Day Six of Eleven.

Day Six.

South Shields Folk Club.

Its Sunday, and in the world of John Thompson, that means Sunday Roast. We left Jacey's and came down the side of the Pennines on the lookout for John's quarry, a carvery. The idea of roast is quite thoroughly entrenched across the UK, and pretty much any pub that can do food will do a roast on Sunday. After a couple of false starts, we found a place called the Black Bull, which had a beautiful carvery with lots of vegies.

The drive north is beautiful, and as the clouds began to clear and the sky got higher and bluer, our spirits lifted. All the young spring growth glows in the sunlight, and the fields and towns are pretty. Coming into Gateshead, we drove past the welcoming open arms of the Angel of the North, the sculpture that is human, plane and indomitable spirit all in one.

We had a Travelodge room again, and John's voice is still tender from his cold, so he went straight to bed for a rest. I went for a walk and discovered we were opposite Newcastle Racecourse at Gosforth Park. It was once used as a scout and guide camp too, in amongst the spreading woodlands, and I had a pleasant walk along inviting paths through the woods.

We took the Tyne Tunnel to South Shields, and had dinner in a pub with Susan and Malcolm Craven, champions of the Northumbrian smallpipes, and organisers of the Singing Weekend we are running on June 9-10 in North Broomhall, Northumberland. We'd love you to come along! Here are the details again:

A weekend workshop for singers of all abilities.
“Sandpipers”, North Broomhill, NE65 9UL
10 am - 5 pm each day. Cost: £90
Price includes lunches, tea and coffee
Bookings: Susan Craven, Tel. (01670) 761872
Email: Susan@NorthumbriansAnd Pipers.com
northumbriansandpipers.com

Down to Westoe Football Club, current home of South Shields Folk Club, and Brian, Brian and Ken, the organisers, managed to badger Susan into doing a floorspot, after she got her pipes out to play a few tunes with us. She did three tunes and finished with that devilish array of arpeggios, The De'il Amang the Tailors.

All the floorspots were entertaining, sometimes moving, and there is certainly a strong singing tradition in this club. In spite of a smallish crowd last night, it was one of the strongest nights of singing along we have had on the tour.

Day Five of Eleven.

Day Five.

Wortley Folk Club, Stocksbridge.

On the way north through Nottinghamshire from Bury, we were scooting along by Clumber Park when John exclaimed, "There was an elephant by the side of the road." We turned around to investigate, to the consternation of Satnav Lady, and John found this friend.

We drove up to Yorkshire to Jacey Bedford's house. She is our agent and we've staying there so many times, it was a homecoming. We got a wonderful warm welcome and the use of a washing machine - really like home! 

Al Parrish, the great big bass player from Tanglefoot, the big-voiced Canadian band, is doing a solo tour, and he came with us to Wortley Folk Club and did a great floor spot. We discovered, as part of our fact-finding tour of the UK, that Wortley is pronounced 'wertly' and is actually held in Stocksbridge.

There were several floor singers (people who get up to do a couple of songs, for those in Australia who don't know the term), and they were all great. The audience was very attentive and we had a most enjoyable gig, except for the bit where John knocked his drink into all the leads!

Day Four of Eleven.

Day Four.

The Milkmaid Folk Club, Bury St Edmunds.

We packed up our suitcases, loaded the car and drove back to Dartford. John took the train in to London, where he had a few things to do, and I went to visit my second cousin once removed, Sadie. That means she's my gran's niece. Sadie was looking wonderful, as well as I've ever seen her, but she had a heart attack last month. She was amazingly recovered, and filled me in on the doings of many people to whom I am related in the UK, but haven't met.

Then I drove to Cambridge. Cambridge is one of my favourite towns, because it's outrageously beautiful, with breathtaking architectural grace realised in a lovely light-hued stone, and is one of the few towns where my personality seems normal. Even slightly staid. 

People were rushing about on black bicycles with wicker baskets on the front, tourists were queuing for the visually lush experience of punting on the Cam, there was a sense of rightness in the world that comes from a group of people realising their full potential. That was what I felt. There are so few places in the world where many people are stretching and challenging their intellects, finding opportunities and expanding their horizons as a matter of course, but Cambridge feels like one of them. We all deserve a chance to excel.

But I was there to collect John from the train, on the way to our gig. I was fortunate to have a little bit of time for a wander and to see a contemporary art gallery. Then we paid for it by driving in peak hour traffic to my second cousin Gerald's place near Bury St Edmunds, where our gig was.

