Well my
friends, it’s been yet another extremely busy week for me, wearing my various
hats for Rotherham Art Events and The Mashers in our solo and duo modes.
It’s been a
super positive week, with new friends being made for both Rotherham Arts and
The Mashers.
So to start
from the beginning of all the activity.
Sunday and Acoustic Rotherham 15 at The Queens in
Rawmarsh.
OK let’s be
honest it was not one of our greatest successes. However, it was still a super afternoon of
music for those who popped along to listen on what was an awful day of weather.
My
particular thanks go to Wychwood who
paddled down the A1 to perform for us.
Unfortunately during the week four of the main artists listed were taken
down by the dreaded throat infection which seems to be doing the rounds. Not fun for those affected, especially in
such damp conditions and given the temperature in the room we were using a
sensible decision to stay away.
The good
news was that
Roy Blackman, straight
from his bed, and also suffering from the throat bug did make it, and produced
a typical Roy set of spoken word and song.
I don’t know how he does it, but he drew the audience in to his songs
perfectly. His CD is available
HERE We are still planning Roy’s CD
launch, and have decided that it will probably take place during
Slamfest at the end of July when the
weather should be fine and Roy will be at his best.
Watch out
for Roy and his CDs at Holmfirth next weekend.
Wychwood gave us a wonderful set of
roots / folk music. This was their
second appearance at Acoustic Rotherham; this time with a slightly different
line up, Debbie and Richard Roe still leading and joined by and in typical
Masher style the brain goes dead and the name is lost. Worse – this young man gave us a couple of
numbers playing solo.
And then it
was down to some great music from the assembled supporters who had braved the
weather, Rob Slow and John Statter, the latter’s dancing was a must see, Sue
and Barrie Sutherland (The Road Crew) I think that’s what they should call
themselves when in duo mode, Kevin Marshall played us a couple of tunes on his
squeeze box, livening up the proceedings somewhat although unfortunately no one
was moved to square dance; and not forgetting my old mucker, Paul Pearson who
kindly popped across with Christine to give us a few songs before heading off
to perform at Wyrd Folk 2, Dave Paskell’s new CD launch at the Riverside.
So while not
one of our busiest afternoons it was a refreshingly different Acoustic
Rotherham. Of course the event was not
helped as I have been so distracted by other matters recently. However, the next two Acoustic Rotherham
events are part of the two Rotherham Art Events Festivals, so hopefully we’ll
return to our full glory for 16 and 17. If you would like to be a part of this then
Email
acousticrotherham@jmucreate.com
Pictures from Acoustic Rotherham 15 can be found
HERE
Tuesday
night the Sutherland Road Crew collected me for a fine evening of Folk Music at
The Red Lion, Braithwell, Folk Club. Once again it was full, and it was so good to
see Keystone Acoustic (Pam and Pete)
taking the trouble to travel from Featherstone to share a few songs with us,
along with Paul and Liz Davenport, Roy Blackman, Ciarán Boyle, and a host of
regulars. Great night Sue – Sue was
standing in as MC for the absent John who was playing with his big full scale
train set and walking, he claims (more like an extended pub crawl).
Wednesday
and a day of study, as we hone in on the right political structure for Rotherham Art Events. Believe it or not following our Meeting with
those who know on Thursday afternoon, we are getting very close to the final
decision. We hope to bring full details towards the end
of next week.
Anyone who
would like to contribute towards adding / tightening up the language of the
Aims Objectives please do so over the next week using the
info@rotherhamartevents.com
Email. Everyone is welcome to
contribute for consideration by the core Committee.You can find the aims and objectives as they currently stand
HERE
On Friday we
had the privilege of finding out more about Myplace from Manager
Francesca. Myplace being that new
building close to the St Anne’s Roundabout, which so many wonder about.
Myplace is a
Youth Centre, and part of the YMCA. It’s
activities are open to all young people in Rotherham. The project is still very much in it’s
infancy, yet is developing fast.
