tradition - long may they run!

Gary and Vera Aspey followed - a husband and wife duo who have been part of the Calico Jack family for years. The act was largely singalongs and lavatorial humour, and featured one particularly fine song "Fat Slag Alice" - a real treat of a take on mining songs.

Scott D Thompson played a nervous solo set that got better as he went along - nervous because he was recording the set to use on a live CD, but he has a powerful voice and made a good fist of the U2 hit "With or without you" amongst his own stuff, which was good enough, but perhaps not my taste. The standard "Summertime" was a highlight, as was his encore Pink Floyd's "Comortably Numb".

Then we got to the "main event" of the evening - Baker's Fabulous Boys in top form - lots of dancing, great music - Russ Williams on vocals on Mandolin - in open neck shirt and taupe suit destroyed his voice while brother Stewart kept things sane on guitar, Lorraine danced about playing her bass and singing, and new recruit (not sure whether this is a permanent arrangement or not) John Dowling joined in with the banjo. The band seem to love playing, they are always full on and tonight was no exception. John Dowling's presence gave them a new dimension and this revealed itself in a fun version of the evergreen (that's code for rapidly becoming the banjo equivalent of "Smoke on the Water", shortly to be banned in all music shops...) "Duelin' Banjos" - fun because the audience became the second banjo, singing in response to John's part (air-banjo's much in evidence) - it went down rather well, as did the rest of the set which included "Caroline" (yes the Quo one), "Ace of Spades" and the grand finale - which may or may not be "Good Morning Captain" - I'm not sure because Russ doesn't so much sing it as try to extract his voice box using sound - I'll try and find out anyway - if you've seen them, you'll know - maybe you can tell me? (Now think it may be Bowie's "Good Morning Girl") - If you havn't seen them - try and find them, it's well worth it.

John Dowling also managed to squeeze in a couple of notes of "Duelin' Banjos) into one of the other tunes which a few us managed to respond to - another tradition starting?

After that we sat down again and festival organiser Ken's band Calico Jack saw the night out with their own mix of country and blue grass, the chill out session!

Sunday was even more laid back as folk drifted home - the weather got damper, the music carried on - it's a lovely little festival and a lot of money was raised - and as the old saying goes "A good time was had by all"

It's a Van Thing

2006-06-27T23:00:00.000+01:00

Here's yet another blog for me to keep up to date - its all about VW's, especially our Harry. It's a Van Thing

I've put it together because I've found it really dificult to find certain detailled information, and this is the easiest way to deploy it - and I enjoy doing it to!

As we say on eBay - "Thanks for looking!"

The Family Mahone - Birkenhead Pacific Road Arts Centre - 9/6/2006

2006-06-13T00:41:00.000+01:00

Birkenhead Rooooaaaaad! Birkenhead Roooo-oooo-aaaad! The instant adaption of Steve Earle's grinding "Copperhead Road" into the local version introduced us to the live phenomenon that is The Family Mahone. Being more than familiar with Mark Radcliffe's DJ work with BBC Radio 1, and more latterly, Radio 2, we were quite intrigued to see how he would be "in the flesh" as it were.

The live version was actually rather closer to his radio show than I'd expected - obviously the music was live, loud and, often, wild, but the links were just Mark's usual line of off the cuff repartee - and that's fine by me. The band (there are 6 of them) played a mixture of well known (if mildly adapted) standards, and their home grown stuff which was a little bit weaker, but by no means bad! The music is delivered in a full-on manner and with a huge helping of fun - this is not a band that can be accused of taking itself too seriously - with Mark taking the centre front position standing by his sparse but sufficient drum kit, flanked by Christy and Donal on various guitars, mandolins and banjos (they even had 2 banjos going at once at one point!), with Rusty playing seriously energetic accordion on the far end. Bassist Charlie and banjo/fiddle man Doc make up the back row.

Just about every song was described as another "drinking song!" and many of the band's mike-stands were customised to hold a pint glass, so you get the gist! There was a dance floor in front of the stage that was in danger of becoming a dusty desert until Gilly & Ann took to the floor, then Ann & Jim had a go (and got respect from DJ Mahone for dancing to the most complex song they do) and then we were all up and poor Gilly put herself back a week or two with her hip as we flung ourselves around the floor, joined by Christy Mahone with his mandolin for much of it too! In the end we settled for Gilly standing still while I danced around her, and a few other people managed to get up and dance - the music was wild and mostly now Shane McGowan penned, ending with "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" and encoring with"Meet me on the Encore, sorry Corner" - it was an all too short set, they were after all in support of the "main event" a caleidh with Arthur Marshall and the Lifeboat Band (plus various Mahones).

This highlights one of my concerns about some of the lineups in this year's festival, with some rather unusual pairings and some really good acts being put on for too early in the running - but otherwise it was a terrific blast and if wasn't already sold out, we might be heading for the Middlewich gig at the weekend....

Afterwards we enjoyed a late session at Rinty Moneghan's with Alison Parker and the Third Man in charge (though I seem to recall the Third Man was absent...!)

Kate Rusby - New Brighton Floral pavilion - 10/6/2006

2006-06-12T22:33:00.000+01:00

About 800 people crammed into New Brighton's misnamed theatre in the sticky heat of the evening on one of the hottest days of the year so far - and they closed all the doors and cooked us even more. Consequently there was no atmosphere and a lot of very hot people when Elbow Jane - tonight's support - appeared un-announced onto the stage. I'm doing all this negative stuff now because its mostly down to the venue - tatty, hot, airless and I guess only used because its got the most seats in Wirral? The fact that there was no compere was an opportunity missed - in fact the rather staid recorded message about not taking photographs made this even worse - 800 people and no good word for the local folk scene?

Enough. Elbow Jane - our third chance to see them this year - and the last chance to see them for a while because they are all going to be otherwise engaged for a few months over the summer. Now with the superstar-in-waiting Joe Topping fully integrated into the band, Elbow Jane grasped their chance to impress a new audience with all their energy and produced a short but accomplished set, opening with "Shape of my Heart", sung by Joe Topping with aplomb, and moved on to their own compositions: "Ecclesiasties" and "Soul Survivor". Then we were delighted to have Joe Wright come on to play a few fiddle tunes with the band, and then take up his mandolin for the grand finale - "Lean on Me". Elbow Jane have a wealth of talent and if they continue to explore the possibilities offered by making use not only of Joe Topping's undoubted skills, but also those of Joe Wright, we might have a folk-rock powerhouse in the making - I personally hope so. Short and sweet then the support, then an unexplained gap while they changed the stage over before some new people came on - oh, no, its not the roadies - that must be Kate Rusby then....

Four dull men and Kate Rusby in a bright pink dress - not that the band was dull to listen to, its just that they were all in black and/or grey, so Kate stuck out really well. The audience obviously contained a lot of existing fans, and Kate was soon into her well developed style of banter between songs, encouraged by the laughter and friendly heckling that came her way. This has, apparently developed over time as she used to be so shy on stage that she could hardly announce the songs, and to be honest it felt a little forced at times and I've heard a few people say that they find it a bit tiresome. It might even be argued that this persona is doing her a bit of dis-service and that there is a much stronger "real" Kate Rusby hiding away behind it - then again, it seems that lots of people like it and she certainly made us smile a few times!

Musically (at last!) the experience was quite good - the band are really good - John McCusker (Kate's husband) played fiddle, guitar and Bazooki, Andy Cutting on diatonic accordions, Andy Seward on upright bass and Ian Carr on additional guitars - an interesting total lack of percussion note - although John McCusker managed to find a good sounding board to stamp his right foot on! I was particularly pleased to be able to hear Andy Seward's bass clearly separated from the other instruments - full marks to the sound engineer - and he was well worth listening to. And what did they play? Quite a selection of songs and even a few tunes - highlights for me being Richard Thompson's "Withered and Died", "Fare thee Well" which had a lovely rich bass, and John Mc on a low whistle and "Young Jones" which featured a rather exciting rhythm. Kate has a lovely voice and whilst she only sang two songs I'd heard before - "You Belong to Me" and "Canaan's Land", it was quite a pleasant experience. I have to say that there were a couple of occasions when the band got a bit louder and Kate struggled a bit to match the increase, and I think this is what leads to the accusations that all the songs sound the same - I don't think this is strictly true but it does maybe limit the repetoire a little.

By the time the concert drew to an end I was struggling a bit due to the heat and lack of air which may have clouded my views slightly, but I was impressed by the way they coped with Ian Carr's broken string - turning it into a comedy routine. The vaguely soporific feeling was re-inforced by choosing "Canaan's Land" as a closer, because it fades out rather than reaching a climatic ending to the night, then Kate gave a solo rendition of "Underneath the Stars" as an encore.

I don't want to give the impression that I didn't enjoy this concert, because I did, but the venue didn't help and I'll think twice before going back there in the summer.

So we had a bit of a chat and browsed the stall, then set of en masse for Fort Perch Rock - banged on the door and shouted a bit, only to find a rather bemused resident wondering what this gaggle of folkies wanted so late at night - turns out we had the wrong venue and had to set off back inland to a pub of the same name! Sorry folks. Anyway, the pub was packed and hot, so we set up a fringe meeting outside and had a cracking time - thanks to all for a great session!

Wirral Folk on the Coast - Vale Park - 11/6/2006

2006-06-12T16:23:00.000+01:00

A really pleasant Sunday afternoon spent in the sun, listening to live music in the company of many friends.

That would probably do to describe this afternoon's event, but we should make mention of the various artists who took part - we missed Tansky (sorry lads) , but we arrived just in time to hear most of Garva's set, which was a mixed blessing because it meant that being early on, the set would be short, and to my mind (and many others I spoke to), Garva should have had the last and longer slot - it was certainly perfect music for the event, local musicians playing all manner of music, notably their well know version of Ray Davis' "Waterloo Sunset" - with Tony Gibbons (vocals, cittern), Terry Coyne (vocals, flute, whistles, fiddle) and Lesley McGough( keyboard and vocals) and two special guest who's names I didn't right down, but I'll ask Shay later in the week and add them in then! It all ended far too soon, we were still tucking into our picnic lunch!

Next up were Vocal Point - a new band featuring John and Angie Owen, John's sister Sue Farley, and Patricia Ward - as their name suggests, Vocal Point make good use of the 3 voices available to them, with just a small amount of acoustic guitar and occasional percussion from Angie when required. I have always liked John's voice and the group have a good harmonic sound, and how good it is to have the a group where the male sex is for once in the minority. They got an enthusiastic response, and certainly their opener - an African sounding song, delivered a'capella, was really good, and each of the 3 singing members was given a solo spot. Perhaps this venue was a little too wide open for this sound though, certainly we've heard them in more intimate settings sounding great, and the delicate harmonies really do deserve to be heard, but the songs where well chosen and well done. One final observation - they all stood about 6 or more feet apart on the stage - surely a group like this need to be closer together?!

The event was headed up by "The Neil Spiers Band" - a new name to me - even when he explained it wasn't his real name I still hadn't heard of him! "Neil" is a talented multi-instrumentalist who managed to play at least 4 instruments in his set - guitar, banjo, low whistle, and clarinet and he was backed by a further guitarist, bass and keyboards, with Lisa featuring on lead vocals for many of the songs. The band was rather new, in fact they claimed to have only played all together once, yesterday, so there was more than a hint of the act being something new and not yet having found its real identity, and some of the (very) newly written lyrics felt a little repetitive - however there were some really strong points too - an instrumental "Made to Measure" for instance, Lisa's solo "When You Hear a Baby Cry" - a complex and unaccompanied veganic lyric delivered well if still a little raw. Another good song, "Pit Brown Lassie" had a really traditional feel to it, and I enjoyed that, but overall the set lost my attention several times, and there were a lot of people heading home before it finished. As I said earlier, it could have been better if Garva had filled this spot, and let Neil Spiers have a more concise set earlier on, but lets not go on about it, it was a lovely afternoon, and the venue is perfect when the weather co-operates.