Gerald came with us to the gig, and being an art teacher, he was very instructive about the fascinating array of architecture we were passing on the way in to Bury. There is a huge church, which was regarded as a small church in the grounds of the Abbey, when the Abbey existed. But Henry VIII got rid of that. A prosperous market town for centuries, Bury is full of wonderful, airy, beautifully built merchants houses, and a massive Corn Exchange, all columns and neoclassical lines, which is currently being turned into a Wetherspoon, upon which opinion is divided in the town.

Our gig turned out to be part of the Bury Arts Festival, so to our delight, the room was overflowing with people who wouldn't normally hear about folk gigs, but who really enjoyed our music. It was a marvellous night, with about 90 people, and a support act called The Larks. Marvellous.

Day Three of Eleven.

Day Three.

Folk at the Drum, Folkestone.

We're staying in the excruciatingly modernised bit of Maidstone, (Travelodge, Matalan, Asda, Lidl) but a few hundred metres along the River Medway, the century changes. Glorious stone buildings reflect serenely in the Medway, and secret lives are lived along the river. I greeted a man who was sitting quietly, waiting for passing foot traffic to subside so his tame water rat would come over and eat. I saw a man sitting by the river beside the travelodge, juggling three swords. The church had unusual, cylindrical graves, and much of the area was built in the fourteenth century.

There are advantages in the modern bit too. Crowing with success, I discovered that Hobbycraft has almost everything I need to put on my art exhibition in Derry. They're not in Northern Ireland, but I can buy up my supplies before we drive onto the ferry.

Folk at the Drum had a full house, which was 28 people - its a cosy room! There were terrific floorspots, lots of harmonies, our friends Brian and Marian sang a rousing song about Jackie Frost, and most of our songs were augmented by voices in harmony.

Day Two of Eleven.

Day Two. 

Haverfolk, Romford.

Tips for touring musicians: the cornerstones of survival on tour in UK are surely Wetherspoons and Travelodge. Look for cheap rooms on Travelodge's website, you can often get them for £19. Wetherspoon's huge chain of pubs does food all day, which is when you need it! Its tasty, its cheap, their coffee is good and 99p, they have free wi-fi. These two tips apply all over the UK.

But sometimes, a tip comes up for a good place to eat in the town you're in. Because Dartford Folk Club wrote the tip on our contract, we had good soup noodles at Twin chinese restaurant in Dartford last night, with char siu pork and pak choy! Go there.

Thanks to the magic of earplugs, I woke at 11 and had to go and move the car out of the shopping centre car park into the Travelodge car park which now had spaces, before we got a ticket. At least we didn't have to move it by 8am like we did in Blackpool. Sigh. How glamorous.

Wetherspoons was the breakfast choice, because we were too hungry to go exploring first, and our walk there took us across the lovely River Medway. 

English rivers always put the word "river" before their names. Australian rivers use the river's name as an adjective: The Burdekin River, the Brisbane River, the Ross River. In the UK we have seen such delights as the River Ribble, the River Erewash, and the River Wantsum. Well, said John, the river can't have any.

Maidstone is a surprising mixture of roadworks, hideous shopping malls from the 1980s and amazing old buildings. The high street is the story of architecture in Britain over the last 500 years, writ large in the facades.

This afternoon we practised concertina and fiddle and got our paperwork up to date. We were advised not to bother using the Dartford Crossing between 5 and 7pm because it was too busy, so we rushed about and had a quick dinner in Maidstone before driving the hour up to Romford, where they were just about to kick off the night with a wide selection of floor singers.

Haverfolk Club has moved to a long, pleasant room at the back of the White Horse in Chadwell, and its great singing ethos remains strong. John is at the end of a cold, so we have left a couple of more taxing vocal workouts like King Willy off the list for a few days to let him recover. We made sure we had plenty of chorus songs there, and were rewarded with powerful singing from the audience.

And here is the floorspot with the shiniest tambourine - it actually had fairy lights wrapped round it!

Day One of Eleven.

Day One.

Its day one of our epic eleven day run of consecutive shows, and tonight we are playing in Dartford. The challenge of these eleven days is to try to appreciate new and interesting things in the UK, while on a gruelling schedule.

And we've made a brilliant start. Last night, we made a trip to London's West End and saw a show. Any show in the West End would do, really, to tick that box. But we saw Warhorse, the show that has been winning awards, and wowing audiences with its incredible storytelling, following the life of a Devon horse who goes to the trenches of France, and using larger than life puppetry to bring it alive. It was a powerful evening of theatre.

We came back to Essex by tube and then car, and spent Day One (today) tying up more details of my June art exhibition, practising, and finally, driving to Dartford Working Men's club over the Dartford Crossing.

