A little bit of this and a little bit of that

As Christmas begins to hove in view, Rob and I have been busy on a number of different projects. As some of you may know, Rob and I are now enjoying playing with Alan and Sue Hewson's band Tam Lin ,where we both play social functions and we are beginning to get a repertoire together to play various folk clubs. We played our first folk club gig earlier this week supporting the great Andy Irvine at Baldock and Letchworth.

However, na-mara has also been very busy in its own right. We are just putting our dairy together for 2008 and are looking to build on what we feel has been a very exciting 2007. We are starting to move from support slots to full slots at some clubs which is a mightily heartening sign that our brand of (hopefully) thoughtful music is being appreciated by a number of club organisers. We have some exciting news to give on bookings but..........I want to see it writing or on a poster first before risking all and blurting it out here ( - although I'm peeing myself with excitement about it.)
On the creative side, we've had a very stimulating time. Roberto and I have written a song in honour and memory of Roberto's father who was evacuated from Bilbao in 1937 as the city was surrounded and blockaded by Franco's fascists. The song is called 'Solo Por Tres Meses' ('Only for Three Months') which was what the parents said to their children as they placed them on board the Habana sailing to Southampton. After much prevarication by a British Government keen to apease the burgeoning fascist powers in Europe, pressure from British socialists following the criminal carpet bombing of Guernica by the German Condor Legion led to action finally being taken to rescue the children of Bilbao.

For those wanting more information on this tragic story, we refer them to Adrian Bell’s book “Only for Three Months”. We have taken the tune from the (fabulous) northern Spanish band Tejedor - many thanks to Xavier Tejedor for his permission to use the tune ! We have sent a copy of the song to the Basque Children's Committee - a charitable organisation and social network - which helps keep the original refugees and their descendants together and with which Roberto keeps in close contact. It is a moving tale and a moving song, and we have been asked to play for the Basque Children, at their forthcoming fiesta in London in April next year. There was also a fleeting chance that the song might be picked up by a Spanish film director who is making a documentary on the whole moving story for Channel 6 in Spain. In the end, the song was too late and rather different from the more classically oriented sound score for the film -but, I'm pleased to say we received many kind words from him about the song. Many thanks are owing to our great friend Andy Garretty for giving up an entire Sunday afternoon to work with us on making a good copy of the song.

In due course we will probably place the song on our new MySpace site (www.myspace.com/namaramusic) However, there is still a little work to do on it yet.