6th April 2009 Waltham Abbey Folk Club and other bits and pieces

In line with our interest of visiting new clubs, Rob and I attended a singer’s night at the Waltham Abbey Folk Club. Jan Ayres, who runs this very friendly club, very kindly allowed us to double up and do a couple of numbers each round in what was a very talented room of singers and players. Resident duo Blue Harbour performed some excellent bluesy material, and there was some great fiddle music, excellent accordion playing and some very funny banter all night.
As Rob and I have been travelling in recent weeks, we have been talking a lot about the need for us to get back into the studio and do a third CD. We are acutely aware that the two CDs we currently have cover only a modest proportion of our current repertoire. I have now invested in some Cubase software and am slowly beginning to master it – and this might liberate us from making too much call on friends in St Albans and Suffolk. But, it will take some considerable time to master this complex software to a level that we could realistically make a quality recording – even if I have some decent mikes, etc. So, we are still working on what best to do. The real problem is, of course with full time ‘day jobs’ is simply finding the time. We are both active family guys as well as professionals in our own field, with jobs that require a fair amount of travel – so finding two or three days (or preferably a lot more) to do a recording session justice, is going to be hard.
Elsewhere, I am proud to say that we have been asked again by Marlene Sideway to play at the International Brigade Memorial in Jubilee Gardens on July 4th. It was a moving and stimulating event last year and I assume it will be so again this year.

Late March 2009, St Albans and a little bit of news !

We have a wee while now before our next commitment, so we decided to spend a Saturday looking at some new material. We are working on two songs in particular. The first is one that has its origins in Broadstairs last year. In our ‘downtime’ there, Rob and I investigated the second hand bookshops in the town. I’m afraid I can’t recall the name of the shop now but there is one in Broadstairs which is quite amazing, with books of all sorts and about anything and everything, loosely available throughout a very sizeable two storey building. Browsing in there, I came across a book called The Resurrection Men about the practices of the body snatchers. The book contains the tale of Helen Torrence and Jean Waldie, accredited as being amongst the first true body snatchers in Edinburgh – who murdered to get the corpses to sell to the anatomists. The fears and contradictions around the sale of bodies – wanting and needing scientific advances but clearly not wanting to have oneself or one’s loved ones operated upon – are really very interesting. So, I have written (and put my own tune to) a song about Nellie and Jeannie. I have another more general song in progress about ‘night gardeners’ and the strangeness of their crop. One of these days I’ll get chance to finish.
I have also been putting together a new set of words to a French Canadian song recorded by Le Vent du Nord. Having recently read Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, a French authoress murdered by the Nazis in the death camps in 1942, I was deeply affected by her description of the travails of the refugees leaving Paris ahead of the German advance on the city, and the chaos, the comfort of strangers, the speed of unexpected violence, their doubts and concerns over loved ones, and their uncertainties about the future. There are probably too many songs glorifying heroes and too few relaying the harm that ensues from ‘the arguments of kings’ – an everywhere and every epoch issue.
The little bit of news we have had – well actually we have known for some time but were asked to keep it under wraps until the details were fully worked out – is that we have been asked by the Cambridge Folk Club to play their tent at the Cambridge Folk Festival. We are deeply grateful to the Cambridge Folk Club for this honour. This is an event of national significance and we are very very excited at being allowed to be part of it.

18th March 2009 Baldock and Letchworth Folk Club

The night after Bury St Edmonds, Rob and I were back on our travels with friends Tam Lin, to play The Headgate Theatre in Colchester and support Alan Prosser from The Oysterband – nice fella, and another wonderful guitarist .
Then, a few days later, we were back with Alan and Sue Hewson from Tam Lin to start the night as na-mara at Alan and Sue’s club in Baldock, and finish the evening as Tam Lin. This was a full night with plenty of singers in for the evening. Our good friend and excellent performer Malcolm Hobbs was there, and we managed to get a copy of his new CD ‘In for a Penny’, check it out!
With it being St Patrick’s night, Rob and I stayed to Irish material throughout – which is rather unusual for us as we roam across the British Isles and placed further afield usually.
Later that week we had two St Patrick’s night gigs – one in a pub in Little Wymondley in north Hertfordshire (? Or is it south Beds?), and a big gig down on the south coast at Selsey, where, with Tam Lin we supported the blues band The Commitments – great fun and, again, really nice people.
So, a pretty exhausting round of ‘gigging’ but we wouldn’t trade it for the world. What fun we have had over recent weeks.

