A Drop of Nelson's Blood

This weekend was a blinder. On Friday night I went up to Bromsgrove with about 20 other guys, mostly morris men (from various sides), for the stag weekend of our side's squire, who is gets wed in a few weeks' time.

So Friday night involved a load of driving, increased by the fact that the best man (or rather one of them!) had had a flat tyre, broke his jack, and was stuck in the middle of nowhere with four polypins of local ale. We went off to rescue him, hindered by the fact that he was on a road and near a village both small enough that they didn't appear in my road atlas. After eventually homing in, he fixed his wheel and we moved on to the scout hut in which we would be staying and had pies, peas and ale for dinner before heading in to town to a fine pub where we stayed well past midnight, singing and playing, much to the amusement of the landlord and staff, who actually said we'd be welcome back — even after we performed the Upton-On-Severn Bendy Straws dance in the bar.

Saturday was mostly taken up by a trip on the Worcester and Birmingham canal (dressed as pirates), during which we were split between two small narrowboats on a sedate cruise northwards, which took us through two tunnels (the second being some 2.5 km long) and back again. This being a morris outing, there were tunes and songs and much fun had by almost all (the exceptions being a couple of casualties from the Friday night who were struggling somewhat). A few jigs were danced (including one on the roof of a boat), and I have now discovered the joys of tunnel sessions. Playing tunes in a tunnel has an amazing acoustic, but what was really awesome was singing shanties, with 20 men all belting out the responses for all they were worth. Great stuff.

After a curry we were back out in town and ended up back in the same pub as before, where even more dances were performed, many songs sung, and the pub pretty near ran out of ale.

By the time we had got home on the Sunday and I was delivering the stag back to his house, we discovered that he had lost his house keys, so the trip was extended to drop him over at another nearby friend's house until his fiancee got home. You can't beat a bit of excitement like that.

Top weekend.

Sing Like an Angel

So on Friday we tried out Didcot's new and shiney Cornerstone arts centre, with its oh-so-interesting orange and grey boxy architecture (it's tempting to refer to it as EasyArts). It's actually quite a nice venue and really ups Didcot as a place to go, particularly given that they have booked some great acts for their first season, several of which we would like to get to. In the end the one act we were able to go to was Mitch Benn star of... well, mostly star of assorted radio shows.

We saw Mitch a few years ago, so knew pretty much what to expect and were not disappointed as he and his band gave us a great evening of music and laughs (and taking the in-laws along, we have a couple of new converts too). It was especially interesting to find that our previous Mitch Benn gig was referred to on several occasions, leaving us to mutter "We were there!" to each other. Clearly it was a seminal evening!

I SAID I BET THAT YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR

There is a fairly interesting article in Rolling Stone, The Death of High Fidelity, which is full of plenty of "well, duh, we knew that" stuff, but includes some good examples of differences in dynamics between recordings.

Coming soon, something to mark the new year, with some thoughts on 2007 and 2008, but probably not today.

C'mon and shake it on baby

On Sunday afternoon we had a nice family outing to a folk music session at a local pub. Yep, that's the whole family, including the Youngling. This wasn't actually the first session for the Youngling, but the last one was a few months back and she has grown so much since then. <3 and I were a little on the nervous side abonut how long it would be before we had to get into lots of baby cuddling, feeding and so on.

We needn't have worried. The Youngling sat in a highchair for ages, just listening and watching with a rapt expression on her face, occasionally shaking her maracas, banging her tambourine or yodeling along happily. Nobody seemed to mind that she couldn't tell the difference between a jig and a reel, and several folk added to the fun by pulling faces at the little monkey. After an hour or so, <3 fed the Youngling and she was OK again for a while longer, though eventually tiredness set in a bit and it was time to take her home (though I was able to stay on a little longer and play some more thanks to <3 volunteering to be on baby duty).

We're now wondering what instrument we should be providing our wee little prodigy. It would be nice to have a fiddler in the family, but perhaps we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves...

Young, Foolish and Chopping Onions

Last night <3 and I actually went out for a dose of live music. A friend kindly agreed to babysit for the Youngling and having safely deposited her, we got to Newbury with enough time to spare to get the drinks in.

The show was a regular (mostly monthly) one hosted by the Mandolinquents, and is billed as a sort of folk and world music evening. This time, the band, a quartet, was down to 75% of its normal strength and the focus of the music was blues, and through the first half we had a good variety of pleasing acoustic music which really showed their singer, Hilary James, in a great light. <3 tensed up visibly when Hilary announced that she was going to sing Down by the Sally Gardens, but relaxed significantly when she did a really good job of the song — though the additional verse (which I didn't notice, not knowing the song very well) didn't really strike the right chord ("she's not exactly Yeats, is she?").

The second half saw the introduction of the evening's special guest and the reason that I had wanted to come to this show: Brendan Power, a fantastic harmonica player who I have previously bought CDs and customised harmonicas from. Brendan was awesome: he is equally at home playing blues, Irish traditional, ragtime or any number of other styles, and was a great fit for the other musicians on stage. The show was clearly being winged to a great extent (as one of the band commented, "not tired from over-rehearsal") and had a great energy and sense of fun.

All in all, a great evening and we came home with smiles on our faces and a clutch of CDs to listen to at home. We may even go to another of these shows some time. And to put the icing on the cake, when we picked up the Youngling, she was asleep and had, apparently stayed asleep all evening. Excellent.

Play 'Brown Eyed Girl', Mate!

There was a nice article in the Washington Post t'other day (I don't read it as a matter of course: someone posted a link at The Session) about what happens when you set a world class classical musician to busk at a Metro station at rush hour. Nothing is proven really, but the description of the reactions (or lack thereof) from the general public are interesting, as are the thoughts of the musician himself.

