Rob and I had enjoyed our time at the Alcester Folk Festival last summer and the organisers had been kind enough to invite us back for a slot in their concert agenda for the second day of their Winter Festival.

On a glorious Sunday morning, it was a pleasure to get in the car and set off for the very lovely town of Alcester.  We arrived in plenty of time and, after checking in with the organisers, had a quick walking tour of the village and grabbed a bite to eat.  We returned to a packed Swan Hotel, the venue for the festival, in plenty of time to catch the afternoon’s concert.  This is a singers’ festival and there was a lot of talent on show; favourites would definitely include Hilary Ward , shantymen Sharp as Razors and the excellent Les Sullivan, particularly his final song with friends and wonderful performers Christine Connolley and Steve Last from Herga Folk Club joining him.

We had an enjoyable half hour slot and covered the range of our material – self-penned material, translated French material and some of our songs of the Spanish Civil War.  We received a good reception and had lots of excellent feedback afterwards from audience members and the wonderful MC for the day, Tony Barrett.

Despite receiving an invite to do so, we will not be able to attend the Alcester summer festival this year as we will be playing at a festival in France – which we will say more about once the details are finalised! 

Thanks to Marge and all the organisers at Alcester for being so welcoming!

The Ram Club in Thames Ditton in Surrey is a professionally run club from top to toe.  It is professional in the way it organises its evenings, it is professional in how it sets out its excellent venue, it is professional in how it runs its evenings, it has a professional and informative web-site and it is professional in the way that communicates with artist who play there - including floorsingers whom they have not yet met.  The result is that the club is able to run a powerful programme of top quality artists and fill the room with c100 people on a very regular basis.

It was an absolute joy to play at The Ram Club.  As part of our push to get better known across the London area, we contacted organisers Bob and Maggie for a floor spot and eventually agreed on 17^th February.  What a bonus to then come to understand that the headliners that night were the Jackie Oates Band!

We were only there to do a couple of numbers to start the evening off, but the local technical crew could not have done more for us to get us set us as well as possible.  We arrived nice and early and were well looked after by the home team.   Held in the function room of the Old Cranleighan sports teams, there was an excellent performance area and a large bar where people can assemble before the show and at half time for drinks. 

We played Three Bonny Ships and The Bite.  Both went well and at half time and at the end, audience members and members of the local organising team were very complimentary about our contribution. 

As with every other aspect of the club, the other floorsingers were very good indeed and, in the Jackie Oates Band, one has four wonderful musicians playing the sweetest music. So, other than the M25 playing tricks on the way home and forcing us to go one junction in the wrong direction in order to come back, because of a closed slip road on, the night was perfect. However, after Wednesday’s exertions northwards, we were both dog tired by the time we returned to St. Albans.

Many thanks to all at The Ram Club for a great evening and a warm welcome!

Following our performance at the Southwell Folk Festival last year, the organisers of the Carrington Triangle Folk Club in Nottingham invited us to play for them in early 2012, which we were naturally very excited to do.  The trip was made even more interesting when organiser, Martin Smalley, organised a visit for us to talk on the Alan Clifford early evening programme on BBC Radio Nottingham. 

Readers of this blog will rightly guess that this was our furthest trip north to play a folk club. Both of us were very keen to prepare properly for the trip.  So, we both organised to take a day’s leave from work, do some recording and rehearsal in the morning, and then set off in good time just to ensure the M1 didn’t have any tricks up its sleeve to play on us.

As it turned out, we arrived in very good time, parked up near the radio station and went for a cup of coffee.  As there was a chance that we would be playing live on the programme, we later returned to the car to start unloading instruments.  At this point a local ‘character’ popped up out of nowhere to enquire if we were in a band, were we going on the radio, what sort of band, could he be in the band and were we playing any songs for the recently deceased Whitney Houston? – ‘yes, yes, folk, no and no’.  He then followed us into the radio station for ‘a bit of a warm’.

