A long overdue update albeit a brief one!
A short piece of the Radio Shropshire version of “Ty a Gardd” is now on the music page for your listening delectation.
We’ve now begun recording the new CD having finished the demo and revamped publicity leaflet. We’ve gone back to plan “a” on this front as the business of having someone else take care of the recording for us fell through. This means we’re doing it ourselves once again. Just means it’ll take a little longer but no matter, we’ll get there!
And a small gig coming up at the Last Inn at Hengoed near Oswestry on December 10th. We’re one of a number of people performing for the annual Extravaganza.
The performance at Y Dolydd was a good one despite having to compete with some very loud music emanating from the rock stage. Would have been OK if they’d been playing in time with us!
We’re finally getting on with the job of preparing for next year’s festival season. A pack of 25 CDs has just gone off to the Musicians’ Union for the stand at the WOMEX exhibition and trade fair in Essen, Germany. We’ve also now got the first two tracks for the new demo CD finished, hope to get the third and final one down this week. Next job after that is updating our brochure. It’s now a year old and could definitely do with a revamp!
One of the tracks we’re using for the demo is the version of “Ty a Gardd” which we recorded live on Genevieve Tudor’s “Sunday Folk” programme on BBC Radio Shropshire back in January of this year. Maybe we’ll try and get some of it up here on the music page…
We should also soon be able to start recording the new CD (finally!!) now that the demo looks like being completed in the next few days. Be good to get started on that!
We’re back at Y Dolydd, the old workhouse in Llanfyllin, this Saturday as part of a large fundraising event for the restoration of the building. We’ll be playing in the acoustic tent during the afternoon. Let’s hope the weather stays good – don’t much fancy skating about on a muddy field in the pouring rain!
We’ve just had a very pleasant day playing in Oswestry for the Streets Ahead festival which has been organised to celebrate the fact that all the town centre improvements are now finished. As if to make up for the cancelled gig at the Crown in Barmouth we’ve been invited back to Oswestry for a second day of performances on Saturday 4th September. We were very well looked after while we were there today and were fortunate to have had good weather into the bargain, hopefully we can repeat this on Saturday! There are a number of other musicians going to be there as well so we may even be able to work a bit of a music session into the proceedings.
Next week it’s back to the attempt to get some recording done in time for our new demo.
The gig at The Crown Hotel in Barmouth has been cancelled.
Didn’t we have a great time in Broadstairs! We were kept pretty busy over the three days with a mixture of twmpathau and performances. Bryn Davies was great as our caller for the dances and we played in some good venues. The thunderstorm on Monday night as we were playing at the Pavilion made the gig that night particularly memorable!
Broadstairs Folk Week is a very large affair with more stuff going on than you could possibly hope to see in just one week. A round of applause is due to Kim Headley and her team for all their time and effort in making the festival work so well. Well done to you all!
The late booking we had in Barmouth for an enthusiastic audience just before we went to Broadstairs went well enough to earn us an instant repeat booking on 3rd September. We’ll have a busy time that day as we’re also playing in Oswestry town centre during the day.
Our gig at Baggeridge Country Park on 15th August was an enjoyable one. We were blessed with good weather, a sizeable audience and a very nice location.
Into a busy month now. Telford Town Park on the 1st followed by a late booking in Barmouth on the 6th at the Crown Hotel then we’re off to Broadstairs for a few days.
We’ve set the second half of the month aside for recording as it looks a little quieter than the first half with just a couple of local(ish) gigs.
A couple of weeks rehearsal now ready for the gig at the Last Inn at Hengoed near Oswestry on 16th July. We’re busy brushing up on the dance set as well – we’re playing for a twmpath with caller Bryn Davies at a private function on the 17th. It’ll be good practise for the Broadstairs gigs in August.
We’ve postponed the idea of any more attempts at recording until the second half of August for now as we’re a bit too busy to give it our full concentration. We’ve got a quieter spell from the end of August so we’ll probably go back to it then.
Well we had a brilliant time in Belgium. The festival was in a place called Reet in Flanders. We played on various stages around the town on Saturday and on the field stage on Sunday. We were incredibly well looked after during the weekend – a great big thankyou to Peter, Marco, Bruno, Bruno, Paul, Frieda and everyone else who helped make our stay so enjoyable.
The weather just about held out for the weekend although the channel crossing on the way back was a very rough affair which on this occasion didn’t go down too well with Jem!
There’ll be some pictures from the trip in the gallery shortly.
It’s shaping up to be a busy summer! We have a number of bookings already confirmed – take a look at the gigs page. There are also one or two more in the pipeline and one we’ve had to say no to as it falls on a date when two of us are away on holiday. I know, I know… playing music for a living is one big holiday anyway. Hah!
We’ve started on the business of recording for the new CD. We’ve begun by recording a couple of experimental tracks which we’re listening to with a view to deciding on final arrangements and how we’ll actually record them.
Saturday before last (12th June) we had an interesting last minute kind of thing. We played for an event as part of an evening of activity designed to raise the profile of Y Dolydd, the old workhouse near Llanfyllin in Powys. This is all to do with the BBC programme “Restoration” and the fact that Y Dolydd has been shortlisted as one of the buildings in with a chance of a £3m restoration. The BBC covered the evening so who knows – we may be shortly peering out of your TV screens on national television and frightening all the children!!
This Saturday (19th June) we played for Ysgol Pennant’s annual Hwyl Haf (lit. summer fun). It was a fundraising day for the school and it was to have been an outdoor performance but the weather was too dodgy so we played on the stage in the hall.
Off to Belgium for the weekend at the end of this week (25/26/27 June). A quick dash over and back to play at a festival in Reet, a little way North of Brussels. Siwsann George has been asked out as well so we’re all going to travel over together and probably play a few pieces together as well. Should be a good if tiring weekend. There’s an article about the festival in which we get a mention in the Western Mail this Saturday just gone (19th June).