A herd of gurdies

Cousin Mira's partner Ray with old gurdy-buddies Sam Palmer, Nigel Eaton and Cliff Stapleton, heads still buzzing after the Blowzabella do on Saturday.

Ray didn't play with BZB, but he will be playing the hurdy-gurdy solo for the live orchestral soundtrack to the 1927 silent film 'Napoleon' at the Festival Hall on 30 November. At least, that was his excuse for not coming to our Dansez Français Bal that night ...

And if you want confirmation of just how dangerous this instrument is, just look at Cliff's arm.

Cousin Report #27

There I was, at the Blowzabella do the other night, pretty much minding my own business, soaking up the music and sipping down the London Pride, when I was accosted by this woman asking "are you Michael"?

Well I couldn't really deny it, especially when she said "surname Shade?", and I'm glad I didn't because it turned out to be my distant cousin Mira. We had never met, though we did have a brief email exchange a few months ago, during which we realised we would both be going to the BZB do last night.

She's my great-grandmother's brother's second wife's great-grand-daughter - is there a word for that? She'd been googling for her grandmother, Mary Levin, and came across a photo I'd put up on Flickr a couple of years ago from a Walk I did around some of our Levin places in the East End: I'd tagged the photo with some of the family names, and Google spotted them.

It turns out she and her husband are keen on French traditional music, and he plays the hurdy-gurdy. The world, as they say in Spain, is a handkerchief.

BZB 35 - hit by a Wall of Sound

Blowzabella held their 35th Anniversary do at Cecil Sharp House on Saturday. A packed dance workshop in the afternoon, a four-hour music session in between times, and a non-stop 3-hour Wall of Sound in the evening, with a mix of old and new repertoires all unashamedly for dancing, which we did, unashamedly.

In the photo Jon Swayne and Paul James sing on the pipes, Jo Freya swings on the clarinet, and Grégory Jolivet hums to himself on the hurdy-gurdy. Not to mention Dave Shepherd on fiddle, Barnaby Stradling on bass, and Andy Cutting on melodeon - couldn't fit them all into this picture, but here they are below. What a band!

They brought on too many former members to mention them all here - but it did get rather special when Nigel Eaton, Sam Palmer and Cliff Stapleton were all up there gurdying away together.

There's a new CD - 'Strange News', as in "Strange news is come to town / strange news is carried", a line from the beautiful English traditional song The Blacksmith. If the record is anything like the live performance, it'll be a cracker.

Blowzabella @ Embraud

Embraud (Allier)
Sun 27 Jul

Jon Swayne, Paul James and Jo Freya take to the floor and give it some wellie.

[links and more pics to come]

Blowzabella @ Lewes

Sat 17 Nov
Lewes Corn Exchange
A cracking gig at the Corn Exchange (ie, Town Hall), a few seats round the sides but otherwise played for dancing, which is as it should be - it is dance music, after all. The poor acoustics towards the back of the hall meant that some dancers didn't get such a good deal. As is often the case, the closer, the better, as you can see from the Ladies in Black! Here's some Flickr pix, and their web-site and you can listen on their MySpace, and also buy their CD Octomento and their book of New Tunes for Dancing from Jo Freya.