Feelin' hot, hot, hot

June's Open Music Night

It is always nice to see new faces at The George when we hold our Open Music Nights, but it is even nicer when they turn up again. So of course, we were delighted to see Ray again, and Lew Bear, and because it has been a while, for some it seems like an new face, but Korben has played for us before. He's a bit taller, has a lot more kit, and become much more accomplished in his playing. He even brought someone along to sing with him, his sister Milly.

As is usually the case, I opened proceedings with two of my own; the first, a new song which hasn't got a title yet, a folky bluesy song about being left by one's lover for no apparent reason. The second was a familiar tune at The George, 'Mouldy Brown Bread and Cheese'. The harmonica parts on both songs were in different keys so I had the wonderful experience of swapping them over between songs; an opportunity to develop some stage chat that was missed by all the fumbling around and trying not to drop my guitar on the floor while doing it. Note to self, wear strap, even if sitting! My last song of the evening was harmonica free. The Canary in the coal mine has stopped singing for a variety of reasons.

Next up was Korben, who used his pedals and sampling equipment to great effect, producing an electric guitar medley with three guitars and a loop. His pedal board isn't quite to the scale of Derrick Meyer's Mothership, but you can see where it is heading.

A new partnership seems to have been born, with Nigel, Sandi and Tugrul coming together to give us Creedence Clearwater Revival's  'Who'll Stop The Rain' and the 1964 Roger Miller country song
'King of The Road'. In the second half they performed Bob Dylan's 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' and The Beatles' '8 Days a Week'. I don't think we hear enough Beatles at The George, though I know there are some that don't agree.

Ray was back, extolling the virtues of Nobby's Beer. It sounded so good, and the benefits so desirable, that I think I'll ask to see if it can be put on tap at The George. It was made all the more delightful by someone in the audience recognising the publican in question.

His second wasn't quite so cheerful. John Prine's 'Sam Stone'; a tragic song of an American Veteran and the effect on his family of his post combat drug problem. Have a listen to John Prine on Youtube by clicking the link.
Sam Stone by John Prine

In the second half, Ray gave us a beautiful mandolin version of Richard Thompson's 'Beeswing'.

Dave Sampson, who runs a folk club in Brinklow, at The Bulls Head, paid us a visit, and sang a couple of songs. The first about cold calling from 'Debbie from Lightning Windows'. His second song was about a jug band that hit the charts. (I wonder if Grandad Banjo was in it?)

No Strings Attached were performing separately tonight, so were completely unattached. Of the two, Ken was up first, and had with him a Hawaiian guitar, providing a sound that The George has not heard, at least since I've been attending. If he brings it again I won't be sorry. I didn't manage to catch the titles of his first two pieces, but his third of the night in the second half was much more familiar, the famous Hawaiian 'Aloha'.

Roland was up next, and he sang an Australia sheep shearer's song 'Click Go The Shears. His second song was more familar to me, Mississippi John Hurt's 'Stagger Lee', an all round unpleasant fellow. (Not Roland but Stagger Lee). His second half performance was his signature ragtime piece.

MDF were short of a few members again, but that didn't stop them making a lot of noise, begining with that song about a train, 'City of New Orleans' and Dire Straights' 'Walk of Life'. There has been some frantic practicing behind the scenes as MDF play Barby Fete and then open on the Sunday at The Crick Scarecrow and Music Festival, and it is definitely begining to show. Our finale was  Galway Girl with a stomping segue into Sall McClennan so that Ross could practice his band introductions.

Pete and Marian Pete sang Queen's little known 'Dreamers Ball' and Marian sang the Bellamy Brothers classic, 'Let Your Love Shine'

The second half was a quicker affair. Korben opened with a Stevie Wonder song, 'Duke'. The singing was very ably performed by his sister Milly.

And the evening was brought to a close by the very talented Lew Bear ended the night for us with a couple of songs. Motorhead's Ace of Spades and his Wild Rover parody. His first half being 'Ripples'and 'Mad' song Just For Fun.
If you were in any doubt, this has recently been posted on Facebook, and I shared it on The Open Music Collective page. Better Off Dancing With The Devil You Know

Hope to see you all in July.