The building
has an impressive range of facilities, from a neat 100 seater / 150 + standing
theatre area, with lighting rig, meeting and activity rooms and a truly state
of the art technology room containing a studio and enough computer terminals to
keep anyone happy. Incidentally, Mick
and I were told that the room was underutilised at the moment because of a lack
of Volunteers to oversee it’s use with the young people. So anyone who has something to offer get in
touch with the Management and they will put you to work.
Myplace also
boasts a very nice Café / Coffee shop with an extensive menu, and the building is
fully accessible to the disabled, throughout.
Overall Mick
and I were well impressed, and our visit certainly laid most of the negative
word of mouth things that we had heard about the building, and it’s use. Personally I see this a failure by Myplace
and perhaps the Council who are one of the Senior Partners to get a positive message
about the building and it’s facilities out into the public domain.
Rotherham
Art Events shall certainly be looking for a partnership with Myplace and hope
to include work by their clients in our Festivals. Especially young people Events that can’t be
staged in pubs etc. or for groups of
disabled people. Find out more
HERE
And then
Friday sort of exploded into one of those standout days.
We
eventually, thanks to Mick, established a connection with the Town Centre Team,
meeting this coming week, text messaging carried on as a phone Call from
Ziggy’s
Workhouse Gym confirmed them as our first major Sponsors. Ziggy’s will be sponsoring the Main Stages at
both Slamfest in July and the Busking Day in September. A fantastic gesture that really gets things
moving. The link to Ziggy's Workhouse Gym can found
HERE
Karl (he
being Ziggy) has also donated a guitar to the cause, we will be raffling the
guitar + of course any other donated prizes, watch out for details of this.
To date we’ve
setting this Community Business up with absolutely no working Capital, but now
we can see the wood from the trees, and can move forward with a bit of
confidence. There are many hidden costs
to setting the Business side and the projects up, so if you’d like to become a
full member of Rotherham Art Events then you would be doing us a huge
favour. You can find the benefits and
details
HERE
And the
excited texts continued, as Mick passed on news of a major donation to RAE as particularly
amongst the Music Community people line up to give support to overall
objectives. Watch out for news of Fund
Raising Concerts heading your way by some of the top bands in Rotherham who are
donating their time and talent to raise funds.
It is fantastic to see Artists being so
prepared to help other Artists.
To complete
Friday it was add to Stagecoach profits again, and mad dash to Town for
ROMP. Another night of great performance
poetry, by my almost flying visit was pass around fliers to draw people’s
attention to the
Banners High Festival. A short visit as I had to charge batteries
ready for the weekend.
My spies
tell me that the second half of the evening was equally as good as the first
half I saw, with all the local favourites supplemented by the best of the
Region.
I’m told
that there was some misunderstanding at the end of the evening, which I hope
will not sour ROMPs relationship with The Bridge as it’s such fine supporter of
the arts in Rotherham.
And so to
the Masher Weekend.
The
Rotherham May Day March was the first one in the Town for many years and had
taken some organising. Unfortunately,
and sadly I think, the Organisers could not find the £100 needed to pay for the
Insurance which would have allowed both a March on the public roads and more
importantly as far as I am concerned a PA.
So it was a
mix of the new and the old. The March
being restricted to the pedestrianized area of the Town, being the new, and the
speeches being delivered by megaphone, the old. Fortunately the Rotherham Red Choir was on
hand to sing a few rousing songs in the freezing conditions, (who would have
thought that it would be so cold in May?) but the Masher was reduced to a
walking role, as his voice would not have filled All Saints Square.
The rousing
speeches warmed us up, particularly the contributions from Gav Roberts and the
PCI Representative at the end. Gav was
in his element, and finished with one of his classic poems. These should be published. For more see Gav at
The Banners High Festival on the 2
nd June. Information and tickets
HERE
Good to see
the Labour Party represented by Ken Wyatt who called for unity amongst left to
fight the Coalition austerity programme.
