Friday 5th October, A Birthday Ceilidh in Goostrey

Playing for birthday ceilidhs is great fun – everyone is there to enjoy themselves, especially the birthday girl or boy.
Tonight’s ceilidh was no exception, a lovely smiley birthday girl who had lots of nice friends – all determined to have a good time. Held in the village hall in Goostrey, not far from Holmes Chapel.
Playing with the Midgebite Ceildh Band is always a pleasure – we just have lots of fun, and I like to think that if the band is enjoying themselves then our enthusiasm infects our audience. Fun escalates: we enjoy ourselves > the audience enjoy themselves > we get positive feedback and so enjoy ourselves all the more….etc.  Not that this audience needed any more enthusiasm – they were seriously up for it!
I often worry about the future of folk music and dance, our modern ways of life seem to almost obliterate these traditions. It is something of a relief to see younger dancers enjoying themselves so much. I don’t know whether these youngsters had been previously exposed to e-ceilidh (English Ceilidh) but they really threw themselves into the evenings activities with energy that embarrassed much of the adult audience!

  Our audience having a ball

 

John (JW), plays things with strings

Emma, our demon fiddler, giving it some stick

Bill, our rather excellent drummer

The Midgies in action…with some bloke on a melodeon

 Our caller, Brian, with a smiley, happy….and rather tired birthday girl!

Bromyard Day 2, Sunday 9th September

 

The previous night’s entertainment had been spectacular – Scottish supergroup Session A9 were tremendous in spite of one of their fiddlers, Adam Sutherland (ANOTHER Sutherland, they seem to do a lot of this musical stuff), being down with a bad cold. TGO Challengers who pass through Ault-na-Goire may well be familiar with the Sutherlands.

Session A9

 

The Copper Family from Rottingdean in Sussex have been singing their songs for generations. They had three generations on stage at one point – their songs are some of the most well-known in the English tradition. Listening to their singing brings me out in goose-bumps! 

The Copper Family

Keith Donnelly’s late night (early morning!) spot meant it was 2am by the time I got to bed. Keith is a favourite of mine – and of the Mrs JJ, she’s normally early to bed, but not when Keith Donnelly’s about. His absolutely insane humour had his audience in stitches, I went to bed with aching sides.

Keith Donnelly

After such a late night I felt justified in having a lie-in on Sunday morning….but even I was surprised to sleep until 9.30am.

The previous day had been extremely hot, with clear blue skies and a strong sun. The clear skies made for a cold night and I was glad to be in my caravan.

I had a hurried breakfast and headed off into town to meet up for another lunchtime music session in the Falcon. The usual suspects had gathered in the bar and the session was in full swing when I arrived:

The Falcon does an excellent Sunday dinner, it’s one of our Bromyard Festival treats. The rest of the time we self-cater so we feel justified in pushing the boat out just this once over the weekend. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have to leave the session early because the chef goes home at 2pm. Still, it’s a nice treat.

Back on the Festival site the festival was winding down towards the final concert. I have to confess that the line up didn’t float my boat – perhaps I was folked-out. I popped into the concert for a short time then headed over to the beer tent to meet up with some old friends and to listen to the impromptu music session that had sprung into life.

By 11pm I was in bed.

I seem to recall that Bromyard is a sunny festival, hot during the day but cold at night. My journey home on the Monday morning always seems to be in gloomy weather, leaving Bromyard and the summer behind. This year was no exception.

Once at home it was back to parent-caring and trip planning: the Backpackers Club Treasure Hunt (a laid-back orienteering event with an overnight wild-camp) is next weekend, in the Lake District. Then I need to plan my trip to Spain to walk a section of the Via de la Plata.

I really must get my finger out.

More photographs are here.

Bromyard Folk Festival 2012

 

The Falcon, Bromyard

 

Flos’s English Music Session in the Falcon

 

? on fiddle, with Sandy on box – two very competent musicians

Eh?

A Cotswold Morris side on the festival site

Although I dipped into Whitby Folk Festival for three days in August, this year has been very quiet, festival-wise. I normally go to Sidmouth, Dartmoor and Shrewsbury festivals, but other stuff has meant that I've not really been in festival mode this year.

Bromyard Folk Festival is always a 'must' for me and I wasn't going to let other stuff get in the way of this weekend of excellent music, singing, dancing and, er, beer. Bromyard (= Ambridge?) is a lovely village in the heart of the Herefordshire countryside.

I have wonderful warm memories of this delightful village, it has become a special, almost secret, place for me. Being here is wonderful although visits will always be tinged with some sadness.

