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.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Saturday, January 07, 2006
A Year of Folking About
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
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
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