Are Bellowhead the new Fairport?

Yes, yes I say. Recommended to me by Geraldine Stephenson at Whitby, when I was bemoaning the absence of a big complex sound at Whitby, or in folk generally that could match Fairport or say Pentangle. Something fresh and enthusing, not tired and cheesy. Tired and cheesy....this summons up for me how Fairport became. Saw them in their 90s incarnation at the Waterman's. Absolutely nothing of the creativity and vigour of the music that they produced on Liege and Lief or Full House. A depressing experience, one which I have no wish to repeat.

Anyway, came back from Whitby and downloaded Bellowhead's Burlesque. Loved it immediately, especially the instrumentals - very similar to the gutsiness and musicianship of Fairport's jigs and reels. Some of the singing was a bit irritating to begin with, but the vocals have grown on me. Anyway a couple of months after discovering Bellowhead, they hosted the Festival Hall Christmas party - it was brilliant, very exciting....quite a few of the Brentford yummy mummies and a daddy or two were in our group. Di got it together. I hope Bellowhead do another gig there soon though, apparently they are the 'band in residence' or something at the South Bank Centre. I've also listened to quite a bit of Spiers and Boden on their own. Also exciting - lovely songs, mostly arrangements of traditional ones, but made to feel quite modern. More please...sadly no evidence of more gigs at the Southbank centre or anywhere else in London for a while. What's going on?

clocks went forward

Well, for the first time ever, I forgot to change the clocks. Threw my day out a bit, because we were going to go to church and then to the Mac store in Regent Street. Plans changed, as we realised at what we thought was nine o'clock, that it was in fact ten o'clock. Too late for St Paul's, so we went to worship at the church of Apple instead. We got some nice new toys, and hopefully will be able to produce a shiny new blog, and Phil will be able to create shiny new music, too. I will post the new blog address here when it's all set up. Will be much easier to post photos online instead of peering at invisible thumbnail pictures and trying to guess which photo is which.

Other things this week... I said goodbye to my dad's flat in Putney in it's previous incarnation; mainly 70s pale green everything, with multitudinous nicotine stains...Barney's builder's have moved in and are gutting it before transforming it into the lucrative des res that will pay for Dad's care. The bathroom looked particularly strange with a great cavity in the wall where the tap end of the bath had been. Then We were going to meet Jake at Putney station and go for lunch, but there had been a signal failure and Jake got off the train at Barnes and walked to Putney. In the meantime, I went to look at stone for our new patio. It was cols and rainy, but good to see what colours the different types of stone became when wet.

Went to tap on Friday - I'm really getting back into it now, after months of minimal exercise, I am walking to work again, and dancing twice a week...hopefully the pounds around my middle, laid down during the stay in Putney will budge soon.

Thinking of being back home, and about the yummy mummies and daddies of our neighbourhood, I've begun to regret introducing them to Darren! They have stolen him away from us, and he now has no time at all to do even the tiniest job for us. Darren, we need legs for our table!!!

rewind to the 100 club

Last night I went to The Hundred Club; it's at 100 Oxford Street, just in case you don't know. It hasn't changed a bit, ever....alright, there was a small change, in that there used to be a Chinese takeaway at one end of the room. The serving hatch is still there, but serves pizzas and other types of food now.

Anyway, the reason I went, was that Phil was playing there. Yes, Phil played the 100 club. It was brilliant, and I haven't seen Phil play like that for ages. He's been getting together with Swill; Swill of The Men They Couldn't Hang fame. It's been a good pairing; so far, they played a charity to at The Hive bar in Brentford, the bar formerly known as The Stripes, then they played in our extension, and then, a corker of a gig at The Hundred Club. It was weird going there after so many years, I went in the late 80's I think, to see George Melly, but before that, I regularly bunked off school in the afternoons to go and listen to jazz in the afternoons.

Once I went with Katy Hacker, and as we were were going downstairs, a man stopped us and asked us what we thought of Acker Bilk, and Katy (who knew a lot about clarinettists, her dad being Alan Hacker), stated 'oh he's alright, but I prefer Benny Goodman'. We looked around the staircase, and there were photos everywhere of the man we were talking to, Acker Bilk.
Anyway we used to sit down there, smoking and listening to Jazz in the afternoon, thinking we were really cool, and of course we were!

Back to last night, the first to play was Robb Johnson; how excellent he is. What intelligent lyrics and clever, enjoyable music. A treat, but of course I was really there to see Phil play with Swill. They were so good. It was exciting to watch Phil play like that again...before he went on he had said to a young man we sat near that he played 'now and again'. When Phil joined Swill and played a couple of tunes, he really shone. It was an equal pairing. Different to other music Phil is doing where he is very much part of other people's creative control, which is also also enjoyable and exciting to watch, but last night was special. He was getting riotous applause of his own. I was so proud and excited. They were thrilling to watch together, was like they'd played together for years.

Then it was Chumbawumba. Well, I remember them as a sort of political dance music troupe. I think I even had one of their albums, or a tape once, maybe still have ina box somewhere. Anyway last night wasn't what I'd expected at all. They were very musical, folky, acoustic and still proudly political. It was a stirring performance. There were traditional English songs, some with new words, some with original words. There were songs about current hot issues, but it was never 'worthy' in an annoying way, rather, inspiring and proud to be at a gig where issues are kept live, and all to beutiful music. They should play at Whitby Folk Week, in fact all three acts should! What an even more amazing folk week that would be.

Nourishment in York

We went to York for a few days last Friday. As we've been living on stress, sandwiches and takeaways, we needed sustenance, both physical and emotional. Away to the Hay's we went. Aah the lovely journey away from London and up to York. The prospect of seeing Donna, Ken and Harriet and gaining sustenance was exciting and only two hours away. It is so relaxing being with them, and we did all my favourite things, chatting, laughing, eating, drinking, wandering about in lovely interesting places and playing a game or two. Some nourishment was had on Friday when we went to Nando's which is quite glam in York, but the ultimate provision of a balance of the food groups was on Saturday night when we had roast chicken and everything, including pudding. Amongst all the feasting, we went on a ghost walk, visited the Jorvic museum (again!), went on the York Eye, walked around the roman and medieval walls and generally drank loads of coffee and loafed around. Very relaxing. Can't wait for the next visit.

I'm Waiting for my Bill

So far so good. Day by day there are further improvements to the house. A door for the shower, and not just any door, but a clear glass door! The hob was plumbed in today, and Jake cooked us our first home-cooked meal, which as delicious.
The bill is looming though. All other expenses are on hold until we pay the final builders' bill! Not sure how much it will be yet, the three we've paid so far have been calculated by bizarre means known only to architects and genius madmen. Plans on hold are....the garden, now a solidified mud wasteland, needs urgent attention. A holiday with the relatives in Greece would be nice, a new mac would be nice, too. Can't think of the other odds and ends we vaguely promised ourselves when the building work was done, maybe a few days in Ireland.
Oh yes, driving lessons. I knew some of the plans were a bit more sensible! I am trying to learn to drive, although I've put things off since we moved back home. It is very daunting, and expensive, and, as I've begun to ask myself, what's the point when the oil's going to run out in ten-fifteen years time? The only real motivation's been that our yearly trip to Whitby would be so much easier by car. In fact, it's just the second leg of the journey that's a problem. We've tried every permutation by public transport, and when you're laden down with fiddles, guitars, fishing rods as well as a few clothes, none of the options are easy. At the moment, the family vote is for the Coastliner bus from York, so I guess that's what we'll do this summer.
Saw Di today which was nice, she popped in to see the developments and have a chat, which helped us in our settling back in phase.