Thanks to the organisers and especially to Richie Woods and everyone who did a great job on the sound - a huge improvement on last year and it really made a difference.

Bob Fox at The Old Manor Folk Club - 11/6/2006

2006-06-12T15:21:00.000+01:00

One word summed up this performance tonight - brilliant - it was my word, and Bass Man Bob came up with the same word when we met afterwards - Bob Fox is nearing the end of a long tour of the UK, nearly 30 venues in 5 months, and was on top form, despite having played in Sunderland the same afternoon and driving over to Wallasey in time to sound check before most of us had turned up.

The gig was also the 13th and final one of the Wirral Folk on the Coast festival, a grueling schedule for anybody that made it to all of them (ok, we did 12/13 - but then we were at Wychwood for the first one), but the room was full of expectant folkies, many fresh from an afternoon at Vale Park.

Bob Fox then, a "BBC Folk Singer of the Year nominee" according to his blurb, launched into a version of "Jack Crawford" - about na Sunderland hero, and we were instantly aware that we were in the presence of a top performer - Bob's guitar playing - Gill described it as generous, and this sums it up well - there's no skimping, plenty of spring to it, and Bob's Fylde guitar rang out loud and clear, whatever style it was asked to perform. I'm told that the instrument has been patched up and repaired several times over the years, and I'm often impressed by players who get through a whole set using only one instrument - I know there's nothing really in this, you can switch guitars to get new sounds or to avoid re-tuning all the time, it doesn't make you any less of a player, maybe I'm just impressed that so much can be got out of one instrument.

Bob's set was mixture of old and new, traditional and contemporary - and I enjoyed how, in several cases, he would play a traditional tune in the midst of a song, for instance Joe Wilson's "Bonny Gateshead Lass" was augmented by "Elsie Marley" and "Cock of the North" featured, most fittingly on the tail end (!) of "The Whitby Tailor". There was plenty of background given for the songs, delivered in Bob's engaging and witty North-Eastern manner, but not without a touch of scouse repost - there was an on-going adjustment to the levels for the stage monitor and at one point Bob said he thought there was a lot of reverb, "It's the Liverpool Echo" quipped Tony Gibbons. There was yet more laughter when Bob lost it during this song, laughing at the story that he must have sang so many times!

There were many songs from the great writers - Ewan MacColl's "Champion of Keeping 'em Rolling", John Tamms' "Remembrance Day", and several by Andy M Stewart. Highlights included the hanging chord that Bob left at the end of "My Love is in America", perfectly capturing the unresolved story in the song, and his gripping and moving rendition of Ralph McTell's "Peppers and Tomatoes" another fantastic song from the horrors of recent conflicts, this one from Kosovo. During this song there was the hint of a high harmony during the chorus, but no sign of anybody else singing ......

"Rambling Rover" was his ever faithful closer - a good philosophy to hang on to - and "Galway Shawl" was his popular encore, both very much local favourites and both "well sung" by the audience. Bob I know felt it had been hard work, with the heat and a few sound problems, but the audience was appreciative and we had a good time. A most fitting end to the festival.

A word before I go about Phil McGinity, who compered tonight's show, singing Richard Thompson's "In Limbo Now" really well, and performing several of Jake Thakray's complex songs. Phil is one of the local folk stalwarts with who we have had more and more contact in recent weeks, and you will be reading more about him here soon. (Nothing to worry about Phil ...!)

Wirral Folk on the Coast Festival 2006

2006-06-12T01:04:00.000+01:00

Read this in the tone of one of those TV documentaries where the journalist is speaking quietly into a portable tape recorder with the lights turned down low and everybody can tell its late at night and this is a special bit of the programme:

Well its just about 1am now on Monday morning and we're just winding down with a nice cup of tea and reflecting on what has been a hectic week of events. It's not the right time to put out any detailed comments, but lets just say that tonight Bob Fox was brilliant at The Old Manor Folk Club and we had a lovely time this afternoon in Vale Park, where Garva were particularly good and the sun just shone and shone.... and the session in (and outside) the Perch Rock pub last night was an absolute delight.

I've been fielding compaints all week about the lack of new reports here (Bob, Jim, Ian et al)- its not because we've been slacking or anything, but we had to take a short break to cope with a bout of illness, but we're both on the mend now and it's a good time to say thanks to allthose who have sent good wishes and kept our spirits up these last few weeks. Now the FolkingAbout notebook is bursting with my scribbles from loads of events, noteably the Wychwood Festival, the Wirral Folk on the Coast mentioned above, Karine Polwart and Reckless Elbow. I'm going to get stuck in this week and try to catch up because its summer and there's so much to see and hear.

So keep checking in - thanks for bothering - hopefully there will be some interesting stuff for you all - there's at least one minor shock for regular readers to look forward to.....

Next up is Africa Oye! in Sefton Park, Liverpool - thats next weekend - check their website at www.AfricaOye.com - (we're in the picture gallery but you can only tell its us if you've had at least 5 pints of beer first cos its all fuzzy. ) This is Liverpool's best kept secret and if you like your music rythmic, get along - its free, its great, and the sun (nearly) always shines.

Just as an aside - the other blog I write is over at ItsJustPlayingTrains - I few people have asked where it is - so now you know - its even more behind than this one, but I've got some new pictures to put in there, so that will be done asap.

Thanks again - see you out there in the real world soon!

John & Gilly

Karine Polwart & band - Birkenhead Pacific Road -26/5/2006

2006-06-01T00:44:00.000+01:00

"Terminal Star" - on reflection an interesting first song, but there was no hint of irony as Karine Polwart and her band kicked off their first appearance in Birkenhead, and our first time seeing them play live. Not that we were unfamiliar with their work, having been anticipating this gig for weeks following several CD purchases and lots of time on MySpace. The song starts quietly and builds nicely, with Karine's brother, Steve, playing 12 string electric guitar and bassist Kevin and vocalist Inga both playing melodicas - Inga's being a rather posh looking bass version, indeed from where we were sat, it looked like a large breathalyser test kit! Drummer Matty started out with a gentle rhythm using felted heads, moving onto brushes as the song progressed, while Inga moved to accordion and Kevin to his bass - by now the song had us all captivated and we knew we had come to something special.

It was almost intantly apparent that Karine had surrounded herself with a fine set of musicians, not just for the album or the tour, but seemingly for the long haul, with her brother Steve, and her husband Matty representing family, Inga also shares their house and while I don't know about Kevin, I expect he is a regular visitor, because the band is so together and their performance so intricate that it has to be a matter of constant practice and familiarity with each other. Matty's rhythms weave their way through the band's sound, rarely using anything much heavier than brushes, his style is restrained and yet underpins the whole thing, while Kevin's upright bass is very much "plugged in", but also has a delicate feel to it, even when the strings are occasionally bowed.

Moving through the set, with "Only One Way", "Daisy" and "Hole in the Heart", my notes are all about subtle, complex, delicate and powerful - the sound as really good, with different voices dropping in and out of the songs to maintain the fine texture of the music, and yet when Steve got to play his lead break in "Hole in the Heart", it was loud, but by no means overpowering. Karine's songs are more than worth listening to, her tunes and her lyrics are in a class of their own and are well matched, while Karine's lead vocals are superbly augmented by Inga Thompson's harmony's which sound so fragile and delicate, but are another key element in the band's sound. Inga (who is originally from Shetland) also provides some fine accordion playing, but rarely in the traditional manner of accordions, more like long washes of sound that came over like tangible atmosphere.

"Take its Own Time" and "Holy Moses" were the next 2, slightly slower songs, with 2 acoustic guitars in play for "Holy Moses" ("lovely" I noted) and also into "Waterlilly" - a favourite here, so very very powerful and further highlighting Inga's vocal talents. Karine explained the story behind the song, her usual aversion to telling "same old story" being reversed into a declaration of intent to always tell this one further tale of horror from Bosnia's store of many such, and sang it with great feeling - her face showing the pain of the lyrics.

The first half wound up with "The Good Years", featuring 4 part harmony, bowed bass, 2 acoustic guitars and is due to appear in a new album of Scottish music any time now.

Part two opened with "Maybe There's a Road" and featured Steve on electric 12 string and demonstrated the band's subtle use of instrumentation, fading voices in and out throughout the song rather than having them all blasting away at once. This song also featured the bass being used where the bass drum might have been used. "You put me back together again" saw Inga playing her triangle, then the single "I'm going to do it all someday" provided us with smooth 4 part vocal harmonies and a knockout electric guitar break - one of those parts that make me want to learn to play the guitar!

The band sloped off then and left Karine to deliver her one of her contributions to the latest Radio Ballads series - "You Can't Weld A Body" - a very good song in the Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding mould - well not mould - genre? - via J Love anyway. You'll get my drift - and it let us listen to Karine's guitar playing which was well worth it, she plays with a lovely tone, and her voice is good and strong. The seriousness of this song was counterbalanced by "John Clark", a wee bit of fun about a gas fitter.

"Where the Smoke Blows" fairly rattled along, with a short lead break and a 4 part vocal section that sounded almost Scandinavian for a moment, vocal harmonies also featuring strongly in "The Sun's Comin' Over the Hill" which may have been even slower than the CD version, leading into the last song - a rocking version of "Waiting".

For the encore we got "The News" and "Follow the Heron" and it occurred to me here that Karine sometimes sounds a little like Tracey Thorn in her earlier days. The band were excellent - making best use of the voices available, giving individual instruments space when required and some really fine touches - the last note of the performance delivered without any show by Matty drawing the bass bow across the edge of a cymbal - a neat and rather typical touch from this band.

Karine Polwart deserves to go far - certainly we would be happy to travel to hear her perform again - a good indicator of any artist's popularity in this house!

DOGHOUSE SKIFFLE GROUP - Bickerton Village Hall - 18/3/2006

2006-03-19T23:10:00.000Z

When Gilly and I set out for this gig, it all seemed like any other Saturday night out to see a band, neither of us could possibly have foreseen the events that were to follow, events that would have long reaching effects on both ourselves, and the other members of the audience, and certainly on the members of the band.... Cue: 999 theme and library footage of ambulances arriving with blue lights flashing etc.....

It had been touch and go whether we got into this one, as it had sold out weeks ago and we hadn't expected to be available, but the chance came up and with a little encouragement from front man Garry, we rolled up at the last minute, waved some money around and we were in - two seats near the back in a packed village hall, lit with quaint coloured light bulbs up in the rafters and tea-lights on the tables. "It's great to back in... Knutsford!" calls Garry from the stage and we're off with "Putting on the Style!" - Bickerton Village Hall piling on the agony! Settling down we enjoyed what is now standard fayre from the DogHouse, good songs, well performed with plenty of laughter in between, and, at times during the songs too! New material has been creeping into the set too: "Bales of Cocaine" and "Jack of Diamonds" for instance.

This was a return visit to Bickerton and many of the audience were connoisseurs, leading to much banter from the floor and Garry having to intervene: "I'll tell you when it's bloody audience participation time OK?!", and later he conceded that the group had now played so many venues around the country that they were in a position to pick and choose where to play based on previous receptions, but that didn't make it an easy ride: "Hey! It's easier to change the venue than the act you know!" he was heard to retort to yet another enthusiastic outburst from the audience.