A sentiment seconded by the PCI spokesman. And as many of you already know it’s
something that we really need to work on Unity of the left.
We sing the
songs, we say the words but at the bottom line our political prejudices get in
the way, and we spend far too much time being suspicious of each Left Group
rather than deliver unity. Personal ego
gets in the way of true Unity. And what
do I mean – well it’s clear, one loses a vote or a decision, so toys are thrown
out of the pram and yet another Organisation is created, and there are just so
many examples of this. It might be
argued that the left is defragmenting itself rather than unifying.
Unfortunately
the young, well not so young, cannot remember the days when the Labour Party,
and the Young Socialist section in particular had a true socialist programme. Kinnock and Blair / Mandelson destroyed this
by ripping true grass roots democracy out of the Party. In truth the battle should be to get true
democracy and a true socialist programme adopted by the Labour Party. Do I wish for too much? One thing is for certain we will not achieve
anything by denying the existence of the Labour Party or ignoring it.
ENOUGH!!! - Pictures from the May Day March can be
found
HERE
A quick
return to base for a rest and then it was make up on and off to the Wath Folk Festival for the “Silver
Roots” Competition.
Greeted in
Wath by the assembled Morris Dancers doing their jigs was a fine way to start
the afternoon, however, please, please can someone do something about
signing!!! Without the Morris Dancers
it would have been hard to know that what has become a Nationally recognised
Festival was going on. No Welcome sign
in the car Park or signing to the main venues.
So it was a
good job that I knew where I was going; The Red Lion.
The timing
of the Silver Roots contest had slipped, we started with a 1:00pm kick off,
slipped to 2:00pm and then finally a firm start of 3:00pm was set. Unfortunate as we had to be finished by
4:15pm.
So time was
really limited.
In that time
we had, eventually, had to fit six acts.
With Keystone Acoustic, Carole Palmer, Heather Woodhead, Gary Hannon, Pete
Swift and Stuart Crew all competing for the top prize of £50.
We set off
with the plan of allowing artists three songs, and I thought it had worked
perfectly, only one of the above had slipped in unnoticed, which rather
embarrassingly lead to the final two performers having to be cut down to two
songs.
Personally I
think that only giving three songs to a performer hardly allows for nerve
settling, let alone giving of one’s best, two songs is highly restrictive, so I
hope that next year more time is allowed for the contest.
And wow, we
were treated to some absolutely brilliant performances. Which is why the time allowed was unfair, as
the artists had clearly put considerable work into preparing for their
spots. I’ve been privileged to have
seen all one of the acts on my travels and I can honestly say that the extra
sharpness under the competition conditions really produced some outstanding and
above normal levels of performance.
Which obviously is what such events are all about.
The lack of
time meant that the Judges, The Masher (that’s me) and Roy Blackman could not
give our comments about the individual performances given and our reasoning
behind the eventual decisions concerning places.
Roy is a
past Master of the Judging game, sending me messages throughout in his secret
shorthand code, while for me this was a first serious judging job, and how
difficult it is, especially faced with such different genres of Folk Music
being placed against each other and with such polished performances.
So here is
Roy’s and I thinking when creating our top four.
First a big
thank you to Pete Swift and Stuart Crew
for entering the Competition. For those
who don’t know, both are stalwarts of the local music scene and have worked tirelessly
for the good of Folk. Both performances
show the strength we have locally in our song writing and music.
Gary Hannon was placed 4th. OK we don’t usually go that far down the
list, but both Roy and I felt that his self-written songs and the polished
performance needed special mention. This
was a performance far and above anything either of us had seen from Gary in the
past, and the songs struck a note with the audience.
And of
course it was very kind of him to give graciously by only playing two songs, so
as to allow us to fit in an additional competitor.
I think we
should at this point make it absolutely clear that between the top three
performers there was very, very little.
