Thursday 30th August 2007

In the lives of every sessioneer there comes a time for change. That nice cosy venue with the same chair every week for years suddenly gives way to somewhere new! So the Irish session is moving from the Anchor at Wingham which has been its home for quite a number of years now and taking up residence at 'Ye Olde Beverlie' (no, don't laugh at the name - it's a really great pub). By the way, the Y in Ye is usually an adaptation of the Middle English character 'thorn' which had a sound akin to 'th'. The Bev is quite old but 'ye olde' does sound a bit like an affectation. Ye is now genuinely 'The' and Ye is very Merrie England. Nevertheless, a good pub who are enthusiastic about having us there. It will be sad to leave the sticky lino and dusty bench tops but it's time to move on. For roughly half of us, it will be 8 miles further to travel and for the other half it will be 8 miles nearer so that's fair then - balanced over the years. Parking is not brilliant, there's the street or three (yes three!) parking bays outside.

The trial session last Sunday (at the Beverlie) was very well attended. And that really annoys me. It was great to have a large gathering and good musicians and an audience but where are they all the rest of the time? How many times do the hardy sessioneers struggle through storm and flood and earthquake to keep the regular weekly session going? It's not as much fun with just 4 of you but that's what keeps the venue so that the others can 'drop in' when they fancy. I don't have a beef with jobbing musicians who have gigs, or shift workers (where is Jez?) or people with family commitments or illnesses or teachers who have to prepare and mark- just those who can't be arsed. It's as though we're normally infra dig but occasionally they will bestow upon the audience and regular musicians their presence. We've seen before an enthusiastic inaugural session followed by a decline as winter draws on (yes Pete, there is a joke set up for you) and the landlord being less than keen to keep us there. The glint in their eyes is usually profit and who can blame them? Sessions will not be a guaranteed income stream. They're something you accept because you like the idea. God bless all the landlords who like the sessions for the music and the atmosphere.

So, Wednesday evenings will be in 'The Old Beverlie' in St Stephen's Green, Canterbury for the foreseeable future.

Thursday (tonight) in the Bear at Faversham will be a rehearsal for the Festival Band I dare say, back this year by popular demand. They will be at the Preston Street stage on Saturday, hopefully playing as loudly as possible. On Sunday, they will be in the Market Square on the main stage. I have taken the liberty of noting down the main sessions at Faversham Hops Festival (sorry, the International Faversham Hops Festival) on my site (click on the link). In this way, I hope to see more of you in the sessions.

Swale.gov have still not published the programme on the web which is plain daft. Many people from out of the area want to know what's on when before they come over. They won't be able to get a programme easily in advance but they usually buy one when they arrive. They probably won't bother coming this year. Takings will be down, and then the town's economy declines and Faversham becomes a ghost town with tumbleweed blowing through the market and sagebrush cracking the tarmac... Sorry, back to reality. Deal have published theirs by the way for the Deal Maritime Folk Festival 2007.

16th August 2007

I thought I'd better write something so that readers don't think that nothing has been happening. In fact it's been busy with Broadstairs Folk Week where you can find several sessions a day of all different kinds. And if you don't find one - just start playing - someone will join you soon. A special mention for Monday's session which is a bit of a traditional grouping of the normal Anchor Irish crowd at Paul Lucas's session in the Lord Nelson and this year with guest Ben Paley who gave us some fantastic fiddle tunes. A thoroughly nice bloke. There was no session on Wednesday at the Anchor, unless people turned up and started something - it wasn't scheduled anyway. Also a mention for Ralphie and his new band 'Housewive's Choice' who are going down well. In similar vein, those nice but hard to contact people at Free Reed in Derbyshire have released some more goodies, or are just about to. Among the treats are Tufty Swift and Sue Harris with Hammers, Tongues and a Bakewell Tart and John Kirkpatrick with Plain Capers. Later will be some Flowers and Frolics and Old Swan Band (No Reels) and what I'm really waiting for - Roaring Jelly! Well, the Thursday Bear session will go ahead as normal tonight and next Monday should be Tilmanstone.

Wednesday 8th August 2007

It's been a good week for music but not all of it session based. Being the Summer and the festival season, there's a lot going on.

Firstly a big congratulations to Katie Bradley and Christophe who got married on Saturday. Katie had us do a barn dance as part of the celebrations in the spectacular setting of Littlebourne Barn. The other artists appearing there included many of her Blues friends and a good time was had by all. One of the highlights was Katie singing with her sister Caroline accompanied by Pete Gazey on guitar.

Caroline was here for a few days from Ireland with her man Eugene Lambe and the pair enhanced the Thursday Bear session with some fine tunes. Not letting the opportunity go by, some of us got together on Monday for an absolutely cracking session with Adrian O' singing a couple of his songs, Andy and Annie dancing, Eugene singing Tim O'Riordan's Viagra song and Caroline singing a Joni Mitchel song and lots of good tunes. We're hoping they will come back at Christmas so that we can do it all over again.

Normal session tonight (Anchor at Wingham) and tomorrow (Bear at Faversham). Broadstairs Folk Week starts on Friday.