18 months ago I bought a melodeon. This was no rash purchase; it was going to happen some day and I was having a particularly good week and the time felt right, even though I knew it would be some time before I got round to learning to play the thing. So it remains.

I played the piano as a pre-teen. I can read music. But that was all 40 years ago and more. Anyone out there paying any notice to my posts will know that I have recently taken to singing like the proverbial duck to water, but truth be told, I’m a lover of instrumentals at heart. Where I really want to be is in amongst the musicians in a session.

I was at several such sessions over the Easter weekend – fiddlers, guitarists, box players attentive to each other’s chords and progressions, learning from each other, bouncing off each other. I see the fingers feeling their way over frets and keys, familiar with shapes and patterns. I imagine that these old hands know how to translate with facility the note they hear in their head through their digits to expression in sound. I’m sure that those who » Continue Reading.

I’m a crap heckler. But it’s so tempting at folk gigs; they’re usually small audiences and very often you really have had chats with the musicians, so it’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you can have a conversation between audience and stage. But the chances are that your supposed choice words were inaudible to all but you and merely disrupted the flow of performance. Some artists probably relish the banter, and it casts them in a good light. Others must find it less welcome; God knows, since I’ve started performing, I can’t imagine how I’d deal with it myself. So, I usually come away from opening my gob, wishing I hadn’t and feeling just a little bit stupid.

That said, I had a proud heckle last month at the Martin Simpson / Dom Flemons gig at Band on the Wall. The set was largely acoustic and they were about to play a jugband number, when Dom walks on stage with an electric kettle. It was clearly a set up, but the cross was well laid, the goal open, so it was irresistible. “Judas!” I cried. Mr Simpson was clearly delighted and, aside, explained to his » Continue Reading.

In case you hadn’t noticed, in less than a decent night’s sleep, the polling booths will open across the UK. I’ve set my alarm 10 minutes earlier than otherwise so that I can cast my vote on the way to the station. In this rural parish, I guarantee I will be the first voter to cross the threshold. In the unlikely event of there being an exit poll, it will throw the pundits into a frenzy, as they extrapolate into a forecast of a kicking for the Chancellor. The two officials, if that is what they be, will resemble the Miss Tibbs, residential at Fawlty Towers, and will cluck and gurgle about their duty. They will comment, as they check my voting paper, that I am the young man (I’m 52) who lives round the back of so-and-so. I will not see them again until the next democratic opportunity. I go dancing at loads of village halls around the country, but this is the only occasion when I visit the one in my home village, tucked away in it’s 1960s prefabness, round the side of the parish church, which in turn is set out in the fields. I haven’t a » Continue Reading.

Two reviews in this month’s issue of fRoots caught my eye – the new albums by Spiro and Lau, two bands to whom I am no stranger. Many of us probably still read stacks of reviews every month. So what does it take to make us sit up and take notice?

The Spiro album is described as ‘acoustic techno early chamber minimalist’. In five words the reviewer has encapsulated a personalised message that might have gone something like this : ‘Dear Mr Cat, You may not have heard of us, but most definitely we have heard of you. We at Real World Records have been monitoring your gig attendance, done a time and motion study of you at festivals, checked what you listen to on Spotify and surreptitiously gained entry to your house to examine your CD collection. Further, a sophisticated program analysed the collected data and ran it past your lobes and synapses for verification. From this information, we know exactly what will float your boat and, as a result, Spiro have fashioned an album for you specifically, to which you will be swooning for the rest of the summer.’

The Lau review begins ‘Lau have never been shy » Continue Reading.

Just caught the train back from town after a leaving do. There was my bike in one piece, but not quite. Here in my prosperous Cheshire market town, someone had made the effort to nick my light brackets, front and back.

As a crime, this must rate as one of the most gratuitous. As you get through front and back lights, you always end up with more brackets than you need, even with the fleet of bikes I’ve got. Other nickable items – saddle, pedals – could just about make sense. But the light brackets?

Any stories to share with this victim of the most literal of petty crimes?

We don’t have the chance to preview posts at the moment. That was useful for checking that links and formatting had worked as planned (and to think again before making a regrettable post.)

Anything else not quite as before that we’d like to mither Admin about (somewhat ungraciously given the overriding euphoria at having the blog back)?