Performing People Through the Pines of the Pennines

I thought this was a location in Greece, or Turkey? Maybe Lebanon?

    


      It's been a working week.  Now we have a few days off, two to be exact.  I guess we had yesterday off, but what a drive!  We came over the Pennines again from the west.  The trip started out from Fleetwood again, only this time headed for Blyth instead of Croxdale.  First it was a drive to the M6.  We had stayed up late drinking absinthe the night before, and I was definitely headed for falling alseep at the wheel on the M6, but fortunately our GPS took us off of the M6.  Kristi calls her "Jill", but I don't actually think that's her name.  She spun us off onto a narrow country road that soon had us negotiating hairpin turn, after hairpin turn.  I enjoyed winding up the little engine in our British Chevrolet, shifting down, shifting up, pinning Kristi against the passenger side of the car as I punched the engine into life after winding down at top RPM.  I hope those people from Enterprise car rentals don't read this.  It kept me awake, which was the unintended result of our GPS.  We'd have stayed on motorways all the way without it.  I wish I had a picture, but I'm not sorry I didn't stop to take one.  We were definitely headed for the "barn" (as they say).
     This leg of the tour started out in Croxdale with Fred, and Sheila.  We had been anticipating the last five days for awhile, as there were a couple of long jogs in them.  Kristi has picked up a bug, which has only been giving her minimum interference with her singing.  I'm thankful for that; but in spite of her assurances that she's getting better, I know that drinking absinthe until 2 am after a hard day of driving, and performance can't have given her immune system much of a boost.  That in spite of certain persons assurances that alcohol consumption will kill your internal bugs.
     The first night of this leg of the tour was Guisborough Folk Club.  We were leaving Jimmie, and Val after that performance.  It is a pretty well known club, and a large pub venue.  If you can imagine this, it was a large rectangular room and we were facing the short side of the rectangle with people spread out at tables the length of the rectangle.  There was immediately something uncomfortable about the room as far as I was concerned.  We did get a nice round of applause immediately after our first couple of songs, so there was some enthusiasm for us.  The evening started with floor spots, which included our friends Jimmy and Val of jiva.  We have actually had jiva upstage us a time or two, and they were in best form this night  The other singers were interesting, but of the floor spots, jiva were definitely far in advance of everyone else.  We had had a few nights off, so it was a return to performance for us.  I've got to say that the club organizer was quite effusive in his praise of us, and was ready to book us for another performance immediately, so whatever made me feel a little uncomfortable was made more, or less irrelevant by that.   We drove to Fred Brierley's house after we played, and for a change, went straight to bed with no whiskey.  Kristi had her bug by this time, and we were being cautious with her health.

John Snowball of Aycliffe Folk Club

      Our second performance on this leg of the tour was Aycliffe Folk Club with John Snowball hosting.  I think John is a wonderful singer.  He manages to find the very best of traditional songs, and he plays very nice rhythym guitar.  He has found a woman who plays flute, recorder, and whistle to accompany him.  We saw the duo the week before we played his club on a singer's night.   John played with bands for many years playing all the favorite pop hits while he worked at a day job that paid him pretty well.  He was made redundant from his day job, and at 50 is chronically unemployed, much to his wife's displeasure.  Most of this information was gleaned from a few glasses of whiskey after our performance.  I think we stayed up until about 1:30 am.  Poor Kristi.  John's wife had to go to work at 7:30 am, so she left us early.  John talked to us through the evening of drinking, and then again while we were having breakfast the next morning.
     Our night there was a success.  jiva, and Fred and Sheila all came to our performance.  John Snowball does a good job of making everyone feel welcome at the club.  Club organizers tend to always be disappointed in attendance.  There were enough people with a good enough response to make us feel good about the night.  I really liked playing in a smaller lounge with comfortable seating and the audience close enough to reach out and touch.  John promised to help find us bookings in some of the larger clubs when we return.  

