Friday 9th November 2007

All quiet on the session front.

I haven't been to all the sessions since we last corresponded, not feeling the May West but they do seem to have settled down again thank goodness. The Wednesday Irish is a smaller select gathering now but in some ways it benefits. Last Wednesday had some cracking good music.

With it being quiet on the session front, I turned my attention to two other projects. One is my custom-built 5-course mandola made by Jimmy Moon which is due to arrive today. Inspired by a similar instrument I saw at The Acoustic Music Company in Brighton, it is slightly shorter than theirs at 19.5 inches scale but still tuned GDAeb. I will report back on how well it works.

The other project is Folkipedia which is maturing nicely but really needs some contributors now to get it off the ground. There are about 260 articles already and as is the nature of these things, they meander all over the place. (Isn't that the idea?) . There is a goodly set of articles on Morris, going back to Sharp and Bacon as references and following up with some of the sides' own sites. There's a wander through electric folk, getting close to 'thrash ceilidh' and 'hypnofolkodelica' at the extremes but really covering the Oysterband, Steeleye etc. The Oysterband led to musings about Oyster Ceilidh Band, Fiddler's Dram, Day trip to Bangor (actually Rhyll but it didn't scan), Duke of Cumberland Folk Club, Whitstable etc. One you start there's no knowing where you'll end up. I did list Folkipedia on Wikipedia's list of wikis only to find it had suddenly vanished again. When I checked, I found:

deleted "Folkipedia" ‎ (Speedy A7; web content with no assertion of notability; content was: '[http://www.folkipedia.org Folkipedia] is a free content wiki for the Folk community. Its primary aim is to be a contributable resource for Folk...

Damn cheek if you ask me and what arrogance! No assertion of notability indeed. But that's wikipedia for you. The other listing on Wikiindex just says 'it's in need of love'. How nice. Come on everybody - group hug and give Folkipedia some love.

What has this to do with sessions? Well, Oysterband have run for three years now, 'The Big Session' which is a touring session with guests. Recordings are available. Alright, it's a tenuous link. This was the review:

One day, after performing thousands of concerts for audiences and playing in scores of sessions just to entertain themselves and friends (in the pub, in the kitchen, backstage ...), Oysterband had a simple but actually quite subversive idea: take the informal, all-pitch-in spirit of the session, put it on the big stage - and see what happens.

Sounds like a good idea and it seems to have worked. Is this the future of session? The Transatlantic Sessions on BBC4 have a similar idea except for stage read television and it's certainly entertaining.

I wonder if anyone still has any of the tapes from the Duke of Cumberland? Check out the link for some nostalgia. Anyone remember Percy's Relics?