Dear all,

Well it has been a mightily busy time since my last blog and I have enjoyed it very much. So to catch up, first up came a gig in Church Stretton in Shropshire at Housmans which was very fun indeed and best of all my grandparents were among those present which was really lovely. Thanks to all those who turned out, especially those who travelled quite a distance which is always greatly appreciated. Earlier in the day I had been in London to continue work on a fabulous Live Music Now project at a school in Brent which involves different LMN acts working at different schools and eventually bringing them all together to perform a disco version of Beethoven at Wembley Arena. Kind of fun. More on this shortly…

Next up was the start of another LMN project…well sort of. Nic and I paid a visit to a care home in Oxford where we will be performing a series of concerts but this was more of a preliminary meeting. Again more on this one shortly…

A couple of nights performing out came next, first up a much welcomed return of a fine Stafford folky open mic type thing called Sit n Listen. I closed the evening after listening to some great stuff from many others and I think a good night was had by all. This used to be a staple of the Stafford folk calendar and it’s great to have it back as a Continue reading “A baby walked…” →

Dear all,

Well my first tour as a member of the Urban Folk Quartet is over and what a marvellous experience it was! We had some wonderful gigs and great times alongside a couple of disasters, the latter of which I shall go into in more detail shortly but I can tell you it was a mighty disaster. But seriously, I am so pleased to be a member of this band and just can’t wait for more tours with them. Thanks to all those who came out to see us, it was a great first tour. I want to give a particular shout out to Charlie Heys who deputised for the about-to-give-birth Paloma Trigas and gave a sterling performance throughout and great company to boot! Charlie will play at Folk On The Quay with us at the end of June too.

So to recap on the gigs since my last outing, a hectic five days saw gigs in Maldon, Fishguard, Chippenham, Market Drayton and Dartford. Well four of them happened, again more later…So Maldon turned out to be an utter belter with a fantastic audience and a wonderful gig. Massive thanks to all who came out and got up and boogied it was such a riot! Fishguard…again more later.

Next up came two solo gigs firstly my first appearance at Chippenham Folk Festival. I had a great time here and some lovely feedback from various emails and facebook messages so thank you Continue reading “The great Fishguard disaster of 2014” →

Dear all,

Good lord it’s been a little while since my last blog I am awfully sorry, I have received a couple of substantial bollockings for not posting one so I shall update you on all that’s been happening and have a little rant. Now calm down, I can feel your excitement.

So the UFQ tour continued after its slightly chaotic opening in Nottingham and an absolute belter of a gig at Lakeside Arts Centre. I have hardly come across a venue who did everything you’d expect like they did – great promotion, lovely staff, terrific venue, great sound. Bloody marvellous and the audience were great to boot. Much the same can be said of our outing in New Longton two days later as Lancastrians gave us a great night and indeed morning as we played live to a studio audience Continue reading “Just tell us the sodding platform!” →

Dear all,

Well UFQ are off and running on our tour as we kicked off with a couple of cracking gigs in Cornwall. First up was Calstock Village Hall at a rather funkily laid out gig which involved a lot of dancing around from us and the audience. Much fun was had although the gig was somewhat marred by Joe’s guitar falling off the back of the stage during a song thus rendering it unplayable…fortunately a nice couple in the crowd managed to source an acoustic guitar for us and even lent it to us for the next night which was very kind of them. Helland Village Hall came next even though the chap we met in the pub in the Continue reading “A few rants” →

Dear all,

 

Well that’s a UK solo tour over. What a jolly fine one it was too and I really did enjoy myself playing lots of new material alongside some familiar favourites. I was glad the new ones seemed to be a hit, means hopefully people will approve of my new record later in the year! I’m curious as to why I always call it a record…after all it isn’t anymore but anyway you get the idea. Lots of exciting stuff coming up, principally…

IT’S SOON TIME FOR MY FIRST URBAN FOLK QUARTET TOUR! Incidentally, I deliberately put caps lock on there to emphasise my excitement. I’ve been having some severe rehearsals with the UFQ and Continue reading “Another tour finished, a band one to come!” →

Dear all,

It’s been a busy old time just lately and much fun had. First up was a gig in Stourbridge, a place I’ve played a few times and this was a lovely gig at Stourbridge Folk Club at Katie Fitzgerald’s before a trip down to Somerset for a gig at Montacute Village Hall which was another nice night and always a pleasure to see the Cooney family. Then came a bit of excellent route planning on my part as my next gig was up in Gloucestershire on the way back to Stafford, I mean how sensible was that? Except of course, things come in and instead I drove up to Stafford to play at a wedding at 1 o’clock and then back down to Continue reading “Keep left, perfectly simple” →

Dear all,

Lots to tell you about from my gigs so far but before I do – I am running a workshop as part of my tour. An all day workshop on clawhammer banjo run by me at the beautiful Gleanings Rural Study Centre in Shropshire. Details can be found on their website: http://gleaningscentre.co.uk/events/. I’ll be going from the very beginning through some more advanced techniques so whatever your ability, do come along.

So then my gigs…Bury and Durham I covered in my previous outing but since then I’m three gigs further down on my UK tour. Baldock Folk Club was a fun gig, always a nice and receptive crowd at this one and this was no exception. It also has the remarkable bonus of a pub landlord who by coincidence is also from Stafford who has an extensive selection of very good real ale and phenomenally expensive whiskey with which he is very generous. I enjoyed that night.