Come the interval there was a major exodus towards the bar, and then people started returning with plate loads of food - food! Great - and it was cheese and bread and cheese and celery and cheese and tomatoes and cheese and cheese... Before the inevitable raffle was finished, the bread was long gone, but they were still coming round with trays of more cheese! There then followed an auction of ... surplus cheese.

Cue: dramatic music and Michael Burke: "The second half started normally enough, but before long, strange events would start to overtake the band and the audience..."

Maybe there were some early warning signs - "Save the Last Dance for Me" - that lovely romantic oldie was morphed into "By the Rivers of Babylon" early into the second half, then the set list was thrown away so that they could resurrect "The Ballad of Davey Crockett" - last sung many, many years ago, and soon later we had John, who may well have been the local vicar, on stage and joining in on "Rock Island Line" to riotous effect. It was probably all that cheese, there was certainly a hint or two as the word cheese was occurring more and more often in the stories AND the lyrics , Garry managed at one point to perform a link that consisted of a fraction of every other link he had already used, and "Jesse James" became a psychedelic dream with the band incorporating so many other songs into the middle that neither they, nor us, had any idea what would come next, but their rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" seemed to sum it all up! Alan became German for the rest of the night, but Garry and Keith failed to spot that he was trying to count in the next verse in German until he had tried it at least 5 times, and he admitted later that he was more than a little worried about how the audience was coping with all this.....

From where we were sat it was great! The hall had good acoustics and the sound was loud enough yet clear, and the back row was swaying and waving, there was one woman asleep in front of them (we were worried for a while that it had all proved too much for her), and several rather excited (worse the wear from the demon alcohol most likely) women having giggling fits nearby. This was show-biz at its most dangerous, the plan long since abandoned in favour of ad-lib and improvisation, the band played on and on, still playing at 11:25pm when Keith's usual party trick of playing slide guitar with a glass of water was extended to include playing with a wine bottle, and then with a great chunk of... yes - cheddar cheese! It worked too, after a fashion. "Goodnight Irene" closed the set, the audience filed out into the waiting ambulances, many of them probably scarred for life, unable to face any kind of cheese ever again, destined to wake up screaming in the middle of the night when that recurring nightmare strikes again; "Ein, zwei, drei, vier!" yells a voice in an East-Yorkshire-German accent, and three men stumble into "Knees up Mother Brown", "It's songs like that that brought the Luftwaffe to its knees!", "Have you been to Briddlington?", "Did you have a swim...?"

The night the DogHouse went surreal - we know, 'cos we were there and we had one fantastic evening - or was it just a dream induced by too much cheese????

The Doghouse Skiffle Group

ELBOW JANE at Standish Folk Club - 28/1/2006

2006-03-07T01:02:00.000Z

Mark Dowding, webmaster for the North West Confederation opened the evening to good sized audience, starting with Bernie Parry's Man of the Earth, a lovely tale of an old bloke who takes to growing when the iron mill has finished with his services, the tale coming full circle when the singer reveals in the last verse that he too is off to the iron mill each day while he is still needed. Mark continued with a good selection of songs: "The Heights of Alma", regards the Crimea War, "Joseph Cross", by Eric Taylor and Harry Robertson's "Little Pot Stove". Changing gear, Mark treated us to a poem by Harvey Kershaw "Drawing Rent" - truly a cautionary tale. It was back to singing then with Bert Lee and Bob Weston's "Rawtenstall Annual Fair", comedy in the form of "With 'er 'ead Tucked Underneath 'er Arm" and concluding with Jake Thakery's "On and On". Mark is a more than competent singer and guitarist and his set was nicely traditional, mixing the comedy with the drama, and it was nice to hear an old dialect voiced poem too.

ELBOW JANE were stepping out for the first time with new recruit Joe Topping in guitar, vocals, harmonicas and mandolin, and it was interesting seeing how the band reacted to performing with this much feted newcomer on board, especially with local Folk godfather Tom Topping sat watching his boy in the audience. Mike Silver's "Reaching out for love" was the chosen opener, a duo featuring the 2 guitars of Richard and Kevin, followed by The Beatles' "Long and Winding Road" and their own "Soul Survivor." Richard and Kevin have known each other since they were 7 and the harmonies and understanding between the two of them shows it, and it was good to hear that when Joe joined in the vocal harmonies, things still sounded good. "Silent Angers" showed how keyboards can be used to good effect, and during Richard's solo I looked over to see his proud parents watching from the side of the audience. Sting's "Shape of my Heart" featured Joe Topping on harmonica. The song always sends shivers down my spine, and it was well done, but it also served to point out that Elbow Jane do not yet have that special something that would move them on a notch, while another of their own songs "Ecclesiastes" featured 2 guitars and 3 part vocal harmonies was really good and it may be their writing that provides that very thing. Similarly, on another own penned song, "The River", Joe played mandolin, Richard on Bouzouki and Kevin on guitar and they produced a good driving sound.

In part 2 the band chose another of Mike Silver's songs to get going: "Pretoria", then called on Joe Topping to play no less than 3 harmonicas on Simon Garfunkel's "Still Crazy After all Those Years", followed by "Higher" (their own song) and Gary Christian's "Ideal World". Then there was a change to the planned set - there had obviously been some pressure put on the band to give Joe Topping a solo spot and Joe as the remainder of the band fled to the bar, Joe put down all his instruments, took a deep breath and launched into "Last of the Great Whales" - sung unaccompanied and with immense passion and power, which left the audience holding its breath and led to a heavy pause at the end of the song, followed by huge, well deserved applause. It was as if Joe had laid down his marker to the rest of the band - "Look at me - I can do this!" There was a happy exchange when Richard led the band back on - I'm sure that moment put Joe firmly "in" the band and they seemed more integrated after that.

They continued with their own "It's Your Day" and then Richard's favourite James Taylor's "Shower the People", Joe then led vocals on "Lean on me" - the Bill Withers classic, the band finishing with Norma McGuiness's "When I'm Dead and Gone", and encored with their own "Be Home Soon" - which isn't quite true because they have so much equipment to pack up it must take them hours!

All in all it was a very enjoyable night, and look forward to seeing and hearing how things change as Joe slots into his new role. I managed to speak to him later in the week and he admitted to being reserved during the performance, not wanting to make too many mistakes on his first day, and that he hoped to play on more songs as he gets to know them. I hope it works for all of them, and the fusion of Joe's blues and powerful voice with Richard & Kevin's writing and musicianship could lead to something even greater than the sum of the two parts!

African Soul Rebels at Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall - 4/3/2006

2006-03-05T00:42:00.001Z

We managed to break with tradition tonight and arrived at the venue with time to spare, so Gill and I had time to enjoy some decent food at the Everyman Bistro at the other end of Hope Street. Sauted potatoes with oyster mushrooms in garlic and parsley, fresh fruit salad and coffee in case you were wondering. The menu at the Everyman always has a good number of veggie meals on it, and there were several marked gluten free as well tonight. The food is always good and there is a well stocked bar if you fancy a drink - avoid the busiest times though, it can be too crowded for comfort.

Get on with the music! The lights went down on the auditorium with 2/3 of the seats filled and a band came on and played 3 or 4 songs before they even spoke - not a word of introduction for either the band or the songs, so what follows is partly deduction and partly guesswork! According to the RLPH website, the lineup was changed to include Natacha Atlas instead of Souad Massi but anybody who didn't look it up might never find out! So we assume it was Natacha Atlas and her band that sloped on and started playing - there was a bass player, a rock style drummer, an African drum player, a lad playing a bodrhan type drum, somebody's uncle playing synth and 2 female vocalists. The first song was vaguely reminiscent of Talking Heads' "Its all right" at times, featuring a regular western drum beat with the other 2 percussionists adding more eastern rhythms on top, while the synth player pressed every button he had on a fairly small keyboard to produce a vast array of instrumentation, strings, horns and so on. The second song might have been called "Anna" or "Only a matter of time" but short of trawling through her discography (its rather long, she is quite prolific), we may never know. There were some interesting rhythms behind this band, but they seemed out of kilter somewhere - Gill wondered if they had all had a row before they came on and the performance lacked any life - the sound was a bit muddy too. I'm no great fan of synthed instrumentation either, and we had plenty of that, often with instruments being switched on the fly which felt even more artificial.
Natacha - if was she, put in a couple of dances as things went on, and after a while they seemed to warm up a bit. The only song we recognised was a rather lacklustre version of "I put a spell on you" and it was only towards the end of their set when Ali put in an African drum solo that the audience really began to respond more than politely and things did improve.
When they left the stage and the lights came back up we were still none the wiser and to be honest I didn't feel like I wanted to find out any more either. Its a shame because I think on a good day the band would be really good.

A quick change on the stage (plenty of room on this stage which is usually home to an orchestra) and an icecream for us and on came Emmanuel Jal - a young man I have heard of and he made sure we knew what he was about: "I believe I survived for a reason, to tell my story, to touch lives" - Jal's band consisted of himself on vocals, a set of decks and associated dj, a female vocalist and an electric guitar player - and a laptop computer - and the sound coming through was energetic and fluid, the lyrics clear enough and the female vocalist's contributions were strong and confident. The guitarist seemed to be playing more than I could clearly make out, but what I could hear was great, a good backing track for the vocals and electronics coming from the decks. Again the songs where not really introduced, and may have melded into each other, the next vocal theme being "Love Revolution", then "Hiya" or "Howa" which was introduced with a strong story about a young man who was saved from suicide by a smile from a schoolmate. This song featured acoustic guitar and keyboards, a small child plucked from the audience to help with the dancing and by the end of this short set the whole audience was on its feet - the Philharmonic rocked! Band introductions informed us that the female vocalist was called "Araya" (I'm not sure of this name, but I'll try and find out and update this when I do), and that the guitarist (sorry, I missed his name) was really black despite his white skin!

No icecream in this break, but we were soon seated and ready for the main event - down went the house lights again, and running on came Amadou and Mariam's band running! It was as if they had picked up the energy from Emmanuel Jal and ran on with it, launching into their set at a higher level. I can hardly read my notes, such was the frenetic pace of the show, but I can tell you that it was wonderful, energising, exciting and hmmm, excellent!

For the fashion conscious, Amadou and Miriam were wearing matching powder blue suits and the ever present dark glasses, while the djembe player featured a fantastic black shirt with huge white polka dots, and sported a good set of dreadlocks!

There was a very energetic bass and acoustic guitar player - who threw himself around the stage and provided the rock and roll poses whilst playing some lovely deep rich bass parts.

Part way through the set Miriam went off and left Amadou to it, playing first a rocker with a fine guitar solo, then a slower number to acoustic guitar, before Miriam came back on and turned the wick up even higher - leading on to some marvelous percussion solos, a dj spot and so on and so on- we were too busy dancing to write much down, but my last entry says "Soul Fire" then "Just Marvelous!"

For the encore there was a party with everybody on stage - including Emmanuel Jal and his band, then we all went home with big smiles on our faces.

Sorry there isn't much detail here - I would just say that if you get the chance, go and see them - if you don't, buy the CD!

Martin Simpson at Northwich Folk Club - 3/3/2006

2006-03-05T00:42:00.000Z

What a night! It started with a very late decision to attend - we were so lucky to get tickets following a cancellation, we were delayed by accidents in the snow down the local lanes, but managed to get in just after Martin started. Finding the last two adjacent seats in the theatre we were delighted to find ourselves sat next to Arthur and Linda and settled in to see how Martin Simpson sounded on his own. We have seen him several times before with Eric Bibb and in the Four Martins tour, but this was our first "all Simpson" experience, and boy was it an experience.

