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Leyland Accordion Club - 21st March 2001
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Our March Concert
Our March concert started with the welcome return to the club of Rebecca Postlewhite. Her first piece Beautiful Days was a piece I recognised as a George Hicks favourite, this great opening performance was followed by My Florence Waltz and Czardas, both of which were played equally as well as her first piece. Rebecca did not have her accordion with her at university this time and as a result I was hoping she would be rusty and therefore allow some of us to gain some progress towards her level, if you saw her performance you will know that her lack of practice recently did not show one bit and I am still going to have to work hard to catch up. Our second player was John Higham who started with I Was Kaiser Bills Batman which was followed by Elmers Tune. John brought his accordion but was unsure about playing when I told him he was next, he quickly got over this and gave us a great performance, well done John. It was now time for our guest artist Steve Roxton to start his first spot of the evening. At 7.55pm when his amplifiers and equipment were tested it was found that that four cables in his equipment were broken. The previous night he had entertained at a theatre in Staffordshire for the North Staffs Accordion Club and everything was working fine, the stage had a band set up behind him that night and the only explanation for three cables to be broken the following night is that while Steve was off getting changed and the band were on the stage packing their equipment up, someone must have tripped over his cables and broken four of them in the process. When Steve returned to his equipment and packed it up as normal he had no idea he was packing away four broken cables, a fact which we only discovered when we set his equipment up five minutes before the club was due to start. A quick swap with a spare cable left only two cables broken, steve started his first spot with only one speaker and one microphone working but at least we had the amplifier working with the spare cable. This did not put Steve off and he started with Sous Les Ciel De Paris followed by a Swedish piece Trekspillkavaleren Polka. This was followed by a change of pace to La Vie En Rose before returning to the fast stuff with Whistling Rufus. His next piece was the song After All These Years which got some of the audience singing along with Steve. His next piece was a piece taught to him by a friend of his Alexander Korbakov, it was called Sakkiarven Polka which he played at a brisk pace before speeding up to a fast pace, when he got to the end of this he played the piece a third time at phenomenal speed, something he told us was a dangerous thing to attempt in public. To slow things down his next piece was a Mantovani Medley which has always been a favourite at the club whenever Steve has played for us. It was time for some French pieces starting with Un Gamin A Paris, this was followed by two more musette pieces Les Denicheurs and Reine De Musette. Scotland was our next destination with Dark Island which used to be the theme tune to a TV series by the same name. The accordion standard Under The Double Eagle was followed by more accordion standards Luci E Ombre, La Danza and Retour Des Hirondelles. It was almost time for our first break of the night so a couple of Irish numbers were selected by Steve to end this session, the first being Fields Of Athenry which was followed by the up tempo Peter Street. After the break we started the second half with me playing Whispering Hope and Sailors Hornpipe Medley and Tom Bennett playing I know Why And So Do You followed by My Prayer. It was time for the return of Steve Roxton for his second spot of the night, during the first half I went home and returned with two leads to replace two of the broken ones in his equipment which allowed him to do his second half with only two broken leads. His second spot of the night started with Beer Barrel Polka followed by Oslo Waltz. After setting a banjo sound on his MIDI equipment steve emulated the picking style of banjo players using his accordion keys to give us a Johnny Cash Medley consisting of I Walk The Line, San Quentin and Ring Of Fire. The Foster And Allen tune Maggie was next, this is a rewrite of a traditional Irish song Nora with the same tune but, according to Foster and Allen brought up to date with their version Maggie. The accordion favourite Perles Des Crystal was followed by a medley of Love Letters In The Sand, A Certain Smile and Crazy. After these slow pieces it was time for Lets Twist Again, Carnival Of Venice, and Cuckoo Waltz. Someone in the audience asked Steve to play some Jazz, he explained that this was not his type of music but he did recall The Swinging Shepherd Blues which he played next. A few Irish pieces, Mcnamaras Band, an irish Reel, Danny Boy were Steves next pieces. This was followed by a medley Steve dedicated to George Hicks who he felt should be sat next to him playing along with him. They were Who Were You With Last Night, Margie, Robert E Lee, Yes Sir That's My Baby and Swanee. His next piece was also a George Hicks piece The Maigret Theme. It was now time for some German bier keller music with In Munchen Steht Ein Hofbrou Haus. The accordion favourite Monty's Czardas was next followed by Irish Eyes, When You Come Home Again To Wales, Land Of Hope And Glory, Auld Lang Syne, Wild Rover and to finish, Goodbye From The White Horse Inn. It had been a brilliant night of music from Steve, he had lots of people talking to him at the end of the night and many people spoke to me as they were leaving telling me what a good night they had had. When I went in to the main bar afterwards it seems they had opened a door allowing the pub to listen to our concert and they had also enjoyed it. Many thanks to Steve and also our other players for once again a night to remember.
