ilkeston folk club uncle joes

Spelling by Microsoft, advice on English and how she is writ courtesy Peter Holland

A bit quieter this week, so plenty of time for messing about and plenty of chips at half time of course. We had a new face in, Martin, Kathy Anna came by for just one song and Dave T is back after a mammoth flu bout, he made a joke about being "inside" and I have to say he has been missing for about the right amount of time with remission for good behaviour. Martin came along on Clive's recommendation I believe and sat before the assembled rabble with little show of nerves. Nerves where clearly not needed, he performed really wel, I do hope he becomes a regular, Twigg went home ill at half time, nothing to do with Martin being an outstanding player of course. Several regulars are missing again! where do you go? I know Suze is still trying to offload Sian onto some university or other but what do the rest of you do on a Wednesday?

Apologies for this short report and the continuing absence of any new music but at the moment I am up to my eyes in railing making so what with welding, hammering and banging and band practice with Ta Be Sure there is little time left over.

Very busy night with loads of new faces in, I would like to think everyone had crowded in to see the fabulous Ta Be Sure but I fear there was a large contingent with a very new band making their debut at the club, maybe they choose to make their debut this week because they knew Ta Be Sure would be a big draw. We bullied Nige into opening up for us by conveniently forgetting to put him on the list then offering him the only spot left, the first one, brilliant Eh. George, sans Barry let Derek accompany him and a decent job they did as well although I cautioned George not to sack Barry just yet. The brilliant Ta Be Sure (the first featured act of the year) got a big build up from Greg, well two of em anyway I was accused of just banging me drum, Oh didn't I mention I am one of them? We made a slightly nervous start but soon warmed up and received a rapturous reception from the assembled throng (thanks for that), everything went more or less to plan except a couple of minor glitches, a dodgy lead to the bodhran and a tuning resistant mandolin. The other band of the night, The Struggling String Band was a trio making their debut performance in front of an audience, very good they where too, I have just one piece of advice for them.....lose the drum kit and double base, they sound fine but a whistle and something like a mandolin will go up the stairs so much easier. Terry graced the second half in his own inimitable style helped along with a liberal splash of alcohol but it was his birthday this week so that's alright and Sutton Mick ( Ta Be Sure's Only Groupie) brought proceedings to an end with a scratch band that involved some pop bodhran playing "Rock & Roll!"

Bit of a quiet night this week which gives Greg and myself time to enjoy the atmosphere. After last weeks shenanigans with the first spot we had a volunteer this week, Twiggy, so for once we saw him play sober, didn't improve him any I have to say but thanks to him anyway, filling the first spot is always a bit of a struggle. We had Autoharp Bob back for a visit this week which was nice, haven't seen him for a while, half the club is still mesmerised by this elaborate egg slicer he wears on his chest but it is remarkably melodious and a welcome change from all the guitarists. The ever lovely Julie May sat on two stools this week?? I don't know why, more height perhaps? and despite a rather halting start, I don't think she was comfy with her little legs dangling off the top of her multiple seating arrangement, she absolutely wowed us with a couple of songs. Greg once again stated that no matter how you look at it Julie is far and away a better singer than most of the "professional" singers out there today. Don't believe me? get down to the club on the 29th Sept and hear her half hour feature spot. Whilst on the subject of Feature spots, there is a list of this years featured artists on the club notice board, if you are not on the list you have missed out this year, unless of course you can persuade someone to drop out and then persuade Greg to give you their spot. As I said earlier it was a quiet night, so much so Derek was left sitting alone, I should point out that he normally manages to get himself between or at least next to any female visitors in the club, after we made an appeal on his behalf he was still very much on his own so Greg took pity on him and went and sat next to him, well for five minutes anyway. Finally Clive told me a risqué joke which I thought was worth repeating, so I did, to complete silence. Now I am no Jimmy Tarbuck but I can usually get a bit of a laugh out of folks, what Clive hadn't said was that he had already been round the entire audience with his joke, I left the stage to sound of my own footsteps, thanks mate.