The audience was so attentive, the hush and lack of popping out to the bar was really noticeable as Martin went through his 2 sets. We missed most of "Louisiana 1916", but after one of his many stories, Martin played us "Bareback to Bullhassocks" and then did something that sounded akin to Robert Fripp, holding a device over the two or three top strings and playing slide on them, while picking the others, producing a marvelous ethereal sound I've not heard anywhere else, a tune that led into ""Just Can't Keep From Cryin' Sometimes" by Blind Willy Johnson. I just said "played us" because this was such an intimate performance that it felt like Martin was playing just for us, I wrote down words like deft, light, atmospheric, we were all transfixed.

Returning to all out picking, we got "Buckets" and then, after a good word for the BBC Radio Ballads series and a with touch of concern for the animals, "Granmore Hare" followed by a great version of "Matty Groves". We joked later that Martin Simpson plays better tunes when he is just tuning up (which happens a lot) than most of can manage at all, and so after more tuning, he finished the first half with "The Flying Cloud".

Its obvious that Martin Simpson spends a lot of time with his two guitars, and that he is very intimate with them, talking to them and making many minor adjustments, some even mid-song, and his playing reflects this time and effort - its just fabulous - Gill commented on his ability to weight each note in the chord and allow some notes to sustain longer than others, a truly gifted performer with the guitar, and his voice has several different identities that allow him to give an added authenticity to his Southern U.S.A. songs alongside his more native folk songs.

In part two there was talk of still getting culture shock when on the Isle of Lewes followed by one of my favourites "When First I Came to Caledonia" and then an up tempo, "Been on the Job Too Long" and the moving "Icarus".

Martin exhorted folk who play guitar to try something new every day, then proceeded to play a tune he wrote while doing just that, with the de-Goded hymn "For Love and for Valour" inserted in the middle. "Creeping Jane" was next from his CD "Kind Letters", then "Pretty Sarah", followed by Richard Thompson's "This is a Strange Affair". To close the second half, we were told that the last 2 or 3 songs would all be from "The South" and that it's all true - and so we heard "Barratt Street Stroll" - an instrumental based on the way folks walk down there, "Easy Money" about a guy who's funeral Martin says he attended by accident and sounded to me like a banjo tune, and finally "Love Never Dies".

By way of an encore, there was "Fair Annie/Lord Thomas" and Martin took his bows and vanished backscene of this tiny theatre until we had all stopped clapping! It was quite a night -intense and pleasing - watching a master of his craft perform at such close quarters is a privilege indeed. I have heard mutterings in the past about Martin Simpson being a touch superior, but as we left the venue, there he was in the sub-zero weather, helping drivers navigate out of the car park that was now an ice-rink.

Highly recommended.

Tom Topping Band - Pacific Road Birkenhead - 26/2/06

2006-03-05T00:40:00.000Z

Coming soon....

Joe Topping at Wrexham Offa Folk Club - 2/2/06

2006-03-05T00:38:00.000Z

Upstairs at the Nag's Head was crammed full to see Joe in his solo guise, onlookers including his father Tom and Colin Henderson. Joe seemed pleased with the turnout and rewarded the faithful with a fine set, starting with a slide guitar blues accompanied by his own harmonica, an instrument he excels at.
Joe played many of his current favourites including "Dancing Flame", "Caged Bird", "Last of the Great Whales", "Throw me to the Winds" and "My Last First Kiss". Returning to the blues, he treated us to Clapton's "Walking Blues" and it occurred to me that the audience was not as responsive as they might have been, although this could have been down to the hot and stuffy room, most remaining quiet until the end of the evening.

This enjoyable performance was rounded of by Colin Henderson's song written for Tom Topping's retirement: "Swan Song" and Joe got a great round of applause. He is certainly very popular, and he has the charisma and the talent to go on to much better things – stardom beckons!

Screen & Stage North West

2006-02-08T00:26:00.000Z

Here's another friend of ours who is setting out into the WWW and providing useful "What's On", venue and transport information for the North West UK - thanks Peter!

Screen & Stage NW

Peter is always worth catching at Bromborough Folk Club where he often provides us with songs in his own particular style.

Anthony John Clarke at Parkgate Folk Club - 26/1/2006

2006-01-27T19:52:00.000Z

Anthony John Clarke has been around the local folk scene for many years, has survived a teaching career and major heart surgery and is still going strong. I have only heard him once before, and that was at an outside gig on Fort Perch Rock, New Brighton at last year's "Folk on the Coast" festival here in Wirral, when I noted that he would be worth a second listen.

I still think Anthony John would be worth a further listen, but maybe in a while when he has moved on from his present show. I can see and hear a great song writer and performer in Anthony John, his guitar sound is assured and seemingly effortless despite its oft-time complexity, but yet his set seems somehow locked into a "Saturday night on BBC1 telly light entertainment" kind of mode. It doesn't help either that he is constantly doing himself down to the audience - his opening comments were that "WB Yeats once said that 'a song is never finished, merely abandoned' and that most of his songs should be", but his tone just hinted at an inner feeling of the pride that you would expect a song writer to have in his own work, and that in belittling the songs publicly, he was actually coming over a touch arrogant.

Opening with "Pretty Girl I've got my eyes on you" and then "Between Midnight and Blue" Anthony John showed that he can write great songs, but I have to ask myself why he needs to ruin them by having a synth playing plastic washes alongside him - his guitar playing is plenty good enough, and if he really wants to have a second instrument, why not another guitar? I've nothing against Liz mind - his keyboard player - her vocals harmonise well with Anthony John's and I guess that she could probably front an act herself if she made the leap, but the synth is just that - synthetic and not to my liking at all.

Moving on through a gimmicky "One Night Stand" to "The Only Life Gloria Knows" - we find AJC (I'm fed up of typing his full name in...) in social responsibility mode with this tale of a "Big Issue" seller from Liverpool 18 - sadly this song appears to have become a singalong without a hint of any action in it. "Millionaire Pie" followed and the first half closed with "Never get my Name Right" - which has a really nice guitar part to it.

In part two we were treated to some further of AJC's un-necessary and impertinent comments about his wife and his keyboard player - I don't like it and it has no place in our society - I really thought we'd stopped putting women down like that, and he does himself no favours in my eyes anyway. The songs included "An Acquaintance of Mine"and "The Broken Years" - AJC's best known song concerning the dreadful state of affairs that was Northern Ireland, then "My losing Streak Won't Budge" - more Saturday night TV, but his next song "xxxxx in my Eyes" was much better, with far less synth and some nice guitar playing.

Sadly, this improvement didn't last as we then came to "Blew them away" - a very clever and accomplished song except that it glorifies speeding and guns -hmmmmmmmmm. I honestly considered leaving at that point. Anthony John you can do far better than this.

"Lisa" - sung solo and better for that, but is such a negative song about a couple whose dream baby turns out to by quite severely autistic "and the effects of that on the family" - no mention of poor Lisa's outlook or the joy that she would have brought her parents - a view so typical of anyone looking in at a situation from outside.

The set drew to a close with "Fast Approaching 50" - written by Andy the bassist whose presence was otherwise hardly noticed - a cliche-country-and-western number, then "Will You Sing a Chorus With Me" and finally, "Tuesday Night is always Karaoke" - a potential rip-snorter that might have allowed the performers to let themselves get a little abandoned and let themselves go, but it didn't really -and it was too late anyway.

I wrote in my notebook that it was a "shame to start the year on a downer" - but that's how it is sometimes - as Mal said today, maybe he should go back to being "Clarkie" and then he might free up a little.

Nice things to say though too - this night couldn't pass without honourable mention to Brass Tacks, resident harmony band at Parkgate whose task it was to open the year and face the daunting proposition of telling the audience who hadn't heard of the sudden loss of Mary Gray over Christmas. It was a brave effort and well done for standing up and singing out - some of the songs had been Mary's favourites and "Mirabeau Bridge" (by James Keelaghan) was particularly poignant. Anthony John was also kind enough to dedicate his set to Mary. - Thanks to all.

NYC Taxi Shots

2006-01-22T00:29:00.000Z

NYC Taxi Shots

Just a pointer to a blog consisting of pictures of New York from a taxi.

A Year of Folking About

2006-01-07T00:58:00.000Z

Usually by this time of the year, most people have given up on any New Year's Resolutions and are getting back into the day to day routine, certainly by now the Christmas/New Year break is already fading to a memory and all those run-downs of the year seem so long ago. Well not here at Folking About! Our "Journey Into Sound" is very traditional and we believe that you can't review a year until its over..... we also believe in enjoying ourselves too much to have time to write much over the break, so it had to wait until now anyway.....

So here we go - well it all began on 27th January 2005 when Gill and I walked into a room full of strangers at Parkgate Folk Club - upstairs at the Boathouse, Parkgate. We had seen the posters a few times, but we had never before managed to get ourselves out of the house and see what it was all about. So our first (in this era anyway) Folk Club set was none other than the inimitable Eddie Morris who had us all in pleats with his quips and his songs. Eddie and wife Joyce are two of the stalwart volunteers who keep the local clubs running, and they all deserve medals.

Once Eddie had warmed us up, the main act was the previously unkown (to us) James Fagan & Nancy Kerr. What a great start to our Folking About career! "Famous" Fagan and Nancy Kerr played a stormer and we were so impressed that we bought a CD and got them to sign it.... thus setting a precedent that has cost us a few quid in 2005! But there was even more in store for us that night, because into sight hove an old friend - Mal Lowe. I have known Mal for far too many years to count, and it was great to see him again after a long break, and before we you could say "I'll have a Guinness", Mal had turned into our social secretary, introducing us firstly to Fiddlestone, who we saw at a special night in the Bridge Inn, Port Sunlight, and thence to Bromborough Folk Club at the same venue.

Our first night at Bromborough was March 16th 2005 - the night before St Patrick's Day and our new friend Shay's first go at compering the club, and being Irish, we got the full St Patrick's experience. By the time we had left the building we were well and truely hooked, and when we soon later visited the West Cheshire Sailing Club session in New Brighton, there was no hope for us. We made so many friends in such a short space of time and we went on to have a ball of a year, so thank you to everybody who made, and continue to make us feel very welcome in the local clubs.

That's the creeping done with - now to the music - it was only two days after Shay's Irish Spectacular that we saw The Doghouse for the first time at Capenhurst - see our review here - and it was in April that we started to have to keep a diary of future events so we could keep up with everything going on. April also found us in Doghouse groupie mode as we caught them in Backford and Martland near Knutsford. We went on to visit Helsby Ex-Servicemen's Club for the first time to see the Plank Dynasty in action, and that led us to Rhuddlan for a mini Bluegrass Festival where we saw Cousin Pearl, John Dowling and the Coastline Bluegrass Band who blew us away. April closed with Brass Tacks and Dave Mallett at Parkgate.

May saw the Birth of the Blog (this one anyway) and Fairport Convention at Birkenhead Pacific Road. We went to Holland, came back, saw E.S.T. twice in two days!!!! It was wanting to write these two gigs up that started this blog off - and that gets me out of writing any more because its all in the remainder of the articles, so if you haven't already, go and read them now!

2005 was a fine year, we made, as I feel I keep saying, many friends. It is with sadness then, that we record here the loss of one such friend - Mary Gray had been a regular smiling face to us at Parkgate until she was taken away from us shortly before Christmas. Mary also camped with us at Bridgnorth, sharing in the music, the cricket and the tea making. She is much missed and Brass Tacks' rendition of "Over My Mountain" at her funeral was so very moving, bravely done all of you. Mary loved the mountains and it will make "Meet on the Ledge" even more meaningful next year.