David Batty
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Accordion WorkshopOn Saturday 24th of March, we had the third in our series of four workshops, featuring the teachings of Steve Roxton. The day started off with the usual coffee and chat before we all sat down for the start of a full day of learning and fun. During the day we covered many basic aspects of the accordion and accordion playing in some depth, but it was all explained in a way that we could all understand. We were given many tips and advice from Steve Roxton which got many of our players thinking about their playing in a way they had not done so before. Colin Ensor told me that, when he arrived at the workshop, he had three faults with his playing, now he has five! He would not tell me what the two new ones he had discovered were! During the dinner hour, we had a pie and peas lunch, during which some new friends were made amongst players who had not met on a social level before. I heard a lot of chat about the items covered in the first half of the day, along with helpful advice from others like "Well, I always knew you were doing that wrong anyway"! After the dinner, we first sorted out a coffee for everyone before we sat down for our second half of the day. We had four hours ahead of us and, according to Steve, we had an awful lot yet to cover. In the middle of the afternoon, we stopped for a quick break and, at 4pm to 4.30, Steve covered using the accordion with an amplifier or MIDI. The MIDI section was something I had planned to cover in these workshops but, because I knew that not all of the players had MIDI, or would get it fitted in future, I asked Steve not to go too in depth into using it. The half hour we had was instructional and informative, not only to those who had MIDI but was also interesting to those who did not have it but wanted to know more about it. The last half hour was a question and answer session which led us up to 5pm and time to finish. I have heard from many workshop attendees that the day seems to go quickly and this was no exception. I have spoken to quite a few people since and they have all either improved their playing or now know where the improvement is needed. The last workshop in this series is to feature Johnny Coleclough in what I hope is going to be a practical hands on day of learning. I have yet to arrange the date of this workshop with Johnny and let him have my ideas for items we have not covered so far. I will let you know when we have a date for this workshop, but I was hoping for it to be around June to give the players time to implement what they have learned so far. |
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Our Internet WebsiteOur internet website has had 36124 visitors as at the 12th of April 2001, that’s 903 visitors since last month. I am writing the newsletter early this month so I can avoid the Easter postal delays and hopefully you will be reading this on Tuesday morning as normal. I have started to change our website, to speed up the loading times and I have moved some items to new pages within our site to allow visitors to find items quicker when I implement new navigation features in the next few weeks. Most of my website work this month has been setting up or radio station, see elsewhere in this newsletter. |
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Accordion Radio StationI have often looked for good radio stations which play the kind of music an accordionist would like, ie. 99% accordion music! but so far the closest I have found can only be heard in Ireland. Setting my own radio station up with a public broadcasting licence is prohibitivly expensive so I researched the other available option the Internet. After many months of recording accordionists and converting the recordings into something that can be heard via our website, I have set up a radio station on the Internet which is currently broadcasting 24 hours per day. At the moment there are only a handful of tracks playing over and over whilst I source accordion recordings and permission from the copyright holder for me to use them for broadcasting. You have probably seen the automatic systems which use a robot arm to choose tapes which are inserted in to players to produce an automated television channel or radio station, well the system I am using uses the same principles but choosing the pieces to play, the jingles and adverts is done in my computer. I have been experimenting with various ways to increase the number of tracks I can broadcast without losing quality and I am now able to store around 1200 tracks of music which are queued up and broadcast 24 hours per day to anyone who tunes in via the Internet. I am sending the broadcast out at a speed which will not stop listeners from using the Internet at the same time, this alows peole to tune in to the station when they go on the Internet, they can continue to do whatever they want on the Internet while listening to the broadcast. For special events I can switch to a live microphone to broadcast live events such as our club nights or late night drunken jam sessions! This station wil give the club great advertising because adverts or jingles will promote our website nad a direct link to our site is given to all listeners so they can visit us. I will be broadcasting music from amateurs and professionals alike with no preference given to either one. If you know of any bands or individuals who would like tracks featured on the station get them to contact me, all I ask is for a copy of their CD or tape with a note asking me to add them to the playlist. The station is currently being tested by a few of the club members and I will give details of where to find it in the next newsletter. The reason I am not giving it out this month is because I want to listen to the stations quality at a few different locations first before I decide whether to keep the compression I am using or improve the quality at the expense of listeners ability to use the Internet at the same time. I will be testing various broadcasting bandwidths this month and so the station will at times be off the air for an hour or two while I make changes. I will have decided on it’s final settings by the time the next newsletter goes to print and I will give details out then. The company who hosts the station for me on their servers does all the work of paying royalties due for broadcast rights, in return they have permission to use the station for broadcast anywhere they want. I get a free radio station and for providing the server for me to broadcast, they get another free radio station with their name attached to it. I hope this gets our instrument in front of people who would not normally think about listening to the accordion. The wide range of music broadcast should appeal to a many people who we would never have got to before, hopefully they will become fans of the instrument, if so then the work on the station would have been worth it. |
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Music Show On TVf you have Satellite TV, one programme you have access to, which you may find interesting, is The Gay Byrne Music Show on Sky Digital - Channel 178. The show, which is on every week, is on next at 13.20 this Wednesday, 18th of April. The Gay Byrne Music Show features Irish music from Classical to Jazz, traditional to pop. The show is on for an hour each week and features a wide range of quality music from a diverse range of performers. This is one of the better music programmes I have seen on TV. Every show is very different from the last, lots of live music is featured from real bands who really play their instruments, many soloists are backed by full orchestras, it's one program I never miss if I can help it. See what you think........ |
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Mike HardingAnother programme for your diary is the Mike Harding programme
on BBC Radio 2 on Wednesdays at 8pm. This features Folk, Roots and acoustic
based music which sometimes includes accordions, melodions, concertinas
or other free reed instruments.
