This year I will be mostly listening to....

Well it may have only just started but 2012 is already looking like a great year for folk music. These are some of the very exciting albums I will be listening to this year
Jim Moray - Skulk

It's accoustic, it has a fox on the cover, what's not to love??? The Moray returns with a fantastic album of new material, all of which is available for your listening pleasure here but please buy the cd or pre order the (hopefully it's happening vinyl because its that good and to quote loreal he's worth it (oh extra fox footage for your pleasure can be found here, I'm talking about Sorrell obviously...)

Mawkin  - Crow

Not to mistaken with the Ralfe band tune of the same name, the Delarre double are back with the additon of Nick (Cookie Monster) Cook and a guy hitting stuff for an entirely new album. If its as good as the single Skymningspolskan / Betsy Likens (which you can listen to here) it should be a scorcher (oh and if you missed any of their previous output its all on the website for a tiny fee too, so hook yourself up!)

Seth Lakeman - Tales from the Barrel House

After the disappointment and lack of tunes of offerings like Hearts and Minds (I would have thrown cabbage but its best not to waste good food) Mr Lakemen returns to his roots (yey) and heads off recording down an disused copper mine to record Tales and it certainly seems like he's mining the tunes again (collective groan) it isn't as good as Kitty Jay but a definite step back in the right direction.

Moss, Moore, Rutter - Moss, Moore, Rutter

Okay technically not released this year but they won the young folk award last year and now being back in the spotlight thanks to Jack Rutters unlikely appearance on ITV's Take Me Out (???). I think I might have heard most of this album thanks to the delights of free musicy listening places but its very very good so this year there will be a concerted effort to find the cd and play it many many times, I recommend you do the same.

Message to Bears - Folding Leaves

Sadly Jerome (who writes all the music for this collection of musicians) has now moved back to Bristol, which means less local gigs for us Oxfordonians. Awesomely however there is a new album of tunes (after getting funding sorted via this site). I've got their last release Departures ad having seen them live quite a few times can confirm that yes they are brilliant, fantastic music to chill out to or watch snow fall, make sure you grab a copy.


And now a couple that are hopefully on the way
Bad Anna - Debut

Uiscedwr split up, I'm devastated, Bad Anna form, I am slightly pacified. Described on their page here as new kind of folk music for our generation, if its got Anna Esslemont playing fiddle it will def be worth a listen

Writings on the Wall - suggestions for a  title welcome!

The idea has been mooted that we attempt a recording, we were going to try a six track until we realised we probably have quite a bit more material than that... Anyway after we play the fringe event in April we should be locking ourselves away and trying to record something. In the meantime however for more informative updates you can like us on Facebook here.

Gig in Garsington

This has just dropped into my inbox, the official poster for the gig that Writing on the Wall (otherwise known as the fabulous band what I am in) are playing in about a week and a half. Also on the bill is Robin Bennett's new country band the Grassy Hillbillies ('locals' may recognise the name as Robin and his brother Joe are responsible for running local fab festival Truck, Robin was also described by one of my friends as the batman of cool, so there you go!). The other bands we haven't encountered yet but I can give a small sneak preview of the finale (well the song at least) here it is sung by folk legend John Coppins . Be lovely to see some of you there!

Blowzabella & tune writing

 Jam and I attended a Blowzabella gig tonight, as usual there was much dancing and the music was great. As well as getting the chance to have a really good dance I also managed to pick up a copy of the tune book I haven't got and get it signed (be still my beating heart, this will take pride of place on my music stand!).


I've since found out there is to be a Blowzabella day next year in April, with dancing and playing workshops and also a competition for original compositions. The winner gets their tune recorded by the band!!! I think I may have to get scribbling (its really special to have my stuff played by Writings but by my favourite folk band that would really be something!). I have a feeling the standard of entries will be quite high, here is Andy Cutting (box player for the band) playing a composition by their hurdy gurdy player (and possibly man with the best name ever) Gregory Joliever.

