A Session Diary

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 lot of sessions have happened in recent weeks because of that well known phenomenon, the warp in Folk Space caused by the summer folk festivals. Inevitably there are sessions.

This year did not see the serpent, nor dogs, nor huge numbers of Morris musicians. There were characters of course. Such as the gentleman who slipped into a spot at the table in the Bear recently vacated by a musician on a refill mission. His only weapon was a pair of teaspoons which he insisted on using as drumsticks on the table itself! I asked him very politely if he could modify the intensity of the strike and he promptly upped and left without a word.

There was an Irish session at Bekesbourne which from an unpromising start of 3 became a very enjoyable session of 5. Unusual as well because of the mix of instruments which sounded just fantastic together to wit: one fiddle, one mandola, one mandolin, one whistle and one guitar. Nice sometimes not to have to play something loud to be heard alongside the reed section.

A very full session at the Bear on a regular Thursday was excellent bordering on chaos at times but with over 20 musicians oddly dispersed, it is difficult rein it in.  Some solo performances – very good but not really session fodder. Some quite odd people whose looks were out of place with the melodeons they carried and worried from time to time. Good to see Pip and Jo again though and some excellent tunes as you’d expect. Pip says don’t forget Hobgoblin is now open on Lower Bridge Street in Canterbury. 

Of course the Festival Band was out in full on the Sunday. Setting up as we went and playing initially to 1 man and his dog it soon livened up. I do enjoy playing with a bass and rhythm section. And thanks to Andy for lending me the prototype Oberon Electric Banjo to use. A frightening thought for some of you I know – an electric banjo. An instrument of mass destruction but fun!

This afternoon is a marathon 4 hour session in the Green Berry at Deal as part of the Deal Maritime Folk Festival – another casualty of short sighted councils like Faversham Hops Festival.

And so to session.

Alright! It’s been a month I know but I’ve been busy …… being retired. You have no idea how busy your life can get if you’re in that nice cossetted world of gainful employment.

Strangely, not everyone saw the ‘Old George’ through the same rose tinted beer glasses as I (I refer readers to the previous post). I had of course forgotten about the odd Morris men who strayed in and the sometimes large number of instrument worriers who joined in. But I didn’t mind that. I didn’t mind the snare drum. There was a camaraderie and a sense of belonging that was lost. Still, the sound and quality of music has definitely continued to improve from those humble beginnings.

Whilst musing on the future of the Mixed Lumpy Session that is currently assailing the Thursday night topers at the Bear, I was struck by two thoughts. One, that it’s rare to have two thoughts … oh, alright, three thoughts. The second was ‘Where do I or don’t I want to play?’ and third, ‘What do I or don’t I want to play?’

The choice of venue is important. Although a wide-ish range of accommodation is tolerable (one must suffer a little for ones art), cold upstairs function rooms with no bar and no audience is definitely out. We don’t ask much we sessioneers but it is infinitely preferable to go to a place that wants you to play rather than tolerates you playing.

As for what –  in an ideal world, I would like a nice English music session to complement the Irish. OK. It can be a little mixed and eclectic. I’m rather fond of some Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, French, Scottish, Shetland American and Welsh tunes (not to mention other places – like Spain. Damn. I said I wouldn’t mention it). Many tunes from these places and a few Irish too have passed into the corpus of ‘English’. Is that controversial? But for a session it must have No Songs. Not that I dislike songs or singers, I’d just like a session for musicians.

Are session leaders important? The Irish session functions quite well without one and the English session – well it’s complicated. But generally it does have one. I don’t think it would work very well without one but a lot depends on the players.

Time for tea and then out to the ‘New George’ (which began in the reign of Henry VIII I believe!).

I have been preoccupied. Firstly with Facebook and secondly with organising my escape plan from Stalag Luft 18. Many of the sessioneers who feature in this diary are also on Facebook and it provides a more immediate kind of communication and response. There are a couple of pages especially for followers of the antics of the sessioneers: Friends of “The George” Irish Session and Fans of the Bear Sessions.

The first of course refers to the fact that the nomadic session / workshop / lament that takes place on a Wednesday evening started off in the excellent George on Stone Street. It was in the middle of nowhere. It was in a dip which flooded every time it thought about raining and when the rest of Kent, even Capel Le Ferne was enjoying a crystal clear evening, Stone Street would be foggy. And still we went every week. East Kent Morris practised in the back on the same night. The Hooden Horse visited at Christmas (well one of them did). Drew served chips and french bread at half time and the real fire roared away with logs of wood. The bar had a jar which said ‘Musician’s Fund’ and every so often, there would be enough in it (donated by a kindly audience) to buy us all a drink. Many musicians of all calibres would congregate there and some of the evenings were truly memorable. There was even a Bank Holiday Celtic Folk Festival held there.