Almost full house at Dartford (more than 70), and the opening act was usually a session at the Mick Jagger Centre. They were called Jaggerfolk. Lovely tunes and songs. We enjoyed bringing our new swag of Australian songs to the old Dart, and lots of people sang, and even (shhh) did actions to The Miner's Washing. Sheepskin Creek was requested, we did it. And our dear friend Debbie Carmi, last seen in Brisbane, has moved back to London, and came along with her parents. A delight to see her. She's an acupuncturist and massage therapist and naturopath - anyone need one in London? She loosened up my sore shoulder (too much flute) just while sitting there talking to me.

Now we are at a Travelodge in Maidstone, with the tiniest room I've ever seen at Travelodge, but still bigger than a 3rd floor BnB room we once had in Dorset. Its clean, its comfy, the shower's hot, its two in the morning and time for sleep.

Did I manage something cultural or interesting in all that lot?

Coming up in Northumberland

http://www.facebook.com/events/357112071018995/

Cloudstreet singing "Dance up the Sun" at Bursledon Folk Club

Cloudstreet sing "Stringybark and Greenhide" at Bursledon Folk Club

The land of bright gold tour - UK 2012

We're approaching Sydney airport after a wonderful National Folk Festival in Canberra.

We had a bunch of fabulous gigs w Rebecca Wright and Emma Nixon, and were joined by the Brisbane Celtic Fiddle Club in the "Infinite Leonard Cohen Competition". (We came second with a beautifully cheesy "That's No Way To Say Goodbye").

As always, the festival was a flurry of rushing to and fro with a little socialising thrown in. But a very satisfying time. We're feeling ready to sleep on the long haul over to England.

We're excited about taking an album full of Australian music over to the UK on this trip. And the baritone concertina is in my suitcase.

Love from the road,

John and Nic



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Narellan Rd,Blairmount,Australia

Nicole has an exhibition in Derry!

A new album and preparing for another tour... and more!

Workshops and speed painting started this busy year. Now we're gearing up to record again before hitting the road in April bound for Canberra and the UK

1.  The Land Of Bright Gold - Pre-order our new album

We go into the studio this weekend to begin recording our seventh album,  The Land of Bright Gold.  We're excited by the new songs and tunes that we'll be recording and especially happy to be working again with the amazing Pix Vane Mason of Pix Records, the engineer with whom we've worked since Dance Up The Sun in 2006.

The Land Of Bright Gold is inspired by a range of Australian traditional songs, with the added cloudstreet touch of innovative arrangements and rich vocal harmonies.  We're on target to release the album in Canberra at the National Folk Festival at Easter.

Pre-order The Land Of Bright Gold  now and be among the first to receive a copy.  As a bonus, you'll receive a secure link to downloadable mp3 files of all the album tracks at least a week before the hard copy is released. (And our undying gratitude for supporting us in making the album!)

To pre-order you copy now for A$25 including postage worldwide, follow this link to our CD page: cloudstreet.org/shop.html

2. A Year Of Blogging Dangerously...

John's blogging project, An Australian Folk Song a Day (ozfolksongaday.blogspot.com) finished it's year of posting on Australia Day (January 26).  367 songs were posted in all, with John recording all but a handful especially for the blog.  Each song has been posted with lyrics, illustration and notes and will remain up on the web.  The blog continues to attract around 300 visits per day, with the 70 000 visit mark due to be passed in a couple of days time.  An Australian Folk Song A Day has also been selected for preservation by the National Film & Sound Archive.

The final entry is well worth a look - Waltzing Matilda sung by the 150 attendees at this year's Celtic Southern Cross Summer School.

If you prefer hard copies, you can order either a two-disc set of 287 selected tracks as mp3s or month by month audio CDs of selected tracks (on average 25 tracks per month) from the blog.

3. UK Tour 2012

Jacey Bedford has organised a cracking tour for us this year.  Starting in mid-April, we'll be playing at clubs and festivals all over the United Kingdom.  If we're going to be in your area, come along and say hi and let your friends know that there's going to be some fabulous music nearby!