Duotone at the North Wall arts centre

So this weekend Jam and I were lucky enough to go and see My friend Barney and his partner in musical crime James perform as their musical duo Duotone (blog here , myspace here). The gig was to promote the new album Ropes an was held at the North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford (great venue but I always forget how far away it is from the centre of Oxford, natually we ended up running to make it). Fantastically there were also a host of other very talented performers appearing with them, including Wod ,

aerial artist Nomi McLeod (blog here),

 Colin Fletcher and Jane Griffith

and the whole evening was compared by master poet Alan Buckley (who also found time to read some of his own poetry despite having a horrid cold).

Stupidly I forgot my camera which is actually less bad than you'd imagine as I couldn't have used the flash anyway and phptographer Kate Raworth was there taking much better photos than I ever could (all images used here are copyright Kate Raworth you can check out the rest of the set here). It was a truely magical evening and I now have a copy of  Ropes which as you can imagine is very very good and you can purchase here. Hurrah for local gigs and artists!

Grey October Day

Just a quick post a photo of me has recently been used as a cover for a single. The single is called Grey October Day and is by Judy Dyble. More info on Judy and her beautiful music can be found here and you can pre order all 4 versions of the single (released on the 31st October, all versions of which are very very good) here. I was thrilled when Judy asked if she could use the image (taken at Lisa's wedding by the very talented Mel Cunningham, I was having a quiet moment and just daydreaming out of the window as usual) for the cover and it's even more special to see the finished thing!

Dyeing for the weekend

Yes as you should be able to see in the above post I am now a darker brunette than I was before! The urge to reach for the dye bottle was brought on by the fact that I feel I've become a bit too sensible lately so what better way to shake it up than some festival hair? This weekend Jam an I went to Truck festival, just down the road in next but one village along Steveton (seasoned readers may remeber a previous excursion there with Dave which can be found here). We had a great time (this wasn't guarenteed as Jam had only been to one music festival before, what if he didn't like it???), there was sun, local beer and lots of lots of bands. The fantastic Bellowhead headlined the Friday night, and were as always brilliant, Roddy Wooble (who I later semi stalked as he was watching another band) and Rhosyn were on the Sat and on Sunday we danced like crazy people to the Go team! The truck monster was also about (mostly during the afternoon & evening because of the warmth) and the kids were really making a beeline for him, it was like the santa effect only times about a million! Every year I have the same arguement with myself about whether to go to Truck or to head down to the secret garden party (website here doesn't it look cool?) but I know I always have a great time at truck and it's really nice that it's a local festival and I see most of the people I know there. What about you readers? Heading off to any festivals this year?

My Jammy lies over the ocean, my Jammy lies over the sea...

So this morning at some un-godly hour Jam left for France for an entire week of being manly and chopping wood with his dad in the depths of the French countryside (Sacrebleu!). Unfortunately as it is the actual depths they do not get internet access (booo) which means I'm on reduced rations of one very expensive text per day. You would have thought being me I'd have a detailed plan of stuff to do to fill the time, but alas with the impending exam I seem to be doing a lot of staring at music theory books and trying to aviod most serious revision. All is not lost however as on Sunday I've arranged to go to one of the very special Oxford coffee concerts with a friend to see the Carducci String Quartet (plus by Sunday my exam will be over and it will be a mere 4 days till Jam gets back). What about you my lovelies? What are you up to this weekend?

Stessed out woman at desk

Hello lovely readers, one of my friends has just sent me the above image and post caption with a very sweet email to ask how I'm doing. It's a good point, this weekend comes complete with the horror of my latest music theory resit, the latest rung on the ladder to becoming a fully qualified and certified music teacher (hurrah). I've been doing all I can, practicing past papers, having some intesive tuition and doing as much cramming as I can stand, but I'm still pretty worried. This exam is the one I have to pass before I can go any further, the nice 'take it as many times as you like, it doesn't really matter its an extra to your school/work exams' are over & I need to get this one before I can go any further. Eeek! I guess this is the problem when a hobby mutates slightly into a possible career (Thoughts?). Trying to not panic, get lots of sleep and not forget to eat as well as not neglecting any of the other areas of awesomeness in my life (generally in the region of Jam, the band or wood school). I've got to say I'm finding moderation quite hard at the moment. Do any of you have any tips in the week leading up to an exam? Anything that I should/shouldn't be doing? When was the last time you were stressed at a desk?

