OK Let's try again! It's been a quiet year due to not picking up new gigs while we were relatively inactive last year. We enjoyed the Alcester festival again, and have Bedworth coming up in November. It'll be our first time there, although we did do the Bedworth Folk Club (thanks Malc!) back in April. We've also got gigs at Stortfolk and Seaford coming up, but that looks like it for 2009. My day job has curtailed our activity of late as I've been spending a lot of time out of the country. We've got a couple of gigs lined up so far next year, with another 3 looking likely when we can fix some dates. Must get out and about again to introduce ourselves to some new audiences.
Can't leave this without saying thank you and farewell to our dear friend Johnny Collins. The day of his funeral was one of the most moving and spectacular musical experiences of my life. A "who's who" of folk music of the last 40 years delivered the most wonderful tribute to Johnny. The singing in the chapel was awesome, and this was followed by a gathering at the home of Herga Folk Club, where Johnny had been a stalwart for many years, which apart from Johnny's physical absence was possibly one of the greatest sing-a-rounds ever heard. In addition to that voice and his enormous presence, Johnny was always hugely encouraging and only too happy to share his repertoire whenever I asked if he'd mind if we sang one of 'his' songs. Johnny; a great loss, and a privilege to have known you!
Friday 5th September 2008
Another 6 months gone! We've had a bit of a lull since Alcester because my wife, Ann, is waiting for a heart operation. October I hope. Alcester went well though, and yielded a booking at Willenhall Fok Club. The big news is that we recorded it and now have a live album available. Please see Recordings page for details. We're now looking forward to Bedworth Folk Festival, and getting out and about more once Ann's operation is over.
Saturday 8th March 2008
Things have gone well since January. We learned in January that we'd be involved in the fund raising weekend to support Alcester Folk Festival over the weekend of 22rd and 24th Feb. We ran a sing around and opened the final concert on Sunday. As a result we've been re-booked for the main festival in June. Fantastic! We also got a date yet to be confirmed at Willenhall Folk Club, so a great weekend. Made some new friends, had a great time, helped secure the main festival in June and got a couple of bookings, couldn't have been better! George Papavgeris's CD launch was a great evening too! We were really nervous about this one. I was MC'ing, so the smooth running of the evening was down to me, and we were main support, so a big responsibility in front of so many people we knew, and of course not wanting to let George down. Thankfully the evening went brilliantly. George was on top form (buy the album!), Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer, who we met properly for the first time, were George's backing band 'Los Marbles', both on the album and on the night, and they were absolutely spectacular, and lovely people to-boot! We also ended up with a booking for the Bedworth Folk Festival as a result of our performance on the night. The butterflies were well rewarded! Last night we did a feature spot at Cambridge Folk Club's open mic night. Lovely club, real quality in the peformances all night, and we've got an invite back to do a feature night later in the year. We've got a spot on Thursday at Redbourn supporting Tony Carling, who also was at Cambridge last night. Good bloke, funny songs, so should be a fun night. Then on the 29th March we're part of the Paul Gunningham Memorial Festival at Baldock. Please see the gigs page to get to details of what's happening to commemorate this lovely guy's life. More news soon.
Sunday 20th January 2008
Well that was a long silence! To sum up the last 9 months; Dulverton was great. It was a double first, our first festival booking and the first running of the festival itself. Both were deemed a great success. Unfortunately things stalled for us after that, largely due to the demands of my day job. That included the album, but we're hoping to get that moving again soon. Christine was given a voucher for some studio recording time as a present, and we used it to see how we'd get on in the studio. The results were encouraging, so we've decided to invest in some serious studio time. Just got to shop around and get it organised now! We're getting out a bit more now and things are starting to pick up. The next big gig is on the 1st March, when George Papavgeris has asked us to MC and be the main support act at the launch of latest album. After that we've got a trip to Cambridge for a feature spot to close their open mic night, and then a spot at a memorial concert for Paul Gunningham, a friend who died last year. More details of these on the Gigs page. Now let's see if I can keep this up to date on a regular basis?
Friday 27th April 2007
We've recently started recording for our first album. We hope to have finished recording by the end of May, and to have the album out during June. We'll put up the track listing when it's finalised, and some samples of what we're doing as a taster when we start mixing.
Tuesday 3rd April 2007
Anyone who visits this site regularly will know that it's had a bit of an overhall recently. I've only just realised that the font I've used for the main headings is not always installed. So if this and
are not in the same font you can download the required font by right clicking this link and then 'Save Target As...' into Windows/Fonts. (Sorry, you non-MSIE users, hopefully you'll know what to do!)
Thursday 29th March 2007
'Cup of Coffee' by Christine Connolley WINS the Maidenhead Folk Song Competition! It was a fantastic evening, with some great new songs (13 in total) presented. But Christine's came out top of the pile, brilliant! If you haven't heard it already you can here a short clip of the song by clicking the play button. We'll be recording a full version soon, so come back and look for it on the Listen page.
The Coffee Song
The Coffee SongTuesday 27th March 2007
Just had first sight of the draft programme for the Dulverton Folk Festival. We're billed on the closing concert on Sunday 29th July with Jim Causley. It's starting to feel real now!
Saturday 24th March 2007
Christine's just dropped of a tape of her singing her new song for the Maidenhead Folk Song Competition, next Thursday. I've got to work out and learn an accompaniment in time to get in a practice at Herga on Monday, otherwise we'll have to wing it on the night! Song sounds good though.
1st March 2007
We're really excited because we've just got our first real festival booking! We've been included in the guest list for the new Dulverton Folk Festival, along with Julian Sutton & Tom Oakes, Liz Law & Terry Conway, Maurice Condie & Gillian Tolfrey, George Papavgeris and Jim Causley. It looks like being a lovely intimate festival, with some great music, in a beautiful Somerset village. Can't wait!
© Steve Last 2005