16th April 2007, Herga Folk Club

16th April saw us make our way to a singers night at the Herga Folk Club. High quality unaccompanied singing, especially from the well known Johnny Collins. Clearly, competing with background noise from the adjacent Pinner Social Club can be tough for some of the quieter singers. We got chance to do a couple of numbers before club favourite Graham - sorry don't believe we were given a surname - ended the evening with half a dozen unaccompanied songs.

We also got hold of the recent copy of the local folk music review magasine Unicorn , and found in it a very fair review of our CD The Kingshill Valley, by Mike Blair of the Bedford Folk Club. In essence, Mike was kind about our ability to play but wanted us to cut loose a bit more. This is a truth that we had reached independently ourselves a little while back and have been introducing a lot of more upbeat material since starting to play the clubs. Mike also rightly suggests that we should have Rob playing his guitar more - after all he is an extremely accomplished classical guitarist. This too we have been doing, using it on tracks like 'When I took my horse to water' and 'You came to me in sunshine'. We would like to thank Mike for his comments and we have resolved to make our way to Bedford Folk Club so that he can see the results for himself. We hope he approves.

Rob and I are next up as headliners at St Albans Folk Club on the 13th May. , so we are rehearsing hard for that. We are also bringing forward the next batch of songs - one self penned by Rob and I about the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, and a few more French songs.

Letchworth and Baldock, 4th April 2007

It was nice to have been asked back to Letchworth and Baldock so quickly after our last visit. We were supporting Isambarde - good friends of Show of Hands, and a very impressive (and nice to meet ) threesome indeed. Rob's son Dan (remember the name - Dan will make his name in music in the future, of that I have no doubt) accompanied us and observed proceedings with gereat interest.

We did the warm up 25 minutes and, amongst other things, reprised Black Muddy River off the CD. I think we benefitted quite a bit from all the rehearsal for the appearance at Readifolk because, I can confess my concentration has been somewhat shattered because, earlier that day I had had a rather traumatic hour with my dentist wrestling with an ultimately unsuccessful tooth extraction for an hour earlier in the day. With that and a day's work on top, I was absolutely shattered, but the set went pretty well and, I'm pleased to report that the organisers moved quickly to ask us to return again and have since offered us a full booking in 2008.

For those who don't know it, this is a very nice club with a lovely atmosphere. The pub is very nice, the publican is very supportive indeed which, by virtue of leaving my bag there, I had the pleasure of seeing again after driving all the way back to Baldock the following night to pick it up.

We met a couple of people from the Herga Folk Club, which was great because that is our next port of call. We have heard a lot about Herga, and we are very excited about going there.

Reading Folk Club, 1st April 2007

Well, it wasn't an April Fools trick: the good people of Readifolk were expecting us on 1st April, and we had a very enjoyable night indeed.

Given that we have some great friends in Reading, my wife and son travelled with us to the 'gig', as did our great friend and part time photographer and sound recordist (as well as a very neat guitarist in his own right!) Andy Garretty. Joe and Mandy laid on an excellent late Sunday afternoon roast dinner, and Rob and I had chance to do an hour's rehearsal before setting off to Readifolk - which certainly got us off the washing up.

We had been working very hard in the weeks before and putting in a lot of rehearsal to get the full set organised. This was pretty much our full repetoire to date that we were putting on show.

As with our previous visit there, the organisers at Reading were extremely welcoming and put us at our ease immediately. Friends and family arrived soon after, and with a good turnout from the Reading regulars, we pretty much had a full house. We had even been identified as the Editor's Choice in that week's Reading Chronicle - quite a shock for Joe and mandy to find Rob and I looming out of their local newspaper as they were checking out the cinema pages in the week before! All down to the excellent marketing of the team at Readifolk.

We had brushed up quite a bit of existing material from the CD and added a few new songs and tunes - including some Spanish material Rob has been working on. And I am pleased to say it all went very well indeed. It turned out that it was a very quiet night for floor singers and, as such, we played a couple of very long sets indeed. We should confess that when the night's MC then said I think we can ask Na-Mara for one more, the tank was empty - we had played our 'encores' in the second set, including Mick Hanly's version of The Verdant Braes of Screen. So, Rob sat out and I did a rendition of Tir Na Nog's Daisy Lady which I hadn't played for some time. Thankfully, Una, one of the organisers knew it and liked it very much - so, it ended up being a very nice way to end the evening.