Martin Smalley joined us for the interview with Alan Clifford and it was nice to have someone with experience in with us.  In the end, we all decided it was easier just to play a couple of tracks from The Bite and talk about the music, rather than set up to play live..  Like nearly all media journalists, Alan was very intelligent and quick and, even though his show was generalist, clearly knew a lot about folk and roots music.  He gently coaxed from us the background to our music, and the experience was very good. 

We then followed Martin through late Nottingham rush hour traffic to have a meal with him and his wife, prior to heading off to the club.  This gave us a good chance to catch up on the local Nottingham Folk scene over an excellent bowl of pasta!

Then we set off for the club, which is held in a room over a wonderful old pub, The Gladstone Inn on Loscoe Road.  Immediately I walked in the door, I met up with my brother who had very kindly travelled down from Leeds to come and see us perform.  He has all the CDs and is always keen to hear what we are up to, but hadn’t ever been able to see us play.  This time, we were close enough for him to be able to make it for a club performance and it was great to see him in the audience later. 

We all went upstairs to a nicely proportioned room to get tuned up and the usual pre-performance preparations, while the club filled up.  I’m pleased to say that we had a full room by the time proceedings began, and the evening was great fun.  The club has a wide range of excellent performers - unaccompanied, duos, and trios, all covering a wide range of musical styles.

We appeared to go down well, sold quite a few CDs, which is always a ‘vote of confidence’ in the evening, and played through until closing.  We didn’t travel with p.a., so we were able to pack up reasonably quickly and, after saying goodbyes to my brother and to Martin, Marion and other club organisers, we hit the road.  We had had an offer of accommodation.  However, we are both ‘home birds’ really and Rob had work the next day but not me, thank goodness.

After a lovely night at the Song Loft in Stony Stratford in late 2011, the club organisers extended an invitation to Rob and me to play support for the Tannahill Weavers at one of their 2012 concert nights.  The chance to both return to the Song Loft and to team up again with the Tannahills, whom we had supported at Ely Folk Club the previous summer, was one we jumped at.

On a bitterly cold Friday night with the M1 more than a tad busy, early concerns of being late, stuck in traffic, abated and we arrived pretty much on time for a tune up and sound check at the Song Loft. 

It was very nice to see the Soft Loft in its concert format.  Most club evenings they meet in a lovely, cosy, upstairs room at the excellent Cock Hotel on Stony Stratford’s High Street.  For concert evenings, they remain at the same venue but have access to a large ground floor function room at the back of the hotel, which is just right for concerts.

The Tannahills had kindly agreed to let us use their p.a. system but when we arrived in the room we felt we didn’t want to disturb their careful arrangements of equipment and, so, decided to play acoustically.  There was enough space on the podium for us to do so, and it all worked very well.

The Song Loft and the Tannahills have pulling power and we ended up with an audience of c65 – 70, which was a nice size.  We started the evening off with 30 minutes of material to showcase the variety of music we play.  Having spent most of the day recording, we were well warmed up, especially on The Bite and Only For Three Months, and our performance seemed to go very well.  The Tannahills were again on fine form with an excellent couple of sets of Scots music, songs and banter.

As was our experience the last time we visited the Song Loft, the club organisers were all very friendly and couldn’t do enough to help us out before, during and after the event.  They said some lovely things to us and the audience about our music, and I am pleased to report that the craic, which we remarked upon in our blog entry after our first visit to the club, was undiminished by the move to the concert room. There are some very witty people at the Song Loft and we fervently hope that we will be invited back there soon. All best wishes to the Song Loft. Thanks Maurice, Brian, Jane and all your fellow committee members for looking after us so well! 

As we have mentioned previously in this blog, we are currently working very hard to get ourselves better known outside our home area.  As such, the night following our full set at The Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans, we were on the road to the excellent Cellar Upstairs club, just to the north of Euston Station in central London.  Our aim was to play a couple of numbers as part of the floorsingers round to support Robb Johnson, who was headlining that night.