Bohemian Wednesday here again

Bohemian Wednesday is here again! (the weeks seem to be going very quickly at the moment, not sure if it’s because my exam is looming). Anyway after a strong start last week, I decided to try and work in more work staples to this week’s look while retaining the bohemian spirit, the result of this experiment can be seen below, mostly the outfit was based around purples due to my fantastic new purple patterned tights (got to love them right? M&S but not cheap so am making major efforts not to ladder them).

I should (but hopefully don’t) look hung-over in this pic as we had our first extended writing is on the wall rehearsal last night (unfortunately Emily and her cello didn’t make it as in a dramatic moment her bridge split in two!). One and half hours of practicing and then another two hours down the pub of mainly chin stroking/trying to work out a group of songs to start arranging and practicing. I think Kevin’s homemade book cover sheet sums it up the current spirit quite well, it says the Tentative and almost Certainly to be replaced with Something Better TUNE AND SONG BOOK (how well he knows Sreeves and I :-)

The other reason for a little bit of celebration was that both bands (Stranger things happen at sea and the duo arrangement of writings on the wall) now have ep’s out & I got my first bit of fanmail this morning! Which I was pretty pleased about (I know I’m one of those people who likes feedback on everything so getting such nice comments was lovely). What about you readers? How is your week going?

I will survive!

Writing on the wall (the duo with Chris Sreeves and myself in it) survived our first public outing this weekend with a 20 min set at the form a folk band showcase concert. (More info on http://www.makingmusic-southeast.org.uk/events/?29-Form and more on my experience here Alice is thinking of doing it again this year, so def the person to speak to if you want to get involved!). We ended up playing a mix of material, starting off with an unaccompanied ballad (found by Chris but involving me singing on my own without accompanyment, scary!) and then in no particular order, a balcan dance tune, a French tune, some jazz and few tunes that I'd written (I'm trying to upload 'the dots' onto a sharing site at the mo, when I suceed this blog will be the first place I post the link) as well as some good old English folk and a fairly famous cover.

It was a lovely day weather wise on Sat so I was fairly convinced no one would come (and indeed Jam didn't make it due to a terrible case of tonsilitus, ouch!) but we were lucky enough to have Chris' wife Julia, my former housemate Maddie & her boyfriend Jonny, my current housemate Dave and Fi, Nick, Alex and Alex's grandparents. So quite a sizable crowd. Although I play a lot and teach I've never been that fond of playing in front of people, so this year I decided to tackle the fear! We had a bit of nerves practice by playing a practice gig last weekend (exactly the same set as this weekend) but in front of Julia and James. We then faced the fear even more fully by asking for honest feedback from our nearest and dearest. Julia realised how nervous I was and very sweetly brought this to the gig for me (she owns a small antiques business and apprently saw this and thought of me).

We had an ex BBC soundman manning the desk and the concert was being recorded so the live recording may one day see the light of day. Also the ep which I did with the band I formed on the course (Stranger Things Happen at Sea) is at final mixing at the moment and should be available soon. We got some lovely comments after the show, most seemed to be about my singing (I sing round the house all the time but I've never really done it in front of anyone, so a good time to face that fear as well). Chris recorded a few takes of me mid song in practice (just so I could hear what I sounded like) and then sent me the following of what my voice looks like, pretty isn't it?!?

Recording at last

So yesterday at 9.30 in the morning (that's on a Sunday morning, suffering for your art or what?!?) the bad met up at the SAE insitute Littlemore to record the tunes that we'd been playing. Our band in general is a bit of a nighmare from a sound perspective, we have the flute and violins doing most of the melodic stuff and then the accordian/bass/drums giving it some bass (so very different sound needs). Originally the plan was to put us all in seperate rooms with headphones on, however we've only ever played in the same room as each other (and none of us apart from Loz our drummer have ever recorded before) so it was decided we would be recorded 'live' and Loz would be put in his own room (so the bleed from the drums didn't effect the recording of the rest of the instruments).