Interstellar Overdrive Exceeded!

May's Open Music Night coincided with International Star Wars Day, 'May The Forth Be With You!'. There was no theme requested but a couple of performers stepped up to the mark and offered up some very topical tunes. I wasn't one of them, opening with ‘Holding The Butterfly’ and ‘In The Woods (Like Bear Grylls)'

Paddy was next up. His first song was about nothing imparticular. Infact the title and conent of the song was a taxonomist's delight, all about nothing at all and the various Latin words for it. It sounded something like 'Floxi Noxi Bulification' which seemed to make up most of the chorus. Paddy's second was his Robot Song, all about the development and disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence. Much more familiar to some of us was his fabulous ‘Fun With Birds’. While those of us that have heard it a few times still delight in the outrageous puns, but it is the reaction of the ones that hear it for the first time that reminds us just how funny Paddy can be when he puts his mind to it.

Third on the stage was Ian with what was probably the best song of the night. He opened with one of his signature pieces, ‘Chocolate Jesus’ and then blew the audience away completely with his rendition of Weird All Malchovich’s American Pie parody that covers the entire Star Wars trilogy. Needless to say that it went, having seen none of the films at all, completely over Shirley's head.

Steve Edgar is becoming increasingly diverse in his repertoire, regularly surprising us. We've heard him perform Jeff Buckley’s 'Lilac Wine', covered famously by Elkie Brooks, but new for us was John Lennon’s rhetorical masterpiece, 'How?' and  The Box Tops' 'The Letter'.

Steve took the opportunity to promote an open mic at Birdingbury Club on Saturday 30th June. The event starts at 7.30pm, and I'm sure he would welcome a few OMC faces to support him.

We welcomed back Lew Robinson
(Lew Bear), a now familiar face at The George, who treated us to some of the songs from his latest album. 'Better off Dancing With The Devil You Know', 'Echoes',

and a song about Drinking on Your Own.

John and Mike began with America's ‘Horse With No Name’ (apparently the easiest guitar piece in the universe, comprising only two chords).

 A bit more challenging for them was Bob Geldoff’s ‘Great Song of Indifference'

After they had been up for the second part of the evening I sidled up to John and whispered

'What was the first song you sang John?

'I don’t want to talk about it it.' said John.

'Yes,' I said, 'but what was the first song you sang John?'

'I don’t want to talk about it!' replied John.

'There’s no need to be funny about it, I just want to know what the first song was.'
'I don't want to talk about it'. Then came the sound of th penny dropping.

Pete and Marian also embraced the STAR WARS space theme singing Kim Jong Ill’s ‘Rocket Man’, followed by The Carpenters’ ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’.

It is always delightful to welcome new performers
to The George and this month saw the arrival of Ray Beck. He treated us to some humourous self penned numbers, the first of which was ‘The Sliming Club at Stratton Blues’ and a heartfelt account of the terrible illness that is man-flu, ‘He’s Got Man-Flu’

There were a couple of new ones from Sandi and Tugrul too. Their first was the lovely Simon and Garfunkle’s ‘El Condor Pasa, (If I Could)’ which sounded fabulous. They were on familiar territory with their second, ‘Da Do Ron Ron’ by the Crystals, or was it Hale and Pace? Sandi had a ukulele for their last song of the night Neil Young's, 'Walking To New Orleans’.

We were treated, if that's the word, to a rare full line-up of MDF, all seven of us. Tracey singing Peter Frampton's, ‘Baby I Love Your Ways’ before dueting with Ross on Josh Turner's, ‘The Longer The Waiting The Sweeter The Kiss’

and because we took such a long time to set up we played a third, a song that MDF haven’t performed for a few years, so to most of the band this was a new song. We had a practice at it on Thursday and it was such fun that we thought we’d give it a go. The Violent Femmes' 'FAT'.

