Marlow Bottom Acoustic Club

Eighty-second meeting of Collective for singing Patriotic song for Homeland meet at undisclosed location (The Pegasus, Marlow’s Bottom). Seventeen noble souls evade tsarist butchers to meet for sing.
Overture by Rosie on Melodeon: “The Seven Stars”. Then first item of business. Office of Secretary and recording minutiae to pass from person to person for reason of justice, fairness, tedium and speling. I not fast enough to hide pencil, so is me, Fred.
Dick Frost open with number from A. Capella: “The Miller and the Maid” – moving song about means of production.
Many song of homeland expressed: from Sweden “Those were the days” by Karen and Steve, and “Ickerökarpolska” by Fred on overtone flute. (Many preferring undertone.)
Song of Greece by Gerry: “How can I tell you that I love you” and duetting with Steve: “Father and Son” (both Cat Stevens/Yusif Islam).
Song of Scotland by Alison: “Glasgow Lullabye”. Song of virtue of drink.
Song of Ireland by Simon “Galway Girl”, and Karen and Roger “Cloganne Winds”.
Song of Netherlands by John “Skipper Jan Rebeck”.
Competition from barflies. Very noisy! Not like us. But persevere and making music.
Alan and Rosie playing set “The White Petticoat” and “Over the Ocean”.
Many song from inspiring United State of America. Notable Stewart playing tune of District Attorney seeking Justice: “D.A. Slockit Light”. Karen & Steve “I’ll be your Baby tonight”, Roger & Karen: “Country Roads”, Alan, Martin & Rosie “Smile for the Camera” Alan & Rosie, “Wind beneath my Wings”. Martin is virtue-so-so on guitar with “Alabama” and “Red House Blues”. Banging on guitar in middle of tune very moving, many tear. Even barflies listen. Well doing, Martin!
Alan remind us all of Rebellion at Brewery on 4th July, day of revolting Americans with Fireworks and Free Handguns. Come! Bring article to make music and raise voice for Rebellion!
Then Fred sing song of Pagan “Old Time Religion”. Countered by Simon & Dave with “Live This Life” and Alison “Sweet Hope of Glory”. So others carry day. But I not beaten yet.
Other song. Delia sing “The Besom Maker” and “The Lame-poor Man”. Simon, Dave & Alison sing “A Calling-on Song” and (by Steve Rothero) “The River”.
Steve sing “This Old Town” on own guitar but use pick of Alan. Co-operative!
Dick to sing “Bring us a Barrel” but barman ignore. Sorrow!
Alan and Rosie sing song of bondage “Unchained Melody”. All join in. Very political feeling.
John sing song of Cannibalism “Little Boy Billee” reference to wreck of Medusa in 1816. Much problem of sailor eating each other.
Dick Frost sing last song: I confuse whether is song of passion and suicide “End it all in Pleasure” or of Workers Collective: “Let Union Be”.
Then barman ring bell. No more beer. All go home.
Now I to thinking: I know everybody name! What if torture? Ooops!

The Rebellion Brewery in Marlow Bottom has an Open Weekend every two years. Following our efforts in 2007, Marlow Bottom Acoustic Club will be providing live music on the Saturday of this year's event on 4th July. Our set will be from 2:30 until 5:00.

Entry is free, so why not come along and hear us, and sample some excellent beer at the same time.

Read more about the open weekend here.

A few of us did some more publicity for the club on by playing live on Marlow FM on Saturday evening.

• Simon sang John Tams' The Year Turns Around Again (from the wonderful Warhorse show), and Steve Earle's Galway Girl (from the Magner's advert), accompanying himself on medodeon
  
• Alison sang Crow On Tne Cradle and GLasgow Lullaby (about a drunken husband), accompanying herself on concertina
  
• Rosie sang Keep On The Sunny Side (by The Carter Family via O Brother Where Art Thou) and Killing The Blues (known from Raising Sand) with me on guitar and Steve on bass and backing vocals.
• Steve sang and played guitar on Across the Great Divide (by Kate Wolf) with me on bass and Rosie on backing vocals

Thanks to Andy and Paul for the opportunity.

The Marlow FM broadcasts revert to being internet-only after this week. The Folk and World Show is back to being 2 hours from 18:00-20:00 on Saturdays, repeated on Mondays.

Several of the regulars were already at The Old Ship when I arrived on Wednesday. That wasn’t unusual. More surprisingly, as well as a group of people in the dining area, there was also a large pair of powered speakers, a big mixing desk, a MacBook and a couple of microphones in the bar area. Everyone looked at me, expecting me to know what was going on. I didn’t.

It turned out that the diners were having a ‘leaving do’ for one of their number. Unbeknown to the rest of the group, one of his colleagues had hired this karaoke rig so he could sing some swing numbers. The leaver had been told that the karaoke rig was ours (are you following so far?). Rob the chef asked if we minded if they did some numbers between ours. So we did just that.

As usual, we took turns to sing or play and, once we’d all had a turn, we let the karaoke guy loose for a couple of songs. His repertoire was from the swing era, with great songs like Lady is a Tramp and Fly Me To The Moon. These were sung with rather more confidence than talent over very loud backing tracks. Several of our number, but none of his group, could be seen to be singing along. There was even some dancing.

