12:15 AM, Tuesday, 22 Oct, Bristol Center, waiting for the 75 bus. At least three pints of milk stout.
If there was such a person as Blackbeard, he drank in the Llandoger Trow. If there was such a person as Daniel Defoe, he met Robinson Crusoe there. On Tuesday's there is a Sea Shanty Session there. I am wearing my waistcoat and a pirate hat. I kind of speak-sing the Jake Thackray number about the sea captain who buries his nagging wife face downwards. I have recently learned that entirely failing to stay in key or indeed tune does not mean I can't sing. It means I sing "freeform jazz". At any rate the room claps. It surprises me every week they let me do this. The person next to me squeezes my arm and says "well done". When it is my turn again I do the Stanley Holloway song about Anne Boleyn. (It is very nearly Halloween.)
11:30 PM, Friday, 25 Oct, Bath Spa railway station.
Egg and cress sandwich from Tescos. A pint of London Pride in the Interval. I allowed myself a cheeseburger at McDonalds before the show; I only eat fast food on my way to a gig. (There was an essay along time ago by someone called How Comic Books Made Me Fat.) The coffee I have to say is surprisingly decent.
I now have my own railway station five minutes from my front door; but the trains don't run after nine at night, so I can get to Chapel Arts in 45 minutes but it still takes me 90 to get home. Luke Jackson gave me a signed autographed copy of his new album, which I will review. As a matter of fact he hugged me. I heard Luke opening for Steve Knightley when he was like, a baby, and now he's singing songs about turning thirty. He does a funny one about meeting old friends who you don't know what to say to and a very moving one about the death of a friend, his tour manager. The song isn't quite about the man or the bereavement, but he pours his feelings into the song's atmosphere. Considered as an instrument, Luke has the best male voice on the folk scene, bar none, and his story telling and song writing is first rate. The rapport with his band (who are old friends) is a joy to behold.
12:30 AM, Saturday 26 Oct, number 70 bus.
Indifferent Guinness at the Fleece, rather interesting Orange Stout at the Seven Stars.
It is hard to tell who has been to a Halloween Party and who dresses like that anyway. The ghost of Church Hill school means that when someone congratulates me on my appearance I think they must be making fun of me but I begin to think the waistcoat and hat thing may actually suit me. I have long feared I am turning into a Local Character.
Two gay guys in the "mosh" danced ecstatically when Mad Dog McCrae did Yo-Ho-Sebastian. A young woman and me spontaneously shout "you might be king of half the world you'll not own me as well" in the Richard Thompson number. Mike the singer tells the audience to hug each other and they do; he claims that two people at one of his gigs once got married as a result. He sings the Rattling Bog and the Bare Necessities of Life. The floor is sticky. The act finishes and I drift into the Seven Stars with one of the shanty people from the Trow who spotted my hat. We find ourselves talking to one stranger who's mate is in a ciderpunk band an another stranger who has had a disappointing night listening to Public Service Broadcasting at the Beacon (there were technical hitches). Mike from the band himself comes in and says hi and shakes my hand and people do selfies. A man with a floral cravat tells me he runs a folk pub in Chippenham.
10:30 PM, Friday 1st November, 10:30pm, Number 70 bus. Coffee and flapjack before the show, milk stout in the interval.
Old man complaining that the number 70 is invariably cancelled without being announced on electronic departure board. Pretty sure electronic boards on bus stops represent guidelines rather than rules.
10:30 PM, Friday 1st November, 10:30pm, Number 70 bus. Coffee and flapjack before the show, milk stout in the interval.
Old man complaining that the number 70 is invariably cancelled without being announced on electronic departure board. Pretty sure electronic boards on bus stops represent guidelines rather than rules.
At the Folk House, Martin Simpson sang Woody's Deportees, which he says is about dehumanisation. He sings it because he wanted to write a song about the Tory party but couldn't find a way to make "what a bunch of lying twats" scan. He sings Leon Rosselson's Palaces of Gold which was originally about Aberfan but is now about Grenville Tower. He sings lots and lots of songs about birds. He really likes birds. There is a kind of free-verse in a lot of his lyrics which can make the tunes similar. "The stone chats and the pippets fly, in spring lapwings and curlews cry but there is something missing there are no dancers in the sky". His guitar sounds like two guitars, or one harp. He does that thing where he puts a metal tube round his strumming finger. He says that he recently had a minor stroke, and the joy at being back on stage is palpable. I think perhaps he speak-sings his songs more than he once did but the guitar playing is perfect. Never Any Good, the song about his Dad, has become his very own Streets of London. He used to sing Chris Wood's atheist spiritual with feeling, but today he sings the Cherry Tree Carol and the Seven Virgins which he says are like Jesus The Missing Years. Someone has clearly told him that Henry Fielding did not write Mol Flanders.