The evening was brought to a close with a bit of help from MDF with Tea Chest Brian leading the collective in the well known and much loved Lonnie Donegan 'Putting on The Style'; including some less than familiar verses, and then a rousing rendition of ‘All Over Now’ by The Valentinos, of course.

Next month’s Open Music Night is Friday 1st June .

And just in case you hadn't heard, MDF will be opening the Crick Music Festival on the Sunday at 12 noon. It would be great to have some friendly faces in the crowd. Actually it would be nice if there were some faces. Please come along and give MDF some encouragement.

No snow for April's Open Music Night.

It was a real wrestle deciding whether or not to cancel March's Open Music Night because of the weather. I'd watched as other events fell by the wayside and kept an eye on the forecast, which was decidedly unfavorable. Should I wait until the last minute and see what the weather threw at us, or play safe?

The decision was made for me because of the logistics involved in getting all of the equipment together. On Wednesday evening, I would go the the lock-up and load all of the lighting equipment. On Thursday evening I would fill the van with all of the PA, and then on Friday morning I would add the guitars ready to go straight from work to The George.

On Friday morning it seemed as though I'd been a bit hasty as the sky was clear and the roads to Coventry were mostly clear but as the afternoon wore on, conditions deteriorated and I think it was a wise decision.

The weather struck again for MDF, who were booked to play St Patrick's Day at The Two Boats, Long Itchington. The band and PA made it, but audience members were disapointingly thin on the ground. Well, it was either the snow or the celebrations of Irish Rugby success that saw people head early for home.

Fortunately, the snow had gone by the time of The All Fools' Night Celebration

I started things off as per usual with a reflection on funeral arrangements, 'Be Careful What You Wish For When You Die'. This was followed by a Norwegian Wood parody about a dog with a taste for, well, Norwegian Wood. I started the second part of the evening with 'Twenty Spoons of Sugar'.

Steve Edgar's joke was highly entertaining. With a lengthy preamble the moth told the psychiatrist why it had come into the therapy consulting room - the light was on.

His musical offerings included

Bob Dylan's 'Famous Blue Raincoat' and the 60's Irish folk song 'Carrickfergus', and

Dean Martin's 'Memories Are Made of This'. His last song of the evening was Eric Idle's Monty Python classic, 'Always Look on The Bright Side of Life'.

Shirley has been bravely tweaking the mic levels, and it made a real difference this evening. With their foot tapping jigs and reels, No Strings Attached sounded fantastic.Frequent vistors to the English Folk website

Their repertoire included 'The Evercreech Hornpipe' and reels Twin Sisters, Morpeth Rant, The High Level Bridge and The Wonder

Sandi & Tugrul presented what I considered to be the funniest joke of the evening which went along the lines of: “A elderly man arrives home with flowers on the couples wedding anniversary. In the past he has been notoriusly lax, and his wife is so pleased that he’d remembered she told him that as a reward he could have ‘super sex’. The husband though about it for a second or two and said, ‘I’d like the soup please’.”

Their songs began with The Kinks' 'Lazing on A  Sunny Afternoon', Leonard Cohen’s 'Dance Me To The End of Love', which was thoroughly enjoyed by George behind the bar, and the crowd pleasing, Led Belly’s Midnight Special.

In the second part of the evening we had time for two more from Sandi & Torgul The Beatles, ‘When I’m 64’ and one from a very young Michael Jackson, ‘Rockin’ Robin’

With the exception of RD Hunter’s ‘Wait in The Water’, which he sang in the later part of the evening, Lew Bear's songs were of his own composition. Mad Old Girl, The Grass grows greener on the other side and A Northampton Rhyme. The audience particularly enjoyed his critique of ‘White Van Man’ at my expense.

  

MDF were next up, and because there was no Ross tonight it meant that Tracey had all the limelight to herself. 

Josh Turner's 'Longer The Waiting', The Travelling Willburys 'End of The Line'

Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Proud Mary'. What we did in the second half is a blur.

