Dear all,
Sat up in bed with a rotten case of sneezing, bunged up-ness which is just perfect ahead of lots of work…an exciting week ahead anyway:
Wednesday and Thursday – I’m playing a song with none other than the famous Levellers at Nottingham Rock City and Leeds o2 Academy.
Friday – Quite possibly my favourite folk club gig, the wonderful Kirkby Fleetham Folk Club have their 5th birthday bash with a stunning weekend line up. I’ll be doing a solo set and hanging around so do come to this one.
Saturday – Walsh and Pound sign off in style with a gig at Cecil Sharp House, London featuring two very special guests: the ludicrously talented percussionist Cormac Byrne of Seth Lakeman and Uiscedwr fame and amazing blues guitarist and harmonica player Lee Sankey, rarely tempted out to perform these days since quitting touring the world so this is a great coup for us.
I have no idea why that came out bold but I can’t seem to change it so you can think of it as deliberate! Ah well a busy old time since my last outing so a bit of an update is due. First off, Walsh and Pound played our last engagement with Live Music Now at Guy’s Hospital, London. As you know, Live Music Now has been a wonderful source of amazingly rewarding work as we’ve made a real difference to some people’s lives playing at hospitals, special schools, old people’s homes and others. But I’m not finished with it! I shall be carrying on my work with them with fabulous mandolinist Nic Zuppardi, featured on my album ‘The Same But Different’ so I look forward to that very much.
Next up Walsh and Pound continued the farewell tour with gigs at Wiltshire Music Centre and the Square and Compass in Worth Matravers. Both wonderful gigs in remarkably different ways – the former a lovely arts centre yet acoustic which is a rarity and the crowd were absolutely wonderful. The Square and Compass is a remarkable pub in the middle of nowhere yet somehow packed with people, and we had a lot of fun at that one.
Then I was on Stafford FM for a live interview and performance on the folk show which was great fun and can be heard here: http://staffordfm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Folk-Show-November-12th-Dan-Walsh-Live-Session.mp3. I played More About You and then exclusive tracks – my version of You Can Call Me Al and a new tune set featuring a few reels from the epic final track of the new album.
After a few days teaching and doing various things, I popped over to Kinver to see my old chum James Baskett who has a very fine trio called Clutching At Straws who you should check out. We went along to an open mic and had a great time enjoying some great music and an unusual stand up comedian. I say comedian in the broadest possible sense…well suffice it to say he was not impressed with the audience. Then again I think the feeling was rather mutual…
A busy weekend followed with Walsh and Pound playing a splendid gig at Live at 215 in Sheffield before I drank a prodigious amount of whiskey with our host Dave Eyre, a dangerous man who leads even the most stubborn refusers astray…hmm…then I went to the Festival Organisers conference on Saturday which was a highly useful exercise and I got to play some great tunes with amazing Candian musicians so that was jolly nice. Then Walsh and Pound played the Square Chapel Arts Centre in Halifax on Sunday which was a nice gig and meant I got to see my old chum Andy with whom I wasted countless hours at university watching Red Dwarf and eating toast.
So then a couple of daft things for this week (not that this blog is weekly, but it sounds good when I say that doesn’t it?), I popped into the shop at Guys Hospital to grab a sandwich of some description and encountered one labelled ‘What A K-Falafel’. Wait a minute, oh I see what they’ve done there is…yeah anyway the other thing was in the Co-Op where well here’s the photo:
Why do you need the word drink under every…er…drink?!