Dear all,

I am delighted and more than a little surprised to be nominated for best musician at this year’s BBC Radio 2 folk awards. Very exciting! Do come and celebrate with me in April/May on my annual UK tour. Details below.

26 Apr Bridlington Folk Club, Yorkshire
http://www.bridlingtonfolkclub.co.uk/

29 Apr House Concert, Kirkby Fleetham
mdillon847@aol.com

30 Apr Ropery Hall, Barton-upon-Humber
http://www.roperyhall.co.uk/2015/10/15/dan-walsh-trio/

01 May Plug and Play, Penrith
http://plug-play.co.uk

04 May Cecil Sharp House, London
http://www.cecilsharphouse.org/component/content/article/21-shared/shared-events/3086-dan-walsh

06 May Gatehouse Theatre, Stafford
https://www.staffordgatehousetheatre.co.uk/en-GB/events/dan%20walsh%20%28with%20support%20from%20pistol%20pete%20wearn%29/2016-5-6_20.00/met%20studio%20new?back=2&area=62d3724c-7e49-4b5c-8145-a8c8969d01c0&type=ga

08 May Riverhouse Arts Centre, Walton on Thames (lunchtime show)
https://thelittleboxoffice.com/riverhouse/event/view/7832

12 May Bromsgrove Folk Club
http://www.bromsgrovefolkclub.co.uk/

13 May The B Bar, Plymouth
https://www.facebook.com/events/978488382226409/

14 May Under The Edge Arts, Wotton-under-Edge
https://www.utea.org.uk/

18 May Coronation Hall, Ulverston
http://furnesstradition.org.uk/product/danwalsh/

19 May House Concert, Edinburgh
Email/message for details

20 May Mining Institute, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/348753

21 May Willow Gallery, Oswestry
http://www.willowgalleryoswestry.org/dan-walsh-banjo-guitar-and-vocals/

25 May The Musician, Leicester
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/338802

26 May CB2 Cafe Bistro, Cambridge
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/349436

27 May Hales Club, Market Drayton
http://www.halesclub.co.uk/

28 May Blossoms Gallery, Aberystwyth
http://www.blossomsgallery.co.uk/dan-walsh/

29 May Geldeston Locks, Norfolk (afternoon)
www.geldestonlocks.co.uk/

29 May The Sunny Sailor, Maldon (evening)
01621 856503

30 May Chester Folk Festival
http://www.chesterfolk.org.uk/festival.html

Thanks everyone 🙂

Danjo

Dear all,

Greetings from the beautiful Te Pahu about two hours south of Auckland. Here was the scene of a quite brilliant gig last night at the Sound Lounge which is an absolutely incredible house boasting ingenious accommodation for the guest artists! A little photo of the venue. THIS IS IN SOMEONE’S HOUSE.

So that was lovely and after the gig I stayed up late to skype Cardiff (not the entire city you understand) to say hello to the school pupils whom I worked with for three months on songwriting. They were having a premiere of their work which sadly for obvious reasons I had to miss but it was lovely to feel involved.

Going backwards then, my first gig in New Zealand this time was at the legendary Bunker in Devenport and was great craic as ever and thanks to Hilary and Roger for being such kind hosts. Next up it was up a bit to Orewa to be the first ever guest artist at Hibiscus Coast Folk Club and this was an absolutely lovely gig and Paul was such a wonderful host as well as giving a damn fine opening set on blues uke too! I ran a banjo workshop the next day which was good fun and hopefully inspired a bit of clawhammering before I headed up to beautiful Tutukaka to play Schnappa Rock on Thursday. This was a good fun pub gig as well as eating exquisite food beforehand and once again being welcomed so warmly by my host. This country is wonderful!

Then came Auckland Folk Festival. I played here two years ago and it was a momentous gig that set the tone for an extraordinary tour of packed houses and more coverage than I ever expected. Well I’m pleased to say that this time around the festival was basically a league apart. More stages and sessions and terrific performers once again including a young band called Tweed who I was seriously impressed with and the Aussie bluegrass band Mustered Courage who gave a rip roaring set. Such a great variety of music including Martin and Eliza Carthy so a taste of the UK there as well!

New Zealand continues to delight in a way that no place I’ve ever been quite manages – more to come starting tonight in Hamilton.

