Kiwifolk.com
Folk and Acoustic Music in New Zealand
Folk and Acoustic Music in New Zealand
We arrive at Stanstead airport in England after much fussing around trying to get our instruments on the Ryan Air flight out of Denmark. All it took in the end was a few hundred kroner. I was so focussed on packing to stay under the mandatory 2O kilos that I completely forgot about the pocket knife on my person! The Danish securitiy guard took it from my belt, looked at me sternly and consulted with his colleague as to the size of the blade. He brought it back, stepped up very close to me, made the Sign of the Cross on his chest and put the knife back on my belt!
Karen Tweed was a welcome sight at the airport after the flight which was something akin to being pressed into a cattle truck. We lunched and loitered in the beautiful town of Cambridge. I won't bore you with descriptions of beautiful historic buildings and cobbled streets, suffice to say it was as busy at it was ancient. The next bit was a mistake.
We headed off to Wales. A couple of miles up the M6 and we were stuck in a classic British motorway "tailback" so Karen decided to peel off into the rural hinterland where we commenced a happy trip through that Green and Pleasant Land, admiring villages here and castles there, stopping occasionally for refreshments, the weather being sunny and warm. Regular consultations with the roadmap did not prevent us going twice around every roundabout as we tried to make sense of the topography. The net effect was to turn what should've been a four hour trip into an eleven hour one. Given that we were up at 6am for our drive to the airport, by the time we arrived at our billet we'd been travelling for 20 hours! In the words of George W. Bush, we misunderestimated it.
The bad news was that the 4 day ''Adventures In Music" course that we were here in Llandinum to give (for the handsome fee that justified this marathon) had been cancelled and we how had a week in Wales with little to do and no money to earn. There were some compensations though, Karen has arranged for the Chaps to play with her and John Kirkpatrick in the village folk festival! We are to play the "Severn Suite", a set of original tunes and dances written by John and Karen especially for the village of Llandinum. This is a real privelige and, for me, more than offsets any of the inconvenience. Although our woes didn't end there, we now find that the neck of the electric double bass has been cracked in the Ryan Air flight.
If there's a bright side to these adversities, it is that it puts you in contact with some wonderful people. And so it was with the chain of referers that led to the luthier who has now repaired the bass.
We had a great session last night in a pub in the neighbouring village of Llanidloes (no, you're saying it wrong...) and we now note with interest that we are advertised to be playing at the local pub on Sunday; this seems to be the way that things work around here. Although there is no money in it, we might sell some Cd's. It aint over yet!
The Chaps are Hyram Ballard, John Dodd, Marcus Turner and Mike Moroney (the author of these pages), an acoustic string band featuring original songs and odd material from last century. Find out more about The Chaps here and listen to some of their music on their MySpace site here