Robb is a hugely popular performer and has a big following in the London area.  Hence, it was not surprising that the venue filled up very quickly.  The club organisers really had their work cut out keeping everyone happy, as lots of floorsingers quickly put their name down to play.  

It was nice to wander in and meet Robb again.  We have been at a number of venues with him in the last six months and he now has a copy of our CD, The Bite.  Very satisfying then that he should immediately recognise us as we walked in, and to then say how much he had enjoyed The Bite.  Nice words from a nice man!

By the time the evening got underway, the club was packed.  The club organisers and residents got the evening off to a great start. We were able to do one number in the first half and felt that the song, The Bite, would be a rousing one to do. Having just done the St Albans gig, Rob and I were fully rehearsed up and, if I say so myself, we did one of the strongest performances of The Bite that we have done to date. Following some further and excellent floorsinger spots, Robb Johnson then came on for his first set.  He performed it with his characteristic energy and punchiness, and the audience loved it.   

We had a number of people approach us during the comfort (=more beer) break to ask about The Bite - with one young woman buying a CD purely on the strength of that song. 

It was a great honour, given the pressure on her that evening, for the club organiser to ask us to do a second song in the second round of floorsingers, after the break. To show our quiet and melodic side, we naturally chose Only For Three Months and, with a superb listening audience of the type that visits The Cellar Upstairs, this too appeared to be very well received indeed.

Robb then took over for his second set and, as always, had the place rocking before closing time, and was cheered to the rafters.

After the show, we had more conversations with members of the audience about our two songs, and sold a further CD which, we were told, was going to be a present for someone in Australia – now that would be getting beyond our usual area.

The Cellar Upstairs is a busy and quality folk club and we would love to get an invite to return there are show their members the fullest range of what we do.  Our fingers very much remain crossed!

With the world beginning to get back into harness after the Christmas and New Year festivities, it very much felt right for us to be back out and playing, early in 2012. As such, it was great to be headlining a bill at one of our hometown’s theatres in the first of three ‘First Fridays’ performances organised by Alison at St Albans Folk Music. The idea of the series is to showcase ‘top’ (thank you kindly!) local performers, with support from exciting young folk talent from the local area. King Alfred’s Cakes top the bill in February, with Simon Stephenson supporting and then Malcolm Hobbs is headlining in March, with Marianne Neary and friends supporting.  We were fortunate to have the wonderful young melodeon player Owen Woods supporting us – an accomplished young musician, playing great tunes and with talent to spare.  This is a young man who will do very well in the folk world and it was a pleasure to meet him and gain proof positive that the future of folk music is in safe hands! We were also pleased to have the excellent young percussionist, Dan Garcia, joining us for the evening.  You will recall that Dan played bodhran for us on The Bite and, so, it was great that we could have him with us for this concert. 

Being keen to increase the quantity of live video material on our web-site, this invitation to play in a theatre setting surrounded by friends, seemed too good an opportunity to miss.  So, we were very pleased when our good friend Andy agreed to work with sound technicians at the theatre to record our performance on good quality software and equipment.  From the little we have seen already, we know that Andy has done a great job and we hope to share the fruits of this labour with everyone as soon as we have reviewed it properly.

The evening went extremely well.  We had a good sized audience with a lot of our friends being kind enough to come out to support us.  However, there were also plenty of new faces, attracted by the idea behind the event. 

Having picked up a bad cold over the holiday period and, only three days earlier, had been barking like a dog, my pre-performance concerns were all about getting through the night without a descent into paroxysms of coughing.  So, I was zapping my body with every medicament known to man, right up until going on.  I’m pleased to say that the voice held up very well and there were no ‘Barry White sings folk music’ deep voice moments.

It is always a pleasure to play in a theatre setting.  The luxury of a ‘green room’ backstage to get changed in, have a stretch, warm up the larynx etc., can’t be underestimated – especially when, perforce, in most folk clubs it is ‘get the guitar out of the box, hope it is vaguely in tune, squeeze through the chairs, get on, and perform!’

