Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 13th September 2000

 

Editors Comment

We have a new home now, our practice night moves there in October but our concert nights remain at The Mill across the road from The Highfield until the end of the year. In January our concert nights will also move to our new address which I have booked until the end of 2001 with an option to continue the booking in future years. This is going to be a good move for us and I hope it's the last one we have for a decade or so.

Gordon Priestly - one of our local players.

We have been at The Highfield since I started the club in November 1997. The Mill has served us as a temporary home while I secured a decent venue for us. I did not want to rush into booking the first place I saw. I visited a few places and was lucky to be able to book the best one I viewed. The place is better than I had hoped for and should serve us for years to come. I have included a map in this newsletter for you to familiarise yourself with the new location. The Highfield and The Mill are both in the bottom left hand corner of the map, so along with all the main routes I recommend to get to the club the map should give you good directions from your home. I have removed roads which you don't need to know about from the map and just left the main routes on there. Don't go there this Wednesday though! We are at The Mill, I will see you there, local players don't forget your accordions. Remember that from now on we are able to open the club from 7pm if you want to get there early and make some new friends. I always get there for 7pm to accommodate those who like to arrive early. See you there.

David Batty

Our September Concert

Despite being in the middle of the fuel crisis we had no shortage of people attending our September Concert. We did have one problem though - we were without our two guest artists. Late on the Monday night I received a phone call from Walter Perrie telling me that because of the fuel shortage Tom Cowing could not get over here from the East Coast and Walter was also running short of fuel. I decided not to lose any sleep over this and waited until the next morning when I sat down with a list of club members and promptly started ringing them up. I started with the local players who had played at the last club night, those who were not worried about the fuel shortage agreed to bring their accordions for a local players night. I then concentrated on those most likely to be at the club based on past attendance and I rang as many people as I could to tell them that, although we were without a guest artist, we did have a local players night instead. I continued until 3pm when I decided I had spoken to as many people as possible to explain the situation. On the night, we had a good turnout with no shortage of players. This was our first concert night at The Mill and we were lucky to be given the big room in the hotel for our concert. Along one wall Bygone Tunes had set up their music stall selling all kinds of out of print and hard to find music. We started our night with Jay and Jeff Ward playing I Love Paris, Melodie D'Amour, Avalon, Never On A Sunday and finishing with Georgia. Chick Stephen then took to the floor with his button accordion. Chick started with three Foster and Allen pieces - After All These Years, Old Flames and Bunch Of Thyme. In March when I met Foster And Allen, I became friends with one of the musicians from their band after our late night sessions at their hotel when he invited me to his home in Ireland, the mans name was Ollie Kennedy who wrote the first of those three tunes After All These Years. I will be taking him up on his offer when I return to Ireland in a few months. After his Irish selection, Chick continued with a Scottish selection starting with Loch Lomond and Coming Through The Rye before finishing with Wie A Hundred Pipers. Linda Grant then took to the floor for her first spot of the evening, starting with Highland Cathedral and Autumn Dream, her next three pieces were Sarah, Willie Atkinson and John Stephen Of Clouds. The Scots seem to have a history of naming songs after people, I have never understood it myself, David Batty Of Leyland just doesn't sound like a top 20 hit for some reason! It was time for me to follow Linda, I played Whispering Hope, Can't Help Falling In Love and The Sailors Hornpipe Medley before announcing the first break. During the night the bar was open at the back of the room so refreshments, including coffee, were available all night from the bar. The Mill did not want us making our own coffee so we were forced to buy their expensive coffee rather than our own 20p a cup Nescafe. Don't worry about this though you will find our solution later in this newsletter. The break gave Tom Bennett time to set up his new MIDI setup which he was using for the first time in public. Tom was showing us a before and after view of his ability to use his MIDI equipment, this was his "before he learnt to drive it well" session, he started with Moonlight Serenade and Beguine The Beguine with his rhythm section switched on. Tom then turned off his rhythms and played A Whiter Shade Of Pale with acoustic amplification and electronics switched on. His final piece was La Vie En Rose which he first played normally before demonstrating the same tune but with his bellows closed and using electronics only. Tom had done well at his first outing with all those buttons to press and afterwards had something to think about before his next MIDI performance which he says will be after Christmas when he will demonstrate his improvement in handling this technology. Our next player was Gordon Priestley who started with Toy Town March and The Old Mill before telling us how a friend of his heard Gordon playing, after a while listening to Gordon play various tunes the chap asked Gordon "if it worked on batteries"! Gordon then continued with Old Folks At Home, Julietta Polka and finally finishing with Tiptoe Polka. With ten minutes to go to our second break, Albert Draper started with Beautiful Dreamer before throwing his book on the floor at the side of him to get to the next piece Bonnie Elaise, after playing Carnival Of Venice, Carolina Moon, Girl Of My Dreams, Soldiers In The Park and The Garden Of Sleep he ended up with a pile of music on the floor next to him and an empty music stand, this was the signal that we could have our second break of the night and time to once again peruse the music stall's wide range of sheet music and books for bargains. After the break, we had the raffle while John Higham got ready to play. John's first tune was Kaiser Bills Batman followed by a Glen Miller number. John had planned to sing this month at the club but because Walter Perrie was not in attendance to play for him he decided to pospone his singing debut until he had fully mastered the tune himself. John continued with Elmers Tune, an old Italian tune Marina, a Swiss tune about things looking up or getting better and I Hear Music But There's No One There. John is looking for a partner to join him playing the second accordion on that last tune if anyone wants to offer their services. Our next player failed to get out of the starting gate, Colin Ensor was down to play but when his name was called he used the excuse that he had too much drink inside him to play now, I told him I will put him on next time before he gets to finish his first drink. This gave Linda Grant a little more time to play her Mexican Medley South Of The Border and La Bamba, This was followed by Clarinet Polka. We had hit 11pm now and time for two tunes from Jay and Jeff Ward who had started the night, after Barcarole from The Tales Of Hoffman they finished the night in fine form with Rose Of San Antonio. Despite the fuel shortage we had enjoyed a full house and some fine playing from our local players who I have to thank for saving our evening and playing at short notice.