      The next morning it was on to Sandbach Folk Club.  It was our first time there.   The pictures are of ancient objects that are standing in front of the pub.  Kristi dutifully photographed them.   Our host, and hostess, Jenny, and Keith Haines were simply marvelous.  Jenny was in touch with us by email long before we arrived at their house, and we were able to get there early enough to get a nap in the nice big, soft bed provided us.  We talked a lot, and looked at their vegetable garden, had a great dinner of quiche, and butterbeans, green salad, and more topped off with pudding (which means any kind of dessert here in the UK).  

Keith, Kristi, and Jennie  -  Sandbach Folk Club

     Keith is a Django Reinhart fan, and plays Django style guitar.  He is also a bass player, and played tea chest bass in the jug band that was the main part of the floor spots.   We were able to talk a lot of politics, and as it turns out, both Keith, and Jenny have been anti-war activists, and are environmental activists as well.  They are both retired from distinguished careers.  
     The club itself is in a small room in a pub, which was alright, but there was an adjoining room of people who had paid to see/hear us that was through a door, and a bit noisy.  Of course we were unamplified, but the room where we were located was isolated enough to be not too bad for bar noise.  We met Jeff Parton of "His Worship and the Pig" who we had seen/heard in Southampton a few years ago, having been taken to the Forest Folk Club by our good friends, Jane and Trevor of the Fo'c'sle Folk Club.  I was totally impressed by their act there.  They are very funny, and a good example of how to be if you want to play the best clubs.  We thought that the response to our performance was excellent, and were well psyched to journey on to Hambledon, and to visit our friends, Jane Allison, and Trevor Gilson in the little village of Netley far to the south.

Jane Allison

     It is always a comfort to arrive at a place where one is certain to be welcomed, and you know that there is a good bed waiting, and good company.  So it is with Jane Allison, and Trevor Gilson.  They live in the little town of Netley far to the south of London.  Their house is on the water, and you can see the Red Funnel Line ferries running back and forth in front of their house, as well as large passenger liners, and freight carrying vessels, sailboats, and speedboats abound as well.  It is generally a good deal warmer than in the north, and the company is warm as well.   Trevor is a retired chemistry professor, and Jane is a retired corporate secretary.  They are passionate about the folk music scene, and Jane rambles on incessantly about what has been happening in their scene, trends, and she even talks about money now and again.  
      After a nap, and a good meal we were off to Hambledon.  It's about 40 minutes from Netley.  On the way there it was light all the way, and our "Satnav" took us through some lovely countryside, where the hay had just been harvested, and the fields were golden in the late evening light.  It was our third visit.  They do their folk club in the "village" hall.  I like the way they lay out the tables and chairs.  It is easy to see everyone, and keep their attention.  The club goes next door for beer, or other beverages, although the club sells coffee, and tea.  On the break you always see the guys come back from the pub carefully balancing their beer in their hands.  We sold an exceptional number of CDs there, and had an exceptional reception.  It was a very good night.  We drove home through the same fields and forests, this time in the dark so we had to imagine what it looked like from our earlier experience.
     Back at Jane and Trevor's house we checked our email.  Trevor had left the wireless router on for us.  We simply collapsed into bed, and slept as late as we could, and still be assured to arrive safely at our next destination far to the northwest.  We were headed back to Fleetwood, where we had played victoriously at Fylde Folk Festival early in September.

John and Carol from the shores of Fleetwood

Well, then.  We, as we had planned, arrived in Fleetwood long before we were to play.  We had hours to entertain ourselves as we arrived around 4 pm, and didn't play until after 9 pm.  It is very typical of us  to go someplace to just buy something for entertainment.  In this case it turned out to be a bottle of absinthe imported from the wilds of Poland.  We didn't drink it right away though.  We went to the beach.  I think that shows that we have good judgement.

Steve and Kristi  -  Shadows on the Beach

     So we arrived at the Strawberry Gardens Pub, after a meal of fish and chips at the North Euston Hotel.  Interestingly enough, pub food is partially self-service.  They have numbers in brass tags on all the tables, and you take your order to the bar remembering your table number.  You pay the bar-man, and after awhile a waitress brings your order to your table.  Most of you are Americans.  Some will already know this, others not.  

