What a string of amazing music we’ve had at the hall! Rachel Dawick played the guest spot for our first folk club night of the year. She last played at the hall for the launch of her Boundary Riders project, which has since gone on to being adapted as a musical theatre piece in Scotland. Rachel played a delightful solo set, including tales of her many travels and adventures and songs from her numerous musical projects.

On the 2nd of February we had Kirsty Bromley, Gillian Boucher and Bob McNeill. Kirsty is a UK folk singer who has been touring NZ and Australia since October, to great acclaim. She performed a solo a cappella set of traditional and original songs. In the second half, noted fiddler Gillian Boucher and Tui Award winner Bob McNeill played a lively set of traditional celtic fiddle tunes and original songs written by Bob.

On Waitangi day we had a very special treat when Fiddle Pie brought their old time country music dance and variety show to the hall. It was an evening of the most infectious and exciting music. The show started with a lovely piano recital from band member Hannah. The six members of Fiddle Pie are very talented multi-instrumentalists and singers, and they swapped instruments between nearly every song. Band member “T” is a professional square dance calling and had most of the audience up and dancing. He also lead us in a waltz and Texas two-step. It was an all-around fun evening! We very much hope they’ll come back again next year!

Next folk club is Monday, February 29th, doors open at 6:30pm, floor singers start at 7pm sharp. Special guest is Keith Levy.

Also on at the Hall on February 22nd, a workshop on Urban Farming with “rock star market gardeners” Curtis Stone.

Curtis is an Urban Micro-Gardener, farmer and founder of Green City Acres in Canada. He will discuss profitable, small-plot urban farming with Curtis Stone.

Specialising in multiple site farming (backyards, front yards, spare lots) within the one enterprise, the Green City Acres model proves that urban farming CAN create a profitable livelihood, if the enterprise is designed well.

You can get more information on registering for the workshop at http://www.sixfigurefarmingnztour.com/

January 31st is our annual hall fundraiser, the Country Fair. This is a great opportunity to get more involved with the hall. Please e-mail me if you can volunteer to help on the day or if you can donate anything for the quick fires!

Sunday, 10am – 2pm.

Food Stalls ✦ Live Music ✦ Book Stall
Car Boot Sale ✦ Quick Fire Raffles ✦ Cake Stall
Produce Stall ✦ Bouncy Castles

Pipis will be providing the live music on the day.

Thanks to everyone who has come to the folk club this year. Special thanks to the musicians who have signed up to perform floor spots. We had a pretty good first year, so I guess this is going to be a thing. We’ve had lots of interest from performers and music lovers, it should be another great year.

Your $5 door charge has gone into a fund to make sure we can pay visiting musicians a decent amount for showing up and sharing their talents. Right now we’ve got about $500 in the bank, and I made a donation of $40 to the Whangateau Hall Committee Fund to buy an electric kettle and emergency water storage containers. This will make sense to anyone who was at the November folk club meeting! Still not sure what happened there, but it is being looked into and sorted.*

Please have a look at the upcoming events, we’ve got some truly amazing musicians coming our way in 2016.

Have a happy, safe, and fun holiday, everyone! Enjoy the summer weather, go to the beach and play some music!

See you in 2016,

Jenine
*at the November meeting the water supply filled with clay silt, and then disappeared entirely, leaving us with muddy cups of tea, and then no way to wash up. Gotta love country life! (And we do!)

By popular request, we will be having a bluegrass jam tonight in the second half. We’ll start off with a slow jam tune, allowing anyone who wishes to give it a go a safe opportunity to play. Then we’ll turn it over to the experienced pickers to let ‘er rip while everyone else can enjoy some socialising as an end-of-year send off.

See you there!

Folk Club report for September: OUTSTANDING. We had a surprisingly large crowd, all there no doubt to hear John Hayday and Vaughn Morgan again. It was wonderful to see so many new faces there. We had a wonderful set of musical offerings during the floor singer session, including two first time performers who we hope to see more of in the future.

Coming in October: Folk Club on Monday, October 26th. Jenine won’t be available, so John Hayday will be running the club.

Ever wanted to learn Celtic Fiddle? Nova Scotia, Canada, produces some of the finest Celtic fiddlers in the world. Gillian Boucher of Nova Scotia has recently relocated to the Kapiti Coast in Wellington and she is giving lessons online. She promises she can get you from beginner to expert quickly and inexpensively. Check out her website for more information: www.gillian-boucher.com/learncelticfiddle. She’s playing in a duo with Scottish singer/songwriter/guitarist Bob McNeill, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get them up to our club some day.

See you all at the hall!

Hello, music-loving friends and neighbours!

Next folk club is MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 7pm.

I hope everyone who attended folk club in August had as much fun as I did. We have such lovely and talented people in this area, it was a delight.

We bumped into a common trap of Folk Clubs everywhere, however, illustrated very well by this old cartoon:

In order to keep things flowing smoothly on club nights, we’re going to have to ask that floor singers keep their two numbers to around a total of 6 or 7 minutes total. It’s a matter of courtesy for our other floor singers and guests. If you have a beautiful song that you must absolutely share, but it takes 10 minutes to sing it, we’ll ask you to limit your set to the one song, and if you can speed it up just a tad, everyone would be grateful.

We have settled recently on the last Monday of the month for our clubs, but I have been getting feedback from locals saying there are a lot of other things on that night, and they are sad because they cannot attend folk club. I also have been struggling with artists who wish to play the hall on non-folk club nights. This is bumping against my increasingly busy schedule. So please be understanding if our schedule varies a bit from month to month. I will try to keep you informed via e-mail, posters put up locally, and on whangateau.co.nz.