David Batty

Our Internet Website

Our internet website has had 29242 visitors as at 29th September 2000, that's 518 visitors since the last newsletter. It is only 18 days since the last newsletter was written so this months visitor count reads a bit low. I had to write the newsletter early because I am going to Jersey and will only be returning in time for this Wednesday's concert, I therefore wrote this newsletter before I left England. I have started adding more newsletters to the website which should bring the world closer to knowing what trouble we have had at The Highfield. I am currently changing the site to reflect our current venue and new dates. I have to update the maps on there and I have to write new directions to get to the club. Items searched for on our site recently include: Maranucci, ACCORDION STORE, under Paris, printed t-shirts, tutors, accordion tutors, scandalli, music, fisar, scandali, music notes, Diatonic Accordian, scottish accordion notes, festavals, scandlli, festivals san francisco, contacts, sheet music, cd,s, concert accordian, valse des as, PINK, dueling banjos sheet music, Santa Lucia, repair, hohner, RANCO ANTONIO ACCORDIONS, In Mnchen, blue bell poker. I think that last person wanted Blue Bell Polka but I could be wrong! As usual I have left the spelling and capitalisation the same as they were typed in by people visiting our site. It's amazing how many people spell something wrong when they are searching on the Internet, if you don't spell it right then you won't find it on the Internet. I had a good laugh a few minutes ago when I read on the Internet that a duo with an accordion were touring the UK, I thought it was interesting news for our newsletter until I read a list of their tour venues: Kent, E Sussex, Nailsworth, Aldershot, Kingston, W Sussex, Devon, Penzance and Newnham-on-Severn! If that is their UK tour then I will wait for their world tour when they should get within driving distance! If you want to make cheap phone calls anywhere in the world then visit www.4ecalls.com. From this site you can telephone anywhere in the world for the price of a local call. I use this site to have regular chats with a friend in Lithuania and I recently spent an hour talking to John Dixon of Perth Accordion Club in Western Australia about all things accordion.

