Easter Regeneration births and moving on

For me Easter has always been a spiritual time.  Good Friday a time of reflection, Easter Saturday a day of contemplating those things in life that cannot be explained and of course Easter Sunday a day of spiritual re-birth. 

I suppose this has to do with my youth, where the Easter weekend was a mixture of Church attendance and Football, the classic Gosport Borough versus Fareham Town local derbies.

It was a special time, running the full expanse of emotions, the sadness of Good Friday through to the joy and happiness of Easter.

It was a three day period shared by most of the Community, Friday Shops were shut, buses ran a Sunday service, Saturday morning was manic, (most shops had half day closing in those days) and Sunday, besides a visit to a packed Church nothing moved much.

Christian or not the Easter impacted upon everyone’s lives. 

The past sixty years has seen so many changes to Society and it’s attitude to Religion or the spiritual side of life as it became more and more secular.  Those changes also affecting me as my attitudes and beliefs changed.

I was out in Town on Good Friday, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that it was a Bank Holiday let alone a special day in the year.  Even the buses ran to the usual time table! (which makes a change – cheap shot) 

For me it’s all rather sad.  Can I suggest that Christian or not we all need to have that time of reflection, time for thought, and internal regeneration, and that this Spring time Festival provides that ideal time.  Is it by accident that the early Church Leaders chose Spring to celebrate Easter?  I think not. 

Spring is that time of rebirth. 

Perhaps it also demonstrates how we urbanites have become alienated from the true seasonal flow of the land.  After all we can get Strawberries in Tesco all year round!  (just an example).

 So in wishing you a Happy Easter,  I wish you all the peace that this season should bring you, with both yourself and your World.   

But not much peace for me this past week. 

Monday and The Masher was kicking out his stuff at The Barnsley Folk Club.   I really had a great time with the regulars as I ran through the typical Masher type set.  One thing is for sure there is always someone to join in with the songs at Barnsley and this makes so much difference when you’re performing.   The time seemed to fly by. 

Of course no Masher appearance is complete without a “Masher Moment”, and it came two songs from home, when Muriel’s nicker elastic snapped and my idiot sheets suddenly disappeared from eye level!!  No one seemed to notice though……….. lol   Looks as if I’ll have to do a bit of sowing before the next Masher outing.

So thank you Barnsley for making me feel so welcome, I truly enjoyed myself. 

And my thanks to Paul Pearson for taking the rtrouble to come and support me.  It would appear that my comments both on the night and originally in this Blog have greatly upset him, so my apologies to him, nothing personal was intended, and I trust that in time he will forgive me......... 

Oh!! There is one other thing, I’m beginning to get a complex.  While the Masher Roadies escaped this Gig by heading to Cornwall, while Barnsley Club stalwart Dave Burland took to the Canals of Yorkshire and Lancashire to escape.  This will not be overlooked.

Tuesday and it was off to Rotherham against the Cuts, the cross Party organisation formed to fight against the Condem cuts to our services.   The main reason was to again talk about the plans for the Banners High Festival.  More progress and I’ve got my entire body crossed that we can pull off attracting a person who would make an excellent headline speaker for the event.   Watch this space, as they say……………………….

Wednesday and a night off, but on Thursday, thanks to the star of the show, I headed off to Crookes / Princess Royal Folk Club. 

A trip not without it’s interesting moments.  We drove into the middle of Sheffield and then relied upon the Sat Nav of my phone…………….  Now I’m not sure what I did, or if in fact the Sat Nav had discovered that I intended to sing a song or two, but taking the directions of the kind lady we toured the centre of Sheffield only to find ourselves back on the road to Rotherham!!   A couple of hefty smacks and the Phone started t behave itself and had us at the Club in five minutes flat.  Fortunately we were not late.

Oh and the Star was of course was Mark Hearne, Guitar Teacher supreme of this Parish. 

It was good to get out to Princess Royal, it being some two years since my last visit when Myke and I did a full Gig at the Club. 

In particular it was fantastic to get to listen to David Paskell.  I forget what a powerful singer he is and what great songs he writes.  Let’s hope that he’ll be making an Acoustic Rotherham appearance again soon.  What I do know is that his latest EP Launch is at the Riverside later this month.   See April listings HERE

Tina Mckevit, with one good ear, provided one of her lovely two song spots, while our Pete played what one wag called an IKEA violin and hey, I can report he’s getting really good……….