Then it closed.

I remember the evening when we all arrived to find the pub in darkness and standing around in the misty car park deciding what to do. Those of us who were there decided to go to the Hop Pocket in Bossingham where we played the first of our nomadic sessions in their conservatory. After that we roamed East Kent looking to regain that “George” feel without success. We tried the Chequers at Selsted, the Beverley in Canterbury and even the George on Stone Street after it changed hands to the unfriendliest landlord yet encountered. But the spiritual retreat for the music was for a long time at the Well Known Spoonerism. Regular readers will know where that is. And now it is at another George – this time at Molash where we practice safe sets. I hope the crowds return.

The Bear Session started as an Irish Session before the George Session but morphed into an English one by the time I joined it. And that suited me fine. Irish on Wednesday, English on Thursday. And that’s pretty much how it still is today. Back then, the musicians always got a free drink from the landlord. Strangely this session has stayed put firmly through many landlords (although it did move out to the Three Tuns  for a while while waiting for a friendlier tennant who turned out to be the landlord of the Three Tuns). The pub is usually full of all sorts of interesting people, some of them are musicians, some are audience.

So, a little history of the two main sessions that feature in this diary and a Facebook page or two to join if you’ve a mind to.

And the retirement? Well, after a long and mostly enjoyable career mostly in education, I have the chance to stop working but maintain (more or less) the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed thanks to the Universities Pension Scheme. I started as a Secondary Science Teacher and it was at college that I became converted to Folk. It’s a one way conversion – there is no going back. Playing through the Book of English Penguins with  ‘ a yard of German plywood and a capo’ in the common room. Morris teams were springing up (I joined Green Oak and then started Cheswold and later Luton. Yes, Luton) and some great folk clubs put on acts which would now be far too expensive to even comtemplate.

Anyway, working my way through the education system and keeping ahead of the sheer lunacy that trailed behind me (imposed by successive governments I must add) I moved though Further Education to Higher Education. They’ve all been ruined now. There is no academic freedom just commercial gain. Targets and league tables have killed the spirit of education and what little was left has been mopped up by Health and Safety and the ever present risk of litigation.

Thank God for Folk Music!

Well here we are again. 3 days to Midsummer. In the middle of the festival season. Lots of gigs and events going on. As I sit here listening to Home-to-tea Girl by Roaring Jelly (now Omega 3) I am reflecting on the fortunes of the sessions. Catch them if you can by the way, they’re a fantastically silly and entertaining outfit. Omega 3 that is.

I don’t know if it’s the weather or what but the Irish session is rising phoenix-like from the rather grim times earlier. A lot of it due to hard work by sessioneers like Six-String-Shelagh and some of it is due to great good fortune and Facebook. Whatever the reason it is a real pleasure to see 10 or more playing at the George and more people coming to listen as well.

Not Strictly Session (A BBC Commission I wonder?) but I felt it was worth mentioning. I was invited to join Watershed for a barn dance last Saturday as one of their irregulars and I was most taken with the location and venue. Normally, the prospect of a barn dance in an actual barn fills the band with horror. Visions of a frayed 13 amp cable looping in from somewhere, freezing wind whistling in through the slats in the side, some kind of surface which is guaranteed to create a hovering miasma of what can be best described as recycled organic matter which not only obscures the dancers but also coats the equipment in a dust which Iceland would be proud of. I have heard tell that it’s still inside some mixing desks after 12 years or more – impossible to shift.

However, this was a lambing shed in the wilds of the Weald and it was a beautiful evening. The kind of place where sat navs give up and the road has grass down the middle and you pray you don’t meet a tractor. The shed had only 3 sides being open to a field which sloped gently down before rising again to some trees beyond which was the village with a lazily smoking chimney. The shed had a straw floor and bales for seats. It shouldn’t have been good but it was. It was somehow a complete feeling of continuance with the past. Being so rural and near midsummer (bonfires were prepared and lit at midnight) with communities celebrating with drink and food and dance  it was just magic. Real magic.

Of course if it had been raining it would have been different …..