The Smallpiper Blog

Hello!
We've completed the second weekend of our launch tour and our tour diary is totally up todate with photos and reports! We've had great fun, meeting so many musicians in Essex. We had the official launch at the BlueBell Inn on Saturday which was fantastic fun, we've made a 'new years resolution' to get over to the BlueBell session far more often! We also slipped over to Reading for the Reading Folk Club where we debuted the nyckelharpa into the folk club set.

Unfortunately due to the stormy weather the Saul Canal Festival has been cancelled, so if you were planning on going to the festival, don't, it's not on :( It has meant that we can catch up on a little sleep and put some work in on a couple of new songs we want to get into the set. So coming up for this week we have:

The Headingham Music Night
St Neots Folk Club
Havering Folk Club

We might try to find another session to go to plug the gap, so watch this space!
See you on the road!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!

We've started the tour! A full weekend of playing. Three sessions, a wedding and a live radio broadcast! We've had great fun at the sessions, playing away and singing the odd song here and there. The live radio interview at 209radio went well, you can hear it online for the next month. The wedding was so romantic at Hedingham castle, a tear or two was shed. We played the ever increasingly popular Willows and Three Ashes as the bridal procession music and the bride did look stunning!

We're now gearing up for next weekend which includes the official launch at the Bluebell Inn mini-festival. The Readifolk Folk Club in Reading and another session this time at the Three Elms at Chignal St. James.

Don't forget to check out our tour diary to see pictures and find out how we're doing along the road!
We hope to see you at one of the gigs!
(^_^)
Vicki & Jonny

Today is an exciting day! We are finally starting out on our tour! Hurrah. Tonight we're at the

Wheatsheaf in Writtle,
Monday we're at the
Compasses in Littley Green
and Tuesday we're at the
United Bretheren in Chelmsford.

In between that we're playing for a wedding tomorrow (the first one since our own, sooo romantic!) and on Sunday we're doing a live radio broadcast at 209radio in Cambridge. It'll be going out live on Sunday in the cambridge area at 3pm, but the really scary bit is that it's also a podcast. This means it'll go up on the web so anyone can listen to it for at least the next month! I'll post up the direct link once it's arrived on the website, but if you're in the Cambridge area tune in and listen live!
Hope to see you at a gig soon!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!

It's arrived, hurrah, yay and everything (much waving of jazz hands).
It's available on our website for immediate purchase. You can check out a couple of tracks on our myspace, there are 30 second extracts on our website. We're holding the pre-order price (£10.50) until some time on Friday when we'll be putting it up to the same price as at gigs (£12).
We're so excited! The next thing is to request a track from the album on Mike Harding.
I'm off to the post office now to send all the pre-ordered albums....

(^_^)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello all!
Just a quick update as we'll be blogging again this week. The album has made it to the studio and we are waiting with baited breath. We were hoping to get a copy this morning, but alas it looks like being tomorrow. Then all being well, we should have a large box of them to send out to everyone who has pre-ordered by Wednesday lunchtime. We are soooo excited!! More about the album though when we get it!

Excitingly Genevieve played another track from the album last night, you can have a listen for the next seven days. Vicki's second bagpipe show is now online at Radio Britfolk, that'll be up for the next two weeks and if you join up and become a member you can listen to all the archived shows.

That's all for today, but we'll be posting again once the album is with us.
Can't wait!!!!!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
We've just returned from the Chester Folk Festival. (Got in bed last night in time to hear the dawn chorus and the sun starting to creep over the yard arm. Our cat was very pleased to see us, despite being tired after a weekend of playing and the long drive home she kept us awake with her paddling and meowing for quite some time! Chester was our first festival of the year and the van got a a thorough washing, although I think the weather had been worse down south with 47mm in the rain guage on our return! (That's a lot for our part of the country)

We saw too many people to mention everyone that we saw, but met the best Electric Upright Double Bass we have ever seen, made from a saucepan in the Churchfitters. We also met Caliko who were just finishing off their year long tour in a funky silver caravan. (The caravan had been sold already so we didn't get to see it, but the photographs of it on their website are awesome! We also saw The Amazing Mr. Smith, now he was soooo funny!! He also made a set of bagpipes out of the most amazing materials, I'll not tell you any more, you'll just have to see him for yourself!

