A Session Diary

I can’t believe how long it’s been since the last post so apologies to any ardent sessiondiary fans who have been deprived of their regular fix! I don’t know how being retired actually gives you less time than when I worked but it does.

Anyway, lots has happened in the world of sessions so it’s worth a foray into the weird and wonderful world of the music session as observed by a humble sessioneer.

Firstly then the regular weekly Irish session which has been the topic of very mixed fortunes over the years. Not only is it still alive but it is reasonably well and sitting up, taking solid food and being cheeky to the nurses. This is due in equal measure to the absolute stalwarts who refuse to give in and the itinerants who are always most welcome. Susanna is back for a visit, Johnny has passed by again and we’ve had a variety of musicians drop in for an odd week. Yes, I know most weeks are odd. A disproportionate number of percussionists but that was OK. Honest, it was. They could keep time and everything. Without counting out loud!

One highlight was a visit by Fred the banjo (Freddie Legon) and his wife – a one time banjo player with Humphrey Littleton among others who enjoyed what we did. We discovered after he’d left that he’d put a pot behind the bar for all the musicians to have a drink on him. What a star! Sadly no longer playing because of Parkinson’s but a legend in his time. The audiences have become somewhat more appreciative of late so maybe things are looking up for the diddly-eye music :-)

Nice to see Ford back with us as well although we’ve lost a couple of regulars recently. Well, not lost, more like misplaced. I’m sure they’ll turn up somewhere.

Absolute scandal that the Hops Festival this year was not in any way shape or form either family or folk friendly. Several people have remarked on it. One or two without using expletives which shows great restraint and an education. No sessions organised at all and precious few folk bands. Wheeler Street got 16:00 on Sunday – great slot guys! If it’s like that again next year, I’m not going.

Still we pitched up where there was allegedly some kind of event (at the Bull – how far out can you get?). It turned out to be a sing-around in the garden. From what I heard it was a finger-in-the-ear, have-you-brought-your-copy-of-the-folk-book-of-penguins. All together now “page 97 – all 23 verses as slow as you can” kind of event so we slipped away before being spotted.

Barbs and I went in the bar, blagged a corner and got the landlords blessing to play. I had to leave after an hour and a half but I heard it grew and grew and was still going 5 hours later. Good on yer!

Broadstairs was ….. well, Broadstairs. Good sessions with Paul Lucas as usual and a couple of nice days. One with Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham and the other with Chris Taylor. Usual crowd in the Nelson. What more can be said?

The Tales continues to be an enjoyable if rather bizarre session at times. Where else could you hear a elderly transvestite singing parodies of Irish songs, Oops I did it again sung by a male with a 5-string banjo, Greek bouzouki music on a tenor banjo and somewhere a load of Irish tunes played very well.

Well just a reminder that this weekend is Deal festival and apparently I’m leading a session in the Ship from 2 – 5 on Saturday so if you want to pop in for some tunes, I’d be delighted to see you. It’ll be a mixed, whatever-happens session and I’ll probably lead mostly English. Unless a large Irish contingent turns up of course :-)

Right! Off to the George for the regular weekly Irish.

Whither Sessions? There are sessions happening all around us it seems but some are unfeasibly far away (Sheffield!) or I think Lewes is probably  a tad far especially at this time of year although some hardy souls will travel great distances to sessions and God bless them. The local sessions are really a bit of an oddity and definitely have ‘flavours’ or shades. Much like the protestant church, all believe in ostensibly the same thing but like to do it their way. You can imagine the Methodist sessioneers with fire and brimstone hurling damnation on those who stray from the straight and narrow through to the evangelists sessioneers – the happy clappy brigade who bring cheer to every gathering and are more likely to be accompanied by dogs on string and some avant garde approaches to what we might call music.  I prefer to claim agnosticism.

Just as with the church, there is a definite polarisation to these prayer meetings so that the crossover is not great except at the great synods of Broadstairs or Sidmouth and a little occasional community work in between. Note to self. Must get out more.

There was a definite news embargo from the Shackled Yak (or Well Intent) for a while. From the Hops festival until now really. The press secretary asked for a cloak of secrecy while the Watershed Band caterpillar went into a chrysalis and emerged as ….. the caterpillar Abbey Capers. Without Six String Shelagh from what I gather. Also, I am forbidden to mention in these humble pages when they who must not be named will be away as it apparently might attract burglars. Of course that includes any Thursday night as everyone knows. Doh! I’ve given the game away.