All produced outstanding performances that would have graced the main
stage of any Festival in Country.
In third
place. Representing the Black Country
came Carole Palmer. A beautiful singer and song writer of
contemporary songs, not without their touch of humour and irony
This was a
polished performance, stepping the Competition up a peg or two. Not only were the songs perfectly performed
but Carole’s engagement with the audience was first class, a sign of a seasoned
Club singer who could hold their own as the main guest.
We’re so
glad to have heard that following the session that she received so many
enquires about CDs and congratulations for the performance from audience
members.
We hope that
we’ll see more of Carole in the area, and an invitation to appear at an
Acoustic Rotherham event this year has already been issued. It will be great to hear a full set from
Carole. Keep your eyes peeled for news
of when she will be appearing.
The runners
up spot went to Keystone Acoustic. Once again, and I know it sounds repetitive,
but yet again a wonderful polished performance including songs adapted from the
work of local poets, but also self-written material. As a duo it’s slightly easier to be
entertaining – ask one who knows – for while one might be tinkling away on the
guitar the other can make introductions crack jokes, and in the case of Pete
and Pam even pass around visual aids.
We know that
Keystone Acoustic will go from strength to strength; they have already made a
major impact on the local Folk and Acoustic music scene and will be so in the
future.
For reasons
unknown to me, the announcement that the Rawmarsh Masher had cleaned up first
place and the £50 first prize was met by dumbfounded silence by the
audience. But……….
And so to
the Winner. We awarded first place to Heather Woodhead several different
reasons. First and probably the most
important being that the performance of her three traditional folk songs was
flawless. And the songs Heather chose
were not easy. Throughout the
performance you could have heard a pin drop, recognition of the spell her voice
cast over the audience.
A personal
input from me was that I have seen Heather grow as a performer from a nervous
emerging talent at one of the very first Acoustic Rotherham’s, to this current
outstanding level of performance.
Both Roy and
I hope that this victory will really help to bring Heather to the front of Club
Organisers minds as on the evidence of what we heard and saw on Saturday there
are few who can perform traditional songs so well. We also hope that it will also give a boost
of personal confidence to Heather.
Finally,
with so many contemporary songs, even if some were well based within the
tradition, we thought, given that there was so little to choose between the top
three performers we should give the top prize to someone who held up the best
Folk traditions at a Folk Festival.
So congratulations
to Heather. To those placed below, well
parallel, we say, we had to declare a winner, but all three of you were winners
in our minds on the day.
To finish
the Wath Festival section it was so good to see so many friends about this
year, and to see two of my favourite young lady performers Holly Tamar and Catherine
Bindon performing at the Emerging Talent Concert. Rock on stars of Acoustic Rotherham, it’s
great to say, we recognised the talent and had them perform before other caught
on.
And that in
itself marks an improvement in the Festival programming with more recognition
going to local talent needing a bigger stage.
Perhaps though, room might be found for this emerging talent on the
under Bill to some of the big names in the Montgomery Hall for the evening
concerts instead of a Saturday Tea time in a not too big room, I’m sure that
the exposure would be of great benefit to the talent. Just a thought.
Photographs
from The Silver Roots Competition can be found
HERE
Throughout
Saturday my designated roadie had been the much suffering son number one Jack,
and it was great to have a Saturday evening catching up and relaxing with a not
too brilliant Cup Final and a couple of old rubbish franchise films.
So it was up
early on Sunday for our trip to the Filey
Folk Festival. The life of a rock
and roll Folk singer is never dull.
Filey is one
of the growing number of grass roots based Folk Festivals that feature much of
the top Regional talent in the genre and who do it for now’t. This what makes the acoustic music community
so special, indeed as Rock boys have shown in Rotherham as well, the ability
for musicians to come together and create something great.
There was a
chill northern wind blowing as we reached Filey, so paddling and sun bathing
was cut to a minimum, in favour of seats inside the Belle Vue pub. I think cosy best describes the room used for
the music.