Paddy Wex was on form tonight with a wonderful song about the importance of neutering your cat, called ‘Calling The Vet’. His second was a more serious piece relating to a local historical event and the social injustice that lead to it ‘The West Haddon Football Riot’ took place in response to The Enclosures Act.

Out On The Mira

The end of the evening was a bit of a blur, with Paddy, MDF and Steve. My failure to immediately write down MDF and Paddy's final songs meant that by the time I came to finish the blog I couldn't remember what they were.  

Paddy brought the evening to a close, dipping into the MDF songbook and leading the ensemble with Steve Earle's 'Galway Girl.

Feelin' the Lurve

The 4^th Annual Night of Lurve love song competition took place at The George, Kilsby on Friday 2^nd February. Originally launched in 2014 as our warm-up for Valentines Day it has become a fixed feature in the Open Music Collective calendar.

There were a number of lessons that could be drawn from the evening. Mine, as compère, were quite simple; no beer near PA! For the performers there seemed to be a distinct advantage for those that played songs that were more familiar to them. Those that chose previously unperformed material suffered from the lack of exposure.

Seasonal Lurgy had once more taken its toll among the regular performers and I hope that those that found themselves thus afflicted are already much recovered. You were missed.

Because of the relatively short list, all of the entries were completed by ten thirty. This meant that there was time for the winning performers to have another turn at the microphone; and we still had time for a collective 'Wagon Wheel' jam at the end, courtesy of Steve Edgar.

While it was difficult for some to grasp, voting for oneself was allowable. If you thought that your performance was the best, then why not? But, in keeping with The Open Music Collective tradition, the voting did reflect the quality of performances on the night, and not the performers with the largest entourage. Interestingly, the band with the most members got the least number of votes.

Sadly, there was no contingent from Napton this year, and they were sadly missed, though this might have been a blessing in as much as someone else had a chance of winning for a change.

The evening got under way with the order of performances being drawn. In order to be fair, as there is a perception that later acts do have a slight advantage, possibly relating to the age of the audience and their capacity to remember, a randomising process took place. Thanks to audience member Janet for her assistance. On reflection, it may hav eproved completely unnecessary as the first two acts made their way into the topThis was followed by a summary of the voting rules and an explanation of the way the evening would run.

Then, before the first act, a poem.

Some Love Songs

some love songs they are very sad

some of them are funny

some bring a tear drop to the eye

some make your bits go runny

some love songs tell of longings

that threaten to explode

while others tell of true loves

a walking down the road

some love songs are for young folk

just starting out in life

looking for a tender husband

or a pretty loving wife

some love songs are for older folk

who haven't give' up yet

are just happy for some int'rest

and take anything they can get

it's a love song for a lover

it's a love song for a fool

it's for all those things you wish

that they had taught you while at school

it's the love songs got you ready

when things were about to start

it's what's happening in your loins

it's what's happening in your heart

some love songs they are tragic

when everybody dies

and some of them are magic

with rainbows and butterflies

they leave you feeling happier

though your heart is broke in two

and that's the most important job

a love song has to do

© George Houguez, 2018

The performers and their competition entries:

Photographed by Debbie Smith

The ice was broken by ODDS & ENDS, featuring Nigel Lewis and Darren Smith, with a little help from Hedley warmed up with Sam Cooke's 'Wonderful World'. They were staying safe with their entry numbera song we have heard them perform a few times their entry was Ben E King's 'Stand By Me'. This was well delivered and that was reflected in the scoring.

Second up was IAN, a regular contributor to the Open Music Collective, created mayhem when his guitar seemed quiet. Lesson number two, don't assume a performer won't unplug their instrument just to prove to themselves it was plugged in. How the speakers survived I'll never know. His warm up was the Todd Rundgen classic, ' I saw the light'. 

There aren't too many Tom Wait love songs to choose from, so Ian did well to find this one among Tom's repertoire as his competition entry; 'I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You'.

In an oversight and a half, SANDI & TORGUL were left off the list. Sorry! Fortunately, on the off chance of a late arrival, two spare places had been put in and they were given one of those. They warmed up with a Lennon and McCartney song 'Things We Said Today'. Their official entry was a song called 'I Can't Love You Enough', by someone with an L in their name; possibly Lavern Baker.

