Chest fiddling

Mon 8 Feb

Trevor Arms, Glynde

Most fiddlers use their left shoulder, but Bob and Ian seem to prefer resting it on their chest. So does Dave, with his back to us - you can just about make out his bow, chest-high.

Why? Does it resonate more? Is it easier to hold? If so, why don't the other 57 million fiddlers in the world (totally unsubstantiated guess!) do it? Is it so they can see where they're putting their fingers? If that's it, why has Ian always got his eyes shut?

I think we should be told.

Saskia and Yogi

Lewes Farmers' Market
Sat 6 Jun

Knots of May

John Harvey Tavern
Sat 2 May

The Knots at Lewes Morris Day.


And here's the Band.

Swan Stepping again

Tue 24 Mar
Swan, Falmer

Valerie steps out. 77 - puts the rest of us to shame! This is now a regular evening - fourth Tuesdays - with some of Sussex's finest; you can see Will and Bob, and hear Dan, Michi and far too many strings. Next month it'll be back to the barn, and a bit more space for everyone.

Swan Stepping

Stepping at The Swan, Falmer
Tue 27 Jan

There are several English traditions of step dancing, none of which I knew anything about. Gypsy and Traveller communities in a number of areas have always stepped. Rosie and Kerrie do Appalachian and other American versions; with the support of a number of local musicians they are now seeing how much English traditional music they can step to. Here's a few more grainy iPhone shots - I'll try to remember to take a proper camera next time.

Martin Carthy at the Oak

Thu 20 Nov
Royal Oak, Lewes

Martin's annual visit. Somehow I managed to grab a front row seat, so the pics are a bit closer-up than usual.

The Sound of Glynde

From the monthly English session at the Trevor Arms, Mon 13 Oct. Some of the old favourites played by some of the old favourites, and recorded in mono on my iPhone. The audio files are hosted at Box.net.

Jim Causley

Thu 10 Jun
Royal Oak, Lewes

Jim is one of the best of the current crop of young folk musicians, and one of the early graduates of the Newcastle University Traditional Music course. We saw him last year with The Devil's Interval, an a capella threesome using powerful and challenging harmonies.

His repertoire is mostly traditional, quite a bit of it from gypsy sources. According to his website he reckons he's Devon Incarnate - not a bad description, musically at least. There's a few tracks from his latest album Lost Love Found on his MySpace site.

Swarbrick at the Oak

Thu 20 Mar
Royal Oak, Lewes

The doyen of English fiddlers, 50 years on the fiddle and still going strong. Dave charmed us with a mix of anecdote and virtuosity; you could feel the love - he's one of the inspirations for the host of fine young fiddlers around today, and one of the reasons there's such an audience for their music. If you don't know the background, have a look at his web-site.

Oysterband

Komedia, Brighton
Tue 4 Dec

Oysterband on their annual visit to the Komedia; the usual mix of punchy folk-rock, same songs as last year but just as enjoyable - or maybe it's just that we know them better?

And this time with a right old Hullabaloo (notice one of my pics on their web-site . . . ). More Hullabaloo - at the Old Market, Hove, from a couple of years ago.

Bellowhead @ Lewes

Town Hall, Lewes
Sat 19 Apr

Big band, big sound. Very intricate and very together, and musically stunning. English traditional music has never sounded like this. There's 11 of them, playing most instruments you can think of, and despite the prominence of the brass section in the line-up (trumpet, trombone, reeds and sousaphone) they produce a wide range of colour and texture and some subtle rhythmic effects, and rarely drown out the fiddles. And no-one could subdue Jon Boden's singing, so don't even think of trying.

We missed John Spiers and Giles Lewin, whose places were taken by Saul Rose and the "annoyingly youthful" Sam (?), who even seemed to be playing Giles' pipes; you couldn't see the joins, which is as it should be. There's a Bellowhead @ Lewes picture-set from row B on Flickr.

If you don't know them, try their web-site and their MySpace, which has a few tracks to listen to; there's also a whole slew of videos on YouTube that should entice you to go out and buy their record - quick, before the next one comes out in the Autumn; there'll also be a live DVD, "coming soon".

The acoustics at Lewes Town Hall are not all that good - it was fine down the front, but the high domed roof seems to suck out a lot of the sound the further back you get. We noticed the same thing happening at the Blowzabella gig in the smaller hall in November. I don't know what the boppers at the back were able to make of it, I'm just glad we got down the front, even if it did mean sitting down . . .

They're touring for a few weeks, then they're doing a load of festivals this summer, so you could treat yourself to an open-air blast as well.

Meanwhile 50 yards away at the Lewes Arms club, Martin Carthy was doing an all-day workshop followed by an evening gig. As Jon Boden put it, "Lewes must be the town with the highest concentration of folk clubs per square capita . . . "

History Lesson

[This was originally in response to a post by Angela for the blogging4educators workshop. See the picture Angela has used to introduce her blog. I commented that I was the little boy looking out of the window.]

It's something my teacher said to my Mum at a parents' evening when I was 11 - "I can't understand how he's done so well - he's always looking out of the window".

A second (or is he third? or fourth??) cousin of mine even wrote a song about it. He's Leon Rosselson - he's a few years older than me, but went to the same school, same teacher, same window, clearly the same History Lesson (lyrics - can't find audio as yet)!

Leon writes in an album sleeve-note: "this song grew out of memories of history lessons at my school on the edge of Parliament Hill Fields. The tedious recital of facts and dates and great men's deeds is just the sort of history our present rulers would like to reinstate."

See Leon's MySpace for several videos.

A Celebration of Local Food & Drink

Sun 17 Jun
All Saints, Lewes

Transition Town Lewes meets Slow Food. Lots of local producers, lots of lovely grub. Several of them are hoping to get in to the Farmers' Market (1st Sat). Lewes musicians put on suitably grave expressions.

Local music for local people

Mon 11 Jun
Trevor Arms, Glynde

Will Duke's English music session, which meets 2nd Mondays, with anything from 10 to 20 or even 30 musicians all going for it hammer and tongs. It's been going for 30 years or more, under one guise or another, formerly at the Ram at Firle, now at the Trevor Arms.

This week there was the usual mix of concertinas, melodeons, accordions, fiddles, banjo, clarinet, bones. A few years back the regulars got some 180 of their favourite tunes together and published them in a gorgeously produced book which they called The Lewes Favourites (what else?). So there's no excuse for not learning some of them so you can play along, is there?

Wed 13 Jun
Fountain Inn, Ashurst

The Sussex Chorus and Harmony session (2nd Wednesdays). English (mostly) songs, with lots of choruses and lots of harmony, just what it says on the tin, really.

The Lewes Arms Folk Club has a listing of Traditional Music Sessions in Sussex - something to suit every taste (well, most). For a broader listing of clubs, concerts and festivals in Sussex see the Folk Diary, free from all sorts of places and also on-line (.pdf format); the current one's red, so you can't mislay it.

I'll get hammered if I don't mention the Royal Oak, which consistently has the best programme of traditional (and contemporary) music of any club I've come across. It's just that I don't think I've been since I started this blog . . .

[wot no pics?]