The weather yesterday was cookingly hot, sadly the beer at Bromyard's Hop Pole was well below par: 3 different brews that were decidedly sub-standard. The beer on the festival site, Wye Valley, more than made up for this short-coming.

Last night's excellent concert, compered by the hilarious Keith Donnelly, consisted of sets by The Askew Sisters, The James Findlay Trio, and the very excellent John Spiers and Jon Boden - front men of folk supergroup Bellowhead.

Much of today, Saturday, has been spent in the bar of the Falcon, playing in the English music sessions run by renowned fiddler, Flos Headford.

I always learn new tunes from Flos, his encyclopedic knowledge of English traditional music is legendary.

The Wye Valley Bitter was as good as ever, and the comfort and warm welcome offered by the Falcon equalled that of my visit earlier this year and previous festivals.

Tonight's plan has yet to be finalised, but will include a shanty session, a ceilidh, a concert and an entertaining hour with Keith Donnelly....although Keith's performance isn't due to kick off until well past midnight.

It will be a good evening

More tomorrow.

Two different ceilidhs

Friday 17th August

The Marmaladies have done this ceilidh before and reported back that it was fun. Held in the Friend’s Meeting House in Manchester city centre and run by the Quakers. The building is adjacent to Petersfield, site of the Peterloo massacre of 1819.
The event promised to cheerful and gay. I’m not a religious type at all, but I’ve got a lot of time for the Quakers. The event was certainly gay.
The Marmaladies were operating with extras at this event. In addition to Clur on whistles and flute, and Marian on fiddle, we had Kathy on flute – she’s a long-time member of the band but has been in Glasgow for the last 4 years, John on guitar, Mike on Cajon (and a very excellent sound man), Brian as caller, and me on melodeon.  It was a lively musical mix, with and excellent caller and a tremendously enthusiastic, and sometimes colourful audience:
An early finish (10pm) left us enough time to pile all the gear into Mike’s Tardis of a Landrover, squeeze the band in too, and then head to the Beech in Chorlton for rehydration.

 L-R: A Beech Boozer, Mike, Clur, Marian, John. Centre: beer.

It was a brilliant evening, enjoyed by everyone. I really hope we get the chance to play this one next year.

Saturday 18th August

A different band for this one – Midgebites. We were one down for this one – Bill, our very excellent percussionist, has moved up to Morecambe to look after his poorly lady. The band insisted he stay with Gina, whilst she’s under the weather. Fingers crossed for her full recovery!
We were down to John W on guitar, Emma on fiddle, me on melodeon, and Brian as caller….. but no drum. This could be a problem.
We decided some time ago that if Bill couldn’t play with us for some reason, we would turn the booking down. What to do?
A couple of hours of messing about with bits of wood came up with a stompbox. It’s simply a box that has a microphone inside. I tend to stamp my feet in time with the music – so why not capitalise on my footwork. The box worked a treat. Okay, it didn’t have the fiddly, frilly drum sound that Bill produces so well, but we had a beat for the band to ‘lock’ on to – and it seemed to help the audience too.

The ceilidh was an Anglo-Chinese wedding…well he was British, she was Chinese. The reception was at a small church hall in Hale, not far from JJ Towers. As is often the case with weddings, it was a late start. We were booked from 8pm until 11.30pm, but the speeches etc delayed kick-off until 9.30pm. It was curious to see one half of our audience dressed in sober, western attire, whilst t’other half were dressed very brightly indeed.

Not all western attire is sober!

The Bride’s brother…I think

The bride and a very proud mother 

Brian, our caller, doing his very best to explain a dance in English to our audience, many of whom only understood Chinese. It worked!

The evening went well. It was extremely hot and our little band were rather pooped by the time we left for home.

No more ceilidhs for a week or two now, there are backpacking trips on the horizon.

Saturday 30th June, Breakfast with Marmalade

Lymm Festival 2012 is underway as I type

This local village event attracts performers and audience from near and far. Timperley in my case. Every year local organisations put huge amounts of effort to help make this gala the success it has grown into today. One of these organisations is Lymm Folk Club run by the very fine Bernard (available for weddings, christenings, bar mitzvahs, funerals, divorce parties etc). Bernard arranges for all manner of events to take place during the festival, including a ceilidh, very many folk concerts, and of course Breakfast with Marmalade.
The Marmaladies, previously featured in the pages of this blog, run a singaround / music session for a couple of hours during festival, entitled ‘Breakfast with Marmalade’. Click here for a better photograph than mine of the Marmaladies in action at Lymm Festival 2009.
Honorary Marmaladies are called on for the occasions when more noise is required, and today I was one of those called to assist.  
Enough of this…on with the day!
The weather was good so I decided to ride Diana (my Dawes hybrid….well what else would you call a Dawes??) to Lymm. Apart from the first mile I followed quiet lanes for the 8.5 mile ride into Lymm, and in particular the Spread Eagle (JW Lees) – the venue for today’s musical bash. The ride took around 40 minutes – it probably took longer to load and unload the bike at each end of the journey.

