New Song : Great Gig : Th Mashers Keep Going - Just

Keeping the old body moving has been the central theme to this week.

Ever since the Doctor added to my medication to combat the diabetes (genetic , not self-inflicted he adds defensively) I’ve not been too good. In fact all the symptoms I’ve never had have raised their ugly head, which I find just a little ironic.

It’s been hard to concentrate on anything, and just been completely washed out, this besides the complicating effects of the other condition.

So not a lot was done.

Monday Myke and I polished up the songs for Saturday’s Gig, focussing upon the new material. And that was it for me – until Saturday that is.

The Rawmarsh Mashers and Friends night was I think a resounding success, despite most of Rotherham’s folkies concentrating their energy on Kiverton Park’s Folk Club Fortieth Birthday Celebrations. My spies tell me it was a great success too. So well done KIverton Park on your magnificent Land Mark.

Of course it would have been nice if as was suggested all the local Folk Clubs had been invited to join in, but then, as I know so well, phone numbers and emails addresses do tend to get lost.

But to my surprise The Bridge was quite full on Saturday Night for an acoustic based event, when their Musical Saturday Nights have almost exclusively been rock / blues based.

It was nice to see so many familiar faces, and some new ones as well.

Myke and I were particularly pleased with the reception to our second set. Broadly labelled “the Political Set”, with the new additions to the rep. in the form of songs by Matt McGinn and John McCullagh being real hits with the audience. We could hear folks singing along and generally making noise which is what it is all about.

It must have been good as we even dragged in folks from the other bar for the set.

And what support we had to. Tina McKevitt and Matt Hegarty were on really great form producing a magical mixture of sounds – brilliant stuff, while Phillip Hartley produced one his well poilished live performances that mark him out as a talent to watch.

Thanks to both for adding so much to the evening.

The full set of photographs including those taken by Linda Gamston can be found as a slideshow HERE

We also hope that we might have some of the tracks from the night for you to listen to. Our Phillip is working hard with his recording gizmo’s to see if he can make sense of the recording levels.

The first of these, Cows With Guns, is now on the players and will be available as a FREE DOWNLOAD on a Masher page soon.

So turning to the Web Site.

I know from some comments made that some of you get frustrated not being able to turn down immediately on the music players when going to the main pages. The first thing we are doing about this is to place the player in the same place on every page, and in a position where it will be instantly accessible.

So as I get around to updating pages you’ll find the player in the top right hand corner of the page. The sound is adjusted by simply clicking on the speaker – once cuts it – twice brings a low volume.

It does mean though that you will have to accept the random playing of songs.

On the main News Page for Acoustic Rotherham and the Mashers I will place a full Player from which you can select songs – as soon as I can.

We’re shooting up – or is it down the World Charts according Alexa – they are the people who measure these things – we’ve reached the 880,000 mark this week. Brilliant stuff.

Don’t forget you can find all sorts of services on the site – we particularly recommend that you take a look at the Printers. It’s a brilliant idea and the price is more than reasonable.

Also the CD Shop and the related section for demo tracks – it’s up to you to make use of these services, the more we have on line the more interesting it is to the folks who visit the site and the more the more likely they will be to buy the CDs.

Don’t forget the 30th March over at the Riverside in Sheffield, Dave Pascal has put together a bill that includes Tian Mckevitt and Matt Hegarty + Paul Pearson + Phillip Hartley + The Rawmarsh Mashers to raise money for the UNICEF Haiti Appeal.

Thanks to all of you who have contacted me about the Festival being planned for the 31st May to Engage Young People. There’s still room for a lot more artists and if you have other skills like song writing and feel that you can share this with young folks then we would love to hear from you.

Yes the date is now confirmed for 31st May - that’s Spring Bank Holiday Monday, the one where most of us are either broke or simply Bank Holidayed out, following Easter and May Day.

This week the Mashers are out and about a bit – is your Club on the target list? Watch out.