2006 has already started and we have a couple of exciting plans regarding this blog and music in general - well we're excited anyway - lets hope its a good one!

Thanks everybody for reading.

Thanks to Gill for the encouragement.

John

Mrs Ackroyd's Band - Parkgate Folk Club 15/12/2005

2005-12-20T01:25:00.000Z

There are some acts that come into a certain category that is probably politely labelled "Mediocre." I can't really describe just what it is, but this is another of those acts, perhaps along with Jez Lowe, who you read about here.

Mrs Ackroyd's Band is led by Les Barker - a "performance poet" who looks to me a little like Benny Hill got a bit old, sporting a rather dreadful cardigan that has a hint of being an old friend rather than a stage prop. Poor Les was full of cold, which probably didn't help much, and he seemed to be rather bent and insipid. All that aside, I have no doubt that Les has an acid wit that reveals itself in some of the excellent lyrics he produces, notably for me the bang up to date political satire that makes up his best work, eg "Tony Blair's Picnic" and he no doubt has his serious side too - he clearly has a good heart.

Les is accompanied by a band: Chris Harvey on a keyboard/synth that mostly sounds like a 1970's sci-fi movie soundtrack that also provides karioke style backing tracks. Alison Younger on vocals and Hillary Spencer also on vocals. I think I should just say that despite Les' writing talents, this band is just "not my cup of tea" and I was disappointed - having said that, most of the audience seemed to love it, many seemed familiar with the material too, confirming a long running affection for this act.

Not for me though, I'll be passing on this one in future.

John O'Connell - Eastham Ferry Tap - 13/12/2005

2005-12-20T01:24:00.000Z

Now here's a bloke who just seems to love playing - once he gets going! John sat in his corner in the narrow confines of the Tap's bar, waiting until he was well and truly ready before launching into his more than competent set, and then with just pauses between numbers and an occasional quip, he played and he played and he played. In the end we had to tell him it was time to go home, and he still played 2 more!

I like John's style, he's got a great voice, fantastic guitar skills, uses his own amp and desk and has Jimmy play bass alongside him some of the time. His rendition of Marc Almond's "Say hello, wave goodbye" is extraordinary (spot the pun) and his fingerwork in his own version of "moondance" is just phenomenal

A good crowd turned out to hear him, and they were not disappointed. Catch him live if you can, his CD's of original material contain good songs, but the production is nothing like as good as the live act.

Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation - Wolverhampton Civic Hall 12/12/2005

2005-12-20T01:16:00.000Z

"Welcome home!" Robert Plant's evocation from the stage on the first of 2 sold out dates in his home town was made with a wry smile on his face and a sparkle is his eye. After 96 dates in the last 12 months, this long tour was finally reaching its climatic end and the crowd sounded keen to celebrate.

We were ready! After the very real disappointment felt following WOMAD (see earlier), Gill and I really wanted this to be a good'un, so we were ready and eager when the support came on, hoping that they would get things going in fine style. The "Those Legendary Shack Shakers" came on, turned everything up to number 12, and then forced the knobs around to 13 launching into a fast, loud and virtually un-listen-able-to set that might be described as punk-rock-a-billy, with a great double-bass and drum rhythm section, a clearly talented guitarist with a nice looking white (Gretsch?) instrument, they could have been fantastic, but the distortion caused by the volume made it a chore and the act's aggressive and provocative gesturing alienated themselves even more. It was a relief once they had finished and we will leave it at that.

Maybe there was a silver lining though, because any lingering blockages in the ears had now been well and truely disintegrated and after a seemingly interminable wait, the joss sticks finally arrived on-stage and the Strange Sensation led Robert onto the stage and into "Freedom Fries." At last, we felt, there was life in this band after all - the worries of WOMAD were shook off and we were treated to a real concert - one in which we could hear the separate instruments and appreciate the superb music that the band were making. The crowd too seemed to be enjoying it - Early on a fan roared out between songs: "We love you Robert!" earning himself the slightly coy response: "I love me too...!"

Some of the old stuff "still fits" said Robert, offering "Black Dog" from his previous life, and later "Going to California" more acoustically, but not without the ever present and most impressive electronics and keyboards from Portishead's John Baggot, and some nice mandolin from Justin Adams, who later produced some amazing sound from a gimbri - a kind of African Lute. Still in semi-acoustic mode, we got "Another Tribe" with its Eastern keyboard washes and driving rhythm. Skin Tyson is the Sensation's
lead guitar - a master of his art he wrung the neck of his instruments at times, shaking the last decibel of feedback out, or flicking the thing at his amps to produce a surge.

"The Mighty Re-Arranger" album ("we've been nominated for 2 GRAMMY Awards, maybe the 'Express and Star' will get round to an article about it eventually") naturally featured heavily, with "Shine it all Around" and "Tin Play Alley" - a song which lopes along quietly then suddenly bursts out with an energy-laden explosion not unlike Led Zep might have done long ago, "The Enchanter", "Let the 4 winds Blow", "Takamba" and the title track. I'm impressed, listening now to the album, how well they managed to transfer the complex sound from the studio into the live environment, no mean feat, but helped along by the high calibre musicians Plant has chosen to play with him. They band seem to be able to handle both the old and the new, switching from the new album to go back to the 1970's again to play a tribute to "the song that all the psychedelic bands covered back then" - "Hey Joe" which was on Plant's previous "Dreamland" album. How does all this work? Well Alexis Petridis summed it up very well in his Guardian review of the "Mighty Re-arranger" album: "none of it sounds like pastiche, possibly because these nods to the past are surrounded by music that fixes its gaze firmly forward."

They wrapped the night up with a quiet boogie doodle which I suddenly remembered from the previous gig would lead into "Whole Lotta Love" and when it came, the whole audience roared with appreciation and the place rocked out to a rip-snorting version of this Zeppelin standard that was just magic, lead and driven by Clive Deamer's impeccable drumming which had been present throughout the night.

So Plant's homecoming was a great success - and for Robert there was a great line during the usual call and response stuff - winding the crowd up he shouted out- "Come on you lot - I've come a long way for this!" So had we – so glad we made the trip.

Neither the Old Rope String Band, nor the Doghouse Skiffle Band - The New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme - 16/12/2005

2005-12-17T02:06:00.000Z

It was the night for being late - the Doghouse, as were to discover later, were late for the afternoon rehearsal, Mrs something-or-other who had met up with them, managed to miss the first 10 minutes - and Gill & I managed to miss - well, the whole set! I have to put my hand up here and admit that setting off down the wrong road didn't help, but it was always going to be close, but I reckoned we would see the second half of the DHS set. I had phoned the Theatre in advance and was told that there was only the DHS playing, so it was a real shock to discover that once we finally managed to gain entry, Garry was just coming from back-stage to flog their CDs - and they were done for the night. Woe, woe and thrice woe! We retired hurt and sought solace in a cup of coffee before seeking out the band in the foyer and trying to decide what to do. Thank goodness we did! We were soon to discover that, as suspected, the Old Rope String Band would not be appearing, but that tonight was the WORLD PREMIER of the New Rope String Band! The Doghouse were keen to see them, so we sorted out a ticket and were led to a pair of box seats in the rather cosy New Vic Theatre.

In case this is all new to you, the Old Rope String Band was devastated when Joe Skurfield was killed by a drunk-driver earlier in the year, leaving the remaining members, Pete and Tim to ponder on how best to proceed. We witnessed one of their moving tributes to Joe at the Bridgnorth Folk Festival in the summer, and there they announced that they would be seeking to move on in some form or other. We had, as I mentioned checked with the theatre because there was no mention of tonight's gig on the band's website, hence the expectation of a long DHS set - but enough rambling, what of the performance????

We were still in a bit of a confused state when we sat down, and when we did, the 4 members of the NRSB were just getting going - Pete and Tim have recruited Vera and Jock to bolster the line up, and they were quickly into their stride with their new act. Its pretty much more of the same thing, but with new options, new songs, new moves and perhaps even new jokes. It would be harsh to judge them against the Old Rope String Band - the dynamic is different without Joe Scurfield, so the comparison is hardly fair, although it might be true to say that it needs at least 2 people to take his place, and talking to Pete Challoner later, we learnt of many "dark moments" in rehearsals and of their sense of relief at finally getting their act together and out into the world again.

Their work has certainly been worthwhile. The audience was in pleats, there was slapstick, pathos, a great new angle on the old "lets-play-the-accordion-standing-on-my-head-upside-down-in-a-fishtank-full-of-water" routine, some fantastic knot dances and one standout routine which involved a game of musical catch in which Tim gets to play piggy in the middle while the other 3 hurl an invisible musical note around using their violins like tennis rackets - brilliantly timed and very funny. Its good family entertainment too - no strong language and only one lavatorial moment which is so funny nobody would mind. The music is folk - violin, guitar mandolin from the new Dutch recruit - Vera, accordion and, er, horns - no not that kind, rubber bulbed horns from old cars - you'll just have to go see them to find out.

The New Rope String Band are setting out on a brave venture. It will be a hard to leave Joe behind, but even though they are keeping to the tried and trusted format, these 4 will succeed in building on the Old and create a New act in their own way - a way which is professional, well timed, well executed and lots of fun. I wish them well.

Fiddlestone - Great Sutton Scout Hut - 19/12/2005

2005-12-17T00:00:00.000Z

I'm not going to say too much about this one because it felt more like a gathering of friends than a concert. Fiddlestone play each year to raise funds for the local Scouts, not least because most of them were Scouts and the band first met at this hut. They played a full set of favourites and Mal sang a couple at the start of the second half, although "Crying in the Rain" was a very late change and wasn't really suited to Mal's voice.This as a shame because Mal adds a certain something to Fidddlestone that they don't have without him. There were a couple of other late changes to the running order that also seemed to temporarily jar an otherwise smooth evening. Fiddlestone on form are really good, a joy to listen to - and thats precisely how most of it was. I want to make particular mention of "Deep in the Darkest Night" where the accordian and melodian are used together to provide a very nice sound, and to Fiddlestone's fine close harmonies which are an integral part of the band's performances.

John Dowling - Bromborough Folk Club - 14/12/2005

2005-12-14T12:00:00.000Z

A banjo player extraordinaire! John is a world champion, having taken on the best of America and beat them hands down in a blind competition, he was playing for us in order to "raise a few bob" so he can go back and defend his title in 2006. He deserves the accolade too, his playing sounds so unlike that of any ordinary banjo player, his instrument sings to his touch - he played carols and christmas songs, demonstrated traditional playing techniques and them brought on local legend Russ Williams (slap-bass) and Jimmy? on guitar and they became foot-stompin' good old boys for a few numbers, including the over-played Duelling Banjos, but this one featured the Eastenders Theme... Its hard to see how John could be successful in the pop music sense, but he should go far and wide with his playing, and it has been an absolute pleasure to see him play.

The John Wright Band at Parkgate Folk Club - 24/11/2005

2005-11-26T00:24:00.000Z

John Wright? What's he like then? "Well, he used to be a shepherd..." was the only answer I got whenever I asked, so it was some relief to learn that John Wright is now a professional musician and boy can he sing!

This, by the way marks the return to "almost on time" blogging - I hope to go back and fill in the gaps, but I will now try and report just after the event rather than trying to cram in 4 festivals before I go any further! So look out for Fiddlestone on Sunday if all goes to plan.

Eddie warmed us all up with his own wonderful brand of enthusiasm, fun and songs, managing to get through them all without cracking up this month!