13th March 2009 The Milkmaid Folk Club, Bury St Edmunds

I told you we were busy and so it was home from work early, soggy Morrisons sarnie snaffled in the car, a hell for leather drive across to Bury St Edmonds, three times round the one way system and into the club for a sound check just in time. Rob and I just love visiting new clubs. The previous night had been the intimate atmosphere of a front parlour, with the audience right up close and playing acoustically; tonight was totally different – a large room, c80-90 in the audience and a real pukka p.a. system, with a quality sound technician helping us out.
We were supporting the Chris Sherburn and Denny Bartley – two musicians I was not familiar with, but I won’t now forget. Setting aside what a nice pair of blokes they were, very approachable and open to both of us, they were both very funny and (more importantly) very impressive and entertaining musicians. What I would pay for a teaching session with Denny - who is one of the best Irish guitar players I have ever seen. The fact that they hadn’t played prior to this night for some considerable time, just shows how good they are. They played a wide variety of music, including a wonderful rendition of a Voice Squad song The Sheepstealers.
Terry in his ‘Waffle’ (his term not mine) reviewed the night recently and Rob and I are overwhelmed by his kind comments on our performance which read “Support by The Duo Na-Mara was indeed quite lovely. Their performance nicely blended with the main act. These guys are really going to make a mark in the folk world and deserve to have success in clubs and festivals.” Terry (and all at The Milkmaid, who helped us and were so welcoming on the night), many thanks!! http://www.milkmaidmusic.co.uk/waffle09.html

12th March 2009 Redbourn Folk Club

The start of the busy season! Of course, with our friends at Tam Lin, we get a lot of bookings around the time of St Patrick’s Day. With our own bookings, it means that Rob and I have a couple of weeks with 3 nights each week playing – just like proper pros eh!
Jan Strapp at Redbourn Folk Club, gave us the chance to support George Papavgeris, at the new venue for the club, The Hollybush pub in Redbourn. I think the club used to be there some years ago, and they have now gone back. This is a very intimate club in an outhouse from the pub – so it is cosy and not affected by pub noise.
It was also the chance for us to meet with George Papavgeris who is clearly a legend in this North London/Herts area , but was someone whose music we had not heard before. Larger than life, George is a hell of a presence and, on saying goodbye to him at the end of the evening he was very kind to say how much our song ‘Solo Por Tres Meses’ had affected him.
Jan also seems to have enjoyed the evening because she has promised us a ‘full spot’ at Redbourn in 2010. This is a real honour and thanks to Jan for that. Jan was kind enough to tell us that we “just get better and better” – we couldn’t hope for a nicer comment because this is absolutely our aim.

8th February 2009 Readifolk, Reading Folk Club

As we have said elsewhere in this blog, Reading Folk Club has been incredibly generous to us over the years. They were the first to give us any sizeable slot on a folk evening, the first to give us a ‘full booking’ and the first to give us a second full booking.
So, after a January of working on some new material and getting ourselves properly rested, then properly rehearsed, we were very much looking forward to the evening – at Readifolk’s new venue, The RISC Centre in London Street in the centre of Reading (which is the third venue we have played at, and very much the nicest.) The Reading hosts were as welcoming as ever. Sadly, the appalling weather in the previous week and on the evening itself meant that the audience was lower than they usually manage.
We had some excellent floor acts on before us – including some excellent French songs and tunes. When Rob and I started our ‘project’ of taking French and Breton songs and making them more accessible to an English speaking audience, we thought we would be pretty much alone in this – but far from it. There are many players playing French tunes and even performing French songs.
We took the opportunity to introduce two more new songs to our repertoire, developed over the Christmas and New Year period. Of late, I have become very enamoured of the French Canadian band Le Vent du Nord (if you haven’t heard them, track them down!!) and I have translated their song Les Larmes Aux Yeux – which has a wonderful but tricky instrumental tune embedded in it, written by the superb Scottish fiddler Fiona Cuthill. Rob, in his inimitable challenging style felt that we definitely needed one of the verses sung in French – so, this is what we have done. So, this is a tricksy, full on, number requiring total concentration – but the song and the tune are great – and the Reading audience were very appreciative.
The other song we introduced was a song that I have been working on for a long while but really only got a grip on when it was converted over into a DADGAD version; it is The Child Mother - which is a translation of a La Bamboche song sung by Evelyne Girardon. In our quest for variation in the act, we always try and vary the combinations of instruments we play, and try and get different sounds. In this particular song, I play my Taylor in DADGAD, and Rob drinks a pint of lager – yes, it’s me on ‘me tod’. Nice to say then, that the Readifolk audience really appreciated this somewhat harrowing song about a girl who becomes pregnant and, in desperation, kills her newborn and is then discovered.
Thanks to all at Readifolk for a lovely evening and such a warm welcome. We very much hope to be back. Thanks also to Clare who gave us such a wonderful write-up in the (excellent and professionally produced Readifolk newsletter, see http://www.readifolk.org.uk/Readifolk_NL2.pdf

