|
|
.jpg)
News from Nowhere This
is a sort of personal column by Kevin
McGrath
of Harlow. If you want to see what I look like, click
here
(not really advisable). If you want to see or hear some of my
songs, click here. If you want to book me,
click here.
I'll add to the page every now and again, and get rid of the
older bits. In some cases I'll move them into an archive page.
Some
explanations about the site.
Some Geek talk
about computers etc.
An explanation
of what some of the various buttons are for).
=Contents Page =Sessions and Clubs =Folk Festivals
How about this for a pretty little fish? I'm sticking this in a few windows as a button - click on it and it gives you a short cut to some part of the same page which is more immediately useful. And clicking on the fish here takes you to an example on my index page. Clicking on the squirrel gets you to the search engine for this site. Nice little chap isn't he?.
July 10th Here's my contribution to the campaign to try to stop people building a vast new leisure centre in the Town Park, and tearing down the Sports Centre Ski Slope and Swimming Pool. Click on the trees to find out more.
HANDS
OFF OUR PARK
And here is a picture of the
bit of the park they want to build on - this is what some people
call an eyesore:
July 23rd: I went last night to the HOOP lobby of the Town Council. Fair turnout, waiting around in the carpark while the councillors did their talking inside, with only a handful of the public let in. They decide to put everything off for six months "to allow for the consultation and further investigation of alternatives".
Which means they hope the heat will be off in six months and they can move without too much fuss, either to impose the scheme, or back off with as little embarrassment as possible. I gather a MORI poll has demonstrated that there is general opposition to the scheme among Harlow people. If the so called "consultation document" comes up with the same verdict I can't see them going ahead. More to the point, the Lottery cash is unlikely to be forthcoming. (If the "consultation" came out in favour, it wouldn't mean much, given the biassed leaflet they supplied with it. But they'd probably try to make something of it.)
One person who wasn't at the lobby was Alan Lamb of Rivermill, a long time friend of session music and suchlike, because he dropped dead in the Willow Beauty a few days back, at the worrying age of 59. Funeral was today, with a good turnout, and there should be some kind of session with a wake or wake with a session at The Rising Sun in High Wych, one of his regular drinking places, on Saturday 24th evening. (Yes, I know a wake is strictly what you have before the funeral, but it's all a matter of saying goodbye in a duly appreciative context.)
August 24th Well it looks as if the threat to the park may have receded - the council backed consultation process backfired on them. In spite of being carried out through a grossly distorted propaganda leaflet saying what a brilliant proposal it was, differentially distributed to Sports Centre members, the response came out heavily against it. Which probably means the vandals will just back off and regroup and try to sneak some equally dodgy project through. But at least this round has gone against them.
Last Saturday was a great wedding in Harlow (congratulations Claire and Paul Reilly), with a good time playing music there for a few of the usual suspects like myself who we rounded up to play there for the occasion.
And on this Thursday 26th August at 8.30 or so there's a party which would welcome folk musicians in Bishop's Stortford - it's in the building that used to be a monastery, next to the Catholic Church in Windhill, and it's for an organisation called Realife that does civil rights work for people with disabilities, which at the moment has a bunch of people from Greece over on holiday. Come prepared to play music and you'll be welcome. (There's also a barn dance for the visitors and friends on the following day at St Joseph's Hall in Stortford with Neck of the Wood.)
September 8th Just back from a weekend and a bit at Fylde Folk Festival, up near Blackpool. A great festival, well worth a very long bus journey. Visit their website. High point for me was songwriter Colum Sands. And Norma Waterson. Good sessions too.
And this weekend a last minute mini-version of Walton, which promises to be enjoyable.
October 19th 1999 I visited the Digital Tradition on the Mudcat Cafe website by chance, because I was looking for a song, and found that it is just newly under attack by the American equivalent of the Performing Rights Society, (but even worse than the PRS, it seems). Anyway I dashed off a new version of The Cat Came Back as my contribution, and sent it off to Mudcat. In the process I have started to pay attention to the Mudcat discussion threads - I like the feel. Friendlier and more interesting than most I've come across. I've not visited uk.music.folk for some time, because my free connection with screaming.net doesn't at present provide access to news groups. But Mudcat is more in tune with my ways, I think. Sort of hippy meets folk - they balance out, and stop it folding in on its own obsessions.
October 23rd 1999 It looks as though Harlow Council has backed on off the project for building a leisure centre in the park. Brilliant. (See story in this week's Harlow Star).There are some good people inside the Labour Group on the council, enough to turn things around this time. What Tony Blair would describe as "conservatives with a small c" I'm getting really irritated at the way that man, and his mates all talk about"change" and "modernisation" as if they were unqualified good things, which should never be resisted.
If a change is for the good, you push it along, if it's for the worse, you try to resist it. If "modern" means better you welcome it, if it means worse, you defy it. Breaking the windows of churches and smashing the heads of statues was once seen as "modernisation", and so was sending children down the pits.
I continue to explore Mudcat, and to like what I find. I've put up another song, on the website, and in a thread in Mudcat where it seemed appropriate, and have been pleased to get some people saying they like the words, and want the tune.
2nd November Right, thanks to MMario of Mudcat, who lives somewhere in the US, I now have the technology to send recorded songs by e-mail, without the attachments being too enormous. Amazing stuff this Internet at times. So if anyone wants one of the tunes on the site, maybe with a view to singing it, send me your e-mail address and I'll see what I can do.
November 22nd Just done a fair bit of housework on the site, including installing links to a free Guest Book and free Message Board for the site.
I suspect the Message Board would be sufficient, but by the time I put that in, I'd already put in various internal links to the Guest Book. Anyway, they are there is anyone feels like using them - since they are hosted on free servers outside my site, they'll be no good for anyone browsing off-line. The same goes for the Site Search link I've put in as well.
