Brid

A big thank you to David Swann, Phil Friend, Martin Heaton, Robin Bunton, Martin & Penny Robertson and all the other great musicians who helped to make yesterday's Bridlington Old Town Festival such a great success. We had a fabulous little sound stage and PA and were made to feel really welcome by the organisers, town folk and visitors alike.

Please be assured I don't normally play wearing sunglasses, but yesterday was the time and the place.

A special thank you to Paula Ryan for her kind words.

Poster Boy

I’ve been a bit tardy, I know, but I’ve finally got around to having a little launch party for Pickering Place, my debut EP. It’s at The Kirk Theatre, Pickering, just outside York, on Saturday 7 September.

Joining me on the night will be the fabulous award winning songwriter, David Swann: he’ll be performing solo and with his new band Freefall. Also playing, spreading their intoxicating brand of feel good vibes, all the way from Manchester, are Frozen Gin. I’m particularly looking forward to their set as I taught the guitarist everything he knows.

And, finally, our MC for the evening, keeping the whole thing together, will be my good friend Martin Robertson. If I talk to him nicely he may even sing a song or two himself.

If you fancy it, come on down (or up) and say hello – I’d love to see you. And it’s all in aid of charity. I’ll even let you buy me a drink.

Caution: Don't Play With Fireworks

Rachael FoxEvans has a brand new album out. It's her first; Playground Of Dreams has been a long time in the making: I've heard each and everyone of these songs germinate - from the drawing board to the beautifully performed and produced finished product. Ten self penned acoustic vignettes are laid out before us; drenched in harmonies and some augmented with mandolin, Rachael's voice and guitar bring these delightful songs alive in a way I'm sure even she couldn't have dreamed possible if you'd asked her twelve months ago.

This is my favourite. And a timely reminder too.

Rachael FoxEvans: Don't Play With Fireworks

Soldier in the shade

How long do you have to know someone before you can call them a close friend? I don't think there's a scientific formula to work these things out.

We first met when Jenny and I moved to these parts a couple of years ago; right from the get go, he and his GLW made us feel part of the community (yes, we really do belong to a community) and from that day to this we've never looked back. Well, actually, I have. Or did. But that was just a wobble and I came out the other side with my sanity intact. But I digress. Amongst his many attributes he's a fine songwriter, real ale connoisseur, bon viveur and has an outlook on life that belongs in the mind of someone thirty years his junior. He is also, I'd like to think, a close friend.

He has a significant birthday coming up this weekend. Although we're away in Scotland for a few days, we hope to be back on Sunday to sing a few songs with him and toast his longevity* with a glass or two of something dark and hoppy.

* He'll kill me if he reads this

I always get rebuffed

At our last songwriters circle on Monday we got to talking about Bob Dylan's Sara. It was suggested that it was the only lyric to contain the word kelp. Would that it were. Looking at this list it would appear we are living in a kelp abundant world.

Likewise Jona Lewie's 'Kitchen at Parties.' I really did think that it was the only song to mention the word rebuffed. Wrong!

Jona Lewie: You'll always find me in the kitchen at parties

33s and 45s

It's been said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. That being the case I'd best dig out my tap shoes: a week on Wednesday my local is having a vinyl show and tell evening. With a proper Dansette turntable promised, I've got just over a week to dig out some platters and put forward a case for my choices. On the surface you'd think selecting your favourite records would be like shooting fish in a barrel, but when you've got a collection with hundreds of singles (7" and 12") EPs, albums, double albums, triple albums (step forward Paul McCartney), just getting a shortlist together will probably mean several evenings of burning the midnight oil.

It promises to be a great night and not just because of the top choons which will no doubt be played at full tilt. I'm also looking forward to the stories that go with them. I know that most of my hits and misses will have a back story: how I discovered that artist, have I seen them live, where I bought the record, how much it cost, the label it came out on, the bag it came in (or is that just me!), whether or not it got taken to parties - each record has it's own unique DNA. It's early days to tell you what I'll be taking but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some early 70s glam rock, some classic 60s 'B' sides (Beatles, Who, Stones, Kinks, Hollies) maybe some Northern Soul. Or it may just be Never Mind The Bollocks. Sides 1 and 2.

I'll report back with my final runners and riders next week.

In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you'd pick - and why.

Wreckless Eric: 33s & 45s

Going solo

Joe Solo

Regular readers will know that six months ago I left my city boy life behind, dropped down a couple of gears and pitched up in the country to a spot 100 miles north (and five degrees colder). After what I can only describe as a kangaroo start, I think I'm beginning to embrace rural life: I ramble (as in walking, I've always done the other sort), bake bread, prop up the bar of our local, I'm thinking of joining the local bellringers and I tut like a native when the flatlanders start arriving with their bloody caravans.

We still have culture, you just have to look for it in different places; concert halls and clubs have given way to village halls and backrooms in pubs. Much more civilized. Saturday night being a case in point.

It's only a hop, skip and a jump to the Memorial Hall where, playing to a near sell out crowd (it must have been nudging three figures), an all star bill gave of their time freely to play a charity gig in aid of MacMillan Cancer Support. David Quinn, Pick-a-String, David Swann, Four Quarters (well, One Quarter, to be precise, owing to illness), Sarah Dean and Anna Shannon performed with great aplomb and ensured they'll all be back by popular demand next time.

But the star turn, for me, was a veteran of the Hull music scene - Joe Solo. Once head honcho of Lithium Joe (John Peel used to play them in the mid '90s), he now plays, well, solo. These days he can be heard on Radio 2's folk programme where Mike Harding plays selections from his new album, If Peel Street Could Talk. His demeanor is a cross between Woody Guthrie and Joe Strummer, while his left wing credentials and anti-war material are pure Billy Bragg. But then Bragg never wrote anything as poignant as The Twelfth Of November: a song directed at war mongering politicians about burying the dead on the battlefield after peace has been declared - when he sang it, the room was deathly quiet. It's taken from his Potter's Field album which follows characters caught up in The First World War - he's also written an accompanying book, Stories From Potter's Field. He only played a brief twenty minute set but I could have listened to him all night.

This is from Peel Street.



A big thank you to Martin and Penny Robertson, without whom etc. etc.

Pint-sized Grappelli

Stephane Grappelli (1908-1997)

(Oil on canvas, Merryl Jaye)

When was the last time you walked into a pub and asked for a pint of Stephane Grappelli? Mmm, thought so. Well, thanks to those fine people at The Crown Brewery in Sheffield, I've been able to step up to the bar in my local and do just that. As you can see their jazz range has already included, among others, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Jimmy Smith. And what a nice drop Stephane Grappelli is too - a rather tasty blonde beer weighing in at 4.5 OG. Martin Robertson, new owner of The Sun Inn, Pickering, is passionate about beer. So much so that he felt the only way to guarantee a perfect pint of real ale to the highest quality (from the start of the barrel to the end) and still give value for money, was to buy his own pub. So that's what he did. It's a bit like me wanting to see Paul McCartney live but because I don't like going to the big sheds and soulless aircraft hangers he insists on playing in these days, booking him privately to perform in my back garden. In fact, Paul, if you're reading this, why not come and play in The Sun's back garden this summer (they're always looking for new turns between 4 and 7 on Sunday afternoons) and we can kill two birds with one stone?