Dear all,

Greetings from New Zealand where I intend to blog rather more than recent form. I’m doing a hell of a lot of driving around while I’m here but as any musician will tell you, these drives are frequently broken up by cafe stops which can involve wifi…So this is by way of being a ‘day one in New Zealand’ blog. The journey was as hideous as everyone who has made it will tell you it is. First it was off to London to stay the night to avoid the high blood pressure of relying on trains on the day of flying. Then the 7 hour flight to Dubai which curiously I actually rather enjoyed as I read the papers for the last couple of days, had a (mostly) successful shot at the crossword and watched a couple of episodes of the Big Bang Theory! Then in Dubai as I had a long lay off Emirates kindly give a hotel room to their passengers. This part was nice. Getting there was rather tedious as the passport checking people at the airport took a phenomenally long time to check everyone’s passports, not for Continue reading “Here I am!” →

Dear all,

January is always a strange month for me. For such an invariably miserable sod I actually rather like Christmas – I love that fact that everybody basically switches off for once. If I were to send an email nobody would read it so I don’t – it’s no bad thing. I love the holiday I have at my parents and at new year with extended family. It reminds me of a less responsible time! The only downside of course is reality kicks in and come January there always seems to be a myriad of things to do yet I’m not performing much. So the reason I do my job doesn’t exist but there is an incredible amount of things to do especially when you have a big trip coming up…

More on that in a moment but first I’ll bring you up to speed. I have had two gigs in January, the first a last minute addition to the diary at the Royal Exchange in Hartpury which was a good laugh and then a truly stupendous gig last night at Folk At The Froize in Suffolk. There’s much written online these days about the demise of folk gigs but this gig shows that if Continue reading “A magical place” →

Dear all,

Time really does fly doesn’t it? I can’t believe we are on the eve of 2016 already and the festive season is upon us. Since my last blog the touring season has largely been over but still had plenty to do. The first weekend of December saw a very enjoyable jam and potential new project to arise from it…I shall keep you posted! The next weekend saw a private function that I can’t tell you about owing to whom it was for…but that saw a great jam too! Finally, Urban Folk Quartet finished our gigging year last Friday in Bristol at Colston Hall which was absolutely fantastic with a very lively crowd indeed and then it was back home to my favourite solo gig of all – the good old Market Vaults in Stafford for the annual pre-Christmas silly-length gig. Loved it!

I was also reacquainted with the wonders of trains this month! I had a very entertaining day heading to London for a very brief appointment in relation to my upcoming trip to New Zealand. As they are so cheap I bought a ‘London Midland only’ ticket which means you travel on the rather long but cheap service as opposed to the short but expensive one. I turned up for the 0956…which was cancelled. The next one was at 1056 and thankfully I was not on a tight schedule for the appointment so I made the short trip home and came back for the 1056…which was cancelled. Because Virgin are gits, they wouldn’t let London Midland customers on (perish the thought that the train system was there for customers eh?) and London Midland are crap enough to have two trains cancelled I had to go to Birmingham and then Birmingham to London thus running really rather late.

Then came the hilarious incident. It’s always a little startling to look out of the stationary train window to see the driver crawling underneath the train. An announcement came over the speaker – ‘apologies for the delay to this service but we have just run over a tent’. Marvellous. Fortunately the delay was brief and I executed a masterclass of not dithering in London and was there less than an hour.

So anyway, to finish I should probably do that whole ‘how was 2015’ thing. Well it was busy! Two new albums, hundreds of gigs, a ridiculous amount of miles and precious little sleep! Trips to Canada, Norway, France, Belgium, Denmark, USA and Germany were all highly enjoyable and both my solo album and the UFQ album were very well received. Next year sees more crazy touring including my return to New Zealand and Canada. It’s a mad life and sometimes, I’m not going to lie, I long for one that involves less travel, more time in one place and a tad more predictability. But then I do a gig in some far flung place, people smile (one hopes anyway…), I play music and feel tickety boo and think I have the best job in the world. I am therefore a musician. Could be worse.

Merry Christmas everyone,
Danjo

Dear all,

Well we have reached the end of November so that…er…calls for a blog. What a month it has been! The Urban Folk Quartet tour was manic, tiring but utterly wonderful and I shall more on that as we go. To bring you up to speed…

First after my last blog was a jolly trip up to Hexham to record some banjo on an album of Scottish ragtime music. No really. Thanks to Vic Gammon for asking me! We had a good time chewing the fat about the English folk scene, all things good and bad. Then it was off to my folks for a weekend which is an all too rare pleasure owing to my silly schedule so that was really really lovely. Good old family!