So we had chance to call back on Joe and Mandy after the show for a cup of tea before setting off back to St Albans. We have had some great feedback from the night, sold a few CDs and, thanks to the new found friends at Reading, our confidence is now as high as it has ever been. Thank you Readifolk - we wish you all the very best. We certainly hope to be back.

Welwyn Garden City Music Club, 25th March 2007

Given that 1st April at the Reading Folk Club is our first full booking, we could not have hoped for a better 'dress rehearsal' than this. In the quiet suburbs of Welwyn Garden City, on Sunday afternoons, making use of a Quaker Friends Meeting House, there is a music club. The town of Welwyn seems unusually well provided with classical musicians of the highest order, and most weeks they have a classical recital. However, through connections that Rob has, an invitation had been made to us and to a Parisian Swing band to do the honours. We had originally planned to do around 45 minutes worth of material, but just before the day arrived we heard that the other band had lost a member through illness, and were asked to do an hour's worth. Given our preparations for Reading, we had more than hour's material we could do, and were happy to rise to the challenge.

But, probably what surprised us most was the scale of the audience. There must have been at least 75 people in the 'meeting room', which was a square shaped, high-domed, and (for the benefit of ageing Quakers) acoustically improved. We had a fair few friends come over from St Albans to support us, but by far and away the vast bulk of the attendees were local. They ranged from the very old to the very young, with musical tastes to match.

The organisers were unbelievably friendly and accommodating. Rob's acquaintance was very encouraging; he and a local teacher were actively setting up when we arrived, laying out the stage area. The teacher, who very kindly invited us back, with others, to his place for a drink afterwards, was also kind enough to record the session for us. But special thanks go out to Mary - (I'm sorry Mary, I didn't catch your first name). Mary was there when we first arrived. She was a very sprightly 80 year old who had been brought up in Ireland. Ours was her kind of music and she had been looking forward to seeing us, after hearing our CD. She knew her folk music well and, when younger had known and often went to see the great Ewan MacColl and A L Lloyd. But, more than all of this, she presented Rob and I with two songs that she had personally translated from Gaelic. Her modesty in doing so was very touching and, when we get past the Reading, Letchworth and Herga Folk Club commitments, I am very keen to try the songs out and, if nothing at all comes from it, try and make a recording of the songs for Mary - who looked after us so wonderfully all afternoon and evening.

In some ways, given the emphasis that we put on musicality, this was a very natural audience for us. They seemed very much to enjoy the results of the time that Rob has lavished on getting the arrangements for the songs just so. We had rehearsed hard the week before and we were ready. Conscious of the varied audience we played across the full spectrum of our repetoire. Modern material like You Came To Me in Sunshine, was juxtaposed with traditional songs like 'When I was a Fair Maid'. We did all three of the French songs in our current repetoire (although there are at least half a dozen bubbling under). In the (mistaken belief) that Welwyn shared one thing with Middlesbrough, namely ICI, I also did a rendition of The Chemical Worker's Song, popular in the Boro clubs of my youth - a Ron Angel song I think. Sadly, ICI in Welwyn has now closed. How could I have missed that, especially when my former next door neightbour used to work there!

When we finished, everyone broke for tea and biscuits (well you're not going to get a pint there are you!) and I am pleased to say the feedback was excellent. We sold a few CDs and lots of people wanted to engage with us on different topics - the Benjamin Britten variations on French Folk tunes, the Christy Moore song, Viva La Quinta Brigada. All very animated.

The everyone returned to listen to the Parisian Swing band, who were really excellent. If this was them with a 'man down', they must be astonishing fully fledged. With a double bass, guitar and fiddle, doing Django Rheinhart and Stephane Grappelli material, they were a wow for 30 minutes. At the soiree afterwards, it was clear that they knew the local folk scene well and, I think, promised to put a word in for us at the Bishop Stortford Folk Club.

So, our attention turns to Reading. Rob is overseas with work all week, so it 'Home Alone' rehearsal for me. Not a bad idea though - it might knock a few of these lyrics into my thick bonce.