Here's where we'll be:

April:

Wed 18, Maudslay, Coventry

Thu 19, Newport Folk Club

Fri 20, Bingham Folk Club

Tue 24, St Neots Folk Club

Wed 25, Kirkham Concerts

Thu 26, Bromsgrove Folk Club

Sat 28, Sing With Cloudstreet Workshop, Lewes

Sat 28, Lewes Saturday Folk Club

Sun 29, Woolston & Burlesden Folk Club

May:

Tue 1, The Hoy At Anchor, Leigh On Sea

Sat 5, Upton Riverside Folk Festival

Fri 11, The Woodman Folk Club, Kingswinford

Tue 15, Dartford Folk Club

Wed 16, Havering Folk Club

Thu 17, Folk At The Drum, Folkestone

Fri 18, Milkmaid Folk Club, 

Bury St Edmunds

Sat 19, Wortley Folk Club

Sun 20, South Shields Folk Club

Mon 21, Stirling Folk Club

Tue 22, Montrose Folk Club

Wed 23, Edinburgh Folk Club

Thu 24, The Star, Glasgow

Fri 25 Stonehaven Folk Club

June:

Fri 1- Sat 2, Chippenham Folk Festival

Sun 3- Mon 4, Chester Folk Festival

Tue 5, Great Knight Folk Club, Northampton

Fri 8- Sun 10, Sing With Cloudstreet Workshop Weekend, 

North Broomhill, Northumberland

You'll find contact details for all of these gigs on our gigs page.  See you there.

4. UK Workshops

This year's tour includes two workshops, including a weekend for developing your singing skills in Northumberland.  These are great opportunities to explore your voice, build on your skills and take your singing to the next level.

Here are the details:

Saturday 28 April -  Lewes, East Sussex

Vocal Harmony Workshop

A day-long workshop covering warmups, harmony development, tone-matching and fun repertoire.

Elephant & Castle, White Hill, Lewes BN7 2DJ

10.45 a.m.- 4.45 p.m.  Cost: £35

Bookings:  Valmai Goodyear, Tel. (01273) 476757

Email:  valmaigoodyear@aol.com

www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/

Saturday 9 - Sunday 10 June -  Broomhill, Northumberland

Singing Weekend

A weekend workshop for singers of all abilities. Go into more depth with harmony and expression, and enjoy your voice.

“Sandpipers”, North Broomhill, NE65 9UL

10 am - 5 pm each day. Cost: £90 

Price includes lunches, tea and coffee

Bookings:  Susan Craven, Tel. (01670) 761872

Email: Susan@NorthumbriansAndPipers.com

northumbriansandpipers.com

5. The National!

Before embarking on our next jaunt to the United Kingdom, you'll find cloudstreet at this year's National Folk Festival in Canberra.  As well as regularly programmed concerts and our workshop, we'll be joining in with the Brisbane Celtic Fiddle Club and the massed morris for The Green Man Cycle, and singing one of Bob Wilson's songs in Tales from the Story Bridge.  Look for us in the program.  Updates will be posted here: http://www.folkfestival.org.au/

6. Fiddle Icons - Works in Progress

Nicole's exhibition of paintings for the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention is continuing apace. Her paintings will be travellig to Northern Ireland in just over a month, for the show in June. We've posted a short video to give you an idea of the works in progress.

This link will take you to the video:  http://youtu.be/7Kr4xvzgZK8

An exciting project with some beautiful work underway.

7. Come and sing in our choir.

Nicole and John direct a weekly choir in Bulimba. Morningsong meets every Friday from 9.30am – 11.30am and everyone is welcome to come and enjoy singing a wide variety of world material. We sing in Zulu, Scots Gaelic and even English and teach a lot of the music by ear. More info at www.morningsong.com.au. While we're away on tour, Rose Broe from the Pirate Brides will direct Morningsong.

8. Come and play tunes.

Maleny Tunes Class, run by Nicole, meets every Wednesday night from 7-9pm in Maleny, and we learn Irish tunes by ear. If you can play a couple of tunes on your instrument, you're ready to come and join this very social group and add to your repertoire. More info at malenytunesclass.blogspot.com.

And now.... To the studio!

Summer in Cloudyland

Greetings from a warm and humid Queensland as Summer starts its coming-in.  This post is being written during a short break from important lying in the pool duties.

1. The Circus of Desires Video Clip

We raved about the Neurum Creek Acoustic Music Festival, but what we didn't mention was that we used the opportunity over the weekend to make a film clip in that beautiful setting.  With the help of the wonderful Jeff Licence and a whole heap of folkie friends, we put together a video of the title track of our latest CD, The Circus of Desires.

You'll find the product of this labour of love on our webpage, www.cloudstreet.org.

We love it!

2. Christmas Céili this Saturday in Maleny - come and dance!

If you're going to be in South-East Queensland this Saturday, pop up to Maleny for the Christmas Ceili at the Maleny Primary School Hall, 16 Bunya Street, Maleny.

The Maleny Tunes Class (every Wednesday) and the Maleny Celtic Winter School (every June), are having a Christmas Ceili to have a load of fun and do a little bit of fundraising, so we can continue to foster the talents of traditional folk musicians across the coast and hinterland!

