Nasrudin + Fabula Rasa

"This is a Romanian tune, followed by Hungarian tune....This is a Madedonia tune, follwed by a tune we learned from John Hicks. Yugolslavia, we think it's from....A couple of Klezmer tunes we learned in teepee."

"The next song is about love. But not happy love. Sad love. Is Typical Hungarian theme. Sad."

Certainly the best evening of Balkan and Hungarian folk music I have ever been to. 

Claire Watts/Gerry Hegarty + Afterhours

We reviewers, we diary bloggers, live in perpetual fear of having sold sold our souls. Of finding that it is no longer we who experience the arts, but a sort of homonculus that experiences them on our behalf. 


"I so hope this film sucks" we say "Then I will be able to write a funny review slagging it off." You can tell when the alter ego has taken over when we start to talk in a funny Latinate language; when we say "self-penned song" rather than "he wrote it himself" or say "troubadour" when we mean "man with guitar" or "performed with aplomb" when we mean "we liked it but we can't remember why."


So: nothing will cause me to resort to the obvious cliche. 


I may say that opening act Clair Watts and Gerry Hegarty were virtuoso extremely good proponents players of the fiddle and the tin whistle; I may note that they played jigs waltzes and polkas and I may admit that the song I enjoyed most was the non-taditional but definitely Irish "Galway to Graceland" (by Mr Richard Thompson) and that the audience joined in the chorus. 


I will certainly say that the main act was a reunion or a revival of a group that were popular on the folk circuit with people who like modern versions of mostly Irish traditional folk songs in the 1980s and 1990s, and that this is the first time they've played together for 14 years. I may note that it was a definite coup for Marick (and the other people involved in running the festival, oh yes) to get them to re-form; and that there was great enthusiasm from the audience when they implied that they would come back next year, if there is a next year, which there will be. I will note that it was the biggest turn-out so far, and with a real genuine atmosphere, that there was an old guy at the bar who started to doing Michael Flatley type dancing at one point, and that the young kid sitting in front of me clapping in time with everything turned out to be the one of the performers sons; and that when the group tried to get the audience dancing for the final few numbers, the youngster, and then quite a lot of the audience, rushed forward. And I shall talk about how eclectic what a nice range of different kinds of songs they sang. They finished their main sent with one in the Irish language about a young man whose brother has died, and one of those traddy underdog songs about going off to fight for the king and coming back to find your houses burned down and your goods all stolen, but that they and went almost immediately into a close harmony piece about a little Irish baggar man doodledum doodledum dooddle dum, fol whack a daddy in such genuinely close harmony that one of the trio had to stick is finger in his ear. And they then got a local guy who played the pipes up on the stage ("have you got your noisy stick and bag with you?") for yet another encore.


What nothing, I am telling you, nothing, will possess me to say is that after the long set, the encore, getting the piper up on the stage, setting up a tune for him to play, doing a long piece with lots of improvisation, the  I nearly missed the last train because the set really did finish, get this after hours. 


Even though I bet no-one has ever said that before.  

Jon Hicks + Inu

Very nice gig. Very short diary entry.

Think of it as diary entry. Not review. Reviews are what you do to big important people who can't answer back. Wouldn't presume to "review" people in small venue with human faces when I don't know one end of a whistle from the other. Just record how nice tunes strike me. Written in middle of night. Probably should delete first paragraph before hitting "send" .

Never underestimate value of word "vibe" in writing about the arts. Covers a multitude of whatnots. Last year heard (v. good) black men doing combination of performance poetry (v. good) and dance songs. Described as having "a kind of hip hop vibe". Evidently got away with it.