We sat and had a good listen to Owen’s excellent set, and then we did two forty minute sets of our own – which seemed very well appreciated by all there.  The upgraded facilities at the theatre were also very well appreciated by those in the audience – good tea through to good beer at half time and afterwards, in a cafe setting.  We sold a fair few CDs after the show and got some lovely feedback from audience members and theatre staff alike.

The other luxury about a ‘home gig’ is that you can help dismantle all the p.a. and recording stuff, have a drink with friends, and still be home well before midnight.

Many thanks to Alison and all at St Albans Folk Music and The Malting Arts Theatre for inviting us to play and for treating us so well on the evening.  We wish the series and the theatre every success!  Thanks also to Andy for his kindness and incredible hard work on our behalf.  We are understandably very eager to hear what he has managed to capture. 

This visit to Maidenhead Folk Club marked our last foray of 2011.  I had been along to the club’s folk song competition evening back in April and had met Tony, Pearl and other very friendly members of the club, and had had a thoroughly enjoyable evening.  On that visit, Rob was not able to come along and, so, this was his first trip to the club.  As part of our plan for getting better known in some new clubs, Maidenhead was a very obvious club for us to visit.

The M25 was again kind to us – that 7.00pm-ish period seems quite a good time to be travelling.   As a result, we arrived early before even the organisers had arrived.  So, we had a very nice pint of Brakspears in the bar and waited a brief while until the first members of the club arrived. 

The club is held in a rather atmospheric adjoining room – often used as a skittle alley I think. However, for folk club nights, the lanes are moved to one side to leave a lovely high vaulted room with good acoustics. 

Being December, the room was a ‘bit parky’ (to use the Middlesbrough vernacular) when we first arrived.  However, radiators, gas heaters and the like soon took the chill off it.  Sadly, for a variety of reasons, a number of club regulars were not able to make it and I was very sorry not to make Pearl’s acquaintance again.   

With numbers down a little for this singers’ night, it made space for everyone to be able to do that little bit extra.  The club is full of talented singers, songwriters and instrumentalists.  There were impromptu sessions around some very fine fiddle playing, there were excellent two part harmonies, and there were some excellent traditional and self-penned songs performed.

In addition to performing a couple of songs in the first half, the organiser for the evening was kind enough to allow us to finish the evening off with a set of four songs.  We received some excellent feedback at both the ‘beer break’ and at the end.  By this time the weather had turned really nasty and  we drove home through a constant curtain of rain.

Despite the drive home, this was a lovely way to conclude 2011. We were once again most grateful for the warm welcome club members had given us and we sincerely hope that we can get back to the Maidenhead Folk Club some time in 2012.

Continuing our plan to push beyond our historic area of activities, this was one of a number of planned sorties over the Dartford Bridge to visit the folk clubs of Kent – and a very enjoyable night it was too!  The tricky bits in such evenings are always at the beginning and the end of the night.  First of all, there is the rush to get back to St Albans from work to set off in good time – with much munching of sandwiches in the car.  The long drive home after the evening is fine but then the getting up early to return to work the next morning is tough.  However, I’m pleased to report that our experience made it all worth it.

We have long known of the Tonbridge Folk Club, known to its members as Nellies.  It takes place in a nicely sized room above The Foresters Arms in Tonbridge.  The M25 was kind to us and we arrived in good time to meet and have a brief chat with organisers Roger Resch and Geoff Doel .  As with so many folk clubs, the welcome was warm and there was much appreciation that we had travelled so far to be with them.

The house band struck up promptly at 8.00pm and set the very high standard for the evening.  There was a lot of talent from the floor in the room that night and I was particularly struck by the significant presence of the concertina.  Perhaps because the main act for the evening, Alan Day and Will Fly, had in Alan one of southern England’s great concertina composers and exponents currently playing, this had attracted other concertina players out.  But, whatever the reason, we were treated to some great tunes and ballads sung to concertina. 