The music will be live - its the Maleny Céili Band! - and the dance callers include the wonderfully clear and experienced and simply lovely Davydd McDonald.

Its a family event, every age is welcome, $10 for grownups and kids are free. We'll have a cafe with tea, coffee, water and importantly, cakes, available and we're looking forward to a great community dance.

3. We're Teaching Singing in January

We'll be running a 5-day singing workshop on Traditional Singing in January as part of the Music Under the Southern Cross camp in Central Victoria (January 15-20, 2012).

This well-established week of music is a great way to acknowledge yourself as a musician, network with like-minded singers and players and focus your attention on your music for five glorious days.

This year's singing class will be taught at two levels, including an Advanced Development Workshop for more experienced singers who want to build on their skills.

Cost for the week is $680 including accommodation and all meals.  Classes without accommodation cost $300.  Concession rates are available for under-16s.

For further information on the singing classes, contact cloudstreet at mail@cloudstreet.org or on 0416 032 573.

For enrolment details, visit the Music Under the Southern Cross website at http://www.celt.com.au/summer.html#info

4. John Went West

John has spent much of the last few weeks travelling through Western New South Wales with Fada (with bandmates Jenny Fitzgibbon, Jeremy Dunlop and Steve Cook) playing Irish music for eager young primary school students. (With the occasional exception - John recalls one high school student asking, "Are you a leprechaun? Because you have freakishly small feet".)  With counselling, he is expected to recover fully.

5. Nicole's Art and Music Combine

Nic's been working on a new commissioned morris dancing painting, but took time to go to Boxwood, a week-long workshop in New Zealand, where she studied flute and fiddle with three acclaimed teachers, Chris Norman, Alasdair  Fraser and Natalie Haas.

An exciting concept which had been simmering in her mind achieved clarity at Boxwood and she has started a new body of work called "Fiddle Icons".  She's planning a series of portraits of influential fiddle players and their instruments, borrowing some of the iconography of traditional Byzantine icon painting.

For more information, including a sneak peek of the first work, check out Nicole's art blog:  http://nicolemurrayartblog.blogspot.com/

6. UK 2012

April, 2012 will see us back in the United Kingdom for a seven-week tour with our schedule almost full, thanks to the wonderful work of Jacey Bedford Tour Management.

You'll find an up-to-date schedule of our gigs for this tour on our gigs page.  We'll keep updating it as more come in.

7. It's Blogtastic!

An Australian Folk Song a Day (ozfolksongaday.blogspot.com) is powering on, with 5000 visits in October and already more than 6000 in November.  A couple of illness-induced gaps have been filled, with more and more songs coming out of the woodwork.  Visit the blog, marvel at the music, ooh and aah at the extensive lyric library which is growing by the day.

8. Yes, We'll Be At Woodford.

cloudstreet  will make a couple of stealth appearances at this year's Woodford Folk Festival, performing as part of a special presentation on the Green Bans movement.  An Unlikely Alliance will also feature Peggy Seeger and a host of local talent.  You'll find this show in the Greenhouse from 6.30pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

We'll also be taking part in The Green Man Quest with the combined Queensland Morris sides (Saturday, Folklorica, 6.15pm.)

And of course, John will be joining the crew for the smash-hit game show, Game On in the Greenhouse, and no doubt leading his team to victory once more in the Great Comedy Debate on Saturday afternoon.

Nic is planning a full programme of workshops and will join the line-up with the fabulous Maleny Céili Band on Thursday afternoon.

9. And the National!

If you're really keen to mark a spot in your diary, cloudstreet  are booked for the 2012 National Folk Festival in Canberra at Easter.  

10. Morningsong for Brisbane Singers

We run the Morningsong Choir  in Bulimba every Friday if you find yourself at a loose end on Friday mornings.  Check out the website and come along to stretch your voice, meet some lovely people and make beautiful music together. We'll be singing through til December 16.

11. CDs make great Christmas Gifts.

For that special person in your life, what better gift than music to fill their hearts with joy, beautiful harmonies to lift their spirits and a simple way to show your good taste and support for local music.  Cloudstreet CDs are available in a variety of colours, but only one shape or size.  Visit the cloudstreet shop for the gift that sings.

12. Subscription

As always, we aim to keep our mailing list up-to-date.  If  for any reason wish to be removed from our mailing list, simply reply to this email with the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject field.  Alternatively, if you prefer, you can unsubscribe yourself from our list by going to our Subscription Page and following the instructions there.

If you would like to respond to this email, simply hit reply and your mail will come to us.  Or just email us at mail@cloudstreet.org.

And remember, music makes everything better.

See you soon down the road,

Nicole and John

cloudstreet

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