Last night club has Irish Vibe. Confident that it had Irish Vibe, because opening act, Jon Hicks is said to be best guitarist in Ireland. Always amazed at number of things people can do with guitars. Some strum chords, some pick out melodies; some do that slide thing; Martin Carthy goes "plinky plonky"; some do that Gypsy Flemenco thing where your hand goes round and round. Mr Hicks not my stereotype of Irish musician. No Diddly Diddly Di at all. If anything, Jon Hicks seemed more in Gypsy mode. (Connection between Irish music and Gypsy music? Irish Travellers?) Lots of long solo guitar pieces, described as "jigs" and "reels"; picking out persistent repetitive melody at one end of the instrument while spiralling around the theme at the other. Appreciative audience, almost like pentecostal choir, not merely clapping but calling out "beautiful, Jon, beautiful". Blogger could have listened indefinitely. (Only classical CD blogger plays voluntarily, excluding viking funeral pyres, is Spanish classical guitar. ) Naturally, blogger most enthusiastic about sections with words. (Anyone can sing accurately, but he sings with wonderful expression.) Did that Martin Carthy one, "Dominion of the Sword" "krugerand-krugerand, I should bloody co-co" etc etc, which is both a tongue twister to sing but I'm sure a finger twister to play. Finished with agressively brilliant "What You Do With What You Got" which I think of as a Dick Gaughan song, actually by someone called Si Khan; barking out lyrics like his life dependend on it, doing a weird da-da-da percussion thing on his strings between lines.  Now what's the good of two strong legs / If you only run away? /And what use is the finest voice / If you've nothing good to say? Made we want to get to my feet.

Second act was Inu, with Marick Baxter (one R) doing all kinds of blowing – flute, penny whistle – center stage, Louise from Monday night adding vocals to some of the songs; Bethany Porter doing cello; someone else...checks programme... Breda Horgan doing that amazing one handed Irish drum...checks interweb...Bodhran...thing. Marick thought he might be out of practice having been co-organizing the festival all week: didn't show from my point of view, at all. Eclectic Music with Irish Vibe particularly enjoyed the Norwegian pipe tune about a swamp troll that segued (good word) into a French waltz. (Norwegian Pipes only have two holes, apparently. This done on normal European flute, but still very exotic and mysterious and trollish.) Lots of jiggy reely things. Sadly "working mens' club" atmosphere not condusive to dancing but definitely the kind of music that makes me want to...er....sway my beer glass in time to other people dancing. Louise and Beth do solo spot of Lady Franklin's lament, lady looking for husband lost in the North West Passage, as ripped off by Bob. Louise has a really beautiful voice. Finished ensemble on singalong Irish love song.

Totally enjoyed both acts; as ever, not able to say helpful things about instrumental passages, dancing about flutes is like playing the bagpipes about architecture. Or whatever the quote was. 

Will try to remember to take notebook tomorrow.

Fernhill + Hodmadoddery

Hodmadoddery could best be characterised as "two men with guitars who sing folk songs". They also happen to be two men who specialize in singing the kinds of songs I like. They do a  long, mellow meander through Fair Annie, which acknowledges its debt to Martin Simpson. ("He's really good, but we make up for it because there are two of us.") There's a nice, forceful, John Barleycorn with a strong, beat to it. There's John Tams' epic about the brides left behind by English soldiers in Spain (the one that incorporates Spanish Ladies and Over the Hills...) There's a bit of Grateful Dead, and just to complete the impression of preparing the set purely for my benefit, they encore with Painting Box, rather thumpier and more raucous than the fey original, but any set that includes an Incredible String Band number is a good set in my book. "When other people's songs are better than yours then you're going to do their songs, because their more fun to sing" they say, which seems a sound principle. There is an (I think intentional) busking feel to the set, as if these were two people on a street corner or by a pub who happen to be singing some songs that they like and have done their own arrangements of. I would certainly stop and put a couple of quid in their guitar case. They're opening for Eliza Carthy in Brizzle next month, which sounds like traddy heaven.

Now for a sort of a confession: I know nothing whatsoever about Welsh folk music, and therefore felt a little out of my depth at the beginning of Fernhill's set. My Little Note Book had things like "Spanish...South American?" written in (possibly because of Ceri Matthews wonderfully expressive guitar) and "Elvish" (possibly because I am an appalling geek.) I assume that these are the groups own modern arrangements of traditional tunes (I also wrote down "Unthanks" at one point). Much of the material is in the original language: they talk us through where the songs come from – this one, a simple proposal of marriage, was recorded on a wax cylinder by a butcher who died in the First World War; this one is a collection of pieces about love birds (they use the term "collage" to describe their combination of different songs into a single piece); this one is a hymn to the most beautiful river in Wales; this one a description of a little town, looking down on it from a hill. 