Chester was the weekend that I'd set myself for getting the nyckelharpa finally into the the set list once and for all. We played it at the singaround on the Friday, in the social club on the Sunday and then finally the real official debut of the fantastic Swedish song that we've translated where I sang and played the nyckelharpa at the same time (with no safety net!) on Monday afternoon. There is still a long way to go with learning the instrument, but getting it into the set has been a very fulfilling achievement. Thanks to Peter for these photographs!

On a final note, the album has an eta of next Monday and we are very very excited! We've already had the title track SlipTease played on FolkWaves (you can listen again for a week, our track is played at about 10 minutes into the show) and also three tracks played on Genevieve Tudor's Sunday folk (you can listen again to this for seven days too) It's going to be a busy time!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

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Hello!
Today and for the next two weeks Vicki has got her first radio show being broadcast on Radio Britfolk. (A show that's not a workshop or tutorial). Imaginatively entitled, The Bagpipes Show the show contains as many different sorts of bagpipes from the British Isles that could be found in her CD collection. So go along and take a listen! If you have any requests either send us an e-mail or leave a comment on the blog. There are oodles more types of bagpipes out there, so drop us a line if your a piper (especially anything on Goodacre pipes, there seems to a lack of CDs in the collection featuring anything made by Julian....)
Enjoy the show!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

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Hello!
The nyckelharpa has officially been launched in it's session capacity. He came out and played some tunes at The High Barn the other weekend and we now have a photo mid-session. We are working hard on singing with the nyckelharpa and hope, (fingers very tightly crossed) that we're going to be able to debut our fantastic new song at Chester at the end of May. The song is a translation from Swedish that we've put together (very old Swedish, was a nightmare to translate!) we hope you'll all enjoy it as much as us!

Welcome to everyone who is now subscribing to our blog via e-mail. We don't usually post too often, so it shouldn't fill up your mail box too much! Talk to everyone again soon!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
Since mailing out last week we've had a spring clean and update. Our blog now has a headline generator on our front page and you can now subscribe to our blog via e-mail! Just click the button! Let us know what you think of this option! We think it's really exciting! Click on this link if you'd like to do that!
Subscribe to Vicki & Jonny's Blog by Email
It's full systems go now at Vicki & Jonny HQ. We've decided to do a launch tour. A tour with a difference though. We wanted to make a celebration of music and sessions in our local area. So we're planning on getting to as many clubs and sessions as possible for a month in June / July. So if you run a session in Essex, or go to a session in Essex get in touch and we'll try to fit you in!!!!!!

Keep an eye on the website for details of where we manage to get to, or just subscribe to the blog and you'll find out as soon as we've posted it!.
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello everyone!!!!!
We hope you all had a truly fantastic folk filled Easter! We’ve had a hectic spring, recording an album with Hector Gilchrist (a fine Scots singer) and our own album. We’ve had a new addition with a nyckelharpa (a Swedish keyed fiddle) being flown over from Sweden and fingers crossed he’ll be coming out with us by May! Check out the website for pictures and sounds!

The new album, to be called “SlipTease” is nearly ready and should be available by Mid June, so watch this space! If you can’t wait for the album you can pre-order it from the website and catch some pre-release extracts on our myspace site.

Our next gig is on home ground and is Saturday 21st April at the High Barn in Hempstead, Essex. This is a wonderful new folk club in a converted barn, tickets are £7.50, doors open at 7.30pm. The evening ends with a general session, so bring your instruments/voice along and join in! It would be lovely to see you there!

Dates so far for the rest of the summer:

21/04/07 - The High Barn, great Bardfield Essex
22/04/07 - Swanfolk: Swan in the Rushes, Loughborough
02/05/07 - Mad Nanny Folk Club , Baldock, Herts
05/05/07 - Red Lion Folk Club (Support), Birmingham
14/05/07 - Waltham Abbey Folk Club, Essex
25/05/07 - Chester Folk Festival (all weekend)
09/06/07 - Gower Folk Festival (all weekend) Wales
22/06/07 - Bluebell Inn Mini Festival, Hempstead, Essex
24/06/07 - Readifolk Folk Club, Reading
30/06/07 - Saul Canal Festival, Saul, Glocs
03/07/07 - St Neots Folk Club, Cambs
28/0707 - Warwick Folk Festival (all weekend), Warwickshire
03/08/07 - Sidmouth Folk Week (all week)
13/08/07 - Bideford Folk Festival (all week)
21/08/07 - Brown Cow Folk Club, Mansfied
31/08/07 - Wallingford Bunkfest (all weekend)

That’s all for now.
Take care

(^_^)
Vicki & Jonny
Smallpiper.co.uk
Myspace

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