Tuesday 9 February 2010

Acoustic Rotherham is Buzzin'

After the full on excitement of Acoustic Rotherham 6, this past week has been a bit of a recovery week for me.

Thanks again to all those who made musical contributions to the afternoon or popped into The Queens to have a listen. I’ve had a brief chat with Chris the Land Lord at the Queens and he was delighted with the event.

Acoustic Rotherham 7 will be held on 25th April. It looks as if the list of acts is now full, with more local talent showing their skills as well as contributions from the North East and the Midlands.

The pictures from the event are up HERE or if you want to grab copies you’ll find them in Albums on both Myspace and Facebook.

The Mashers have not been idle though. Monday found us at The Bridge for our regular practice session. We’re dusting off the stock of Irish songs – yes we’re getting ready for Paddy Night already. In fact on the 13th March at The Bridge we will be putting on a Mashers and Friends Night to kick the Irish season off.

More of that as we get closer to the date.

Being completely skint, we didn’t get out for a song together during the week and Myke Masher was busy helping his significant other clear houses.

However, I did sneak into the back of the Catherine’s Charity Band Night on Friday. A fantastic night of different genre of music, from the traditional roots of Toein’ In The Dark to the rock folk fusion of local singer song writer Karen Mulcahey and the punky sounds of Peppermint Charlie. The place appeared to be packed so one hopes that a lot of money has been gathered in for the Biology trip to South Africa.

And guess who unusually forgot his camera?

Myke Masher was of course at Play On, at The Fat Cat it being the first Friday of the Month.

And Saturday! There I was getting nice and cosy and not thinking about the cold damp foggy stuff outside when Mrs Masher got a call to that was to drag us out. My Daughter thought that she had left her house without locking the Front Door. And if we were out we may as well stay out.

My daughter was in fact out celebrating her birthday in Rawmarsh. This was once a very popular past time of her parents, e.g. tripping merrily around the pubs of the Rawmarsh Village. In fact it used to be popular with everyone in Rawmarsh. The pubs at the weekend would have crush room only and if anyone attempted to dance to the music, everybody danced.

But sadly no longer.

A clear sign of the times. It’s hard to believe that things have changed so much in such a short period of time. OK there were lots of people out, but not in the numbers we used to see. Plenty of pint sipping elbow room in all the pubs we visited.

In fact I heard someone from the Pub Trade claiming that we simply have too many pubs now, as the effects of the smoking ban really kicks in and folks invest in 50 inch televisions, cheap ale from the Supermarket and a comfy sofa for their entertainment. Social activity being reserved for Facebook.

Too many Pubs!! I never thought I would ever hear those words.

This representative also made another claim. He said that more independent pubs were shutting than those run by the Leasing Chains like Punch. He wasn’t able to produce the figures for this claim. Me thinks that it’s “spin” as the chains, having kicked Land Lords out stick Managers in until another Mug can be found to buy the Lease. So technically the Pub has not closed.

I know – life cannot stand still – the World changes, but I can’t help feeling that it’s changing for the worse sometimes.

And of course with every pub that closes a potential live music venue closes as well.

But I’m glad to say there are some folks bucking the trends. I want to sing the praises of local music Promoter Mick Hill. Now here’s a chap dedicated to live music. For years he has Promoted music at live events at different venues throughout Rotherham, in fact the successful Mini Folk Festival at the now defunct Blues CafĂ© was his baby. But now he has a place of his own converting what was “yet another” disco bar into a live music venue.

And what a success Dicken’s Bar, Rotherham has become. What was a dieing bar has come back to life, packed out every weekend.

What’s more Mick has opened the Pub on a Sunday afternoon for an Open Mic Session – The Mashers have not paid a visit yet but it’s on the books that we will creep along very soon.

You can find the Dicken’s Bar listings on the News page.

Well done Mick – you’re a legend mate.

And while you’re there check out the live music going into The Bridge in Rotherham on a Saturday night. I’d draw your attention to Crossfire, old friends of Acoustic Rotherham, and made up of Tom Hezct and his mate, playing an interesting mix of rocky acoustic music. I find them very innovative. They’ve been very quiet recently – sorry quiet is not really word – so it’ll be great to see them out again. They’ve also committed to playing at Acoustic Rotherham 7.

But there’s also plenty more great music to be found at The Bridge on a Saturday night, so get down there and give your support – and you’ll still have time to walk up the hill to Dicken’s Bar to catch the great Bands up there.

And talking of innovations. Two more CDs came into the CD Shop this week.
Jude Cowan is a lady with South Yorkshire roots, living now in the South…. Tut tut. Her new CD Doodlebug Alley, her second, is a wonderful collection of often dark songs. Jude accompanies herself on her trusty Uke, which gives the CD a really simple feel and allows the lyrics to come through. Go give the sample track a listen.

Jude is multi talented and she has another collection of her poetry published later this year.

And at long last we can now also feature the CD from Acoustic Rotherham’s good friends Tina McKevit and Matt Hegarty, Dewdrop On The Barley. Those of you who have heard the music of Tina and Matt around the Folk Clubs of South Yorkshire will want to have this one in your collection.

I’m pleased to say that CD sales are starting to take off, and we now feature CDs from twelve different Acts – the more the merrier though – so if you’re an artist with a CD that you carry around and sell at Gigs – why not get it listed in the Acoustic Rotherham CD Shop. And you don’t have to be from Yorkshire. So long as you are Indie, we’ll list you. Details HERE

The slow rebuild of the Acoustic Rotherham site continues, but we are getting there.

The regular Gig Guide page has been reconstructed, and Book the Acts has been sorted – although on checking a technical thing needs to be done, but it should be up and working properly by the end of the day.

The more observant folks amongst you will have spotted that we have been adding bits of advertising content to pages. We’ve been very careful about who we place on our pages and you can find links to some excellent products and services. Using these links help keep Acoustic Rotherham going so please support them.

The same applies to the link up with Amazon. Use Acoustic Rotherham links and it helps to keep it all going.

Those interested in the stats might be interested to know that the past week has seen the site come into the top world wide 1.5 million of sites visited, that’s the top 30,000 in the UK. Not bad for a local based site. And we’ve held onto the Reverbnation number one spot for another week, but that’s mainly due to the artists who support Acoustic Rotherham and their brilliant music which makes the player so popular.

Could that be another reason to have your CD in the CD Shop?

While we’re in our commercial mood – don’t forget to get your tickets for the Kirkby Fleetham Winter Warmer 19th– 21st of February. Yes there’s still a few left, even after The Mashers said that they might drop in, so get to the news page and get yours ordered now. Paul is waiting for your email or call.

Keep an eye on the status bar for news of anything The Mashers might be up to this week.

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