But we had a
great afternoons entertainment kicked off by Paula Ryan who seemed have the
complete menagerie of instruments, every time I looked up she seemed to be
playing something different, and what a voice, just suited for her repertoire
of Irish tunes and songs.
Steve
Chapman-Smith then produced a set of his rockin’ roots music. Steve has left the Trubadors to go solo,
which in away is a great pity. On the
evidence of this afternoons performance Steve really does need the foil of the
treble offered by the mandolin and banjo to his heavy guitar and gravel
voice. It’s a personal view.
Banging it
out with a bass drum came Dave Kelly and his band, with some interesting
arrangements of classic skiffle songs.
Great to see such enthusiasm as he marched through songs ranging from
the Wild Rover to Lonnie Donigan. Dave
certainly livened up that deadly post lunch, pre time to hit the pints period.
And then Joe
Solo who has built a reputation for himself in the North of the County singing
his self-penned songs accompanied by a ukulele.
His songs have a contemporary pop song feeling to them, and left me wondering if they
might not have been given better justice if played on a guitar or better by a
Band. Personal choice. However, his final song provided the reason
for why he hads built a reputation for himself as performer as between choruses
he launched into a tirade of jokes and comments that made the final chorus the
Mashers Bloody Rotten Audience seem short……….
I think the song ran for around fifteen minutes. And very funny for all that.
The position
of the stage was then turned around to facilitate one of the Bands going on
later in the evening. And naturally it
was The Mashers who were to be the test dummies for the new position.
Now
throughout the afternoon I had begun to think that John Masher was not going to
make it, however, as I was taking the air, having a fag to you, into view came
John loaded down to by his instruments.
Phew, The Mashers would have their full sound.
I’m not sure
that the new stage positioning worked that well, as the sound played directly
into a corner, and as it was tucked around a corner only those in the twenty
pound seats occupied earlier by The Masher crew could actually see us. OK a blessing for some, but for those wanting
to see Dickie’s master class in how to find multiple variations of the basic C
chord not so good.
Those who
could see us or those we could see appeared to enjoy our forty minutes of
frivolity, and political rant. Of course
we can’t go far without finding someone who has day tripped from the Socialist
Republic, and so it was in Filey as a lady from Anton, was to be seen joining
in with our songs of Revolution and agitation.
We really
enjoyed ourselves as usual and finished John was whisked away again by his
support crew before he was arrested.
Son number
one and I stayed for one more act, Chris Martin, I’m so glad we did. A master class in slide blues, framed in an
entertaining set full of great jokes, which I’ve immediately written down. I certainly hope I’ll be able to tempt Chris
down the A1 to Rotherham to share his music with us. Top stuff, and a pity that we had to slip
away before he had finished, or see the final two acts of the night, Three
Sheets T Wind (who had organised the stage) and Blackstone Edge to finish off.
Crawling
into house at 10:15pm all I could say was phewwwwwwwwwwww……………. Before finding the duvet.
You can find
pictures of the big day out in Filey
HERE
It’s another
busy week ahead. For me Meetings and my
long anticipated visit to the neurologist are on the Diary.
However, my
heads up are – The Myke Barritt Music
Trust has an important EGM on Wednesday night, where the future of the
Trust will be discussed. Anyone
interested is invited especially if you’ve supported Trust events in the last
couple of years.
You can find
all the documents you need for the EGM
HERE
And for you
hardy folkies at the weekend it’s the Holmfirth
Festival, which is a super grassroots event for singers and players if you
can get into the pubs.
All the week’s
events including Florin Gigs and Spoken the spoken word
HERE
That
finishes this mammoth edition of the News Blog.
Whatever you
are doing this week, have great fun, support your local artists and KEEP IT
LIVE
It’s been a strange week for the Banners High Festival; we’ve had some
great local media coverage in The Advertiser, with more to come in coming weeks
in the South Yorkshire Times. 