Saturday 2nd November, Park Street Tesco's buying a "deli style" cheese sandwich. The Harr finish their set at the Folk House at 10.30, so I can rush down the hill and catch Kale Deane's second set at the Seven Stars by 11pm. I am rapidly coming to the idea that Stars is the only worthwhile pub in Bristol; not only do they sell an Orange Stout and a Plum Porter but they have signs acknowledging their connection to the Bad Things which happened in Bristol in the seventeen hundreds.
Saturday 2nd November, Park Street Tesco's buying a "deli style" cheese sandwich. The Harr finish their set at the Folk House at 10.30, so I can rush down the hill and catch Kale Deane's second set at the Seven Stars by 11pm. I am rapidly coming to the idea that Stars is the only worthwhile pub in Bristol; not only do they sell an Orange Stout and a Plum Porter but they have signs acknowledging their connection to the Bad Things which happened in Bristol in the seventeen hundreds.
Folk House: I sit next to lady who turns out to be a jobbing actor. She likes Folk Week because it gives the rep company at Sidmouth a break. Sidmouth is the only place in England that still has a rep theatre. She is rehearsing the Snow Queen and we briefly share our love of panto.
I think I prefer the Harr to Lankum. They are not as "out there" and they still do gigs in venues like the Folk House. But they have a similar habit of taking songs you think you know and rethinking them. Slowing them down, so "there's whisky in the jar" sounds like an ambiguous challenge; rewriting the story for the landlady stabs the Wild Rove and steals all five of his sovereign bright. The fiddler says that dendrochronology confirms that one of his instruments is 600 years old. (The band suggests starting a GoFundMe to buy him a new one.) The bodhran (BOW-RON) player is the young guy who briefly turned Show of Hands into a quartet. I think I could happily listen to him play bodhran all night. The vocalist seems to have dropped directly from heaven. Her impatience with the group's banter is not I think entirely faked. The guitarist has just acquired a badge making machine. Someone in the audience thought he said that the merch stand would be selling badgers.
Kale is one of the regular's at the Llandogger sessions. The shanty crew make up most of his audience; they keep inducing him to down pints in one. The regulars in the pub ask for more Irish songs. Some people shout "Mckensie!" rather than "Mcintyre!" in the Night the Old Dun Cow Burned Down. He finishes with his sea shanty about turbo island (the Bristol traffic island where homeless people hang out) and adds a medley of all the songs he couldn't fit in his set. When he finishes, he lines up sea shanties on the juke box so the set carries on after the official curfew. He does not ask me to do a floor spot, which is just as well.
I think I prefer the Harr to Lankum. They are not as "out there" and they still do gigs in venues like the Folk House. But they have a similar habit of taking songs you think you know and rethinking them. Slowing them down, so "there's whisky in the jar" sounds like an ambiguous challenge; rewriting the story for the landlady stabs the Wild Rove and steals all five of his sovereign bright. The fiddler says that dendrochronology confirms that one of his instruments is 600 years old. (The band suggests starting a GoFundMe to buy him a new one.) The bodhran (BOW-RON) player is the young guy who briefly turned Show of Hands into a quartet. I think I could happily listen to him play bodhran all night. The vocalist seems to have dropped directly from heaven. Her impatience with the group's banter is not I think entirely faked. The guitarist has just acquired a badge making machine. Someone in the audience thought he said that the merch stand would be selling badgers.
Kale is one of the regular's at the Llandogger sessions. The shanty crew make up most of his audience; they keep inducing him to down pints in one. The regulars in the pub ask for more Irish songs. Some people shout "Mckensie!" rather than "Mcintyre!" in the Night the Old Dun Cow Burned Down. He finishes with his sea shanty about turbo island (the Bristol traffic island where homeless people hang out) and adds a medley of all the songs he couldn't fit in his set. When he finishes, he lines up sea shanties on the juke box so the set carries on after the official curfew. He does not ask me to do a floor spot, which is just as well.
Sunday 3rd November, gone midnight, walking up Stokes Croft in the dark. Some kind of IPA.