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Autumn Accordion Festival At BridlingtonIn the last newsletter, I told you that the Caister Accordion Festival is moving to Bridlington. At the last practice night I was told that it was not going to Bridlington but instead going further South than Caister meaning my information was wrong! I always make sure that the information I give you is correct before I put my name to this newsletter and this was no exception. No matter what you have read elsewhere about the closure of the Autumn Accordion Festival, the information given in my last newsletter was correct and the festival is moving further north to Bridlington in November as I reported. I did find out why someone thought I was wrong, they read an article in another accordion publication which said that following the cancellation of the Autumn Accordion Festival they would revive it due to popular demand. This is, in fact, a proposed new venture which misleadingly mentions cancellation of the festival when it should have said that the show had simply moved it's location further up the coast. If you would like further details of the festival or to get confirmation that the festival is not cancelled, then telephone the organiser Loretta Rolston on 01501 820 910. I do have booking forms for the Autumn Accordion Festival which will be held in it's new location of Bridlington arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday morning so I should have them at the club on Wednesday night. Traders who normally attend the Autumn Accordion Festival have already confirmed that they would support the festival at it's new location. I will give you details of the new festival when I have them. I did try to get details of the propesed new venure but at the time of writing, the venue mentioned for the location of the startup festival, when contacted for booking forms for the event, were adamant that the place is closed on the weekend given as the date for this proposed new show. When I have confirmation that this new event is to go ahead I will let you know the details. |
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Radio ScotlandOn Radio Scotland on Sky Digital the program Travelling Folk features acoustic and folk music from Scotland and beyond. The next program is on Thursday 19th April at 19.05. |
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Do You Know Ralph CowburnOne of our members, Harry Cowburn, is looking for people who know a relative of his. Ralph Cowburn, who is now in his late 70's, toured the country with Sandy Powell as an accordionist, this was around 1956 to 1966. Ralph played in Frank Smalleys Dance Band in Leyland and also at the KSC (Knights Of Saint Columba) Club in Chapel Brow, Leyland. Ralph was an active member of the British Legion at Leyland and he lived in Dunkirk Lane. A few years ago, Ralph started to lose his balance and so went to live with his daughter and son in law in Spain where he is now in a wheelchair, his family take him along the promenade there. He is enjoying living in Spain because the weather is lovely but he does miss his accordion and other friends from Leyland. If any of his old friends are out there Harry would like them to give him a ring so he can put them in contact with Ralph. If anyone can help please telephone Harry Cowburn on Leyland (01772)434644. |
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This WednesdayWe have a great night lined up on Wednesday at our local players night, if you have an accordion then don't forget to bring it down and give us a tune, all players are welcome to play at the club as you know and great support is given to all players even if they make big mistakes like suddenly forgetting everything-even their name, as long as they have given it a go the audience are happy. The best part of the night for me is seeing players who have been hiding in the past, coming out and giving us a tune, remember if you do play at any public venue, always play something which is easy to play at home, a well played Three Blind Mice is better than lots of fancy fingerwork at 90MPH but full of mistakes. I would be interested to know if anyone can play a nice version of Three Blind Mice. It's not been played at the club and I look forward to anyone who can play it giving us their version of it. I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, doors open at 7.30 so turn up early and have a bit of a chat before we start at 8pm. See you there......... |
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