The club organiser was kind enough to give us two slots in the first half, and we performed Three Bonny Ships and The Bite, and I am pleased to say that Geoff was able to find another slot for us in the second half to allow us to play Only For Three Months. The feedback at the end of the evening, after we had heard another lovely set from Alan and Will, was very positive and it is our fervent hope that, in 2013, we may be able to return to Nellies and provide their club members with a fuller rendition of the full range of the music forms we perform.

As with the rest of the country, our thoughts are now turning to Christmas and New Year.  We have one last outing this year and that is to Maidenhead Folk Club where it will be lovely to meet up again with organisers Tony and Pearl O’Neill.  Then, early in the New Year, we start with a bang.  We are booked for a big concert on January 6^th 2012 in one of St Albans’ town theatres, The Maltings Arts Theatre.  We will be supported on the evening by young accordion player Owen Woods, who we haven’t heard but have heard lots about.  This is the start of a series, on successive first Fridays of the month, where local folk talent is being showcased.  Our friends King Alfred’s Cakes and Malcolm Hobbs are headlining the subsequent February and March events.  Well done to Alison Macfarlane and to OVO Theatre for putting such an exciting series together.  Hope to see you there!

It is always a pleasure to return to Barnet Folk Club’s Folk in the Foyer and catch up with what organiser JJ has been up to.  There is always a good p.a. system provided and the luxury of a sound technician to help set the ‘front of house’ sounds and the monitors.

JJ started the evening and, to link up with our set, sang Christy Moore’s wonderful Viva La Quinta Brigada.  This was then followed by some more floor spots with self composed songs about local politics and some very fine and sweet concertina playing.

Prior to the house finale of singing Whiskey in the Jar with JJ, we then topped off the evening with a 45 minute set.  Because the club is literally in the foyer of the Arts Depot in Barnet, the audience spreads across a fairly wide area.  This can give an impression that the audience is pretty thin but when you count up the numbers of people one finds that there are many more than in a usual folk club.  This is a nice venue where people can come and get some decent beers and snacks and appreciate live music for free. All the best to JJ and his partner as they continue to make things happen in this corner of London!

One member of the audience known to us was from the BBC.   This is because we are working with him on a potential project for 2012.  Once we have more details we will describe them here -but we are very excited about what might unfold.

We tried again to take video recordings of our material for the web-site and JJ’s partner did some great work and the backcloth of the staging looked good.  Sadly, the little video recorder being used is just not quite up to the job of catching the sound and when loading up into You Tube or whatever, it gives the impression that we have been imprisoned down a well!  I might need to be checking the Christmas sales to see if I can upgrade.

Those who know us are aware that a notable part of our ‘project’ is to bring folk music from the French speaking world to English speaking audiences.  This has been a triple whammy for Rob and I.  We listen to many great new bands, the act of translation helps our French and reveals much about the translator’s art, and our audiences appear very much to like being introduced to music from what, after all, is a kissing cousin tradition to our own.

It may not, therefore, surprise you to know that I have a house full of French music and feel I know the music of many of its movers and shakers.  What an honour it was, therefore, to play on the same bill with BandaBéro, led by the great Dominique Forges, in an event organised through the twinning arrangement between St Albans and the French town of Nevers, in central France. 

Rob and I arrived early at the village hall in Redbourne.  Being a consummate linguist, Rob was pretty fluent in French straight away.  Me? – I understand and read it well, but rarely get the chance to speak it.  So, my early conversations were a bit fumbling.  However, over the course of the evening I am pleased to report that a real and genuine interaction built up between ourselves and the eight-strong BandaBéro group.

Playing in a reasonably large village hall, to an audience of around 50 people, the stage was absolutely packed with the instruments of both bands.  The two of us were playing five stringed instruments while many BandaBéro members play two or even three separate instruments –including two mighty hurdy-gurdies.  So, with a reasonable sized p.a. system added in, the modest sized stage looked like a music shop front window as people began to file in for the concert.

We decided, given the good acoustics in the hall, to play acoustically and we set up in an inner ring of the extensive BandaBéro kit.  All eight members of BandaBéro were kind enough to take places in the audience and listen to our performance.  We played six numbers and the audience very much enjoyed them.  Then it was time for BandaBéro! 