Anyway I now feel more equipped.
January 23rd 2000 Some time since I added anything in here. I've been spending a fair amount at the Mudcat Cafe - fortunately my screaming.net Internet Accsess Provider gives me a free telephone number to connect me to the Internet. Recently there's been an interesting flame war of sorts there, arising out of different views as to what is fitting to have on the site (ie non-music stuff). Strange how fierce something as seemingly remote as this can become. People have an enormous capacity to quarrel.
That led to me writing the first song I've writtn actually on-line - which I first called "Mudcat Reborn" - but the name given it by Aine who runs the Mudcat Songbook is better - "Goodbye Old Friend What's-his-name"
My guestbook and message board gets just the occasional vist so far - from as far afield as Colorado and New Zealand.
February 5th 2000 Query from Áine of the Mudcat Sonbook as to whether it's possible to get the Atomz search engine to look for her name spelt like that - with a "fada", rather than as Aine, without. So I've put this in here to try it out. Lots of good songs in the songbook, which is for new songs by members of Mudcat. An interesting development in the way of folklore.
July 1st 2000 A long time since I made an entry hear - I tend to do my equivalent comments on the Mudcat Cafe these days. I've written a fair bunch of songs in the process.
I have just properly worked out how to do RealAudio files, and written up a Do-It Youself guide. And I've set up an allegedly no-size-limits website I've called the Moving Finger Songbag on a server called Crosswinds somewhere in Califronia, who've agreed I can put my RealAudio files there - so I'll probabl;y put up a lot more of them. With 500K a song it would have eaten up my freeserve webspace pretty rapidly. It's pretty slow for laosing, so I'll keep my main website with freeserve for the time being - though it's a nuisance that I can't use screaming.net for uploads to them, which I can to Crosswinds.
June 30th 2001 - Below is a press release from EFDSS about some musical direct action tha is planned for Jully 19th in London to try to make it easier for live acoustic music in pubs.
EFDSS PRESS RELEASE :
IF
YOU WANT LIVE MUSIC VENUES TO SURVIVE, LIVE MUSIC NEEDS YOU - ON
THURSDAY 19 JULY ! (See below for some local background)
The Government's proposals for licensing reform are not
guaranteed to end the absurd treatment that many local gigs
receive at the hands of local authorities.
The Home Office estimates that only 5% of licensed premises
currently hold annual public entertainment licences. In effect,
this means that a performance by three or more musicians would be
a criminal offence for the proprietor in 95% of the UK's
recreational premises.
This ludicrous situation is under-reported in the national press
- but that could be changed. What are you doing on the afternoon
of Thursday July 19th? Would you be interested in participating
in an event to celebrate live music, and to draw media attention
to the bizarre "two-in-a-bar rule"?
The message to parliament will be that future licensing
legislation must recognise the value of live music for the whole
community.
HOW WILL IT WORK?
The plan is that a variety of bands, which must be un-amplified
and portable (so no grand pianos!), will turn up at prearranged
bars and pubs in central London and put on an 'impromptu'
performance. In fact, venues will have been selected and briefed
beforehand. Bandleaders will carry an info sheet advising
licensees that if they don't hold a public entertainment licence
the band should be asked to leave - in the nicest possible way,
of course.
A full media briefing will precede the event and it is hoped that
both national press and TV will attend, following some bands from
venue to venue.
Musicians of all kinds are needed. The event is being co-ordinated
by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), and is
endorsed by the Musicians Union, Jazz Services, and the Campaign
for Live Music (CaLM).
The afternoon will close with performances outside Number 10
Downing Street, before crossing the road to the Red Lion for a
drink followed by a party at EFDSS. The event is expected to run
from 11.30am to 5.00pm.
If you are interested in participating please forward contact
details to livemusic@efdss.org .
Please state what instrument(s) you play, the style of music, and
whether you will bring along other musicians. Remember to include
your full name, address and phone number as well as email address.
EFDSS will be dealing with queries regarding public liability
issues. However, if you join EFDSS for £26, you and your group
will have full public liability insurance cover all year through
the EFDSS insurance scheme. If you are interested, contact us for
details.
Please pass this message on to anybody you know who feels
strongly about live music.
We look forward to hearing from you,
Rupert Redesdale, Development Officer & Tim Walker, Chief
Officer
EFDSS
Cecil Sharp House
2 Regents Park Road
London NW1 7AY
Tel 0207 485 2206
Fax 0207 284 0534
The background to this has ben a number of cases where the currant assinine law has been involed to stop pub sessions - for example locally the "Traditional English Music" sessions which had been on the first Wednesday of every. month in The Welsh Harp, in Waltham Abbey. In fact I believe it may have been this that pushed the EFDSS into backing this campaign.
Local background: The law as it stands (as currently interpreted anyway), means that most sessions in pubs are illegal. Sessions in pubs count as "entertainment", even if people are just playing for each other. As such they are illegal, unless a pub has a special entertainment licence, which most don't. There's an exceptioin for events where only two people perform, meaning two people in an evening. This law which is probably illegal anyway in the lights of Human Rights legislation, and much of the time it is ignored - but every now and then it gets pulled into action when some jobsworth gets their teeth into it, or some rival pub-owner thinks a session is pulling away his cistomers, and lodges a complaint (as I believe happened in Waltham Abbey).
Click here to e-mail me - or Sign my GuestBook or Visit My Message Board - for example, if you'd like to see something in
here that isn't here already, or if there's something in here
that's inaccurate, or if you have any relevant comment.
Or if you just feel like writing. Written post: Kevin
McGrath, Moving Finger c/o
122 Heronswood, Harlow CM20 1RU