The Spread Eagle…before the Great Rains

On entering a sunny Lymm village I spotted a most strange looking bicycle. I can’t imagine what it’s like to ride:

The performance was due to start at 12 0’clock, and at about 12.06 prompt the music and singing began. The audience steadily grew until at one point there were so many people trying to ignore us that their numbers could be counted on the fingers of not too many hands.
Seriously though, it was good. The beer garden of the Spread Eagle filled up with festival goers as well as passers-by who just happened to be, er, passing by. Brief rain-showers did their best to interrupt the proceedings but we were there to have fun – a little bit of rain wasn’t going to bother us!

 The performance area..and what a performance.

I was delighted when Lynsey rolled up with the not-so-baby Isabel. They were looking for some entertainment but were sadly disappointed when they realised that they’d be listening to me.

Isabel does lunch….she refused to eat that green egg though 

L – R, Our Bernard with his iron lung, Mike, Clur, Lynsey & Isabel, Alan on geetar 

Rob, singin’ in the rain 

During the lunchtime’s ‘entertainment’ 3 cyclists joined us in the beer garden. These fellas clearly meant business – they ate a huge lunch, loading carbs like there was no tomorrow. They were cycling JogLe – John O’Groats to Lands End. Their original plan was to take 11 days to do the journey, but bad weather conditions had slowed them down so they re-scheduled to take 12 days – that’s still around 100 miles a day. Their next planned stop was the Ellesmere / Overton area of Shropshire where they were intending to camp.

The JogLers with their solo support crew – the father of one of the cyclists.   

I wished them luck as they left, my little commute back home to Timperley was suddenly completely insignificant.
The music and singing finished just after 2pm. Our audience and other singers & musicians either went on to the next festival event – or like me, they went home. I loaded Diana and made for the Bridgewater Canal towpath. Before I could get there the sky darkened, there was a flash, a rumble – and the heavens opened. Big time. Fortunately I’d spotted friend Sue in the village and we stopped to catch up with any gossip and / or scandal – there wasn’t anything worth reporting. The good news was that we’d chosen the stand under a shop awning (yes, Lymm has REAL shops!) which offered shelter from the downpour.
The road became two fast-flowing streams separated by a narrow strip of tarmac. I was so glad to have spotted Sue! Half an hour later the rain eased and I was able to continue my homeward journey. The canal towpath had been re-surfaced in parts so the first part of my bike ride home was fairly clean….then it became muddy. Very muddy indeed.

The resurfaced and not-muddy section of the Bridgewater Canal towpath

Trying hard to avoid the worst of the cruddy mud and puddles I battled on, soon catching up with 5 girls loaded with heavy rucksacks. ‘DofE? I enquired. ‘Yes’ – they had a fairly simple route of Transpennine Trail (disused but resurfaced railway line), some field footpaths, and canal towpath. They were doing well and were pleased to hear that they hadn’t too far to go to their campsite, the Home Farm / Dunham Park Scout campsite.
I left them to carry on their expedition, whilst I carried on Eastwards (now where have I heard that before?) to get muddier. Leaving the towpath to get onto tarmac at Broadheath was a Joyous Thing. No more mud. 10-15 minutes later I was home.
I’m not sure if I was muddier than the bike. Whatever – it was a close-run thing. Buckets of water had the bike looking better than it had for months. A hot soapy shower had me not looking much different, just with less mud.
Another good, if slightly damp day. I really should get out cycling more.

Vital statistics: 16.5 miles with around 250’ of upness:

Saturday, 23rd June. Clogging

A panic email from Les in Chorlton, who is currently Les in Camargue, popped into my Inbox yesterday: The Cloggies who meet regularly at the Beech in Chorlton were to be without a musician for this week’s Saturday morning ‘clog’ – was I available?

Well the answer had to be ‘yes’ and at 10am I was sat in the pub (tsk) as it filled up with clog-wearing dancers.

Dancing clogs (photo nicked from MEN article) 

These Saturday morning sessions were actually lessons aimed at dancers of all abilities. The teachers, Liz Calderbank and her mum, Rachel, were tremendous. They encouraged newcomers and experienced dancers alike, yet pushed them along where needed.