English Folk Culture Is Not Dead (it just smells a bit)

Friday night was session night down at the "Abby" and saw me experiencing a few firsts. I actually managed to play both of the first two tunes that were started (and, of course, a load more later too) for the first time ever. To enhance this, I don't know the name of the second of these: I must have known this at some point, but on Friday I just played along and was lefte wondering what the tune was. I count this as a (slightly) positive thing! I even managed to start a set while there were still a good few musicians around. Oh, and not so good, I made myself look a bit of a dick by misreading the others during a reel that is often played slowish and then speeded up: I thought that a couple of the others were "kicking off" so upped my tempo only to be left playing far too quickly for a couple of bars. Oops. It was all laughed off afterwards and I don't think half of the people there even noticed.

On Saturday, thanks to a visit from the M-in-L (and the handy babysitting), <3 and I went off to a local ceilidh, which was a hoot. We've been meaning to go to one of these for ages (and I am constantly being badgered by one of the organisers at the pub sessions), so finally we got there. This was a great, informal and very friendly do at a local village hall with reasonable bar prices (and decent beer!) plus a nice format of two set dances in a row, followed by a break, then a couple more dances. The evening was also broken by a display from a local morris side, which provided a good, extended breath-catching opportunity. I'm a real klutz at this sort of stuff, but over the evening a couple of the regular ladies taught me a few of the less-obvious moves, and I think <3 picked up quite a bit too — I'm ashamed to say she danced more than I did this time. We will definitely be going again, though we'll be off at a wedding at the time of the next one.

From Alabama

So I've gone and bought myself a new instrument to learn to play. I was given a ukulele for Christmas, which has had me happily learning a few basic chords, and then spotted this on eBay...

It was listed as a ukulele, and it's the same size as one, but closer inspection showed that there were double courses for the strings and there were eight tuning pegs, despite the fact that it only had four strings at the time. Yup, this was a form of mandolin-banjo: looks like a banjo, but strung like a mandolin. What the hell, I thought, so I put in a bid — and won.

So yesterday I fitted some new strings (a full set of mandolin strings) to the little beastie, tuned up, worked out the fingering, and a few hours later I was playing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and a couple of other very simple tunes. Very slowly.

The woodwork is poorly varnished and the banjo head bit is damaged and needs replacing, but it doesn't sound too bad, and seems to hold its tuning pretty well. It's another fun toy which I should be able to learn the basics of over the coming months, and looks wonderfully "distressed", which seems appropriate for a folkie instrument. And, of course, it's another instrument that nobody takes seriously (though it's a very short step from that to a number of other instruments, like the tenor banjo or octave mandolin).

A Full Weekend

That was a good weekend with a remarkable amount crammed into it but still felt reasonably relaxing

Friday evening saw a trip to a nearby meeting for a get-together with our antenatal group, which is turning into a really nice little social and support group. We had the earliest due date for our baby, but last weekend we were gazzumped by one of the other couples, who produced something like four weeks early. We haven't seen them since, but apparently they are doing well.

After this, I dropped <3 back at home and scooted off to the pub to join in the session which was still running. This was a little quieter this time by approximately one piano accordion and four melodeons. The only squeezeboxes present were a couple of concertinas, which seemed a little odd. I think the morris men must have had some other engagement. One point of amusement was a local drunk constantly requesting that someone sing an Irish rebel song, and bemoaning the fact that everywhere he goes people only know one rebel song. Of course, this level of (non-) success may have been influenced by the facts that (a) this was primarily a tunes session, so not many songs got sung (there are usually a handful though) and (b) what the writers of the rebel songs were rebelling against was the English, and the session was full of (mostly) English people in the heart of England. Ho hum.

A good chunk of the rest of the weekend was spent by <3 and meself pottering about at home and around nearby towns buying DIY materials, food, wool, etc., with the rest involving me fitting scotia around the new nursery floor (there are a few gaps, but not bad overall) and painting woodwork, while <3 chilled and knitted. All in all it went well, and I must admit it was nice to go out for a Sunday lunch that I hadn't cooked!

Still no baby, though.

A Whole New World

Sometimes you just have to love the customer reviews on Amazon. The new Katie and Peter album has spawned some awesome reviews. Probably the top of the heap for my money is the one entitled "Two Monstrous Talents", which is a work of genius. Who can ignore a recommendation like: "How can two monstrous talents such as these, who so shun public exposure, have plucked up the courage to make this bold, vibrant statement of artistic splendour? And lets not forget Peter's contribution either"?

Thanks to the guys at The Session for spotting this.

Ryan's Crib

The last weekend was a good opportunity to unwind and smell the coffee a bit. An old friend of ours came visiting, ostensibly to drop in on Friday's pub session where he wanted to listen to the music and hopefully pick up a tune or two to play on his flute.

<3 was too tired to come out with us (less than 2 months until the due date, so no surprise really), so G. and I want to the pub and listened, chatted, and even managed to join in a bit. This month's session had a rather more eclectic selection of instruments than last time; alongside the usual fiddles, mandolins and squeezeboxes we had a hammered dulcimer and a didgeridoo. Some magic moments, including a rousing rendition of John Ryan's Polka, which the group plays as something of a game with musicians "tagged" in to play a few bars (almost) solo. Lots of Fun. G. then spent some time the next day learning the tune.

The following night, with <3 away elsewhere (I'm giving the impression that she wasn't around all weekend, which wasn't the case at all), G. and I sat chatting and playing cards well into the night, something I haven't done for far too long. It's the little things like this that make life worthwhile.