The Bear Cubs go from strength to strength and the Conyer Session (at Teynham) on a Tuesday is well received and attended. There is a bit of a flux with some of the sessioneers and part of that may be the format, although I have to say that those who have started coming recently like Pip and Jo, regard it as a proper session so are not gurt afear’d to dive in with a set of gorgeous tunes when the fancy takes them. Once that happens, others follow suit.

The Festival Band has done couple of Charity Evenings recently which have been good fun. Burmese Orphans at St Margaret at Cliff and Help for Heroes at the QE School. I really enjoy the big band sound with Bass, drum and Lead guitar. Thanks to Larry Klatzko for introducing me to the Mackie SM150 personal monitor / active speaker. Now I can hear myself whatever the mix on the foldback is doing!

What of the Irish sessions? Well, they continue to hang on by their fingertips and refuse to give up. The regular George at Molash (The Startled Stoat) is precariously balanced, depending as it does on people who live some distance away. The Sunday sessions are strange though. By far the nicest of them is the Unicorn at Bekesbourne. Very relaxed but some good music especially when Andy Renshaw and Fred Holden come along which is quite often at the moment. The Phoenix is Ok but hasn’t really got any take off yet and of course the Well Known Spoonerism is as we know due to shut again quite soon so I doubt there will be another session there. They vary by locale and who can make it on a Sunday night so each one is different.

A Bank Holiday weekend, Hoorah!

I’m glad to say that the madness of Broadstairs is behind us. As one of the sessioneers put it, Broadstairs showed every indication that it remembered that it was on Thanet, and then reverted to type

I’m also glad to say that the Irish Session on Wednesday was swelled by guests and although the music veered a little East and North of Ireland sometimes, it was a jolly good evening. Joining the regular crew or ‘team’ as we now say at work (please somebody shoot the management gurus) were members of Rude Albert from Ashford Chris-the-KGB-staff-car {K=Kernow and his wife (I’m sorry I don’t know her name) and Mick-the-plumber. Altogether there were 12 of us and it really made a noticeable difference having a large number of musicians round the session table. Some cracking reels were played, which we kind of take for granted as normal session fare but you realise when you have guests how playing together every week for 12 years gives the session a very tight and polished feel.

The audience, which is normally composed of locals, was a large contingent of vintage bikers (yes, both bikes and riders were vintage) who seemed to like what we did. We liked their bikes too and drooled a little over the AJS, the BSA and the Royal Oilfield. There were some foreign ones there too. They don’t count.

By contrast, Thursday was back to normal. Although there were several guest sessioneers or semi-regulars, the evening was not one of those where others were invited to play which is a shame

Sunday is an Irish Session at Ospringe and you have Bank Holiday Monday to recover!

Sessions go funny around festival time.

I have a theory that the concentration of Folk in places like Broadstairs (or Sidmouth or Whitby or any of the others. Cambridge doesn’t count) actually warps Folkspace. Of course there is the natural gravitational effect of Folkies gathering on the doorstep and the opportunity to play some different tunes with some nice players. But what of the regular sessions? The warp in Folkspace does things to those too.

In the past we have always foregone the regular Wednesday Irish Session for just this reason. If there has been a session at or near the Festival, some of us may have gone to that to feed our habit.

Well this year, a session was organised and many of the Irish contingent made the trek to Broadstairs. When I arrived, the Irish music was in full sway and I was eager to get started. There were a few of the usual Festival Session Worriers there but they aren’t usually a problem. I was waved rather dramatically to a seat by the others only to be beaten by what looked like an itinerant. Well sleeping rough at any rate. I ended up eventually sat next to him. Definitely rough. I wish I had taken the other offer of a seat near the wall.

Once established, he had the gall to complain about Irish Tunes. At one point he seemed to ask me if minded him sat there. ‘Not if you’re going to play’ I replied. At which, he pointed to a melodeon. Oh joy, I thought, itinerant, rough and 3 Morris tunes. There was obviously something going on here that I was not aware of. Some discussions ensued involving the landlord and as a result, from the Irish contingent, One left, One disappeared, One went to see a friend who was performing nearby and it was clear we were leaving. Were we not welcome? Wrong sort of music? What seems to have happened is that the landlord had agreed to let any musician use the bar (unaware of any differences) and a particular cohort had taken that to mean they had rights to run a session every evening

I pottered over to the Lord Nelson where I met a fellow sessioneer and had a jolly nice time playing English tunes with Life and Times who ran a proper session going round the assembled musicians. At half time we were treated to a Rapper dance from a scratch Geordie team (may or may not have been Tyne Bridge) which was very good and danced to Irish music! There were a number of interesting tunes and a tenor (yes, tenor) banjo player who played finger style and very well too. Never seen that before