Whangateau Hall Committee has said farewell to long time secretary Doug Guthrie. If you would like an opportunity to become more involved with the local community, please consider joining the Hall Committee. Contact me for more info.

Jenine

July folk club is Monday the 27th, hosted by John Hayday!

August folk club is Monday the 31st. We will have a special guest artist: Richard Leschen and Yvette Audain of the Tuxedo Folk Band.

About the band:
The TUXEDO FOLK BAND is an exciting and adventurous new folk-jazz ensemble featuring Yvette Audain (Auckland Philharmonic, Brett’s New Internationals, accompanist of Tui Award Nominee Rachel Dawick) on wind instruments (clarinet, recorder, whistles, saxophone), Eamon Edmunson-Wells on double bass (Ruckus, Tauranga Big Band, Chelsea Prastiti Band, Jeff Henderson, John Bell Band), and songwriter Richard Leschen (founder of the Bunker Hill Folk Review, soloist, Otagolands) on guitar and vocals. These diversified musicians team-up play acoustic music like no others, and have a unique progressive sound steep in old time Americana folk and jazz traditions. They are gearing up to record a fantastic new album in 2015.

More details found at:
Yvette Audain: http://www.yvetteaudain.com/
Eamon Edmunson-Wells: http://jazzlocal32.com/tag/eamon-edmunson-wells/
Richard Leschen: http://richardleschen.wordpress.com/music/

Rich:
Intimate and ambient, the real richness comes from the brilliant lyrics; very melodic, engaging and genuinely far-reaching with significant depth, this is low-key brilliance. – Ania Glowacz, NZ Musician
NZ based singer-songwriter Richard Leschen draws on the deep roots music of his southern US heritage – country, bluegrass, blues – to craft intricate, fascinating songs with a wide geographical sweep, and a wide historical one. – Nick Bollinger, Radio New Zealand
Leschen is a fine guitarist … in fact, I would go as far as to say he is a very fine guitarist. The lyrics are pertinent and the playing flawless. – Keith Redgrave, Americana UK

Yvette:
Yvette’s music always has a freshness of her own, often a quirky sense of humour, and an artistic freedom, especially in the more Eastern-style pieces I’ve heard or played in other Auckland performances. – Katherine Hebley, cellist, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Yvette Audain’s achievement [of her album Grooves Unspoken] in making her playing such a gift to all kinds of sensibility. – Peter Menchen, Middle C.
[Her] security of technique throughout the instrument’s range is most impressive. – Anonymous, You Tube.

We’ve got a fun song for everyone to sing along with at folk club. This is a true old folk song, with dozens of different versions out in the world. Please print out your lyrics and bring along. It’s a two-chord wonder, G and D, and very simple to play, so feel free to bring your instrument of choice and play along.

“The Cabbage Head Song” (Key of G)

Men:
I come home the first night, drunk as I could be
There was a horse there in the barn, where my horse orta be
Now come here little wifey, explain this thing to me
How come a horse there in the barn, where my horse orta be?

Women:
You old fool, you blind fool, can’t you plainly see
That’s nothin’ but a milk cow your momma gave to me?

Men:
Well, I’ve traveled the whole world over, ten thousand miles and more
And a saddle on a milk cow I ain’t never seen before

Well, I come home the second night, drunk as I could be
And there was a hat there on the peg, where my hat orta be
Now come here little wifey, explain this thing to me
How come a hat’s there on the peg, where my hat orta be?

Women:
You old fool, you blind fool, can’t you plainly see
That’s nothin’ but a chamber pot your momma gave to me?

Men:
I’ve traveled the whole world over, ten thousand miles and more
And a John B. Stetson chamber pot I ain’t never seen before

Well, I come home the third night, drunk as I could be
A pair of pants there on the chair, where my pants orta be
Now come here little wifey, explain this thing to me
How come these pants there on the chair, where my pants orta be?

Women:
You old fool, your blind fool, can’t you plainly see
That’s nothin’ but a dish towel your momma gave to me?

Men:
Well, I’ve traveled the whole world over, ten thousand miles and more
And a zipper on a dish towel I ain’t never seen before

Well, I come home the last night, drunk as I could be
There was a head there on the pillow, where my head orta be
Now come here little wifey, explain this thing to me
How come a head’s there on the pillow, where my head orta be?

Women:
You old fool, you blind fool, can’t you plainly see
That’s nothin’ but a cabbage head your momma gave to me?

Men:
Well, I’ve traveled the whole world over, ten thousand miles and more
And a moustache on a cabbage head I ain’t never seen before!

You can find plenty of videos of the Cabbage Head Song on Youtube, and some are better than others. But this one fills me with the most love. How can you not love this old fella and his granddaughter saving this treasure for herself, her family and the rest of us?

We’re nearing solstice, my favourite day of the year. From here on in the days only get longer as the sun returns to the south. But the cold weather will be with us for a while.

It was mighty chilly in the hall for folk club on May 25th. Even with the four wall heaters going full blast, most people kept their heavy coats on. We learned today that the hall will be getting two additional heaters very soon, hopefully in time for folk club on the 29th of June! Either way, brave the cold and come on out. We’ll have a hot cup of tea there for you, and some beautiful music to warm your heart.

There’s a myth that things slow down in the winter, but you wouldn’t know that by looking around our area. Check the Sawmill Café gig guide for all kinds of good musical items coming up.

July 5th there will be a Mid-winter BBQ at the Vintage Market in Matakana. Hot Diggity bluegrass band will be playing there. If you missed them at the hall on the 31st of May, here’s your second chance!

Stay warm, everyone.