Essex Session Launch Tour 2007
15th June - 15th July
Tour Diary
June > 15 17 18 19 22 23 24 25 27 30 3 4 8 9 13 15 < July
15th July - Three Willows, Cressing - Inaugral session!
This was the final gig of our little tour round Essex. We've had such a fantastic time going to clubs we've never been to, clubs we've not been to for a while and finally our own session. We enjoyed the concert we gave in the afternoon enourmously. There were so many people there that we'd met this month, it was great to see everyone! Thank you so much for coming! I'm sorry we didn't get to talk to everyone that did come along! It was definitely the longest hotest gig we've had in a long while! Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming!
The evening session again brought more people that we'd met this month and also proved that myspace and facebook are good for something, there were a few people that came because of the messaging and bulletin service! (note to self, hours wasted on myspace, not such a waste of time!) We had a truly great session and hope to run it regularly once a month. We'll be posting up dates once we've gone back down to The Willows to make sure they'll have us again. We drew the raffle and as a last minute decision decided to pull two raffle tickets.
Congrats to James from Surrey and Pat from Cheshire.
CDs are on their way to you!
Thank you to everyone who came and listened and everyone who played. Most importantly to everyone who runs a session or a folk club in Essex and to everyone who goes to them! Our mini tour might be finished, but we've decided to make an Essex tour calender and diary and visit as many as possible! Our starting point as always is the EFN diary, so if you're not listed there drop them a line! If you don't subscribe, then join up, it's really cheap and worth it's weight!
We hope to see you somewhere on the road! Thanks for reading the diary!
13th July - The Milk Maid Folk Club, Bury St Edmonds - Folk Club
Twice a week is the Milk Maid folk club up in Bury St. Edmonds. This week was a showcase night and we went along. There were a bunch of splendid artists, including a pre-CD release night for Debs Warren. There were so many people I wish I'd made a note of more names! It was a great night and as usual, forgot my camera again!
9th July - Three Horseshoes, East Hanningfield - second Monday
Every first Monday at the Three Horseshoes in East Hanningfield there is an open music night. Not specifically folk, but essentially any genre. We had so many people playing tonight and so many faces that we've met along the road (and so many names that I know we should remember but can't! We took so many pictures (over 50 in all) and it's impossible to include them all, so here are a few. We had some friends over from Canada and they played one of our tunes, which was just so fantastic to hear! Thank you!!!! Beer was drunk and we had a great evening! Only two dates left on our tour. At least we'll be able to practise some new nyckelharpa tunes!
8th July - The Sail Loft Folk Club, Horndon on the Hill - every Sunday
It was Jonny's Dad's 70th birthday this weekend, so we had a family gathering, but rushed back home again to see the Crouch Vale Morris dance out at the Willows, followed by a session in the pub. The village was in the middle of a massive powercut at the time, but we kept playing in the dark! Then running home we went down to the Sail Loft Folk Club in Horndon on the Hill. It's a love club, we've been there several times, not too far away from my home town. The club is free to go and listen and every so often there is a booked guest. Each week starts off with a play along session and then floor spots and this week we finished with another play along tune. It was great fun. It's hard to tell if the smoking law is having an effect yet, possibly, possibly not, but as a performer it was nice when singing not to be breathing in deep breaths of smoke. It certainly is strange going home after an evening and not smelling of smoke, most peculiar!
4th July - The Havering Folk Club, Romford - every Wednesday
Every Wednesday is the meeting of the Havering Folk Club in Romford. We were the first evening where it's been a bit more than a sing around. IT was a fantastic evening with loads of people getting up on stage and singing their songs. With candles and sweets in bowls the club was really friendly. It was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me as I used to be a peri for the Havering Music Service and the area was quite familiar. We even had two requests for songs, which was fantastic! We only have four dates left on our launch tour now, I have a sneaky feeling we're going to really try hard to get out further afield in the county though more often!
3rd July - St Neots Folk Club - Folk Club
Tonight saw us driving up north of Essex up to St. Neots. A lovely little club
out the back of a refurbished and newly opened pub. So new, the
pub itself wasn't really open, but they did open the bar up for
us. The nyckelharpa is now sticky key free and despite the rain
still pouring down, the pipes were still in tune! We're now well
over half way through our tour and we're getting a little bit sad!
30th June - Saul Canal Festival - Festival
This weekend was supposed to be the fantastic Saul Canal Festival. Unfortunately because of all the recent, it was cancelled. It gave us some time to practise, but it was still very disapponting! We've been re-booked for next year though, so fingers crossed it doesn't rain so much!