It all sounds lovely, although I started to feel that it all sounded similar. I usually justify listening to folk on the technical grounds that "it's got proper words and proper tunes" so I do get a bit lost when half the equation is in a language I don't understand.(Nick tells me, unfairly but accurately, that I regard all music as accompanied poetry) 

And then, towards the end of the set and straying from their West of Britain brief, dammit it if they didn't hit me in the face with two of the best songs of the evening, if not the week. First a Sydney Carter thang, hitherto unknown to me, about how famous women drop out of history. Singer Julie Murphy said that she found the song cryptic: I felt that the slow, distant arrangement – which contrasted with those slightly jokey colloquial rhymes that Mr Carter put into all his pomes – made the piece more mysterious than it needed to be. But in a good way. 

And even better, "Down in Yon Forest", one of those Carols that sound Christian but feel pagan, given the most otherworldly arrangement I think I've ever heard: Julie Murphy singing the melody in a straight, pure voice; the fiddle adding a single droning note accompaniment (is droning the word I want? I mean like on a bagpipe?) and the trumpet adding a discordant counter melody. I've already use the word "haunting" once this week: but this was literally haunting. Spooky. Scary. Not quite like anything I've heard before. Brilliant. 

Fernhill. An acquired taste, then, but one worth acquiring.   

Angel Ridge + Scoville Units

Monday evening in the Widcombe Club (did I mention yesterday that they have nice beer? They have nice beer) is necessarily less full than Saturday, but all the people who didn't come missed a very nice evening with a strong bluegrass flavour. 

Andrew defines bluegrass music as "anything which sounds a bit American but probably isn't country". Andrew's friend Nick defines bluegrass music as "anything which sounds a bit country but has interesting instruments like banjos and mandolins and stuff." The first act tonight, Angel Ridge, consists of Louise Baxter and Sue Harding, both regulars at the the Bath Folk Club. (Louise has been introducing the acts with great enthusiasm; and is married to Marick who is the onlie begatter of the person all the bands are thanking for organizing the festival. Saturday was their wedding anniversary.) Angel Ridge is either a housing development in Swansea or a beautiful mountain in Colorado. They defined their opening number as "one of those country folksy things of dubious provenance that everybody knows." They sing folksy Americana with mock accents that aren't necessarily authentic but only occasionally turn into parody. A bouncy sing-along Ki-eye-icky-com-a-ki-yi-yay, if that's how you spell it, has been given a dose of "gender realignment" so that it's a couple of cow-girls who have a run in with Jesse James. They are clearly having fun, but the most memorable bits of the set are the sad, soulful tunes: a very deeply felt "Long and Rocky Road" and a long, haunting akapella "Precious Memories"; (Sue gesticulating like a southern baptist preacher, Louise with eyes closed, singing as if from a trance.) Extremely powerful stuff, particular since Louise was reported to be getting over a serious illness.

"We have a thing for taking traditional songs from various places -- Celtic places and American places and twisting them" explained Monday nights main attraction, the absolutely stunning Scoville Units. They're a five piece instrumental band -- banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, drums and double bass. Banjo player Leon Hunt seems to the be the prime mover - he's the one whose recorded solo and won awards in Nashville - but it's an ensemble group, with each member getting their own spot.

Regular readers will know that "purely instrumental" isn't my favourite idiom, but these people blew me away. (I enjoyed them more than I enjoyed Lau last month.) One example of "twisting" music was an extended riff on Scarborough Fair: one of those long, jazzy performances where first the banjo, then the guitar, the fiddle, then the bass all seem to play a few recognisable snatches of the melody but get caught or swept up in the drum beat until three our four minutes into the tune the whole thing resolves back into the familiar tune and the audience spontaneously clap... There was a great sense of connection between band and audience. When guest double bassist Miranda "sometimes in Show of Hands" Sykes did Kate Rusby's "Old Man Time" in her solo spot, I distinctly heard several audience members going "Wow!" before the clapping started.