We quietly packed up our instruments behind the back stage as BandaBéro tuned up, and took our places at the back of the hall.  What a fantastic noise then began as they powered out great tunes and songs with wonderful dexterity and skill.  This is a band that should be on every folk festival’s wish list.  There are bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies, violin, accordion, saxophone, all underpinned by a solid and skilful cello line.  Certainly for dancing festivals, especially with the expert tuition of Annie Forges, they would give so much pleasure and interest. They play not only traditional Nivernais music but many of Dominique’s own compositions.  One composition - a really great tune  - was written by Dominque’s young daughter who was one of the hurdy gurdy players in the band!

My favourite French band in recent times has been La Chavenée – good friends of British band Blowzabella.  BandaBéro have a similar sound – which turned out not to be so surprising when one discovers that both bands are friends with other, live not too far from each other, and Dominique used to play with La Chavenée!  They just took my breath away. 

How wonderful it was then that at the break the cello player Audrey and sax player Olivier immediately appeared in front of us offering money with which to buy copies of The Bite.  They said such kind things about our musicality and finesse which, coming from such quality musicians was as gratifying and inspiring as anything I can imagine being said about what we do.  Thankfully, we were able to return the compliments.  I explained that I had tried to buy their CD on-line a couple of months earlier but, because transportation costs had been the same price as the CD, I had decided to hold on until I could buy one from them personally on the night.  In the event, like football team swapping pendants, I am pleased to say we traded copies of The Bite for their new album Y viendrez-vous

Other members of BandaBéro also came up to talk about how they had enjoyed our music.  Dominique was generous in his comments also and mentioned the sorts of song archives he has available to him as the leader of a school for traditional music in central France, offering to make it available to us. As I listened to Dominique talk in French, my understanding seemed to be getting better and better.  He then asked one of the band to go to his personal kit and dig out a different album to give to me – one that was more song based than their own album.  This is a man generous in both spirit and action.

Then, in the second half, we pushed the concert chairs back and made room for a dance.  Those who wanted to watch could, those who wanted to dance could. I was honoured with the first dance with Annie, who showed me how to Bourée.  There were polkas, mazurkas, circassian circles, and even a Breton An Dro.  I was in the mood for dancing and it was a great second half, which everyone seemed enjoy immensely.

Sadly, then the clock ticked round to 11.00pm and it was time to finish.  Thankfully, the local pub stays open until 1.00am on a Friday and, after we had helped them carry their kit out to the van, we were able to take the band members for some beers and ciders and get to know them all even better.  For some of the band, this was there first time in England and a noisy late night pub setting was of more than a little interest to them.  I was able to chat further with different members of the band.  Audrey teased me gently and in a very funny way about my French pronunciation of the word ‘cuckoo’.  I must sound like a cockney to French ears when I do (certainly hearing Audrey’s imitation of me) which is interesting for a lad from Middlesbrough! I also found out that members of the band knew most of my French musical heros and heroines personally – Gabriel Yacoub, Evelyne Girard, Jean Blanchard, Gilles Chabenat and others. 

Sadly, all things must come to an end. However, we were now on sufficiently good terms to pretty much have hugs all round,as we said goodbye to each other. In a recent blog I talked about the barber shop term ‘afterglow’.  Well, I was certainly feeling it that night.  The following evening, they were playing for a dance in St Albans.  Sadly, for important family reasons I knew I would not be able to attend, nor to join them for the musicians workshop being held the following day. So, I had to take my leave of them all. However, I am pleased to say that Rob was able to make it, and when I next see him, I’ll find out if BandaBéro had a second good evening in the St Albans area.

Many thanks must go to Alison MacFarlane and Jan Strapp for the invitation to us to support BandaBéro. They have given us one of the best nights of our lives, musical or otherwise.  It felt wonderful to be in an international community of friendship and musicianship – something that we will certainly never forget.