Hosting the Oysterband at Forest Folk was a very brave decision by Charles Gale. Forest Folk is located in a little scout-hut type building in the hamlet of Boarhunt near Bishops Waltham, with a tiny bar and pool table at the back. Charles had planned to leave some room for dancing but everyone expected chairs (nice, comfy new chairs, by the way, courtesy of the National Lottery).
Oysterband kicked off with a brand new track, 'The Generals are Born Again' which left the audience in no doubt as to their views on war and organised religion. THen they played 'Native Son' an anthemic and supremely dancey number which is a firm favourite with their fans. The cheeky drinking song 'Our Lady of the Bottles' and crazily fast '20th of April' came next. Temptation became too much for some, and a small group of people started to dance at the front, which blocked the view for the seated folkies. Poor Charles had to tell them to sit down, I felt sorry for him, caught in a no-win situation.
The Oysterband slackened off the pace a little with slower songs until half-time. However they were surprised to be interrupted mid-song with Charles thrusting a bit of paper at them with a car registration on. Apparently one of the floor-spot artists, a night-shift worker, had been wedged in by a Vauxhall and couldn't get home to bed! I think it must have been a bit of a culture shock for the band as well, JJ admitting that it had been a long time since they'd played a folk club.
The second half started off with solos by Alan Prosser and Chopper, giving them the chance to showcase their talents. Then the band returned somewhat ironically with 'Another Quiet Night in England' which it certainly wasn't! The band played more of their political songs, then to finish played the irresitibly dancey 'Blood Wedding' to which more fans leapt up to pogo to at the front. Charles was had no chance of stopping them (us!) this time, and sat disconsolately on the edge of the stage till the Oysterband played an encore and finished. They weren't given the chance of a second encore but there seemed to be no hard feelings, and the band came out afterwards to meet the fans and chat.
So many people shook hands with Charles on the way out and thanked him for a fantastic evening that perhaps he thought the Oysterband weren't so bad after all!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Folk Brittannia - BBC4
Have been feeling both mentally and physically exhausted recently, so have not had time to go out much - but have watched lots of telly. So I thought I'd post about the Folk Britannia series on British folk music instead...
1: BALLADS & BLUES
Friday 3 February 9pm-10pm
From the post-war, highly politicised folk clubs to the 1950s skiffle scene that captured the imagination of the nation's youth.
This was rather boring, starting off with American folk music roots - Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the like. All very well, but it's not like the Yanks invented OUR folk music!!
Why did they not start off with Britain at the time music was just starting to be written down, times of trauma when folk songs provided expression of the hopes and fears of the ordinary people - for instance pagan times, Normans v Saxons v Celts, the English Civil War, Nelson, Revenuers, highwaymen...would have been far more interesting. I bet Martin Carthy could really have gone to town.
The programme also really stuck the knife into Euan MacColl, which I thought was rather unfair. Euan MacColl did so much for the 60s folk revival, he was made out to be a real purist but he wrote many 'new' folk songs, beautiful ones too - a very unusual thing to do at the time, including surely the best love song of all time "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". He had a genuine love and understanding of the ordinary working people. There's also worse things to be than a Marxist in my opinion!
2: FOLK ROOTS, NEW ROUTES
Friday 10 February 9pm-10pm
In the 1960s the folk boom takes hold, and bands like Fairport
Convention and Pentangle bring the music into unexpected new places.
Bands experimented with crossover music - tut tut!! But then surely we are a crossover culture - Normans, Anglo-Saxons, Celts (a misnomer in itself), Danes, Jutes, and now Asians, Africans, Eastern Europeans all living here and thinking of themselves as British. June Tabor got sniffy at the drum-and-bass merchants, who are still unwelcome in most folk clubs today, but then she is often accompanied by a piano which as I've said is not really a folk instrument. People in glass houses...
This episode was far more interesting and informative. It was great to hear about Fairport, Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny and the seminal 'Liege and Lief' album.
One of my earliest memories is Steeleye Span singing 'All Around My Hat' - all due credit to them for pioneering folk-rock. Maddy Prior had/has the voice of an angel!
Also to hear about Davy Graham whom Phil Beer keeps mentioning and who wrote the theme music for Folk Britannia - 'Angi'. But if you ask me, Paul Downes plays the
definitive version!!