The John Wright Band then are John on vocals, local hero Joe Topping on guitar and vocals, Joe Wright on guitar, violin and vocals, and for a limited time only, Chris Parkinson on accordion, harmonica and percussion. John is a big bloke and his (new - from George - Asda) dark suit and black t-shirt set him off well, his slightly long hair and silver hoop earring adding to the image, which, every now and then, reminded me of Tindersticks' Stuart Staples, especially when he cradled a glass in his hands.

We were treated to a set of 14 songs from 14 different song writers - John interprets others' songs rather than writing his own, and every one was performed with a real spirit of feeling. Opening with "Past the point of rescue" by Mick Hanly, John made good use of his expressive face and mannerisms, making lots of eye-contact with the sell-out audience, and continued in this manner for the whole night, drawing us in to his songs with his eyes and his hands.

Continuing with Dave Mallett's "You say the battle is over" the band switched from guitar and fiddle to two guitar mode, giving a rich sound with some very skilful interplays. John describes this song as saying things "the way I feel" made his point but let the song do most of the talking.

Next up was "Time to Learn" from Tim O'Brien and Pat Alger with some lovely washes from Chris' accordian with some great guitar work over. At the end of this song there was just the briefest of a flicker of pain on John's face before his almost ever-present smile returned, a small chink in the mask revealing some of the real man behind? "Close to the edge" by Alan Taylor provided some close vocal harmonies, followed by Pete Abbott's "Windy Harbour" and then Dougie Maclean's devestatingly heartfelt song "Down too deep" closed the first half with Joe Wright providing sparkling violin passage for the bridge.

The second half was to have a "Scottish Lilt" and started with "The Old Boys" from Runrig's Rory and Calum MacDonald with very fine vocal harmonies, a very tight band this, well used to the material, but never seemingly bored of it, "Come By" from Steve Knightly revealed a whiff of Peter Gabriel in John's voice as he sang this song that he inspired from Steve, complete with authentic commands to the shepherd's dog. Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby's "The end of innocence" woke us all up as the band moved up a notch, the 2 Joe's being allowed a couple of solo lines each on vocals - John's obviously not about to let anybody steal his show!

More close harmonies on "Eldorado" by Graham Miles (no web site?) reminded me how clear John's diction is, and his voice is so powerful when he opens it up, rising on his toes towards the mike, adding a couple of extra inches to his already impressive hight. Robin Laine's "Black Clothes" closed the set with John sidling off to let the band play out to a climatic close, and we called them back to do one more - "Whatever goes around" by Chris Jones (no web site?) before we all went home happy and impressed.

"Would you come again?" John asked us afterwards? Too right we would!

Ewen Carruthers at Bromborough Folk Club

2005-11-25T21:31:00.000Z

John at Bromborough has a habit of providing acts still new to me that delight me with their performances Ewen Carruthers was one of these - I had absolutely no prior knowledge of either him or his material other than that he was from the North East but had moved out to the States some years ago.

Ewen turned out to be older than I'd pre-conceived, but nonetheless impressive for all that - in fact his mellowed out songs had a ring of experience that made them a pleasure to listen to - the product of a man that had been around a bit, but who wasn't frightened to write about what he had found and how he felt about it.

Opening with "In the Course of Bassano" - a World War One song, he soon got diverted from his intended set and was persuaded to re-discover some of his older songs, "Traveler" for example. Ewen played his guitar (he only needed one) with a seemingly easy style that managed to hide the amount of picking that must of been going on, and I later heard that his right hand had been operated on to relieve some problems. This makes his sound even more impressive, because you just can't see how he does it, because his fingers seem to cover each other as he plays. He moved on to "Little White Fluffy Clouds" and the fab ""Little Bit of Me", completing the first half with "Was it You?", a song about Scott of the Antarctic.

Part 2 kicked off with "Old Dog Blues" which contained the line "I don't do fetch, somebody pass me that ball" but got a bit more serious with his "On the Mission", "One More Story" and "The Marriage" which cover the American Goldrush, his first grandchild and a black and white dream.

By the time he'd finished is was so dark that my notes are now unreadable, but he'd done more than enough to sell his CD and book his place in our list of names to watch out for - hope he comes back soon.

Who have I missed this year?

2005-11-25T02:13:00.000Z

As November draws to a close and I get around to catching up on some of the gigs we have been to this year, I took to thinking about the ones that got away and the others that didn't even come by...

Liza Carthy and the Ratcatchers are near the top of the list, I love the "Rice" CD and they have been to so many festivals and played so many gigs, but not anywhere I've been! Not too worry, the next tour has just kicked off so there is still hope.

Steve Earle - got away when we decided not to go to Cheltenham for the new Wychwood Fesival.

Peter Gabriel - still havn't seen him play.

Queen with Freddie - never did, never will.

Missing Dougie Maclean playing Pertshire Amber at Pitlochrey was sad but we just couldn't get there....

E.S.T. at Brecon - well we were enjoying Cropredy...

No doubt there are more to add - hopes for next year?

Neil Young?
David Sylvian?

Keep music alive!

Bridgnorth Folk Festival 26-29 August 2005

2005-08-29T12:00:00.000+01:00

Bridgnorth is one of our favourite English towns, so we were looking forward to this festival just for the venue, never mind the attractions of Eric Bibb and Bellowhead. (There - a whole sentence and no mention of the railway!)

Friday night we settled for whatever the main stage had to offer, namely The Badgers, The Witches of Elswick and then Derrin Nauendorf. Lets stop there - I don't think we saw The Badgers, the Witches were not memorable, but Derrin Nauendorf was the first of several acts that Bridgnorth put on and completely blew us away with the quality and intensity of their music. Derrin hails from Australia and he has developed a guitar technique that requires two pickups - one for the strings and one for the body/neck - and which, according to the program, takes the instrument to the very edge of the possible. Using the body precusively and the strings playing through what I assume are an assortment of effects boxes, Derrin produces a noise that is almost primeval - similar to a didgeridoo, but electronic, and involving a rather risky looking warping of the guitar neck. That woke up our listening appetite and we were ready for more...

I should add that all of this is being written without recourse to any notes, because I didn't make any, so if I remember things now, several months on, they have really stuck!

So bring on Bellowhead and round of the first night - Bellowhead are a much-hyped (by folk standards) big band, led by the energetic Spiers & Boden and featuring far too many other people. I was hoping for great things, but the we only got grey sound - there is just far, far too much going on with so many people playing, seemingly, several different styles at once, and the traditional English folk songs loose out to the cacophony coming from behind. Never mind, it wasn't bad, just not as good as I'd hoped, and as Mal has said, it is helping get some younger people involved.

So a mixed bag for the first day, but our heads were full of the possibilities that must exist - just think that somebody as good and as different as Derrin Nauendorf can almost pass you by, and reflect on how much other excellent music there must be "out there", just waiting to be found.

Day 2, Saturday and the enormity that is Bridgnorth is beginning to dawn on us. There is soooo much to choose from, and a lot of it is scattered across the town, never mind the site. We settled for trying to get to see The Wilsons - a famous North Eastern family unit who were singing in the "Bell and Talbot" - we were a little late and ende dup cramming into the semi-tropical conservatory at the back were we heard some of the act, but not much. We fared better with Joe Stead back in the school (the main site) where we perched on a table and enjoyed an illustrated voyage of song using sea shanties from Liverpool's sailing fleet of the 1860's: "Valparaiso Around the Horn" It was a lovely hot day and the room was hot and stuffy, but we were treated to an authoritive and sometimes moving account of life under sail, interspersed with songs from Joe's 2 companions. One of the highlights of this was the incredible story and song relating the loss of the Penlee Lifeboat near Lamorna Cove in Cornwall, a place we know and love, and hardly seems able to cause such sorrow.

The evening had only one decision - Eric Bibb or the Folk Train? Eric Bibb - no competition really - though we've seen Eric several times this year even, he is such a consumate performer that we decided to get in early and we queued for front row seats, bagging the very middle and settling down for a full programme.

Starting up tonight Imbongi -with Albert Nyathi - once seen, never forgotten, Imbongi are a Zimbabwean song and dance troupe, with expert assistance from their South African lead guitarist, their act laced with Zulu stories, dances and folksongs. I'm sure we've seen them before - probably at Africa Oye! and we did just what they ask of their audiences - just have fun.

From Imbongi's fun, fun, fun to one of the most moving occasions I've witnessed on stage - "The Old Rope String Band" paying tribute to their much missed Joe Scurfield. Surviving members Tim & Peter were joined by Joe's long term partner in music and life, Rianne from Holland, in a sometimes funny, sometimes heart wrenching celebration of a man they all clearly loved and missed in their own different ways. Most of the audience were familiar with the Band and it was very touching that there were so many present to honour Joe's memory. The highlight of the thing for Gill and I was the way that Pete and Tim retired to the back of the stage when "not in this bit" and picked up their knitting (to greater or lesser degrees of success!) - a common thread in our lives too. Joe is very much missed and it is doubly sad that such a bright star was extinguished by one thoughtless act.

Kieran Halpin kept his date with Bridgenorth despite the very recent birth of a son and was well received, but the memory has faded somewhat in amongst all this high emotion! I will definately look out for him in the future.

And so to the moment we had been waiting for - The Eric Bibb Band. Eric Bibb is one cool performer - he stands there with his trademark hat, baggies and a cool shirt, slings any one of several guitars over his head, never knocking his hat off in the process, and plays the blues in his own passionate way. We've seen Eric several times, but this was the first time I've seen him with a regular band and it was very effective indeed, featuring all our favourites -"For You", "In My Father's House","Right On Time". Particularly noteworthy was Eric's drummer who was gentle yet firm where it mattered! I have to confess that I can't seem to find any mention of the band out on the web, but if I do manage to find any, they will get the credit here! Gill was particularly delighted when Eric stood in front of us on the edge of the stage and looked down to see Gill clapping away to the beat: "I hear you clapping sister!" her said with a smile - but nothing like the one that was on Gill's face for the rest of the night!!! Eric feeds on audience reaction and he was certainly getting it at Bridgnorth, and we were rewarded with yet another magnificent performance . Later we managed to shake his hand through the fence before he rushed off.

Day 3, Sunday - We managed to miss most of our friends Brass Tacks playing in the Shakespeare Skittle Alley, and found it all a bit too cramped to stay for The Wilsons, so we set off for the High Street where a stage had been set up for some free gigs and witnessed another high energy set from Imbongi, and some of the Dhol Blasters who are an up and coming band of young people playing Asian precussion.

The rest of the afternoon was spent chewing finger nails while we listened to the climax of one of the Ashes Test's, England scraping victory at the close, much to the delight of the small crowd of fans that had gathered around our radio!

We started the evening with Cloudstreet - a rather sacherin (for me) duo from Australia, but followed by Kristina Olsen - a women like no other that stood there in her fantastic red shoes and blew us away with her songs, made us howl at her tales and brought us down again with her mellow "Darkened Rooms"- a major gem amongst a veritable collection of jewels. At the end, we bumbled out and bought one of Kristina's CD's and gained an unexpected but delightful personal message from our new favourite. I have since heard Bob Harris singing Kristina's praises too, and she deserves to be better known.