 

Our New Home

As mentioned in our last newsletter, we have moved from The Highfield to The Mill. To get to The Mill you simply turn left out of The Highfield car park, drive about 200 yards and turn right in to The Mill car park. I chose The Mill as a temporary venue because it was only 200 yards from The Highfield which meant it was easy for everyone to find. At The Mill we are looking at the same costs or more for room hire than we were paying at The Highfield, the drinks are more expensive and coffee is £1.25 per cup! Fear not, I have found and booked another venue for our club which will be our home from January, I have booked 32 nights which will take us to the end of 2001. The new venue starts in January but during October, November and December we are going to have our practice nights there to get used to the place. Our concerts for October, November and December will be at The Mill where we are now. I could not move this years' concert nights to the new venue because the room was booked so I decided to leave three nights at The Mill. The new venue is The Priory Club, Broadfield Drive, Leyland. The Priory Club is right next to St Mary's Church which is the round church on Broadfield Drive. The room hire is cheaper than we have been paying, the alcohol is cheap because it is a club rather than a pub or hotel. We can put our own coffee on at our 20p a cup bargain price and the club will make Hotpot Suppers every three or four months for us. The room is excellent, it has a proper stage so players can play on the stage, sat on the edge of the stage with their feet on the dance floor or on a chair on the dance floor in front of the stage. Around the dance floor are small tables with four chairs around each, behind them are more tables with chairs and bench seats against the wall. The room is excellent for us and I am very pleased to get it. One feature that will go down well is that the room is on the ground floor so there is no need to lug accordions or drinks upstairs. The room has been recently refurbished with new carpets, decoration, seating etc. The stage has it's own sound system, lighting and a rotating glitter ball if your performance requires it. The room's sound system has a speaker in every corner and on one wall a sliding partition door reveals a kitchen for our coffee or tea. The place also provides us with real cups for our drinks rather than the disposable polystyrene ones we have been using. The car parking is good with a car park on three sides of the club as well as use of a private road which runs parallel with Broadfield Drive for parking. From now on we will be holding all our practice nights at this venue if you want to join us. You may have noticed that I have changed the title "Practice Night" to "Club Night", this is because many people say that they don't turn up to practice on that night, they turn up to talk, drink, listen to others playing together in groups and generally have a good relaxing evening with no format to what happens. This move to new premises will allow me to expand the club because we will be out of the grip of The Highfield with it's high prices, unreasonable terms and the Manager's insulting behaviour. At The Priory Club they could not be more helpful or reasonable. The optional hotpot supper they will put on when we want it, is currently £2.20 per head, they will also provide us with a buffet if needed, at a very reasonable rate for special events such as Christmas. This venue is close to the M6 junction 28 turnoff and is closer to most of our members, those coming from Southport or Liverpool will find their journey is five or ten minutes longer but most other people will find their journey to the club is a bit shorter than before. One thing will change about our clubnights though, from January we will still meet on Wednesday nights but instead of the second Wednesday of the month we will hold our club night on the first Wednesday and our concert night on the third Wednesday of the month. This will stop us clashing with the Wyre Accordion Club's night and will allow our members who wish to do so, to visit the Wyre Club. Do remember though that we still have three concert nights at The Mill in October, November and December. It's only our practice nights that have moved from this month.

 

Accordion Workshop

As promised in the last newsletter, I have arranged professional tuition by previous and future guest artists in a series of one day workshops aimed at all levels of player from beginner to advanced. The first of these workshops is to be held on Saturday the 25th of November at The Priory Club. The workshop will start at 10am and continue until 5pm with a break for lunch. The tutor for the day is George Syrett who some of you met at our recent picnic. I am looking forward to this workshop to find out where I am going wrong. No music reading knowledge or music theory skills are required to attend this workshop. It will be a light-hearted fun day of learning. The cost will be £20 for the full days workshop. The workshop is open to all so please let players who don't get this newsletter know about it. Either send cheques made payable to Leyland Accordion Club to David Batty, 39 Wray Crescent, Ulnes Walton, Leyland, Lancashire, PR5 3NH or you can book your place in person when you see me on one of the club nights prior to the 25th. We will need to know numbers before the day so that the correct number of teaching materials can be produced. Places will be on a first come, first served basis so don't delay, book today.

 

This Wednesday

I look forward to seeing you at The Mill Hotel for our local players concert night, remember to drive 200 yards past The Highfield with The Highfield on your left and then you simply turn right in to The Mill car park. Don't forget to bring your accordion and I will see you there.

 

 

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