The Thekla is an arts venue shaped like a boat. It may actually have been a boat at one time. It is opposite the Hole in the Wall, which may literally be Stevenson's Spy Glass, although since the Spy Glass was fictional it isn't clear what I mean by literally. There is a man who doesn't go to folk gigs but has come along because he has heard Stick in the Wheel's new album on Radio 6 (I thought it stopped at Radio 5?) and thinks they are brilliant. When the support act sings Brisk Lad he says Stick In The Wheel do this as well a bit too loudly. The group behind me were at Martin Simpson last night. The support (Elspeth Anne) act is traditional, with a shuti box, eerily droning, and an Irish Gaelic song about the Virgin mourning Jesus on the cross; an odd fit for a night club but the audience listened. Stick in the Wheel are stripped back; with a punk cockney delivery of traditional numbers, and the drone provided electronically. They remain as fascinating and unusual as ever.
Tuesday 5th November, much too late. At least several indistinguishable beers and a packet of crisps.
The end of the Concord way cycle path, on the corner by the new railway station. A man looks out of his bedroom window and apologises if his cat made me jump. He is hoping to buy the property and says the Farm is one of his favourite pubs. The shanty folk were drinking beer til late in the outside gazebo. I learn that if you don't de-tune a mandolin between gigs, the tension in the strings can warp the instrument. FFTP are a traditional folk duo with distinctly punk overtones. One of their songs, about getting busted for weed, requires the audience to shout "FREEZE MUTHERFUCKA" in the chorus. Which makes a change from "Macintyre!" FFTP stands for "Freedom for Travelling People". They sometimes claim it stands for something much ruder, involving a venerable religious leader and a niche sexual practice. They mainly play fast moving folk instrumental music, fiddle and guitar. They warn us that one of the tunes will go on for nine minutes, getting faster and faster until all the audience a jumping up and down in time with it. I find I have to concentrate to appreciate instrumental folk (sometimes deliberately say dee-diddle-dee-dum-diddle in my head or tying to count the bars) but this is fun and fast and the vibes are as good as the musicianship. There is a huge gazebo outside but the band are squashed into the corner of a sweaty pub; I came assuming it was Guy Fawkes in heavy coat and scarf. A few people outside have sparklers and I even see what are either marshmallows or very large drumsticks.
Tuesday 5th November, much too late. At least several indistinguishable beers and a packet of crisps.
The end of the Concord way cycle path, on the corner by the new railway station. A man looks out of his bedroom window and apologises if his cat made me jump. He is hoping to buy the property and says the Farm is one of his favourite pubs. The shanty folk were drinking beer til late in the outside gazebo. I learn that if you don't de-tune a mandolin between gigs, the tension in the strings can warp the instrument. FFTP are a traditional folk duo with distinctly punk overtones. One of their songs, about getting busted for weed, requires the audience to shout "FREEZE MUTHERFUCKA" in the chorus. Which makes a change from "Macintyre!" FFTP stands for "Freedom for Travelling People". They sometimes claim it stands for something much ruder, involving a venerable religious leader and a niche sexual practice. They mainly play fast moving folk instrumental music, fiddle and guitar. They warn us that one of the tunes will go on for nine minutes, getting faster and faster until all the audience a jumping up and down in time with it. I find I have to concentrate to appreciate instrumental folk (sometimes deliberately say dee-diddle-dee-dum-diddle in my head or tying to count the bars) but this is fun and fast and the vibes are as good as the musicianship. There is a huge gazebo outside but the band are squashed into the corner of a sweaty pub; I came assuming it was Guy Fawkes in heavy coat and scarf. A few people outside have sparklers and I even see what are either marshmallows or very large drumsticks.
In America, democracy came to an end. I don't know what I would rather have been doing on the night the world ended.
Wednesday 5th November. 10.45 pm. A pint of some kind of IPA and an unexpected half pint of some other kind of IPA. Walking along Stokes Croft and Gloucester Road wondering if I will intersect with the legendary number 75 bus at any point.
This is true. (Everything else is also true, but this bit is true in particular.)
Have just left the Lantern Hall at the Beacon listening to Steve Knightley (formerly Show of Hands.) Steve is the king of the live act. He continues to banter with a Phil Beer even though Phil Beer is no longer there. He has re-invented some of the Show of Hands numbers; a very slow Country Life; a Roots that segues straight into AIG; Cousin Jack, of course. He talks about singing it in a Welsh methodist chapel. The Galway Farmer played flamenco style on a chilean uke. And all the old Show of Hands jokes, of course. (He asked the then foreign secretary William Hague if he could send him a copy of AIG. William Hague replied "no, you can't." What terrible spelling.) But some new ones too: a bluesy parody in which the audience have to call out "honey, he's lying" after the singer promises to come home and be faithful from now on. A superb one partly about immigration and partly about the post office scandal. (Facts don't have feelings but families do/behind all the headlines are lives.) He's worked an aside about the Scottish trade unions who blacklisted Pinochet's air-craft into Santiago. The people in front of me who can hardly contain their exuberance turn out to be the Jolly Grogsters, a very decent shanty band who were at the harbour festival. Steve Knightley is a veritable folk messiah; he's not only the main reason I got into folk, he's the main reason everyone got into folk. He seems to tread a line between traditional and modern without ever seeming to be issues based; and he's been doing it so long the stage is his natural home.