The dances, influenced and in some cases written by the late and great Sam Sherry, are very popular with clog-dancers in Lancashire and beyond. 

Liz Calderbank (red hair) teaching the advanced class – The Clever Clogs

I felt more than a little inadequate, playing for a class of clog-dancers is no easy task. Tunes need to be played very slowly but with absolutely spot-on timing – something I found very difficult. The sound of clattering clogs played havoc with my on-board clock. I’ll bring a metronome next time.

Rachel demonstrating a shuffle

I really enjoyed playing for these enthusiastic cloggies – it was good fun. Perhaps it was good that the bar wasn’t open.

Rachel teaching

  Now then, where can I find an old fashioned metronome?

Sunday, 17th June: Nelson-Peach + 1 on tour

(Not) much planning went into our little excursion into Altrincham yesterday evening. We decided a visit to the local folk club was in order, and with very cheap beer on offer I didn’t need much persuading.

The sight of four new-ish faces at the door of the folk club (at Altrincham Conservative Club….cheap beer) caused a little alarm but it wasn’t too long before the doorman realised we were quite harmless if left to our own devices.

We were made very welcome and spent a pleasant evening listening to a wide variety of monologues, stories, songs and tunes performed by the club regulars. And drinking Joe Holt’s Best bitter at £1-something a pint.

Folk Club regulars in action  

NP+1 were honoured with doing a spot during the first half, and then the closing spot at the end of the evening.

NP+1 lulling the audience to sleep…..

 

…..before waking them up again.

A very friendly club, with an enthusiastic membership, we’ll be going back.

Wednesday 13th June, The Folk Train

 

Folk Train from Chester to Plumley, return.

A couple of times each year ‘we’ are asked to perform on the Folk Train, an ordinary scheduled train journey – but with added entertainment…..if you could call it entertainment.

‘We’ are the world-famous (in Timperley) Nelson-Peach trio, which consists of Rick and Les Nelson and Richard Peach, plus me in a hanging-on beer-drinking ne’er do well kind of way. The combination works surprisingly well, Nelson-Peach do all the clever musically twiddly bits….whilst I drink beer and make a lot of noise. I’m quite happy with the arrangement – especially if I don’t have to drive anywhere.

Anyway, this evening we were performing on the line from Chester to Plumley, about a 40 minute train journey each way, plus a performance in the pub at Plumley.

We travelled to Chester by car, it was more convenient than using the train, the train times just didn’t work for us. Our Folk Train was due to leave Chester at 19.07 and we arrived in good time, it would have been a bit of a bugger if we had been late for our own concert.

 Nelson-Peach +1, waiting at Chester Railway Station

Once on the train we made ourselves at home, commandeering a couple of tables for our musical armoury, before blasting away with some bouncy dance tunes and loud songs. You can’t sing quietly on a train, there’s just too much ambient noise.

 Rick & Les making ‘em have it

Richard and me in action

As the train progressed towards Plumley it was boarded by ordinary passengers plus others who knew about the Folk Trains and wanted to come along for the fun. These events are free for the audience – apart from the train fare.

Arriving at Plumley at around 7.50pm it was just a 2-3 minute walk over to the Golden Pheasant (JW Lees) where we sang and played for around 1.5 hours. Oh, and we were fed and watered – nice butties and very excellent JW Lees Great Budworth Bitter. Lynsey, who knows a thing or two about good beer was hoping to join us at the pub but unfortunately (not so) baby Isabel chose the evening to be poorly, effectively kiboshing her plans. Sorry you missed the beer Lynsey – you’d have liked it. I hope Isabel’s back on form today. Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining, you didn’t have to hear me sing.

Rick & Les in pub mode

 

Richard, with me trying to look as if I know what I’m doing

Oh dear, another beer-drinking song

The full team in action

Yvonne, my favouritist singer, came to see us

We were back on the train at just after 10pm along with our mobile audience from Lymm and Northwich Folk Clubs, plus some ‘normal’ passengers. More songs and more bouncy music took us back to Chester. I’m not sure what the unsuspecting passengers thought – I think some enjoyed it, there were tapping feet, clapping hands…..and they didn’t throw anything at us. Always a good sign.

 Our train back to Chester

Rick, our designated driver for the evening, delivered me home at just before midnight. I was quite pooped, performing on Folk Trains is great fun but it’s hard work. A shower, a cuppa, then zzzzzzzzzzzz.

A successful evening.