Dear all,
It’s been a hectic old time since returning from the Antipodes. The remainder of February was mostly spent teaching my wonderful students who waited patiently while my family made our way round the other side of the world! Then gigging resumed with an extremely fun gig with Countrybound. I don’t think I’ve mentioned these guys yet? A little while ago I spotted on a facebook group I’m in for dep musicians that a country covers band was after a banjo player in Durham for a gig and it happened to coincide with one of my trips to Newcastle so I thought, that sounds fun! And fun it very much was so I’ve been doing some more gigs with them. I suppose I spend so much of my time doing my own stuff either solo or in the band and often being the front person, stressing about ticket sales and all that sort of thing…it’s really rather nice to just play rollicking good country, pop and the like on banjo and acoustic guitar! And I get to play with drums! So much fun, so much better than the fake drumkit in Urban Folk Quartet…only joking Tom 🙂
Anyway, speaking of UFQ our spring tour began on March 9th…sort of. I say ‘tour’ – we’re all a bit long in the game and parental to do the old fashioned 30 gigs in 30 days tours of old so rather we pick some of our favourite venues and do a bunch of gigs in a set period and spread them out a little. The first gig was in the lovely picturesque Yorkshire Dales – Reeth to be precise. Sadly it ended up being just a solo gig as poor Paloma was ill and had to bow out and as this all happened the day before the gig, we were unable to source an alternative fiddler added to which Joe being Paloma’s husband and father of their child had other duties too! So a solo gig was had and a bloody good one I must say. It’s amazing how a small team of people can make so much music happen in a tiny place just by getting off their whatnots and doing it. That’s what makes the music scene folks. That and audiences…
Anyway thankfully Paloma was fit to return to the next two gigs in Worcester and Stafford. Stafford was, as always, rather special for me having spent my childhood there and a significant portion of my adulthood as well. Now I live in Shrewsbury and have parental duties I so rarely get to see my Stafford chums so gigs at the Gatehouse Theatre almost seem to serve as get togethers as much as gigs!Â
Between Reeth and Worcester, there was also a trip up to Newcastle. For similar reasons to Stafford this is something I always relish as I lived in this most wonderful city for seven years. I get the chance to return now and again as I teach banjo at the university to the wonderful Richie who is in the current first year of the folk degree which I did back in 1784…He’s a very fine player indeed as well as possessing quite possibly the strongest Northeast accent I have ever heard which is quite an achievement I can tell you.
While there I also had the chance to attend a music night at a pub. I had a night off between playing in Reeth and teaching in Newcastle so my old neighbour Adrian suggested we head over to a music night at a cracking pub called The Black Horse in West Boldon. Think open mic but with jamming actively encouraged! It’s hosted by Paul, better known as ‘Big Red’ who is an amazing character and fantastic vocalist. It was such a pleasure – one thing about being a parent and a professional musician is I don’t really get to go out and do music for nothing but fun anymore. It’s fine, that’s the way it is. But on the rare occasions it can happen again I bloody love it!
So that just leaves me to tell you about Beyonce-gate…
My very good chum Dan Hartland solved the mystery that baffled me all day. Here is my paraphrase of his message to me: Also credited is Michael Price, who is co-writer of Ain’t No Love In The Heart of the City, a song covered by Jay-Z on the American Gangster soundtrack (so they know it) and on which the other writer was …. a man named Dan Walsh.