Across the site then to the main marquee and to one of the defining moments of the festival - arriving several songs into Gjallarhorn's set, we met a tide of folk leaving the marquee, a mixed blessing as it meant we could get right up to the front, and settled down to be enchanted by the most beguiling sound I have heard all year. Gjallarhorn are a Swedish/Finnish outfit consisting of 4 members playing music inpired by traditional Scandanavian music, but given a rather unique twist. Led by diminutive Jenny Wilhelms, whose voice seems to be far bigger than the vessel it appears to eminate from, the band relies heavily on Viola and Hardanger fiddles played by Jenny and Adrian Jones, backed by Petter Berndalen, percussion and this relatively ordinary lineup is twisted, supplemented and generally stranged-up by Göran Månsson playing what looks like a piece of 3x3 wood, but is in fact an extremely complex wind instrument with built in electronics, known as a sub contrabass recorder! The effect is stunning - we sat transfixed and soaked in this fantastic stuff, wondering at the vocal accrobatics that Jenny performs and delighting in the rythmn and drive. The traditional base is blended with Eastern and Western sounds, rythmns and scales, mixed with "Throat music" and, well you can tell how much we enjoyed it! Amazingly, the place was only one third full at the end, which was a real shame, we really couldn't understand why such good music was rejected by so many - all it needed was an open mind - no matter - we enjoyed it and hope to see much much more of them in the future.

Not listed in any programmes were the late night sessions around (in our case) candle-arberas - or camp fires - where folk played music as they always have done - in groups of friends, passing on new songs, remembering old ones and generally chilling out. So it was that we enjoyed 2 or 3 nights of these gatherings, and I was pleased to see that people wandering around the site came and sat in with us , then came back the following night. A great tradition.

Day 4, Monday - The weekend rounded off with an afternoon concert in the Marquee which included a further set from Kristina Olsen, different, but just as good, and as previously, using the duo Cloudstreet to bolster the sound on some songs.The very late news that Shooglenifty could not attend due to one of the members being stranded in Scandanavia led to an extended set by The Doonans whose mix of Irish jigs and polkas is intersperced with humour, including a pair panto style dames taking on the roles of Irish Dance tutors, and a further appearance from Kristina Olsen (hurrah!).

We finished our weekend sat in the sun with Katie and Graham, listening to steam trains in the nearby station and reflecting on an excelent weekend of music - next year the festival moves to Shrewsbury, a move I for one am not entirely happy with having just enjoyed such a fine time in one of my favourite English towns. Special mention to the Cinnamon Coffee and Meeting House whose terrace looks out over the river, and where we met several really nice people - the food is good too!

Cropredy Festival - 11th to 13th August 2005

2005-08-13T12:00:00.000+01:00

For the last 30 or so years, fans of Fairport Convention have gathered in Cropredy to celebrate their love for the band and for music in general, meet up with old friends, drink a lot and generally have a jolly good time. And so it was this year with 20-odd thousand of us turning up to enjoy the festival. First time for Gill and I (as so much has been this year) and much to learn.

We had travelled down the night before, staying in the car park of a hostelry in Highley, between the railway and the river. It's a nice spot, but the pub seems to exist in a 1970's timewarp, with no customers except us, and a landlord who told us the same highwaymen story twice in the same evening.... a few customers did arrive eventually, but its hard to see how the place keeps going.

We met up with Fiddlestone at the RDV and travelled in convoy down the last few miles of motorway - our VW Caravanette on the back of a string of cars, before joining the long queue that led to the village and the campsite beyond. We quickly had the camp set up, Gill and I marveling at some of the enormous cathedrals that were errected around us, and we set off to have a look at the stage. On of Cropredy's great advantages, to my mind anyway, is that there is only one stage - thereby removing the great amount of stress caused when you have to decide between 2 (or more sometimes!) acts at every turn. Another plus point is the natural amphtheatre in which the stage is placed - and it really is too - the sound was fantastic no matter where you stood, all the way to the very back, which was also the very top....

Rather than detail everything that happened in chronological order, let me outline some of the many highlights of this supurb festival:

Firstly, the end - an amazing and emotional occasion not witnessed at any other festival I've been to. The audience take to their feet as,at just on midnight, Fairport gather up their set and get as many contibutors as will fit onto the stage to play "Meet on the Ledge" - Richard Thompson's evocative anthem of hope that the entire audience hold hands to and joins in with.

This follows the other traditional occasion at Cropredy - the very long set from Fairport themselves - a drawn out affair that has tongues wagging for months beforehand as to who will be there, whether Dave Swarbrick will be fit enough to play, and so on. That said, once it arrives, it is stupendous and Fairport feed on the obvious love of their public and seem to be able to up the ante that extra bit more at such times. This year was no exception.

Earlier in the programme there was one of the highlights of my year, never mind the festival - Th e Muffinmen! The Muffinmen are a Liverpool band who play the music of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart as it should be played - loud and live! Featuring vocals from original-"Mother of Invention" Jimmy Carl Black, they rock through lots of favourites, including "Flower Punk" - a kind of "Hey Joe.." and a "Drive My Car/Come Together" Beatle medley. They are all fine players, but the lead guitarist Carl Bowry earned major credit from Fiddlestone's Les who knows a thing or two about guitarists himself.... playing sometimes with a tiny bow and seemed to me not to be emulating Jimmy Page (my baseline guitar hero), but taking things on a stage or two from there. The Muffinmen also use brass to the fore and I was completely taken with them.

It only rained for a few hours during the whole weekend, and that put a bit of a damper on The Hampsters who rocked their way through the range of classics in fine style and made the sunshine reggae of T & LaTouche seem a bit out of place, but they spread their own brand of sunshine anyway. The sun returned about the same time as Beth Nielsen Chapman appeared on stage and played a powerful and moving set.

Interesting, but less shining was the attempt by Jah Wobble to jazz up Traditional English Folk - I admire the man's music and I think I could see what he was trying to do, but it didn't seem to gell very well in the live environment, not helped perhaps by the lead vocalists' apparant shyness. Good to see Jean-Paul blowing away on his pipes again anyway.

Richard Thompson is a god in some circles - and I have been looking forward to seeing him perform for some years. Cropredy finaly gave me my chance and I ende dup having to concur with Gill (not for the first time!) that he is not everything he's cracked up to be. A good song writer and brilliant guitarist maybe, but he seems to lack a little when singing solo - (listen to me Mr Superstar Singer!!!) - but I was pleased to see him and was delighted to be able to sing along to "Wall of Death". Richard was backed by the legendary (and also godlike) Danny Thompson on bass - don't start me on him - he really is the business!

Thanks to Leon's for the catering (again!) and to the man from the Hand Made Soap Stall who introduced us to the great sport of coat hanger throwing late one night when everyone else had gone to bed!

Its a fine festival Cropredy, but it seemed a little less social than some of the others we've been to - no sitting round playing until the wee small hours here, and not one of Floppy's natural environments either. It seems that 2006 will see Steeleye Span on stage, and we'll be there too all being well.

WOMAD

2005-07-29T12:00:00.000+01:00

We rolled into WOMAD at Reading wondering how on earth a festival that carries such a great reputation for atmosphere could possibly work set as it is in a field accessed from an edge of town retail park and municipal swimming pool complex. We parked up inside the ring of steel block and mesh fencing and headed for the huge wooden fence that formed the event horizon of the WOMAD singularity. Step over the boundary and you enter a world of sound and colour that is so powerful that the retail park soon gets left behind as your brain struggles to deal with all this new data. With so much to see and only the one day (for us) to do it, we quickly found a programme of events and set about trying to plan our campaign.

Priority was given to Robert Plant's main stage gig in the evening, and we noted that Kiki Dee was due to give an acoustic concert around dinner time.

There's been quite some time between WOMAD and my writing this, so what follows has been rather well distilled, but I can still recall quite vividly the sea of colour, people, tastes, smells and sounds that we tried to take in all at once. WOMAD is a large village of stalls, interspersed with several stages and all centered on one main green by the main stage, with a mass of silk flags flying from the clusters of flagpoles, offering not only a visual impact, but a good deal of pleasant shade too. The first thing we saw was a large traditional and steam powered fairground, but we passed this by as a distraction and set about orientating ourselves within the site. It felt like it went on forever, and my belly was wondering how on earth I was going to find the time to sample all these many and various food stalls, even allowing for just the vegetarian options it was clear that some hard choices would have to be made! The good news was that Floppy was not only going to enjoy the event, but the event took on Floppy as its own and welcomed him with open arms - he hasn't been the same since!

We'd had an early start and while Gill meandered around the various boutiques, I collapsed in a heap under a small clump of flagpoles and enjoyed some coffee. It was about now that I was passed by a large, er, lump of poo on legs, complete with flies etc. and several ballet dancers in tutu's and at least one fairy - welcome indeed to WOMAD!

One of the hard things to do at WOMAD is to get from A to B without being distracted by C,D or even E - there is so much going on and so, after a while of wondering, we both felt like we needed a cuppa and a sit down and headed for the Tiny Tea Tent, only to get sucked into the gig on the main stage - "Les Yeux Noir" - a dynamic French band with 2 young men playing fiddle, a bassist, a guitarist, a drummer and old uncle Albert on hammered dulcimer looking for all the world like he'd just got up from his armchair to play along. What a show! The crowd grew ever larger as the band turned up the ante, getting more and more frenetic as they built towards the grand finale - both fiddle players dueling, joking, and ultimately both playing the one fiddle at the same time - both bows and both fingers - absolutely incredible. We roared and clapped and, finally, made it to the Tiny Tea Tent - a haven of real tea and real cake and .... seats.

While we were busy supping and meeting some lovely people - hello Yogi if you ever read this - we overheard a steel band who went down well and went on to encounter the WOMAD toilets with a rather worrying lack of water for so early in a 3 day festival. Moving swiftly on - the best course of action really - we next encounter Leon's - a legend in his own lunchtent, Leon has been providing high quality veggie food to the masses for many many years, so we are delighted to find him and even more pleased that he can provide Gill with a large and varied plateful of food that is all safe to eat. Even better news is that leon will, as usual, be at Cropredy. We enjoy this meal sat at the back of the large crowd enjoying Kiki Dee who delivered a good acoustic set, backed by Carmelo Luggeri on guitar. By the time we had eaten, the set was drawing to a close and we snuck in to the front and joined in the cheers for the last couple of songs by this fine performer.

More stalls followed, Floppy made some new friends, bought a bandana and was given a new pair of trousers, though he later said he doesn't really like them, but didn't want to upset one of his new friends by refusing them! Then we set off to get a good spot at the front ready for Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation.
The best we could get was just in front of the speaker stack to the right of the stage, but it was close enough and so we waited for the big moment. Neither of us have ever seen Robert Plant live before and we had great expectations, and when the band came on to huge applause we were ready to enjoy a great set.

We were sadly disappointed, they started with the Led Zep classic – “No Quarter” - which is a slow mover anyway and then got into the new material from "The Mighty Re-arranger" CD and whilst it looked like the band were playing their hearts out, the sound coming over the speakers wasn't doing it for us. We waited a while but it got no better, so we moved back towards the mixing desk to see if it was a balance problem, but to no avail. The noise was coming out ok, but it just had no life to it, the was certainly no bass feeling, so maybe the volume was being kept low for political reasons, who knows? Maybe there was a little too much Led Zeppelin in the set too. The end result was that the set was not the crackerjack we had hoped for and it fell a little flat for us, and a few others we have since encountered. Now I can't say that they played badly, because it seemed to be all there, I'm as sure as I can be that the sound let the band down. We are going to Wolverhampton in December to give him a second chance!

Afterwards we wandered into the big blue tent and came across Mahmoud Ahmed in full flood and he played a great soulful set with his band which finished off the evening's musical entertainment very nicely indeed.

More tea and cakes followed as the Tiny Tea Tent crew stuck it out and kept on serving tea, loud music, dancing and fun until the dance-police arrived and made them switch the music off, even at WOMAD the fun has to end sometime it seems.

It had been a really good day and we reckon we made a good job of trying to cram as much as we could into it - next year we'll be there for the whole thing.

Postscript: We were later delighted to learn that Gill had been awarded a prize for her "notable entry" in the BBC Radio 3 Colour Quest Competition -look for the tea pot - nice one Gilly!