I plod along Cheltenham Road. I plod past the Cat and Wheel. I can see a man with a guitar and a lady with a fiddle through the window. Well, it would have been rude not to. He's thumping Sound of Silence on his guitar and she's fiddling away rather delicately. I think it's an ad hoc arrangement; an open mic night. There about six other people there; someone else does Take Me Home Country Road. Someone always does Take Me Home Country Road. The old folkie who looks exactly like and old folkie says that he recognises me. I promise to come again next week. (Two of the regulars at the Trow sessions had invited me to their open mic as well.)
Bristol. Finding you are intercepted by a folk gig on the way back from a folk gig. Finding the people listening to the band you like are members of a band you like.
Music seems unaffected by the toxicity that has killed pop culture fandom. I never imagined that I would stand up in front of a group of people and sing. I never imagined they would be nice about my singing. Of course, they are laughing with me because I can't sing but am giving it a go, and sometimes because I know some funny songs. Blessings upon you Les Barker: I never met you but I heard you a couple of times. I tried to start a standing ovation after June Tabor's tribute to the man at the Oysterband gig. I like the quote about a fan being someone who is not just "into" something, but "into being into it". The people who are into being into Doctor Who (for example) are increasingly nasty, increasingly defined by the actors and the eras and the fans who they do not like. I was enamoured by the idea of folk music the first time I heard the instrumental piece that used to open Mick and Lester's show on Radio Derby. I suppose by the idea of "Folk" as opposed to the idea of folk music. I believe that people who liked the Sex Pistols and Some Other Seventies Bands used "punk" as a verb: they didn't say they like Punk Music or even that they liked Punk, they talked about Being Punk. In a non-spooky way it becomes a kind of sacrament. Egg sandwiches and orange stout and long bus-rides and empty railways stations. "And you're looking for something you ain't quite found yet." The bands, of course, talk about service stations and Travel Lodges and endless hours behind the wheel of a car. Flamenco singers speak of a moment when something undefinable happens and someone in the audience whispers "ole".
I plod along Cheltenham Road. I plod past the Cat and Wheel. I can see a man with a guitar and a lady with a fiddle through the window. Well, it would have been rude not to. He's thumping Sound of Silence on his guitar and she's fiddling away rather delicately. I think it's an ad hoc arrangement; an open mic night. There about six other people there; someone else does Take Me Home Country Road. Someone always does Take Me Home Country Road. The old folkie who looks exactly like and old folkie says that he recognises me. I promise to come again next week. (Two of the regulars at the Trow sessions had invited me to their open mic as well.)
Bristol. Finding you are intercepted by a folk gig on the way back from a folk gig. Finding the people listening to the band you like are members of a band you like.
Music seems unaffected by the toxicity that has killed pop culture fandom. I never imagined that I would stand up in front of a group of people and sing. I never imagined they would be nice about my singing. Of course, they are laughing with me because I can't sing but am giving it a go, and sometimes because I know some funny songs. Blessings upon you Les Barker: I never met you but I heard you a couple of times. I tried to start a standing ovation after June Tabor's tribute to the man at the Oysterband gig. I like the quote about a fan being someone who is not just "into" something, but "into being into it". The people who are into being into Doctor Who (for example) are increasingly nasty, increasingly defined by the actors and the eras and the fans who they do not like. I was enamoured by the idea of folk music the first time I heard the instrumental piece that used to open Mick and Lester's show on Radio Derby. I suppose by the idea of "Folk" as opposed to the idea of folk music. I believe that people who liked the Sex Pistols and Some Other Seventies Bands used "punk" as a verb: they didn't say they like Punk Music or even that they liked Punk, they talked about Being Punk. In a non-spooky way it becomes a kind of sacrament. Egg sandwiches and orange stout and long bus-rides and empty railways stations. "And you're looking for something you ain't quite found yet." The bands, of course, talk about service stations and Travel Lodges and endless hours behind the wheel of a car. Flamenco singers speak of a moment when something undefinable happens and someone in the audience whispers "ole".
Be more Folk.
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