We had two of three turns each, but I stopped taking notes when I moved to the quieter end of the bar. Notable contributions from my note-taking spell were:

• Stuart playing two tunes (Polly Me Dear, Click on the Shears) together on the concertina, segued into accompanying Delia’s singing of Nottingham Swing
• Gerry’s version of I Don’t Want To Talk About It, a hit in the UK as one half of a double A-side by Rod Stewart (with First Cut Is The Deepest). As requested, I used my phone to look up the writer of the song. It turns out that it was Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse. Danny was not a prolific songwriter, and is perhaps better known for having his descent into heroin addiction be the subject of Neil Young’s Needle and the Damage Done.
• Clohinne Winds, a new song from Karen and Roger.
• Rosie’s singing of I Only Have Eyes For You. This was a big hit in 1975 for Art Garfunkel. My Dad is eighty next week and is having a family party at which we’ll do a turn. This is one of his favourite songs and will feature on the day. Expect another of his favourites next week. You can be sure that this won’t be a folk song.

It was great to see the newly-married Tony, even if we didn’t get much of a chance to chat. Also present were Dick and Richard.

We’ll be at The Pegasus in Marlow Bottom next week where we confidently expect things to be simpler, with no karaoke, no football and, we hope, a big attendance.

There were a select seven of us at The Prince Albert this
week, but we managed to fill the evening with lots of songs,
tunes and banter.

Tunes we had were led or accompanied by various instruments
including melodeon, concertina, mandolin, guitar.
They were: Merrily Kissed the Quaker, Upton Stick Dance,
Cued Mile Failte (A Hundred Thousand Welcomes), Kitty Lie
Over jig, Sportsmans Hornpipe, A schottische from France,
an O’Carolan tune I can’t spell, and The Ashgrove.

Songs were sung or accompanied by Dick, Rosie, David,
Alison, Roger and Karen.
They were: Bring Us A Barrel, Bells of Norwich, Sally Ann,
Done with the Sin and the Sorrow, That Old Devil Called
Love, The Innocent Hre, (can’t recall why, but there was
some talk of stoats), King of Bohemia, Tom Dead Light,
Killing the Blues, The First Time, Sweet Primroses, Swallow,
Shine (was this the first timea David Gray song made an
appearance at MBAC other than via Jeremy), My Old friend
the Blues.

We are at The Old Ship on Wed 17th June and the Pegasus on
Wed 24th June.

Andy and Paul from the Folk and World Show on Marlow FM had a slot on Saturday's show that needed to be filled at short notice. This was a good opportunity to get more publicity for the club, so Rosie and I popped down to the studio at the Two Brewers and were interviewed by Andy and Paul.

We tried to get across the inclusive and welcoming ethos of the club and to encourage people to come along. In order to demonstrate the range, we played some Irish jigs and Rosie sang If Love Is A Red Dress (particular well, I thought).

We've already seen extra visitors linking to this site from the Marlow FM site. Let's hope they turn into real visitors on a Wednesday evening.

Jack Ross, the last surviving Australian who'd signed up for the Great War, died on the 3rd June. Terry did the decent thing and sang Eric Bogle's The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. His others songs were Muesli and Dave Reader's Freakers' Ball.

Simon saw and raved about the Australian Pink Floyd recently. He and David started with the Floyd's Wish You Were Here. I assume that Messrs Gilmour and Walters didn't have a melodeon in mind when writing it. Second up for them was Richard Thompson's Time To Ring Some Changes. David also sang Joni Mitchell's Free Man In Paris.

The Pink Floyd theme re-occurred at the end of the evening. Martin had the last slot and entertained everyone with Bill Bailey's Murder In Parliament Square (the dog/cat/tramp song). Part way through, he realised that the chords were the same as Breathe from Dark Side Of The Moon, so segued into it and did a great rendition. Earlier, he'd sung Peter Gabriel's Red Rain and his own Losing The Gift.

We hadn't seen Andy for a while. He and Richard sang Once I Had A Sweetheart, The Drinking Gourd, The Old Kent Road and Banks Of The Roses.

The evening had started with Steve joining Dick for Who's the Fool Now. Dick's other songs were Billy My Boy and Man In The Moon. Steve followed the duet with the contrasting Night Rider's Lament, complete with yodelling. Later he sang River Days unaccompanied (but with much joining in) and then Gulf Coast Highway, to which I contributed some bass.

Gerry started with his fine version of Sunshine On My Shoulder. Maybe he needs a pair of round glasses to get the full John Denver effect. Not sure how he'd transform into Don Mclean for Vincent.

Rosie and I led a couple of sets of tunes, were joined by Steve on bass for Fishing Blues and Neil Young's Don't Let It Bring You Down and finished off with Dream A Little Dream Off Me.

The debut of the evening was made by a minimal configuration of the PA system that I unexpectedly won on ebay. Most of us need amplification in the lively atmosphere of the Belle Vue so the PA will return!

We're at the Prince Albert next week. Being a small country pub, it's an entirely different proposition to The Belle Vue. Arrive early for a good seat.