3: BETWEEN THE WARS
Friday 17 February 9pm-10pm
Folk-rock enters the 1970s mainstream, a political edge returns to music in Thatcher's Britain and, today, two very different scenes see folk music flourishing once more.
Ah, them were't days, the late 80s/early 90s - when I first started getting into folk music without even realising it. I loved Kirsty MacColl's album Kite, I loved the Pogues (even though my sister and I used to tease each other that we fancied Shane MacGowan), and of course I was the Levellers biggest fan back in the days when they were a political band. Nice to see the Levellers getting some recognition for a change.
Wasn't really into Billy Bragg but knew he was a top bloke. If only I'd discovered Christy Moore back then - love his work now, of course. But then folk was a 4-letter word back then.
Laughed at Jim Moray's reception at the BBC Folk Awards - I can well imagine it from them museum-pieces in the audience!! I agreed that certain folk clubs need to be more inclusive - next cold snap they will lose all their old-fogey members!! Folk music is far broader than the finger-in-ear purists think. It is OUR music, the people's music, after all, not exclusively Martin Carthy's or Fairport's style of music. That said, some folk clubs are better than others, and some festivals have a broader scope than others.
Comments/discussion welcome, as always!
1: BALLADS & BLUES
Friday 3 February 9pm-10pm
From the post-war, highly politicised folk clubs to the 1950s skiffle scene that captured the imagination of the nation's youth.
This was rather boring, starting off with American folk music roots - Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the like. All very well, but it's not like the Yanks invented OUR folk music!!
Why did they not start off with Britain at the time music was just starting to be written down, times of trauma when folk songs provided expression of the hopes and fears of the ordinary people - for instance pagan times, Normans v Saxons v Celts, the English Civil War, Nelson, Revenuers, highwaymen...would have been far more interesting. I bet Martin Carthy could really have gone to town.
The programme also really stuck the knife into Euan MacColl, which I thought was rather unfair. Euan MacColl did so much for the 60s folk revival, he was made out to be a real purist but he wrote many 'new' folk songs, beautiful ones too - a very unusual thing to do at the time, including surely the best love song of all time "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". He had a genuine love and understanding of the ordinary working people. There's also worse things to be than a Marxist in my opinion!
2: FOLK ROOTS, NEW ROUTES
Friday 10 February 9pm-10pm
In the 1960s the folk boom takes hold, and bands like Fairport
Convention and Pentangle bring the music into unexpected new places.
Bands experimented with crossover music - tut tut!! But then surely we are a crossover culture - Normans, Anglo-Saxons, Celts (a misnomer in itself), Danes, Jutes, and now Asians, Africans, Eastern Europeans all living here and thinking of themselves as British. June Tabor got sniffy at the drum-and-bass merchants, who are still unwelcome in most folk clubs today, but then she is often accompanied by a piano which as I've said is not really a folk instrument. People in glass houses...
This episode was far more interesting and informative. It was great to hear about Fairport, Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny and the seminal 'Liege and Lief' album.
One of my earliest memories is Steeleye Span singing 'All Around My Hat' - all due credit to them for pioneering folk-rock. Maddy Prior had/has the voice of an angel!
Also to hear about Davy Graham whom Phil Beer keeps mentioning and who wrote the theme music for Folk Britannia - 'Angi'. But if you ask me, Paul Downes plays the
definitive version!!
3: BETWEEN THE WARS
Friday 17 February 9pm-10pm
Folk-rock enters the 1970s mainstream, a political edge returns to music in Thatcher's Britain and, today, two very different scenes see folk music flourishing once more.
Ah, them were't days, the late 80s/early 90s - when I first started getting into folk music without even realising it. I loved Kirsty MacColl's album Kite, I loved the Pogues (even though my sister and I used to tease each other that we fancied Shane MacGowan), and of course I was the Levellers biggest fan back in the days when they were a political band. Nice to see the Levellers getting some recognition for a change.
Wasn't really into Billy Bragg but knew he was a top bloke. If only I'd discovered Christy Moore back then - love his work now, of course. But then folk was a 4-letter word back then.
Laughed at Jim Moray's reception at the BBC Folk Awards - I can well imagine it from them museum-pieces in the audience!! I agreed that certain folk clubs need to be more inclusive - next cold snap they will lose all their old-fogey members!! Folk music is far broader than the finger-in-ear purists think. It is OUR music, the people's music, after all, not exclusively Martin Carthy's or Fairport's style of music. That said, some folk clubs are better than others, and some festivals have a broader scope than others.
