Leyland Accordion Club - 12th April 2000
Hello.
It took me ten minutes to think of that witty start to this newsletter, I will have to rush the rest of it now. The new larger newsletter was well received from the comments made by many of you, and not one of them said that it now fits very well in the bottom of their cats tray! With this new larger format I can now include photographs at a size which means you will instantly recognise the person in them without having to form a committee first. It is important to me that I can publish decent photographs of our players because the focus of the club is on the people who play for us and also on those who support our players. Our players deserve recognition for making our nights so memorable, this also means that they will have to work harder at avoiding my camera in future!
David Batty
Bill Agnew
Our April Concert
Our April meeting was a busy one, we had a brilliant action packed evening which started with Jay and Jeff Ward playing Red Rose Café in memory of George Ricardo, they then continued with O Sole Mio, Alice Blue Gown and Here's That Rainy Day before playing a medley of three tunes Jealous Heart, Your Cheating Heart and Take These Chains From My Heart. Our first soloist of the evening was Rebecca Postlewhite, Rebecca played Bourrasque, Flambe Montalbanaise and Happy Hours. When Rebecca recently visited my house we were busking together and it sounded so good that Rebecca recorded some Irish tunes onto tape for me to devise some second accordion accompaniment so we can play a few Irish tunes together at the club, I have a couple of months to work on this while Rebecca is at university. Dugald McCallum then treated us to Dark Island which should have gone down well with a couple of our members, Mike Ellis is currently learning Dark Island and I believe it should be ready for him to play at the club soon, and secondly Colin Ensor is trying to slow down his version of it after we pointed out that it is not possible to play it in 20 seconds! I look forward to hearing both of you play this at the club in the near future. Anyway I was digressing there, sorry Dugald. Dugald then played Naughty Paris before finally finishing with March Of The Miners. It was now my turn to have my three tunes of fame. I started with Whispering Hope which seems to be a tune I regularly get requests for, then I played Air On A G String before finishing with a contrasting piece Sailors Hornpipe Medley. Our next player who took us up to the break was Bill Agnew, I asked Bill for a list of the tunes he played but there were so many all in one medley that he could not remember what he had played. During the break we had a representative from Radio Lancashire talking to various people and recording interviews. This was for broadcast along with the recordings she had made of the players during the evening. After the break we got back into the swing of things with Chick Stephens playing his button accordion. Chick played Somewhere My Love, In Munchen Steht Ein Hofbrauhaus and Under The Bridges Of Paris. Tom Bennett then gave us a performance, after which we said ok he could play then J Tom then played Vagabond, Matchstalk Men and Tulips From Amsterdam. Our next player, Colin Ensor, was making not only his club debut but it was the first time he had played for any club. Colin took to the floor like a pro and played The Last Waltz, Le Denicheur and Georgia. The Le Denicheur tune was one he had learned by listening to it on our second club audio tape. Our next player Gordon Priestly was also making his debut in front of a club, Gordon played Du Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen, Julida Polka and Tiptoe Polka. Both Gordon and Colin can normally be heard playing at our practice nights but it was the first time either of them had played for an audience. I know it is difficult for the first few months of playing in front of a crowd and I think they both did very well, I look forward to hearing a lot more from these two. Well done chaps. Our next player was Harry Mason, Harry played a few good medleys which took us up to the break. Harry is an ear player who has supplied some of our players with accordions. Harry is a dedicated player and accordion repairer/restorer, his journey to the club involves travelling through the Mersey Tunnel. It was now time for the second break of the night. In the last newsletter I announced that we were supposed to have a stall selling second hand music at our April club night but on the Monday when I was writing this the person who I was writing about wrote a letter to me to say that she could not make the club because a member of her family was in hospital. I received this letter on the Tuesday, the morning after I had printed the newsletter, so I apologise for the stall not being there but I was not informed until the day before the club of the cancellation and the newsletter was arriving at your house then. Jay and Jeff Ward did however bring along a box of music they were selling and many people found it interesting rummaging in this. If anyone has any second hand music, accordions, Accordion Records/tapes/cd's for sale then please bring them to the club to sell. The tables near to the door are normally used for this purpose and by bringing along your unwanted accordion items you add to the appeal of the club. The only thing I ask is that you confine selling to before the club starts or during the breaks as it would not be fair to any of our players if there was talking during their performance, it is nerve wracking enough for players without them being conscious of having to play over the top of people talking. After the break we started with an appeal from Leyland Morris Men for a player to join them, if you are interested telephone Len Daniels on 01772 434458. Our next player was Agnes McLaren playing a Scottish selection on her MIDI accordion which she had plugged in during the break. Our next player Chris Green was playing at the club for her second time, Chris played three tunes, the first of which I missed the title, the second was March Espagnola and finally finishing with Annette. If I'd known at the time that I would shortly be competing against her then I could have criticised her playing at the club to knobble her performance at the recent competition where she beat me to first place. She knows I like her really! I had to laugh after we played in the competition, I asked her why she was sitting there still wearing her accordion, I thought it was nerves that had made her forget to take it off, she told me she had just lost a button or two from her blouse so was keeping her accordion on! Well done Chris for winning