Mark Hearne’s spot was another of his technically brilliant demonstrations of guitar work coupled with one of the most entertaining and diverse set list on the scene at the moment.  I really hope that more Clubs give Mark the chance to do his thing…………….  It’s completely different to brother Ray’s performances, lighter, providing a journey from the popular traditional to contemporary songs; more for the non-serious Folkie, but nonetheless jut as valid in Folk Clubs. 

Top moment came when Mark said he was going to perform a Beatles number, and a regular made a dash for his harmonica, only to find that Mark’s arrangement was a little different to what might have been expected thus making it impossible to join in……………  

A few artists I have spoken to recently have been expressing complaints about musicians joining in with them during a performance, uninvited.  If it’s an open session there’s no problem, that is, after all what it’s all about, but in the more structured floor spot Clubs it can sometimes be inappropriate.  There’s a host of reasons, ranging from the nervous beginner being thrown off their train of thought to a more experienced performer having their own arrangement or performance style of a Song and it being destroyed by someone playing through breaks, or solo instrumentals. 

The standout worst ever example for me came at one Folk Club where an artist decided to do “knocking on Heavens Door”.  Their chosen arrangement was the slow film version, the best in my humble opinion, however, as the poor artist embarked on the song the guys of the band picked up their guitars, and proceeded to push it along at a near Rock pace, completely draining out the poor singer. 

Whatever makes one set of musicians do this to another musician is beyond my comprehension.  The trick is unless invited to join in leave it alone, no matter how enthusiastic one might be.   He says in a rather moral high ground tone…………   you can still drown the Mashers out though, it will save your ears and means I don’t have to sing quite so much.

And so Friday came and it was another of those ROMPing nights at The Bridge.  The place was packed out with poets flying in from all over the County, Sheffield, Birmingham, Chesterfield, Doncaster and Nottingham all featured in another brilliant evening of spoken word, punctuated by a couple songs, one from our Roy and another from me.  I have to apologise for my rather disjointed performance caused by having to use Roy as a music stand: anyone who looks towards his idiot sheets and see’s Roy smiling back will know just off putting this can be.

But more importantly by far is to witness so much raw and young talent congregated in one room.  It really is fantastic, and certainly renews my older youthful energy.  And once again it raised in my mind why it is that we do not have the same youthful energy in our Folk Clubs.  The two Folk Clubs I attended this week would have been hard pressed to bring the average age of attendance below fifty, while the ROMP evening would have been around the thirty mark, and that was with Roy and me in attendance. 

So keep a ROMPing.  Just a little disappointed by one carping comment from a young poet who after the musical interludes made a point of stating that she was going to read a poem, “as after all that is what the evening is about”.  A bit naughty given that within Rotherham we are trying very hard to drive down the division of labour between the creative genres.   Just a thought.

And speaking of which, we need your input into theBanners High Festival Programme/Brochure, any poems, especially those with a tone of “protest” in them will seriously be considered for inclusion, and those lacking protest will get their chance in the Slamfest publication. 

And that brings me to this week’ big announcement.  Fanfare of trumpets……………..  the Rotherham Art Events Web Site has been launched.   The site is almost fully complete, new pages for certain categories of Partners will be added as and when they come on board.  The Aims and Objectives, the general overview, the Festival Programme, and for the Organisation most important of all the Sponsorship / Advertising and various Membership schemes are now in place. 

The wheels of our Banking system move very slowly, so initially payments are having to be made via the Masher Paypal Account, please be assured it’s all going to the right places. 

If you’ve got the time check out the site HERE – it’s totally different in style to the current Acoustic Rotherham site – but I would really welcome comments, and for folks to work through and check that all the links are working correctly. 

And so the week ahead…………………  and loads of great music is coming your way at all the regular venues, you can find it all on the Listings Diary HERE and at this stage I’m not going to bore you with all the details.  I would just say to those who missed my Email on Saturday The Ken The Hat Session at the Marquise, Nether Haugh, Nr Rawmarsh is very definitely ON THIS MONDAY.

I’m sure that once again I’ve forgotten some stuff and no doubt important stuff, but never fear I’ll be sure to have it all organised by the end of the week update.

So until then enjoy what remains of the Easter period, have great fun, support local music and Art events in whatever form, AND KEEP IT LIVE.