Next up came a trip down to Exeter to see my cousin and I had a bloody marvellous time as we watched ridiculous youtube videos, drank a bit and generally had a bloody good time. From there I headed to Plymouth for my first ever gig in the city and what a gig it was! God bless the B Bar for a cracking night which you can tell from the ludicrous Continue reading “Workshop added to tour” →

‘That’s not how the original sounded’
‘Why don’t you play one we know?’

‘He hasn’t done anything with that song’
‘He’s too good to be playing cheesy covers’

Just some of the things I’ve heard from people when discussing the complicated art of playing other people’s songs. There’s the mob who want to hear the same songs they’ve always heard and utter the singularly irritating second quotation as a question indicating what they essentially want out of any gig is a tribute act or the real thing. There’s the other mob who believe cover versions of well known songs is ‘cheesy’ and beneath artistic merit or at the very least believe that if you’re going to do a cover do something interesting with it.

This last point I do think has some truth. One of the most staggeringly pointless recorded cover versions I ever came across was a cover (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense) of Queen’s Killer Queen by Travis. It was a b-side to a single as I remember and I couldn’t for the life of me see what the point was. It was quite literally a like-for-like cover with no change to anything at all except of course Fran Healy instead of Freddie Mercury and Brian May’s guitar part played by someone who wasn’t Brian May. With every respect to Fran who I do think has a terrific voice of its type, he ain’t Freddie Mercury (who is?) and that type of song was so manifestly unsuited to him. Had I heard it in a pub played by a covers band I’d think they did it reasonably well but released by a hugely well known pop band it seemed odd.

But then that brings me on to the point – surely these things are all about context? In a busy pub on a Saturday night or at a wedding reception, there is absolutely nowt wrong with a band reproducing a lot of very well known popular hits to entertain the crowd. In fact there is a great skill in it and I have spent an evening having a rollickingly good time both as artist and audience member in this context. ‘Too good for that’ – are you serious? Whatever music you’re playing, playing it well and tightly as a band is ALWAYS a challenge and is ALWAYS impressive. Doing like for like covers is certainly not easy.

While we’re at it, there’s also a myth that to be of artistic credibility you need to be writing all your own stuff. This criticism is particularly levelled at the X Factor brigade. For me, the reason most of them are not terribly impressive is not that they don’t write their own stuff…it’s simply that they’re so utterly generic and without any unique musical voice whatsoever and sometimes even with limited competence. But for instance, Alison Krauss is probably my favourite female singer of them all…never written a song in her life that’s been on record. Are you telling me she’s of no artistic merit? Or Sinatra, Presley, Ella Fitzgerald? There is a skill in doing a cover well, make no mistake.

But…outside of a ‘function’ context if you like, and frankly even within one, I do like to hear an interesting version of someone else’s song. I perform several frequently such as Hammer and Nail by Paul Thorn, Sword of Light by Horslips and of course Call Me Al but I like to think all three are very different from the originals and are reworkings in the truest sense of the word, even if you don’t like them! I loved Hothouse Flowers’ version of I Can See Clearly Now, it was just such an imaginative way to perform a song whose format seemed so set in stone. But then again I also regularly encore with a straight ahead bluegrass version of Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms so am I contradicting myself there? Probably.

The point is like all these things, people should judge things on artistic merit and not be blinded by snobbery whether it be inverted or not. As primarily a folk music performer, I recognise the importance of bands and singers out there who keep flying the flag for their traditions and idioms. I certainly wouldn’t want to see no straight-ahead bluegrass bands out there – that’s a sound I want to always be around! Equally, I don’t castigate a bluegrass band if they choose to do a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. If they do it well that’s great too. All these different types of cover versions have a place, I guess much depends on what type of band you’re trying to be and that’s what puzzled me about Travis’s little effort. Surely they are a purveyor of Fran Healy’s type of pop song – so why a random straight-ahead cover of a Queen song?! Then again, I do You Can Call Me Al, but I like to think it’s not particularly a like-for-like cover.

Dear all,

 

My UK tour has begun and the opening two gigs were absolute crackers. First up was a premiere of the Dan Walsh trio with fabulous fiddler Patsy Reid and mighty mandolinist Nic Zuppardi at Bury MET theatre and it was bloody fantastic, we had a wonderful time. The walk from the theatre back to my car was somewhat interesting. Bury on a Friday night is quite an experience I tell you…Anyway the next night it was up to Durham to play in a launderette. Yes you did read that correctly. The Old Cinema Launderette is a cracking wee venue in Durham and it was a lovely gig with a great crowd and I was cooked extremely nice Continue reading “Meeting a hero” →

Dear all,

Well I am now well and truly back in Blighty (sounds like an album name, but don’t worry I’m not seriously contemplating it) and feel I should reflect on a mammoth trip. My first New Zealand tour was a year or so in the making and was certainly not without its little stresses but it must rank as a truly amazing experience with wonderful gigs, great new friends in quite the most remarkable country. Future trips there are planned and I’m sure I’ll have many more great times there but there’s always something special about a first trip that goes quite so well and I’ll always treasure it.

So to start at the beginning…always on the lookout for gigs of course I’ve more recently played abroad rather a lot and I thought I’d look into the New Zealand thing, principally because I have a very good friend from school who moved there eight years ago and it had been an ambition to visit him there. Secondly, some friends of mine did some gigs there so I decided to simply email every folky or appropriate looking venue I could find on the wonderful fantastic remarkable Continue reading “So how was New Zealand?” →