Kinderhook plays at a Schools Folk Dance Festival

Today, 'Kinderhook' played at the High Wycombe and District Primary Schools Folk Dance Festival. This is an annual outdoor event and Kinderhook have played at the festival for the last six years. About fourteen or fifteen schools take part which means over 200 children. As you can see from the photos, the weather was good and all seemed to enjoy this annual traditional event.

Trevor Toms on guitar and me on banjo playing for the dancing

Traditional Music Sessions

There are a number of traditional music sessions in Bucks and Oxfordshire where musicians regularly meet to play tunes together. They all vary slightly in what goes on and who goes. Most include the occasional song - some include quite a few!
The sessions I like the best are those where it's mostly traditional tunes played by a variety of instruments (not too many accordians or melodions!) by good players. I usually take my Gold Tone tenor banjo so that I can play the tunes rather than accompany them.
My favourite traditional music sessions are:
1. The White Swan at Whitchurch, Bucks which takes place on the 3rd Monday of the month. Some really good musicians turn up here and many tunes are played during the evening (and hardly any songs). The Landlord (from the Czech Republic) serves up loads of free food to the musicians during the evening. The photos below show the session from last Monday at the White Swan.


I'm at the back of the photo on banjo with Matt Morton (from Kinderhook) next to me on flute.


Concertinas together! Pippa with the Anglo Concertina and Pete with the English Concertina - both excellent players. I see Pete North at the Killigworth Castle session mentioned below.

2. The Killingworth Castle Inn, Wootten near Woodstock, Oxfordshire which takes place on the 1st Monday of the month. There are always plenty of musicians in this pub which is well known for its live music, particularly traditional.
3. The Cuckoos Nest, Gawcott, Bucks which takes place on the second Monday of the month. This is a new session which started in April.
4. The Rose and Thistle, Haddenham, Bucks which takes place on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month. This is an Irish session run by Tony Blay. It started in January 2008 and is struggling a bit with numbers. I hope it survives.

There are other sessions which I have been to in the past but don't go to now:
The Gardners Arms, Tackley, Oxfordshire, 2nd Sunday.
The Cherry Tree, Steventon, Oxfordshire - 3rd Sunday - English only - quite a long way for me;
The Eight Bells, Long Crendon, Bucks - 1st Wednesday - very local for me but too much reading music and singers.

Details about traditional sessions can be found in the free publication 'Shire Folk' a guide to folk and roots music within a 30 mile radius of Oxford (http://www.shirefolk.org.uk/)

Sunnyside Serenaders

Yesterday, I played two bookings with Mike Gardiner as the duo 'Sunnyside Serenaders'.

We are a rather 'strange' musical duo playing 'Goodtime Music through the Decades' mixed with traditional tunes and songs - which ever is appropriate for the booking. Mike plays fiddle and celtic harp and I play guitar and harmonica.

In the afternoon we played at the Coleshill Village Fete in Buckinghamshire. It's a quaint old fashioned style fete which had everything from cream teas to ferret racing!





We were positioned next to the cream teas so that people sitting at the tea tables could be entertained by us. The photos above show Mike playing the celtic harp and me on guitar and harmonica. We were doing a West Indian Calypso at the time!
We went straight from the fete to perform at the Haddenham Rotary Club annual dinner at the Cock and Rabbit Graziemille Restaurant at the Lee, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire.
Both bookings went really well but we were both fairly exhausted after 6 hours playing.
For more information about the 'Sunnyside Serenaders' contact adrianbroadway@googlemail.com

Mouse and Trousers

On Friday evening I played a barn dance with 'Mouse and Trousers' at the Wovercote festival (near Oxford). I play with them when one of the regular band members can't make the booking. Mostly I 'dep' for the bass guitar player but this time I was playing the tunes on the tenor banjo to dep for a melody player.



In this photo are: Chris Mills (guitar) me (tenor banjo) John Winterbottom (bass guitar) Gareth Morris (drums & calling) Stephen Passey (fiddle).
The photos below show the last time I played with Mouse and Trousers at Wheatley, Oxfordshire on the May Bank Holiday weekend.



Pictured (looking very serious!!) are: Tom Bell-Richards (fiddle) Gareth Morris (drums) me (bass guitar) Heather White (whistle) and Chris Mills (guitar)

Pictured here (the only one smiling!) is Marilyn Mills on English Concertina

A busy June weekend

This weekend was the start of some busy musical weekends for me. Friday evening saw me playing double bass in a 50s band at Brill Sports and Social Club - an interesting experience!

By Saturday afternoon, I was on more familiar territory playing banjo for the Haddenham Hoofers at Bourton Meadow, Buckingham. Musicians also pictured are Ed Houghton -guitar, Penny Heydon - fiddle and Tim Mason - 5 string banjo.


Saturday evening was an open air barn dance at Ardley, Oxfordshire with the Mizen Ramblers. The sun was still shining when this photo was taken but it got a bit chilly in the darkness later on! I'm playing my 5 string acoustic/electric bass guitar. Also pictured from left to right: Tom Bell-Richards - fiddle, Jed Mugford -fiddle, Mike Gardiner - fiddle and Trevor Toms - guitar.