Strawberry Gardens Pub

Strawberry Gardens is where the Fleetwood FC takes place.  The folk club meets upstairs in the pub.  Walking through the pub with my riverboat gambler hat on was just asking for ridicule, although I was not certain of it when I started in, the rude comments and the laughs confirmed my suspicions almost immediately.  I already had a sense of annoyance going, as we had been cooling our heels for a few hours by the time we arrived at the club.  There were a few familiar faces as we were at the Fleetwood Folk Club last year.  It was a big open room with everyone sitting around the sides of the room.  That is a less than optimum seating pattern to play to, but I just made do.  I think I'm ready for almost anything now.  I didn't say a word to introduce us as the host had already done so.  It was after two songs before I said a word.  Once I started talking, I was off and running.  Kristi and I had a particularly good rapport going with each other all night long.   The club organizer did ask us to come back to the club, and people seemed to have a great time.  We drew a particularly good number of laughs for our humor.  
     After our performance was finished we spent a little time in the pub having a drink.  While there we talked with our host for the night and another member of the folk club about the life and times of a merchant mariner, which both of them were until recently.  After that it was home with John and Carol.  We sat around and talked until the wee hours of the morning drinking absinthe.  I think John and Carol drank most of it.  Carol was still commenting on the fact that she was feeling a buzz the next morning.  We sat around talking through three cups of coffee, and eventually John got out of bed, and Carol made breakfast for all of us.  
     While Carol was making breakfast I decided to load up the automobile to be ready for travel at the end of breakfast.  When I went out to the car I discovered that we had acquired a flat tire.  It wasn't all the way flat, so I wasn't too much in a panic.  I called the rental company and they sent out a guy from the automobile association.  

The guy from the Automobile Association

     I was surprised when the lady on the phone from the car rental place asked me to look and see if there was a spare tire in the car.  I was surprised when we looked, and there wasn't.  The AA guy inflated the tire enough to get to the repair shop, and more.  He also replaced my windshield wiper blades which were in bad, bad shape, and he replaced a bulb in the headlight on the right side of the car, which my friend Jimmy had noticed was out a few days ago.  The tire place fixed the tire and charged the car rental company.  From there it was off to the motorway, over the Pennines, and here we are relaxing with jiva in Blyth again.  I'll tell you more later.  Stay awake on the freeways, and we'll see you at the end of  September.

Oooo Kristi!  Look at this! Tyres and more tires! 

Kristi blog:

Day nineteen.

     Here we are back again at the base that seems closest to a home away from home, in Blyth, Northumberland, the home of our friends Jimmy and Val.  We've been on the road with nightly performances in five towns and five folk clubs, travelling the length and width of this island between them.  The prospect of three days of rest feels more than welcome, with the comforts of a washing machine, dryer, bathtub, kitchen, and two people with seemingly endless time to lavish on us talking of all we have in common in this peculiar business. The down side is that Val now seems to have something that may be my head cold, and it's annoying her mightily, causing her to cancel her music bookings. She began to suffer the symptoms one day after I noticed them in my own body.  Her cough does sound like the one I heard in that unfortunate infant in the laundromat.  Needless to say I feel guilty though she may have contracted it elsewhere.

     I thought there must be more to this story of British riots than the news that made it's way to me in Tacoma.  There isn't much, it would appear.  I'm pleased none of my friends are attempting to denounce the general influences of Caribbean immigrants in regards to the incidents that occurred in London, Croyden, and Birmingham.  The riots are not being blamed by the government on gangs for the most part.  And the demographic results  of studies are not blaming people of color entirely.  The efforts to understand the responsible parties is still on.  Reports I hear show the rioters to be people with criminal records, and put the blame mainly on courts releasing them too early from prison.  One of our friends whose opinion I trust told me something interesting; the communications between thieves was fairly sophisticated.  They swept in and out of the buildings wiping out their stocks with the use of Twitter, making their moves so swift the police were outwitted.  They changed course at the last minute, causing the police to go to the wrong location.  My feeling about the official governmental line on the events is that they're getting statistical results they're looking for which obviate the most difficult subject behind rioting, which is poverty.  I've been travelling a total of nine months here over ten years, unaware of the extremes of deprivation in my midst, and protected in this world of folk music.  I think this country probably has deeply entrenched racism and poverty that has erupted in dialectical materialism with these riots.