Good Turnout again, we started off this week with a little bit of trouble but more of that later. Chris is birthday boy this week we never did quite find out how old he is but it's less than 60 and definitely more than 55 so I'll leave you to guess. It fell to me as it often does to sing happy birthday, now I don't know how to play it so I sing it Acapulco, as far as we know the only club member who does know how to play it is Chris, so we had him play Happy Birthday to himself, we did all sing along. Clive took my comments last week about a lack of Scottishness to heart and sang Flower of Scotland this week, the club was ready to mount a raid over the border in Nottinghamshire by the end, good job Hugh didn't turn up with the pipes or we might have had a full scale riot on our hands. Now then, the trouble I mentioned earlier, a certain young lady who will remain nameless took exception to Greg, nothing new there then. Apparently she felt we hadn't given her time to prepare as we had put her on first and Greg's charming "Oi! your on first" wasn't well received, so she refused to play. Being fair minded and diplomatic I just crossed her of the list, we can't have stroppy folks picking their own spots it just makes a mockery of the MC's but Greg big softy that he is relented and found her a spot later in the night, so all was well and we are all best of friends again. Finally I am Quite proud to have been accused of being sexist at a funeral! Ok I wasn't being sexist at the funeral I was just accused there, Julie from Mansfield (a regular reader) thinks I have a dodgy attitude, whereas I think that is rubbish, I am sure my very good mate Donna (you know the one with the nice vests) wouldn't agree and Suze will attest that I said she had a voice like an angel this week. Ok I did also say she had a face like a baboon but that was just bonhomie and before you start, the wife beating joke this week was courtesy of Derek nothing to do with me.

I have received some sad news this week, Des who co runs Fansfield Folk Club has died suddenly I am sure you'll all join me in sending our condolences to to his family, a sad loss to the local folk scene.

It being Burns night on Monday I fully expected an outpouring of Scottishness this week but alas no, I wore my Jacobean shirt to mark the occasion and the less cultured members of the club sought to make fun of me, Hugh as you might expect did a Burns song but that was about it, let's see what St. Patricks night brings. We had a good crop of usual faces again this week with only one new boy, Kev I do believe, who played bass to Al's latest musical offerings. I did notice his guitar had five strings on it, now that's not as odd as you might think with us, Clive is virtually famous for string breaking at Whitby but Kev's only had five tuners as well. There was some flannel about five string bases but really, people should beware buying cheapo guitars, I am not saying it was bought from Nick but Kev does hang out with them, if he had contacted Johnny B he could have had a nice Takamine finished in finest Dulux Blue. Peter H I though should get a special mention this week for a particularly fine song well sung I thoroughly enjoyed it but cannot for the life of me remember the title and Clive deserves a mention if for no other reason than he lugged a squeeze box all the way from Long Eaton and then borrowed the club guitar to do his spot, not to be out done Chris came in weighed down with both mandolin and a guitar, when I asked if he was going to play for us he declined?? Now I know some of us are a bit anal about our instruments but taking them for a walk? At the end of the night this week we found ourselves with a bit of time in hand, under threat of Fire and Brimstone filling in Suze volunteered to sing with me. We did our party piece Iris Dement's Easy's Getting Harder, with my virtuoso guitar playing (there's three chords and two run downs in it) and Suze'e excellent voice we went down really well but Fire and Brimstone still managed to muscle in for a couple at the end.

The list of feature nights is now posted, go to the Notice Board to see who is playing when. The order has been decided by lottery so if you feel you can't do the date you have been given we will try to do a bit of horse trading. You will see that there are two in September because the last Wednesday in August falls during Whitby week so Wotswot are playing on the 1st of September.

Finally any aspiring drummers amongst you will be pleased to know Tuck Shop Nick is running a drum school every Tuesday night at MFN 7.30 - 9.30. For those of you who don't know, Nick is a successful professional drummer so he does know what he is talking about, I think this is probably a unique opportunity to learn from a couple of top drummers. It costs £5 per session that's got to be cheaper than lessons and has the added benefit of being a session so there is something for everyone to learn. (See The Notice Board)