Then UFQ happenings gathered pace as we headed to Ormskirk, Doncaster and Nottingham in quick succession and all three were good fun but special mention goes to the last one – Poppy Folk Club was absolutely wonderful and a sell out to boot. It was also in my view a shining example of how to run a folk club. A fuller blog definitely awaits on Continue reading “UFQ-tastic November” →

Dear all,

I’ve been lucky enough to be an official Deering Banjos artist for some time now and on my recent tour of the US, I was invited for an official tour of their factory and to shoot a couple of videos. One is a performance of Whiplash Reel and the other is an interview about my banjo history. Do check out the blog on the Deering website here: http://blog.deeringbanjos.com/

The videos can be found here:

Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBG9xrF4QCk
Whiplash Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ZiiwbQ4p0

I hope you enjoy them!

Best wishes,
Danjo

Dear all,

Last time I wrote I was about to play in Leek with UFQ…well we did and jolly nice it was too. Many thanks to everyone who came out to the Foxlowe and apologies to the lady I spoke to on the phone the next day believing I’d left my ipod there when it was in fact down the cushions of my sofa at home I discovered shortly thereafter…Anyway not to worry, I then had a rare weekend off which was spent in the company of very nice people which is generally a rather good way to spend the weekend I’d say.

The next few days were spent teaching and a visit to Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to play a concert to children with learning difficulties and their families. It was a lot of fun and involved a lot of jumping around! I was also reminded of the huge pile of crap that is driving in and around Manchester. Loathsome.

Then UFQ were back in action with cracking gigs in Newbury and especially Hitchin which really was a belter. I read all kinds of articles hinting at the gradual waning of the folk scene and Hitchin Folk Club really Continue reading “I was like and he was like…” →

Dear all,

Well it’s been the usual hectic time since I got back from the US. The American flavour continued when I first got back as the wonderful Hip Hatchet came to my spiritual home of the Market Vaults and delivered a sterling gig. I’d heard so much about this guy and he lived up to expectation it’s fair to say. Do check out his stuff.

And so began October and the Urban Folk Quartet autumn tour. The really crazy bit is in November but there’s still a fair bit going on this month. It began down in Somerset at Bridgwater Arts Centre which was a cracking night and has led onto a festival appearance – always the nicest moment of a gig when you come away with another one! The next UFQ action featured a couple of hometown gigs for first Tom at St Andrew’s Church in Bedford and then for me at the Gatehouse Theatre in Stafford on Friday just gone. As ever, my hometown was simply the best and we had a wonderful time and then I headed to the good old Vaults for some celebratory drinks and enjoyed a riotous gig by my good friends Pelo. Not often you see the Vaults like this:

But it’s not just been UFQ. A couple of solo gigs in Shropshire have also happened beginning with an appearance at a charity show at the Hive with several other brilliant performers. By that I mean the other performers were brilliant, I wasn’t saying I was brilliant. That would make me a bit of a prick. A few days later, I had a simply lovely gig at Housmans in Church Stretton, a bit of an old favourite of mine now! Then Live Music Now has taken up a fair bit of my schedule too with a trip to Glamorgan to herald the start of a songwriting project in a school which should be fun! I also found myself in London to play a lovely concert at a school which also involved the BBC…better not tell you more yet in case I’m not supposed to! Finally, I found myself in Bury at Folk Expo which was one of those events where the audience was full of very useful people to impress which doesn’t always make for the easiest gig but it seemed to go rather well!

Now it is fairly known that most professional musicians are worried about money most of the time. Four times a year there’s the lovely moment you forgot was going to happen – PRS royalty distribution. Money just appears it’s lovely. But what does seem somewhat surprising is that my music was used at an aerobics class apparently! Apparently, fast paced Indian-scale banjo reels make for the perfect workout – what are you waiting for?!

I can honestly say in the pantheon of things about England that has riled me in recent years, there aren’t all that many that come close to the reaction of some to this introduction of the 5p charge for carrier bags. I was genuinely flabbergasted last night when I listened to the radio in my car and there was a man who phoned in complaining bitterly about the expense and inconvenience that would be coming his way and how it would make a difference to family budgets. There was then the presenter Stephen Nolan actually refusing to believe a text from a listener saying that she always carried a couple of bags around in her handbag. Yes because that is so unthinkable isn’t it?

It is absolutely clear, and has been for some time, that plastic bags are an environmental menace ending up on landfill sites or worse strewn over canals and countryside. Anything that will genuinely help reduce their usage is surely only a good thing and what’s more the rest of the UK (and Ireland) have already proved that charging a small fee for carrier bags works. The statistics do not lie!

Just what makes English people think that they are entitled to get free carrier bags with every shop anyway. Somebody has to make them and you pay for everything else don’t you?! What next, mushrooms should be exempt from charges because your third son doesn’t like them? The Daily Mirror today ran an article about the monstrosity Continue reading “Plastic bag ‘problems’…” →