Na-mara at Redbourne Folk Club - Thursday 19th October 2006

Thursday night saw us out on the road again. This time it was just up the road from St. Albans to the Cricketers Arms in Redbourne for a singers night. Again, this was a wonderfully welcoming club and when they say singers night, they really mean it. Virtually everybody that showed up for the evening brought an instrument or two and 'did a turn'. It is amazing how much talent there is around. Redbourne is a small place and there was a lot of local talent on show. We had everything from the hammer dulcimer, to sprightly elderly ladies, to poetry reading - with hats.

Rob and I did pretty much the same set as in Reading and were pleased to be invited back onto the stage to finish the evening. Usually I don't drink until I've finished playing - the first folkie to go on a diet through not drinking - so, when we were asked back on, I had had a drop of the black stuff, but it didn't seem to impair anything. We added Willy Taylor to the set to finish with a bit of a bang.

Thanks to Robert Taylor and his son Ryan for coming along and supporting us.

Thankfully it was only a short journey home to find that bowl of Cruchy Nut cornflakes and bed.

Na-mara at Readifolk - some pictures

Thought you might to see the 'lads in action'. Here are some photos taken from a recent performance at Reading Folk Club.

15th October 2006

We played Reading Folk Club at the Clifton Arms in Caversham on 15th October. What a nice little club – extremely welcoming and friendly. I am pleased to say that we went down very well and they have invited us back for a full spot on 1st April next year – Hmm, interesting date – I’m pretty sure they weren’t kidding!

Topping the bill was the excellent Ed Rennie who did a great set on various melodions, and his Fylde cittern and guitar. The floor spots were highly varied and generally very good to listen to. Throughout the audience was highly appreciative.

We did four fairly quiet numbers to introduce ourselves. We warmed up with Maid of Culmore which we followed with one of burgeoning number of French songs – When I Took my Horse to Water – which received a “tres bien”. Rob was inspired on Persian Ricardo and we finished off with You Came to Me in Sunshine, written by my mate Fraser Hardman.

Joe, Mandy and young Alex, our longstanding friends from Reading came along even though they are not big fans of the genre. But Joe is the video-meister – much to his family’s dismay – and he kindly undertook to do some filming of the night. We will get this loaded up as soon as we are able and you can see us in action.

So, it was certainly a late night by the time we got home – M4/M25 and a bowl of Crunchy nut Cornflakes as a late supper reward. But we both felt pleased that we had done a good, if all too brief, session – tempered by the kind invite for us to return. It felt a good return for the hard work we are putting in at the moment. Rob is digging away at finding new tunes, we’re both enthused about the French project, and with my new birthday gift (see above) I am re-discovering a whole raft of long forgotten stuff. Very exciting. Redbourne on Thursday 19th – will report again then.

Late September 2006

My wife has just bought me one of those turntables for converting vinyl and tapes into mp3 players – a stroke of (curly headed) genius. It is fantastic. All that stuff from the late Cretaceous, when dinosaurs roamed the land and I had hair and time to study, can now be preserved and played on the move on my new ‘nutter-bastard’ iPod. 80Gb or what! It is a labour of love to load them one-by-one in real time, but I can assure you it is well worth it. It is reminding me of so much material that I had just plain forgotten.