Comments/discussion welcome, as always!
Saturday, February 04, 2006
'Daughters of Albion' at the Barbican
What a horrible venue! A concrete and plastic monstrosity in the middle of an urban jungle. Not a good setting for folk music, you might think, and the sell out crowd of hippies young and old didn't look very comfortable. Bill and I hadn't eaten, but there was a queue for the cafe and a bouncer on the door.
However the seats were nice and confortable, and we had a good view despite being in the cheap seats, on the far left at the front. We could see the artists arriving on stage, and as the BBC were recording, were being filmed each time clapping in the background.
The Daughters of Albion were June Tabor, Norma Waterson, Eliza Carthy, Kathryn Williams, Sheila Chandra & Lou Rhodes, with a surprise appearance from Vashti Bunyan. Far from being enslav'd and weeping as in the Blake poem, the ladies were feisty and romantic, performing a variety of songs, some from women composers such as Lal Waterson, Kirsty MacColl and PJ Harvey, some written themselves, and some anonymous traditional songs from the women's perspective. Eliza Carthy was an excellent compere and my favourite of the seven - she has such a powerful, expressive voice and cheerful stage presence. Hadn't seen Sheila Chandra before - she used to be in a band called Monsoon whom I'd vaguely heard of - but was very impressed with her version of Reynardine. Kathryn Williams was very heavily pregnant, and did a rather breathy version of 'This Woman's Work' which is apparently about childbirth. Lucky her waters DIDN'T break on stage - that would have been embarrassing!!
June Tabor sang accompanied by the piano, which I don't quite agree with - it's not a folk instrument, not unless it's a badly-tuned pub joanna! But enjoyed her version of Lili Marlene. Norma Warterson was very good as well, although Eliza did tend to drown her out during their duets. Lou Rodes has a lovely deep voice, think she should have put her shoes on, there's a lot of discarded takeaways and dog poo on the streets of London! Vashti Bunyan was a bit disappointing, she only had a weak voice and she made a mistake during her song, coming in too early on one line. Perhaps she was just nervous though.
The concert had a great atmosphere - you could see that the performers liked and supported each other - and it was nice to feel the sisterly vibes coming from the audience as well.
The ladies got a standing ovation at the end, well deserved too!
However the seats were nice and confortable, and we had a good view despite being in the cheap seats, on the far left at the front. We could see the artists arriving on stage, and as the BBC were recording, were being filmed each time clapping in the background.
The Daughters of Albion were June Tabor, Norma Waterson, Eliza Carthy, Kathryn Williams, Sheila Chandra & Lou Rhodes, with a surprise appearance from Vashti Bunyan. Far from being enslav'd and weeping as in the Blake poem, the ladies were feisty and romantic, performing a variety of songs, some from women composers such as Lal Waterson, Kirsty MacColl and PJ Harvey, some written themselves, and some anonymous traditional songs from the women's perspective. Eliza Carthy was an excellent compere and my favourite of the seven - she has such a powerful, expressive voice and cheerful stage presence. Hadn't seen Sheila Chandra before - she used to be in a band called Monsoon whom I'd vaguely heard of - but was very impressed with her version of Reynardine. Kathryn Williams was very heavily pregnant, and did a rather breathy version of 'This Woman's Work' which is apparently about childbirth. Lucky her waters DIDN'T break on stage - that would have been embarrassing!!
June Tabor sang accompanied by the piano, which I don't quite agree with - it's not a folk instrument, not unless it's a badly-tuned pub joanna! But enjoyed her version of Lili Marlene. Norma Warterson was very good as well, although Eliza did tend to drown her out during their duets. Lou Rodes has a lovely deep voice, think she should have put her shoes on, there's a lot of discarded takeaways and dog poo on the streets of London! Vashti Bunyan was a bit disappointing, she only had a weak voice and she made a mistake during her song, coming in too early on one line. Perhaps she was just nervous though.
The concert had a great atmosphere - you could see that the performers liked and supported each other - and it was nice to feel the sisterly vibes coming from the audience as well.
The ladies got a standing ovation at the end, well deserved too!
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