Red Kite Rising

It was a busy weekend for Red Kite Rising, a new band I'm involved with on the mandolin. On Saturday night we played live on Marlowfm radio. We played two twenty minute sets on their World Folk Music programme. This was after I'd played a lunchtime set at Chippenham Folk Festival with the Oxford Fiddle Group.
On Sunday afternoon, Red Kite Rising played a set at Buckingham's 'Music in the Market.'

Red Kite Rising at 'Music in the Market' Buckingham

Andy -bass, Matt - guitar, Karl-drums, Me-mandolin, Lorna-fiddle
The repertoire is all our own material, wriiten mostly by Matt with some by Andy

It was a fine afternoon, cloudy but warm and there was a good crowd to enjoy the music which lasted from lunchtime into the early evening.

Oxford Fiddle Group CD2 Recording

Recording is well under way for the Oxford Fiddle Group's second CD. This afternoon we had a four hour recording session and 10 tracks have been recorded so far.

Tom organising the fiddles

The santuary of the double bass corner

The material is well rehearsed from the Tuesday evening get togethers so the recording is a fairly relaxed affair. We always have a leisurely food break with the 'Bring-a-plate-of-food' lunch.

Lunch break

It is hoped that the CD will be finished and available by February 09, in time for our tour of the Algarve, Portugal. Details of the CD and other information about The Oxford Fiddle Group can be found at www.oxfordfiddle.co.uk

Here I'm managing to get away from the double bass for a moment

to play some mandolin on the CD

Irish in Haddenham

Yesterday evening was the twice monthly meeting of the Irish session at the Rose and Thistle in Haddenham, Bucks.
It is unlike a normal session. It takes place in the back room of the pub so there are only the musicians in the room.
In the first half of the evening we try out more obscure Irish jigs, reels, polkas and hornpipes collected by Tony Blay. This is more of a workshop session led by Tony. The tunes are arranged into sets and rehearsed so that they become part of the group repertoire.
The second half of the evening is more in the traditional session style with different musicians playing Irish tunes and others joining in.


There is a good variety of Irish folk instruments played at the session: fiddle, whistle, flute, concertina, accordion, banjo, mandolin guitar and bodhran.
Pictured above are Dave, me and Penny.


Pictured above - Tony and Tim.
There are fourteen members of the group with about 8-10 attending at any one session.



Bruce
The session takes place on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month starting at 8.15

Harping on

The first photo above shows me playing my electric mandolin at a barn dance with Sarah Goss on fiddle. Sarah played fiddle in 'Kinderhook' from 1994 although in latter years she has only played as a dep when available because of her busy career as a solo harpist.
The second photo shows Sarah with the harp at a recent wedding where I was a guest. I'm in the photo with 3 month old grand-daughter Ava.
Sarah's harp playing added a wonderful atmosphere to the wedding reception with a variety of musical styles.
Anyone interested in booking Sarah can contact her at gosssarah@hotmail.com

Kinderhook

My regular band for barn dance bookings is ‘Kinderhook.’ The band has been going since 1982 and the first photo above shows the Kinderhook 25th reunion at Killingworth Castle Inn, Wootten-near-Woodstock, Oxfordshire in May 2007. There have been a number of personnel changes and the photo shows some of the musicians who have played in the band over the years.
Kinderhook is a four piece band and the current line up is listed below with the year they joined and instruments played:
Adrian Broadway (pictured above) 1982 – bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, calling; Trevor Toms (pictured above) 1983 – guitar, banjo, drum tracks; and two from the following four: Sarah Gates 1991 – flute, piccolo, recorder; Sali Toms 1999 – flute; Matt Morton (pictured above) 2003 – whistles, soprano sax; Lorna Morton (pictured above) 2003 – fiddle.
Barn Dances are still popular in England as a social event and most of our bookings are for private functions such as weddings, silver and ruby wedding anniversaries, birthday parties (18th -80th!) Village and School Associations. We take bookings mainly in the Buckinghamshire/ Oxfordshire/Hertfordshire area.
Kinderhook can be contacted at adrianbroadway@googlemail.com