Kerr, Fagan, Harbron + Maclaine Colston and Saul Rose

Bath. Royal crescent, Roman Spas, Jane Austen, Buns, Oliver biscuits, Oh Who Can Every Be Tired Of.

Widcombe social club is both metaphorically and literally on the other side of the tracks. When I first walk in, I go have a series of flashback to 1970s Butlins holidays: the disco mirror ball suspended above the stage, the smell of beer mingled with the smell of fish and chips and sausages in buns, the Morris Dancers leaning on the bar. Well, maybe not the latter. Since I know nothing whatsoever about Morris dancing, I'll just say that the Belles of London are not your typical beery male Morris side, and that three ladies jumping in the air, dancing jigs and waving handkerchiefs while a man plays the accordion feels a lot like the right way to start a folk festival.

First proper act was Maclaine Colston and Saul Rose. Saul plays what I could instantly recognise as a melodian. Mac has a large box, the contents of which he hits with a stick. I would have guessed "portable xylophone", but the programme assures me that it is a hammered dulcimer. He tells us that he recently appeared with the London Philharmonic doing the live version of the Lord of the Rings sound track. (They presumably don't have a regular hammered dulcimerist.) He performs the Shire theme, combined very cleverly with the Chris Wood / Andy Cutting instrumental reel "The History Man."

I've only come to folkie music in the last couple of years, and one of the things I enjoy is playing join the dots, seeing how Song A mutated into Song B. The tradition, I guess you call it. So I spotted some time ago that Mr Dylan's "Man on the Street" is the same as "The Young Man Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn". Mac and Saul do an uproarious Summerset version of the same song, with a much more Anglo Saxon vocabulary. "How he lived, I never could tell, but that young bugger was always well". Beth Porter joins them on stage and they do Banks of the Sweet Primroses. But the focus of the set is instrumental pieces. "Here are three little tunes to tap your feet to," says Mac before the encore, which sums it up nicely.

Nancy Kerr and James Fagan are sometimes a duo, but today they are a trio with squeeze box man Rob Harbron. Opening number is the rather wonderful "Queen of the Waters", written (like everything on the new album) by Nancy herself. It has a traditional vibe to it, but the rhythms are complicated and the lyrics impressively sophisticated and evocative. ("On a blue-jay morning feathering thorny memories.../On a well worn byway travelling magpie gathering..."). I believe the technical description of this sort of song is "incredibly catchy." 


Although there are some songs off the new album, a lot of the material is off the older Station House, which, if my I-Pod is to believed, are some of my favourite and most played tracks: they do the the lovely "Alan Tyne of Harrow" (one of the jolliest songs about capital punishment I've heard); the sweet amalgamation of "Hard to be Leaving Old England" with "I Vow To Thee My Country" and the brilliantly audacious juxtapostioning of Iris DeMent's "Let the Mystery Be" with leftie standard "Pie in the Sky". They are fond of combing songs and tunes into medleys in this way. "I thought a mash up was what you did with potatoes until I watched Glee" explains James.

I thought the highlight was the, er, mash up of Rob Harbron's accordion composition "Kissing Tree Lane" with Nancy's reworking of the traditional "I wish, I wish..." She really is a bona fide poet, starting with the traditional "I wish I wish but all in vain/I wish I was a maid again/but a maid again I ne're shall be/ til apples grow on orange trees" and ending with the original "Once I was both young and free/ and green leaves grew at my head and feet/ but now by back does bend and bow/ I think my apple's sweeter now.") 


I find myself tempted to resort to cliches like "haunting" and "ethereal" (or the catch-all "sweet") to describe the trio's sound: Rob's melodian air wafts over you almost imperceptibly – he's the sort of musician who makes it look like he's not trying; fiddle comes in almost without you noticing; guitar suddenly adds substance and beat, and then Nancy's heart-breaking lyric comes in; finally the song fades away and you are left wondering where it came from and where it went but feeling that you've known it forever.

No gig tomorrow (some painful business related saga meant that the promoter pulled Martin Simpson at the last minute, apparently) but hopefully will be back at the club on Monday evening.