Here we are, poised on the edge of Broadstairs week. It seems to come round more quickly each year. Yes, I know. It’s a symptom of getting old. Anyway, the weather seems to be set fair so the school field shouldn’t look like Glastonbury. On the other hand, it means no free but involuntary wash for some of the happy campers

I have been amusing myself in the dark and frankly scary corners of web hosting this week, trying to decide what to do with one of my domains. Folkipedia is two years old and is coming up for renewal. I have, as a result of my meandering through the infernal regions of cyberspace decided to try out some alternative presentations

The present incarnation of http://pvs.me.uk/wiki/ and if you feel inclined, let me know what you think. It is very much work in progress and does not have a full complement of pages (what the trade calls ‘proof-of-concept’).

I did try and use the biggy – MediaWiki – the one that Wikipedia uses (amazing that all these software packages are open source and free). The result is here at http://pvs.me.uk/mediawiki and I don’t think it looks as good or as professional as the one in TikiWiki so I haven’t developed it on any further.

Don’t get me started on Domain Parking, Forwarding, redirects and what Google does.

“What of the sessions? “, I hear you cry!

Well, the Irish session has been small but beautifully formed. Some may say that the balance is a little wrong but I think 2 tenor banjos, a guitar and a set of Uillean Pipes sounds good. No, I don’t care what you say, you can never have too many tenor banjos. OK. Stop throwing things *NOW* please. Often we have the addition of another banjo, a whistle or sometimes two and an Accordian (or Accordion according to preference). Sadly of late we have had no itinerant fiddlers who always seem to be imported from Eastern (Sorry – Central) Europe or Amerikay. I got told off once for saying that the Czech Republic was in Eastern Europe. Well all of Europe is East to us!

Speaking of Amerikay, we had three at the Bear Session on Thursday. Two came with Barbara (Paul and Jody) and one (Gary) came with Dave and Carol Partridge. More of the American guests a little later.

Now, as the regular leaders were away, I stepped in to keep some sort of event going in their absence and invite others to come and keep the bench warm. (By the way, has anyone else noticed the smell in that corner?). So in my way, as I like to do sessions, we go around in turn on the old familiar ‘play, nominate or pass’ basis so that everyone who has turned up with an instrument or a voice gets a turn if they want one. There was at one point I’m sure at least 16 musicians, all of whom had a turn as we went round and round. Lots of interesting tunes to join in with old favourites in new combinations and new tunes. Never a gap or a dull moment.

New Joisey – The Rolling Mills of New Jersey (Roberts and Barrand). After he had sung said song (that’s alliteration that is) which we all much appreciated, Jody declared that the last thing he expected to hear in a pub in Faversham after coming all the way from New York, was another American singing the Rolling Mills of New Jersey. Just shows that anything can happen in the back bar of the Bear, and sooner or later, it will.

All together, with the number of musicians, the calibre of the guests and the general atmosphere (I put it down to pre-Festival Syndrome or PFS) , I think everyone had a really good time. At least I hope they did. We did a happy birthday for Marie somewhere in there too.

The only fly in the ointment (or as Jake Thackray put it, the grit in life’s vaseline) was a certain self styled percussionist who used to have a penchant for one string bass. Several sessioneers felt the need to glare at him in his arrhythmic and (how can you have atonal percussion? This man can) bizarre interpretations of the traditional tunes. Sadly, I think he is impervious to the laser glare of slighted musicians. Not that he was the only one masquerading as a musician who was asked to politely play somewhere else! No names, no pack drill.

Another brilliant pair of guests was Eugene and Caroline who gave us a superb set of Irish tunes but sadly left too early. It may have been the masqueraders

In amongst all this, at least two sets got up to Mazurk. Now, I’m not going into detail here but I really do have to get the Mazurka rhythm nailed. It is so easy to turn the tune rhythm into a waltz, and the dancers will still dance to it. There are many styles of Mazurka and it’s generally best to use the tunes from the right area rather than any old mazurka which is what we tend to do. One thing is certain, the Irish mazurkas (nice tunes as they are) have no natural dances to go with them. If you look at the mazurka dances in France, they are as regional as the bourees meaning that the Auvergne is different from Provence etc. Actually, the Provencal is quite slowly played but has fantastic movements but I di
gress.

Speaking purely personally, I enjoyed one of the nicest sessions I’ve been to for a long time because of the company and the talent that they all brought to the ocassion