5th December 2008, Cambridge Folk Club

A trip to Cambridge is almost like a trip to a home club. The welcome is always guaranteed to be warm and the acts are almost universally of the highest standard. This night was no exception. We shared the evening with two other acts – local heroes - The Ouse Brothers – who, as usual, played some truly excellent blues material, mostly self-penned, intimate and exceptionally well performed – and Sunday Driver, who are a most unusual band, blending successfully Asian sounds from tablas and sitar with harp and other more conventional folk instruments, to provide a very interesting sound. Stimulating songs, very well performed – no wonder they are listed for the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2009.
We introduced some new material to the act –we like to do new things for Cambridge. The audience is sophisticated and demanding and so it is a great challenge to get things right for presentation there. So, we introduced ‘Billy Don’t You Weep For Me’ which Rob and I have fallen in love with after hearing the wonderful Nic Jones version. We are very keen to engender variety in our act and, as such, Rob plays this on mandola and I sing without guitar – very relaxing for me as it allows me to concentrate on the vocals (and getting the lyrics right!) We also gave the northern Irish song, The Flower of Magherally, its first run out.
Even more amazing, we were told that our friends Chicken Lickin, residents at Cambridge have decided to cover our translated French song, When I took my horse to water, which we took from the music of Malicorne. This is a great honour and we wish them well with it.

31st October 2008: Barnet Folk Club

A trip home to north London for Rob. The Barnet Folk Club, run by JJ Dunne, now holds its events in the Arts Depot – in North Finchley. A surprisingly warm venue this, given that, to all intents and purposes it is in the Lobby of the Arts Depot. But, with an array of cafe tables and comfy sofas, and an excellent p.a. system, well managed, the venue wasn’t intimidating or remote, but was very cosy and welcoming.
JJ had asked us to come along and finish the evening off for them with c50minutes of material. We had an evening of French poetry and some great blues guitar, by two of the resident members of the club, and then Rob and I did a mix of British, Asturian, Galician and Breton material. Overall, there must have been 30-40 people there, including some of Rob’s good friends from the da Capo foundation who have a school nearby.
JJ Finished the evening off with us with what seems to be a traditional rendition of Whiskey in the Jar. Photos can be seen at http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/barnetfolkclub/page49.phtml
I very much hope we will get a return invite to Folk in the Lobby at Barnet. We enjoyed ourselves and it appeared that those attending enjoyed what we did – we sold a pleasing number of CDs at the end of the evening which is always a good sign of how well we have done.

15th October 2008: Ely Folk Club

An early escape from work, this one - St Albans to Ely to be there for an 8.00pm! However, the night itself made it well worth munching a soggy Morrisons sarnie in the car on the way over. Rob and I had met Ruthie, who is one of the people running the Ely Folk Club, when she was calling for us and our friends from Tam Lin at a recent ceilidh. Very kindly, after hearing our CD, she invited us over and provided us with a wonderful support slot – namely supporting the wonderful Mawkin-Causley.
It is clear that Mawkin Causley are going from strength to strength and, I have to confess, prior to the evening, we were unfamiliar with their work – but class will out, and they were superb that evening. Our abiding memory is of a satisfaction that such a young and skilful band is there to carry on the tradition going forward. There was an excellent attendance of 50-60 to watch and, to our satisfaction, they were very much a listening audience.
We acquitted ourselves well and, unusually for professional bands with a growing reputation, it was nice to see (Gentleman) Jim Causley come in towards the end of our set and have a listen. Naturally, at the end of the evening, Jim was surrounded by well-wishers, but he still took the time to congratulate us a good set and wish us well for the future and a safe journey home. Since that time, Rob and I have heard more and more about the band, and we similarly wish them well.
A definite petrol station pee stop and a bar of Cadbury’s to keep us awake going home – getting up at 6.00am the next morning wasn’t too much fun.