After the organised sessions finished there was a definite practice plan but due to illness/holidays etc we hadn''t practiced as a band since before Christmas, which wasn't ideal. The plan was to lay down three tracks all containing two tunes. We started with the one we were weakest on which I'm still not sure was the right way to do it as we got really demoralised because it wasn't going to plan. It took us 3 hours to get a take that we were anywhere near happy with. So this meant that we had limited time on the remaining 2 tunes but that they were both pretty much nailed on the second takes as we were a lot more familar with them (good that we didn't spend ages trying to get those perfect and then run out of time for the 3rd one). The actual recording experience was really fun (it's always nice to get the entire band together anyway) but what I felt a bit weird about was that one of my tunes was being recorded (something that I wrote in our living room is now going to be put on a cd, it exsists as a recording, weird huh?).

I was really nervous before the recording, but the sound engineers were really awesome & reassuring & moved the microphone out of my eyeline so I wouldn't be freaked out by it, it also really helped that the rest of the band were nervous too. We've been told the mastering will take about 2 weeks then we should get a copy. The next massive challenge is getting ready for a 20 min slot at Oxford Folk festival (we are on the second stage on the Sat afternoon, I'm actually on twice as I'll b perfoming with stranger things and then again as part of a duo). Listening back to the recordings in the control room I think we have a few consistency issues to address as a band (some of it was brilliant, other bits were a bit touch and go) but at least we know what we've got to work on...

Introducing Stranger things happen at Sea

So here we are! A post about the fantastic band we managed to form on the making music supported 'form a folk band' course. The course took place over 6 weeks and people came from as far a field as Reading, Cambridge and Swindon. Although the main bulk of money was being provided by making music South East each individual had to contribute £60 towards the cost of hiring the SAE and recording. The SAE itself is a fantastic building in Littlemore (just outside Oxford). It was a mental hospital but has been bought by a music college and kitted out with all the latest recording equipment (plus a very beautiful piano, it was lovely, more info on the institute and their courses www.oxford.sae.edu/en-gb/home).

Each week our facilitator (and founder of Moreland Morris) Cat Kelly brought along a different folk tutor to help us with different aspects of our playing. The schedule looked like this 1st week Nick Cooke (in the photo, he is really sweet and told me the tune I wrote for the first week was excellent, I melted), week 2 Paul Satin (sadly I missed this as I was in Lismore), week 3 Pete flood (Benbe rhythm, scary), Week 4 - Will pound , week 5 - Jim Moray (regular readers of this blog will know I heart him, when put into the same room I was tempted to run away) week 6 - Maclaine Colston (who was (imhu) the best/most helpful of the lot, although I was a bit ill on this week so didn't play that much).

On the first week no one knew each other so we formed into groups with others we liked the look of. I managed to get lucky with an awesome flute player (Liz) and guitarist (Danny) (as well as my long suffering music friend Kevin who joined me on violin). A few weeks later we added to our merry mistrels with a melodian player (Aileen) and her son (Loz) who's a drummer (Loz's favourite band phrase "you've really got to give it some rice". LOVE IT!). The name came about as now the course is over (*sob* what am I going to do with my Sunday mornings now?) we are down to have some recording time (whih they needed a band name for, it was my suggestion and meant to reflect on the somewhat random way in which we came together) and possibly be entered into consideration for playing Oxford Folk festival (can you imagine??? How awesome would that be???) but I am trying not to count my chickens so I'll keep you posted...

Graffiti

Here it is the hotly anticipated press shot of myself and Sreeves new musical project, a duo, called writing on the wall, we shall be playing English tunes (half of which were written by me, always interesting, bars sometimes have more of less beats than needed, key signatures become confused...). Chris chose the name (apprently it has Belshazzars feast links, he has yet to explain to me what these are), I chose the look (I'm calling it the pre raphalite gypsy, think raggle taggle but beautiful) and the blank wall was borrowed from Trish & Malc (we tried taking photos at home but there was some kind of chintz in every shot, such are the perils of this house... :-). Chris has also written a very good (but quite short & to the point) bit of blurb for us : WRITING ON THE WALL are Vikki Rose (fiddle/vocals) and Chris Sreeves (accordion/keyboards/percussion). Vikki on Chris: ” the much imitated but never outdone musical maverick…my partner in crime”. Chris on Vikki: “if you want a job done, get Vikki to make you do it yourself”. Expect the unexpected!


I find it hard to believe I have only known Chris 3 months, he seems to have got the measure of me quite well already (plus he bought me back a book when he went to stay in the Keates/Shelley house in Italy, I was very miffed I coudn't go to but presents always help soften the blow :-)