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.

Transatlantic Sessions 2010

Sat 6 Feb

Royal Festival Hall

John Martyn sings 'May You Never'. We didn't see him of course - John died last year - but I came across this classic from the first TV series (1995/6) on a Google search, and just had to find an excuse to put it here.

Some of the same crew that started it all off are still going strong - Aly Bain, Jerry Douglas, Danny Thompson (who doesn't he play with?), and we also saw Mike McGoldrick and Bruce Molsky - the line-up's a movable feast, but it was more or less as in this clip from the recent BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards show. Cracking music, although personally I would have preferred a smaller group, and to have heard more from Bain, Molsky and McGoldrick.

The TV series are superb - sort of 'chamber folk' - but unfortunately the BBC doesn't let you see any of the shows online, they're still making a mint from the DVDs. So here's a link to a YouTube playlist that should keep you happy for a while.

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.

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 . . . "

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?]