27th June - Hedingham Music Night, Hedingham Billiards & Social Club - fourth Wednesday
The fourth Wednesday of the month is the Hedingham Music Night. A tricky venue to find with no website, so I've made a map for people to be able to see it. I hope that Google picks this up so that when someone searches for the Hedingham Music night, they find the map of the Billiardsa and Social Club! You have to drive round the back of what looks like an industrial estate and then walk through a gap in the fence. Click here for my home made Googley image thing! It was a lovely evening, more an acoustic music night than a folkie session and we had all sorts, from making whoopy on the blues harmonica to a lovely rendition of Some Where Over the Rainbow. There were so many people wanting to play and sing that it was hard to fit everyone in!
25th June - The Three Elms, Chignal St. James - fourth Monday
The fourth Monday of the month is at the Three Elms in Chignal St. James, just outside Chelmsford. We sat and talked for ages and then finally pulled out our instruments. We saw an instrument we've never seen close up before, a tabor pipe. I'd loved to have found out more about this instrument, but quick google this morning confirmed what I thought, it's for playing whilst playing a drum. We were fascinated! Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of it, so fingers crossed we see it again this month and we'll make sure to take a photo! The damp weather at the moment iis affecting hurdy gurdys and nyckelharpas alike. The gurdy didn't manage to get going due to a damp wheel. :( I had managed to unstick some of my keys though, take a look at my nyckelharpa diary to see details of me taking it apart! We ended up playing until after midnight with y appreciative landlord and landlady, we had yet another fantastic evening!
24th June - ReadiFolk - Caversham, Reading - folk Club
Sunday saw us pack the car up and drive round the M25 to the Readifolk Club. This officially was the first time we've played the nyckelharpa in the folk club set, so I was very excited! The recent weather has meant that one of the keys that is used in one of the tunes became 'sticky', so we avoided that tune! We had a wonderful evening though and hope that we gave the old venue a good send off. We wish the club lots of happiness in their new venue. (We forgot to take any pictures, sorry!)
23rd June - The Bluebell Inn - Hempstead - mini-festival
On the Saturday we headed back to Hempstead again for our official CD launch and guitar workshop. The weather this weekend has been awesome, raining cats and dogs!!! The sound of the thunderstorm outside the marquee whilst playing for Catalan Stick dancing is something I'll not forget easily! That might be the awesome groove that was going with bazooki, fiddle, accordion, double bass, teachest bass, ukulele, box percussion and nyckelharpa, unforgettable! We just didn't want to stop playing that toon! Other unforgettable moments include a couple at the back toppling their picknick table backwards, complete with beer and large umberella during one of our numbers, fortunately the only thing harmed was the loss of beer. The evening concert had the wonderful Steve Parkes and Last Nights Fun on stage too, followed by another session. We had such a lovely day, such a shame it had to end!
22nd June - The Bluebell Inn - Hempstead - mini-festival
The Bluebell Inn in Hempstead has regular guests and sessions nights and this weekend was the second mini-music and beer festival. Friday night saw the us all dancing the night away with the Flying Figs at a Ceilidh in a marquee in the garden followed by a session into the wee hours. (We wimped out at about 2am!)
19th June - The United Bretheren - Chelmsford Session - every Tuesday
Every Tuesday there is a session at the United Bretheren in Chelmsford, this is another of Fred's sessions and this particular Tuesday happened to be Fred's birthday! Hurrah and Happy Birthday Fred! There was a bumper turn out this week and even had a euphonium (I think) player. It was a lovely evening complete with an emotional Fred and fiddle shaped birthday cake!
18th June - Compasses - Littley Green Session - third Monday
iThe third Monday of each month is the session at Littley Green in Essex. Run
in a lovely little pub to one side it's a play around and a session,
so there are some tunes to play along with and then a play around where
people sing or play (or both together). We had a wonderful mix of tunes
and songs, guitar tunes, unaccompanied songs, mandolin duets.
17th June - 209Radio - Make It Folky
We trundled up to Cambridge to meet Christian Mayne and do a live radio interview
on his Make it Folky Show. Live radio always makes me incredibly nervous,
but this show is also available as a podcast and is up and on the net for
the next month. So to hear what we said and played you can click here and
listen! 209Radio is a community radio station run by volunteers and has a
wonderful atmosphere and because most of the shows are available as podcasts you can listen to the show anywhere in the world! We had great fun!
15th June - The Wheatsheaf - Writtle session - third Friday
We kicked off our tour with one of the Friday peripatetic sessions, Writtle near
Chelmsford. It's the tiniest pub, but the session just keeps going
and keeps going! We had possibly the widest array of instruments, in
addition to the usual guitar, mandolin, fiddle and flute we also had
the lithuanian zither (we can't remember the real name) and myself
on the nyckelharpa. We had to leave before the end to stave off the
tiredness for playing for a wedding the following day.