Frequent visitors PETE & MARION were the fourth up, warming up with Pete singing the lovely Lionel Richie song, 'Easy Like Sunday Morning', with Marion providing the "oohs" as backing vocals, and Pete improvising a delightful Kazoo solo in the place of the electric guitar. For their competition entry Marion was vocals for the Patsy Kline song 'Crazy'. The singing along started here, which might say something about the average age of the audience. Pete runs a very pleasant sing around night at The Bull, Clifton.

LEW BEAR

Lew has been threatening to visit us for such a long time, and it was great to have him with us this evening.

Lew warmed up with Robert Burns', 'Green Grow The Rashes O', a song about the pleasure he found in the company of lasses. Lew's competition entry was a song of his own, 'The End is Never Near'.

PADDY was on good form this evening with a couple of his own songs. Paddy's warm up was about all about gardening, 'Sowin' me seed bumkin' style'. There was a lot of forking, something about an overgrown bush and a clematis, but as I don't know much about gardening I didn't really understand much of it, and I've no idea why there was so much laughing.

His competition entry was 'The Anderson I Lurve'; a celebration of one of Paddy's cricketing heroes. This was sung to the familiar Bob Dylan tune 'Make You Feel My Love'. I jumped every time Paddy shouted 'Owzat!'

Every now and then we get a little glimpse into the lives of the performers as they reveal details or aspects that were previously unknown. This evening Paddy confessed to buying Cliff Richard as his first record, and then not being allowed to buy any more because of what his Mum considered was Cliff's depravity. 

MDF were without Banjo Grandad and The Gurl, one was making haunted train noises, the other was under a blanket covered in Vic; their absence was telling.

The warm up performance was The Cure's 'Friday I'm in Love'. We should have gone with this as our entry. It was a superb effort, possibly the best we have ever played it. Instead, our official entry to the 2018 Night of Lurve was Josh Turner's 'The Longer The Waiting'. We smashed this at rehearsal on Thursday night (honestly we did), and I was pretty confident of a place for the band if not a win. Our lack of practice told, and on the night we were terrible; the voting reflected it.

It has been a while since we last saw him, but for the love song competition, TONY COLLINS was back; no guitar, no auto harp but with his ukulele. Tony's warm up song was one we've heard him perform before, 

The Haughton Weavers' 'Rooms In The Sky'. His entry was what is possibly the best known love song of all time, Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight'. I've not heard it played on a uke before and it really suited the song.

The final performance of the evening fell to last year's runner up, STEVE EDGAR,  who also benefited from a little help from Hedley. This year he didn't fare quite so well in the scoring. His warm up song was Bob Dylan's 'One More Cup of Coffee'. Steve managed to sound suitably brooding and melancholy in what is quite a tricky song to deliver. Anyone who says bob Dylan can't sing should have a go at this one. 
Steve's competition entry was Ketty Lester's, 'Love Letters Straight From Your Heart'.

While #1 Roadie added up the scores I sang a couple of songs and then the results were announced.

The voting for the top three places was as follows

Third place – Odds And Ends – 8 points 
A box of  Roses chocolates and a compilation CD of love songs.

Second Place – Ian – 18 points
A bottle of Champagne, a box of Roses chocolates and a compilation CD of love songs

First Place – Lew Bear – 22 points
Dinner for two at The George, courtesy of Prasath, a bottle of Champagne and a compilation CD of love songs.

Ian and Lew were invited up to sing a few more songs. Ian giving us on of his favourite Tom Waits songs 'Chocolate Jesus' and Lew Bear with his own true story of a crow named Charlie, called 'Charlie The Crow' and a wonderful parody of Wild Rover


The evening ended with a melee of performers gathering for a rowdy rendition of Guy Clarke's Wagon Wheel with Ross and Ian providing vocals and everyone else joining in. 

We are back together at The George again for a regular Open Music Night on Friday 2nd March. It would be great to see you there.