Jethro Tull & Roger Chapman at the Summer Pops, Liverpool

2005-07-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

Gill had, rightly, reproached me a couple of times when I'd said to people that I wanted to go to see Jethro Tull while they were still alive, and I was worried that we may be disappointed by a pale version of the mighty Tull that I only know from vinyl records of yore.

Roger Chapman

It was a bit of a shock then, that my first glimpse of support man Roger Chapman was a ghostly looking figure in pale clothes, lit by white light, but as soon as he opened his mouth it was clear that Roger Chapman was very much alive and well. Gill was far more familiar with his work than I, but the whole audience was treated to a varied set of covers and originals, ending up with a couple of Family favourites. Highlight for me was Dylan's "Ballad of Blind..." but the whole set was full of energy and those who sat it out missed out on a good one.

For the three of us (Andy was along too), a bonus appeared when we were asked if we would like to vacate our (cheap) restricted view seats for a better view and were led willingly to the front row! This gave us a grandstand view for the last few songs from Roger Chapman, and as the rest of the band slunk off at the end, he launched into a solo version of another song for a few bars before turning away with a muttered comment, something about "... enough ... " Roger Chapman, despite my initial shock, still very much alive!

Jethro Tull

A few minutes to wait before the lights dimmed again and the unmistakable flute and vocals of one I Anderson emerged from the speakers and the piratatic leader immediately set about proving that fears of his demise are very much exaggerated. Anderson led a brilliant and powerful set, rightly recognising that 99% of this middle aged audience had come to hear their old favourites, and he gave us what we wanted, so much so that I recognised many of the songs despite not having listened to a Tull recording since, well not long after CDs came out. "Thick as a Brick, Jack in the Green", "Aqualung". "Locomotive Breath" were all in there, as were the quirky little introductions and the slightly embarassed retort to the roar that greeted the end of "Thick as Brick", "careful now, at your age you shouldn't get so excited!"

It was great to be able to see Martin Barre in action on guitar from right under his nose, and you could see the concentration that went into making the sounds, my only minor complaint of the whole set was that when he had finished his instrumental solo, Anderson was back on so fast that he had barely time to wave his thanks for the applause before the rest of the band were off into the next song. Otherwise all I can say is what a great set, and I wish I had made the effort earlier in their career.

A final word for Jonathon Noyce the bassist whose demeanor is rather laid back anyway (as I have since learnt by watching films of other performances), who managed to look like he had just left his job in a bank and come on stage still wearing his suit and tie and rather trendy specs - too cool for comment really.

Tanglefoot at Parkgate Folk Club

2005-06-30T12:00:00.000+01:00

I've no notes from this gig, it was highly anticipated having enjoyed Tanglefoot's recent performance in Vale Park and since played their live CD many times, and I had wondered out loud how this Big Folk act would fit into the confines of the Boathouse's Function Room. The answer was "Just fine" - the lads lined up along the wall, backs to the sun, and we all squeezed into a sold out gig and had a jolly good time. This was no acoustic quieted down Tanglefoot, they just used a slightly smaller sound system and played full on all night, to the obvious delight of the audience, many of whom could be seen singing along, even to the French song!

Suffice to say is was a great night, the band were on top form, having a whale of a time, and when, at the death there was a single, but very obvious bum note, there were smiles and apologies, but nobody cared, we just asked for, and got, MORE!

Afterwards we were able to talk to a very hot and sweaty Al Parrish, their Canadian bass player and shared our delight with him and the band - it was typical that they found the time to chat for some time afterwards, helped perhaps by having dedicated merchandise sellers! The other good news is that the Boathouse survived un-scathed.....

Guardian writer's take on song lyrics

2005-06-26T21:28:00.000+01:00

This article in The Guardian caught my attention on Friday, John Harris as a few interesting things to say about song lyics too: read the article.

Coldplay fans may find this a little disturbing.....

Africa Oye! Sefton Park, Liverpool - Day 2

2005-06-19T12:00:00.000+01:00

"Lost my Soul,Down by the Sea, Living Free", played out over the PA as we set up camp for day 2. We chose a site to the left of the mixing desk tent figuring that it would offer some shade if the sun was as hot as it had been the day before, clever us eh?

Kinobe Herbert kicked off the day with his calm vocals and lyrical playing of traditional Ugandan instruments. The sound was so delicate that it was slightly upstaged by the drummers in the workshop who were really rocking, but the PA boosted the delicate sounds well enough. Part way into his set, I was pleased to see two elderly ladies arrive by bicycles and obviously up for a day out at Oye! Kinobe also utilised the handheld box of tricks that we had noticed yesterday. What is it???

Samson Mthombeni came on second with his horn trumpets - "The horns say Hello! to Liverpool" - dressed in even more colour he entertained us with his songs and dancing a his repeated exhortations that inter-racial marriage was ok now that Nelson Mandela had approved it! Maybe this is a bit of a theme with Samson? Anyway his short set was more confident than it had been yesterday, and it went down well.

Hohodza Band are in forced exile from the vile regime of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe and we were all up and dancing along with the band and enjoying the spirit and the joy when the sky opened up and it rained, not just a shower but gallons and gallons of the stuff, perhaps just sent to remind us that you can never really plan for the weather, however clever you may think you have been! It was a huge shame because 95% of the crowd ran for cover, mostly in their cars, and it was left to the handfull of us that didn't care to dance on and just enjoy the rain, and the band played on! The crew got the mikes in out of the rain and the monitors covered up, the show must go on, and so it did, and we had a ball. There's no notes to help me remember the music, but there are images and memories of sheer joy as we danced and danced in the rain while Sefton Park became one big puddle.

The rain stayed on for Dobet Gnahore's set too, which was really good and she deserved a bigger crowd. Playing more or less the same set as the previous day, she seemed even more lively and her voice is so powerful.

To end the day we have Ba Cissoko kora player extraordinaire! What a sound. It was still raining, but not nearly so much and a fairly decent crowd regrouped to hear these 2 guys rocking out on koras with huge African percussion to match. It was too wet to write anything down, and it doesn't really matter, they are fantastic and there will be other opportunities to write more about them I have no doubt.

A huge thanks to Paul, Kenny and the Oye! crew for their hard work - lets hope we can keep the funding going for next year too!

Africa Oye! Sefton Park, Liverpool - Day 1

2005-06-18T12:00:00.000+01:00

We worry for Africa Oye! on an annual basis. As June arrives and the website starts to leak bits of information, but little or no publicity appears. This year was no exception, in fact it was by sheer chance that I saw 2 people talking in Castle Street and noticed that one of them had a brochure in his hand, I barged in and struck lucky - the other guy had a box full so I walked off with half a dozen. Another annual tradition is that are always lots of other events going on at the same time, and its very hard to convince friends and relatives of just how good this event can be. So it was that we packed our picnic, chairs, rain coats and sun cream and set off for Sefton Park.

En route we had a bit of an epithany - we had been sent a CD of English Traditional Music from Songlines, actually its a Rough Guides production, and as we neared Aigburth, June Tabor sang "The Baker" and Gill was just knocked out by it - we played it again, and later again and again. There will be more about this in the future....

So we set up camp having parked right by the site, the sun was out and the field was, well almost empty. There were more stalls and food outlets than previously, and for a while I wondered to myself if it was going to be a waste of effort. Gill took the opportunity to join a drum workshop and had a great time, I sat and watched the first act play to a small crowd. As I watched though, the sun broke out of the clouds and what had been a humid and overcast morning turned into a hot, sunny blue sky day with a little breeze, and the crowds came, and they came. Windbreaks, umbrella, tents, picnic tables, blankets, dogs, footballs, groundsheets, barbecues, and people everywhere - a huge crowd, especially by Oye! standards. Whatever publicity had been put out had obviously worked, or is it just word of mouth? Perhaps Oye! doesn't need any, people just know, as we do, that it's due, and to look out for the date and venue and just turn up. Turn up they certainly did.

It was most pleasing to see such a diverse crowd too - all races and religions mixed in together in peace, dancing and sharing the music.

First up then was Solane Mthombeni - not in the program so there's no background, but my copy of the running order says he's from South Africa. He came in a very colourful garb, himself and a drummer both blowing long animal horn trumpets, and both wearing feathered headgear. Mthombenii wore a silver and white striped shirt and a bright purplish sarong arrangement and he looked fab. This duo played typical African guitar music on acoustic guitar with percusion backing and vocals, the music was lovely, a gentle introduction to the day, and by the time he had finished, there was a good crowd enjoying his dancing, which was a very energetic crouch with high kicking and clapping.

The compere for the weekend was somebody called Spycatcher from Radio City, and I was not at all impressed with his very short introductions and announcements, I felt he was only there because he was a local "name" rather than someone who was enthusiastic about the festival and the music, I may be wrong, but that's how it came over to me.

Haja followed - a trio from Madagascar who soon had the crowd dancing. Featuring a bare chested young man in white face and body markings on vocals and guitar, a guy called Lever (I think) who is a star accordion player, but using the synth rather than a squeezebox,who also plays electric bass, and a drummer, Haja gave us lots of African guitar and bass interwoven rhythms and melodies, and when the singer wasn't otherwise engaged, he also had a mini drum and percussion setup that he played very enthusiastically. The crowd loved it and it was all too soon that the band walked off stage one at a time leaving the drummer looking rather shy and exposed in the end! They got an encore and were obviously un-prepared as they played a song they had already used in the set. Haja were due to appear the next day too, and we looked forward to it.

Dobet Gnahore hails from the Ivory Coast and she continued the trend set by Haja by starting the performance off stage and having the band come on one by one! Dobet is a small striking character with a great voice and lots of energy, backed by a white band with some interesting accents she sang her way through her set with some very impressive dance moves, one, notably, was a sudden stop during a fast routine which left her eyes wide in a mock startled manner while she waited for the band to start up again a moment later, then continuing on as before, perfectly timed. The group supported her well with a good range of songs including some reggae, some beautiful acoustic guitar from a young man with a Shumacher smile, and some really subtle percussion. Dobet herself played a small handheld instrument which looked for all the world like a wooden games console controller, especially with the pickup wire. Her thumbs seemed to work a number of buttons or levers which produced an interesting sound.

Kinobe Herbert played a gentle set with delicate, plucked strings, and some percussion. The songs were all rooted in tradition and were often introduced with a story from a culture were kings can't be seen to cry, so when a baby is crowned king, a team of courtiers dance in front of the throne for years on end to shield the people from seeing any royal tears.

That is all I wrote down, because by now it was definitely TOO HOT and we were flagging a bit, the occasional cloud or breeze being welcomed with enthusiasm. Fickle aren't we when it comes to weather, but it was so hot, I got burnt in several places where I missed with the cream!

And so to the last act - the Gangbe Brass Band - a rare returning act - Oye! is not known for getting repeat acts. A big band - 10 of them in fact, many swapping instruments and sharing the vocal duties, this was Big Band meets Africa and they played everything as if they were having a great time - Great Stuff I wrote down afterwards, too busy dancing to take notes.

After we chilled out and finished our picnic while the sun set behind the trees through a mist of barbecue smoke as many of the crowd stayed to enjoy the cooler evening. Gill was asked if she would take Mthombeni as a husband while I was away, and my shirt was recognised by the guy that sold it to me last year - "hey! That's my shirt!" he hollered - I promised to seek him out the next day.

We had a great day and wished we could have shared it with others, but we had already begun to make new friends, dancing with strangers, so we went home looking forward to tomorrow and more of the same, little knowing how different tomorrow can be sometimes.....