Loads of people in this week but we had an easy time with the list as not everyone wanted to play. For the first time since Christmas Nige was in with Greg his nemesis, I should just remind everyone that Greg got Nige on the list at Christmas but then left him out, Nige being the nice fool he is didn't object until it was too late to do anything. Greg tried to make amends this week by putting Nige on first, much to Nige's dismay, anyway we savaged him nicely as he protested so that got the night off to a good start. Terry came on and sang a request for Peter H who wasn't in?? Nick (Nicey) came with his very classy looking Ibanez and was immediately pounced on by Colin H who is trying to take over from Twigg as club Instrument inspector, basically if you turn up with anything that's not a Takemine it will be confiscated and thoroughly examined, if it excites the assembled "experts" then your abilities as a player will be in question, if the guitar is judged to be mediocre then you will be referred to Johnny B who will try to sell you a Takemine, of course non of this matters as no one takes the slightest bit of notice of either Twiggy or Mr H. Nick plays some very jazzy type stuff and did one solo and another with Julie May on vocals, now there is a real treat Julie May doing what she does best with nick's excellent guitar work. We had a rare treat just before the break in the shape of Wal & Sue returning to performing, it seems ages since we had any Rock & Roll, lets hope they keep it up. As we where running in front of time we decided to ask Derek to do a spot to fill in, just to be helpful he decided to embark (I chose that word carefully) on a version of Bob Dylan's Boots Of Spanish Leather, all 92 verses of it, by the end Greg and myself were looking for things to throw at him and considering pulling his plug, fortunately he didn't try to get two songs in, not that we would have let him carry on as the chips were up. The second half was kicked off by Baz, I managed to get myself called a nasty name by trying to shame Suze into not sneaking out for a fag during his performance, I failed. Another long lost performer returned to the fold in this half as well, we managed to get Jeff B up to sing on his first visit in a long time he hasn't lost any of his magic (hasn't gained any timing either though Ha Ha).

We had to bring the Cock Up Trophy out this week, I awarded it to Billie for her incessant banging and crashing about behind the bar during the acts this week, fortunately I had drunk my one and only pint of the night so there was no chance of revenge, I may drink bottled beer next week.

Finally the next committee meeting has been set for Wed 17th Feb at 7.30 in order to smooth the meeting along all Items for discussion to Greg by the 10th please.

In the grip of the coldest/longest winter weather for 25 years?? Hello it's January! It's meant to snow in January, we still had a reasonable turn out.

You may have have noticed my somewhat lax attitude to my literary duties of late. Well on Christmas day having cooked dinner, yes I can cook, I was invited to accompany my brother in law on a little outing, so a few days later I found myself with a large genial character and an Indian restaurant owner in the Sinai desert on the shores of the Red Sea, 30+ degrees and free alcohol. So whilst you were suffering arctic temperatures I was busy trying to keep cool and sober, the only downside to this was a lack of decent music, fortunately I had the Mp3 player with me.

Back to reality..... we had a new boy in this week and a very special birthday as well. New boy was Tim, he isn't exactly a stranger we have seen him around for a few weeks he just hasn't managed to play before, it was worth the wait I have to say he is a rather talented blues man and I hope we see more of him. The special birthday is Sian's, although we have actually missed her birthday by a day or two she has turned 18 this week. I remember my first trip to Whitby when we were still the White Cow Folk Club, Sian was there with us a charming 11? year old, I seem to remember Dave spending a fortune on sweets and pop to keep her quiet, anyhow happy birthday Sian.

Greg is just about ready to publish the half hour spots for this year, we have decided not to have one in January due to a lack of preparation time for the unfortunate candidate so we are are starting off this year in February with that well known band Ta Be Sure, all the others will announced hopefully next week.

At the top of the page I invite you to make contributions to Uncle Joes, no one ever does except very occasionally Suze but this week I was surprised to receive a piece from Peter H via email so I am happy to publish Peter's views:-

Enjoyed immensely my come-back at the Club after a 10 week absence - not many in but quality throughout.

Consummate performances from Bob, Sue, Nick, John B and Chris - we know what to expect from these top-notch regulars.

Terry did `In the Ghetto` - I`ve asked him to try `His Latest Flame` - my favourite Elvis song. Jamie did some thoughtful low-key stuff.

A new-to-me man played what I thought was skiffle, though he called it blues - I`m sure he`d be good on a washboard. The evening was opened with a medley of what Mr X called `alternative tamla motown` - I`d have said rather andy williams. Both of them entertained. Hugh did his singing usual, and John R - well I was just leaving then.

Wally and Pete did the electrics, and Bill collected the money - a bit of role-reversal with Dave manning the bar. There were no Iain-inspired songs and no Dylan until 10.15.

No regrets for braving the snow and missing `Slumdog Millionaire` and Reading v Liverpool.

Peter

So there you are I am back, Peter has found a voice and Sian is officially a lady