the armful of trophies I saw you staggering along with after the award ceremony. I hope we hear a lot more of your playing at the club in the future. Linda Grant then took to the floor playing a Swiss March Grüezlwohl Frau Stirnimann, the accordion standard Carnival Of Venice and then finishing with a medley consisting of Levi Jackson Rag, Peacock Rag and finally Whistling Rufus. Alan Gelling was next on the floor, because he knew we were now almost out of time, Alan only played one tune. Alan reads Klavascript rather than the traditional type of music you may be used to. If you are interested in this, take a look at some of his sheet music, you might think he is reading Chinese Braille but Alan will explain to you how it works. Alan played a nice version of Lichtenstein Polka. Our next player was to be Basil Berry but because we had now reached a few minutes to eleven Basil said that he would step down and play next month instead. Thanks Basil for being so considerate, to make it up to him I offered him the choice of playing position for this Wednesday night, he chose to go on first so we will open this Wednesday with special supporting guest star Basil Berry. We were now at four minutes to eleven and just had time to fit Walter Perrie in to finish the evening, Walter Played Scotland The Brave and The Radetski March, he then invited John Higham to the floor to join him, this took us to 11.10 before I had to break up the fun and send everyone home. It is my view and, from the comments I received afterwards, many of you also agreed that we had enjoyed one of the best nights we have had at the club. I am looking forward to meeting you again this Wednesday when we have Tony Marchell as our guest artist, from what I have heard from Johnny Coleclough and Walter Perrie we are in for a good night, I will see you there. David Batty
Radio Lancashire Quiz
In the last newsletter I told you that we were featured on Radio Lancashire
for four days. At the last club night we only had one day to go and we
had to get 160 points to win out of a possible 200. Well I have to announce
that we won at the last question. We had 290 points with a score of 301
or more needed to win, the last question was worth 20 points and we answered
it correctly to get a total of 310 points. We had cut it very fine leaving
it to the last question to decide if we won or lost but I am sure that
helped increase the tension for those of you who were listening in. The
team for those of you who missed it consisted of Tom Bennett answering
the questions on Monday, Mike Ellis on Tuesday, Bert Winstanley on Wednesday
and myself David Batty on Thursday. The prize was a set of Radio Lancashire
Dress Pins, these can be very handy to own, they give admittance to the
holder to various Radio Lancashire run concerts and shows held across
the county. One of these is to be held on the 25th of May at the Charter
Theatre, Guild Hall, Preston. Jim Bowen who was the programmes presenter
asked us to supply some players to play at the Guild Hall at this concert
but I have had to decline the offer. The reason was that he wanted us
to play alongside one of our members, Robert Thorn, who was already in
the show after he appeared on their Give It A Go programme. Jim did not
realise that it would be difficult for Robert to play his material if
he had three of us trying to keep up with him. Robert has his own backing
track pre recorded, three weeks would not give us long enough to train
some players to replace it and to do so would not be fair on Robert. I
have explained this to Radio Lancashire and asked them to consider us
for future events instead. I am sure I will be able to find some players
amongst us who will be brave enough to take part.
The Highfield
After our April meeting where we played until 11.10pm the new Manager demanded more money because we had finished after 11pm. He gave me a bill for an extra £10 for going over our allotted time! I recently told you he was being as awkward as possible, I think he wants to get rid of us with his increased charges and awkward behaviour. Fortunately I can put up with his awkward behaviour and the fact that so many of you support our evenings means that I do not have to cut back on anything to keep us going. I am currently looking at another venue where we will be more welcome, at this new place the room is better than the one we currently have and I know we will be a lot more welcome than we are now. Thanks to all of you who do support us, with any luck this Manager will be moved on soon and our troubles may disappear. It is a lot of work running the club, writing the newsletter and doing an awful lot of organisation which you may not realise goes on behind the scenes, I am happy to do this but it puts a damper on the pleasure I get seeing everyone enjoying themselves when I am wondering what this new Manager is going to come up with next. I would be happier if I could trust the venue which would leave me to concentrate on running the club. After our last practice night which starts at 8pm he again handed me a bill for an extra £10 because he said that someone arrived at 7.30 and he let them in. At our practice nights I only arrive at 8pm because I don't need to set chairs out, I was told by one of the club members that they were the first one there at 7.45 and the doors were opened by a girl from the bar at 7.50pm. I refused to pay the extra £10 he was charging and told him that his contract was with me and not with some fictional person he claims he let in at 7.30pm. He said he will leave people waiting on the car park in future. Because of this attitute I will be arriving at 7.20pm on concert nights because he says that the room hire starts the moment I arrive and finishes when the last person leaves. This means I will have until 11.20pm to clear the room without him trying to add even more to our room hire rates. If this new Manager spent the same amount of effort trying to get new customers to his establishment as he does giving us hassle he may get more than the 2 to 6 customers you normally find using his establishment when we are upstairs with 60 to 120 people. So until further notice doors open at 7.20pm on concert nights and close at 11.20pm. On our practice nights doors open at 8pm and close at 11.05pm. If the new room looks like a goer then I will let you know.
Accordion Wiring Diagram
One person who uses our internet website was looking for a wiring diagram for a Hohner Vox 4 accordion. He was pleased to have found a supplier for this diagram and would like other members of the club that if they are looking for similar items then they can try W.Greenhill on 01702 546195 or e-mail wdgltd@aol.com.