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Showing posts with label Jack Harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack Harris. Show all posts

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Kevin Brennan MP brings all-party folk arts group back to life

Kevin Brennan MP is the Labour member for Cardiff West, he's the shadow schools' minister - so I guess he was pretty busy yesterday with all this business about the baccalaureate - and he's been in parliament since 2001. Plenty of time to get his shoulders under...


Last Monday he hosted the first shin-dig of the revivified all-party folk arts group at the House of Commons, in the Jubilee Room - shades of Cluedo here - featuring beer and crisps, with Katzenjammer, Lisa Knapp and Jack Harris for entertainment.


And he's got form with with folk music. "I was in a band called Cadlan in the late 80s and early 90s. We were a Welsh folk dance group - the equivalent of a ceilidh band, only in Wales it's known as Twmpath - and I played guitar. We were teachers with full-time jobs but we toured around south Wales, evenings and weekends. We called a halt to it when one of our members, Graham Simpson, who was a brilliant mandolin and banjo player as well as an all-round good egg, was knocked off his bicycle and killed."

These days he plays with MP4 - see what they did there? - a cross-party rock band of four MPs, including Pete Wishart, formerly of Runrig now of the Scots Nats, who were gigging last weekend at the Pocklington Arts Centre in Yorkshire.

"The all-party folk group was kicked off, I think, by John Battle," Brennan said. "But Alan Keen took it on: he was a very big folk fan and was responsible for getting a couple of events on in the Commons. He had Ralph McTell and Tom Paxton in.

"But sadly Alan died of cancer last year. I'd met him at the folk awards in London in 2010 while he was having his chemo and when he passed away I thought I should keep the group going.

"So it was the first event the other night. My thoughts were that if we had a couple of events a year to showcase folk and acoustic based music - trad or contemporary - we could interest other MPs in some of the issues surrounding folk and get them to mingle with people from the folk music world.

"What I'd like to do is develop a little manifesto of things that the folk world would like us to do to support the sector: aims that people can agree on. So far I've been liaising mainly with the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) and Trac in Wales."

Brennan had a success with the all-party muscular dystrophy group a while back, as a result of which he got £3 million from Whitehall for much-needed treatment.

So how did he end up with the Norwegian all-girl band Katzenjammer at the first event? "They were doing a gig in Hyde Park for Radio 2 and thought 'Why not get them in?' Along with some British folk artists, it could be part of the antidote to The X Factor."

He singles out The Decembrists and their singer Colin Meloy as his favourite musicians right now.


"Anyone who wants to get in touch with me about folk-related issues can email me on brennank@parliament.uk or write to me at the House of Commons," he said. He's also on Twitter, where his handle is @KevinBrennanMP

I'd say that England and Wales have a lot to learn from Scotland on the subject of showcasing their music to the rest of the world, potentially as an export. Celtic Connections in Glasgow works very well, with the support of the Scottish government, as a Scottish music event that draws music lovers and music industry folk from all over the world.

Why not start there?

Throw in webstreaming by the Denscombes and you've got a potentially world-beating phenomenon.

And to make the all-party folk arts group the destination parliamentary event of an evening, form an alliance with the all-party parliamentary beer group and marry it to some fine ales and ciders, and possibly a hog roast. It's how most of us appreciate our folk.

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Sunday, 29 April 2012

Cara Dillon is an elf

I am aware that the balance of probabilities is very much against the existence of elves. After last week's detour onto Game of Thrones territory, I thought I should say that for the record. But if elves existed - I'm just saying if - they would look and sound very much like Cara Dillon, as demonstrated with as much force as one of the fairy folk could muster on Thursday night at Cecil Sharp House. As evidence I submit the following.

Firstly, she was able to sing almost exactly like this...


... despite having tonsilitis, which is surely evidence of magical powers.

Secondly she had one of those Lakeman boys in tow, one I hadn't previously been aware of called Sam, brother to Seth and Sean.


I have chosen to regard this as a small miracle - evidence perhaps of the abundance of the universe - and am very much hoping that there may be even even more of them to go around than the three I've seen with my own eyes. Perhaps one called Saul, who would be willing to perform marginally useful tasks around The Glamour Cave while singing and playing a guitar?

And thirdly - this is the killer - I'm not the first person to have spotted this. Those clever people over at Disney got there first, and let's face it: they know a thing or two about fairy folk. Not only did they induce Dillon to speak up for her kind two years ago by narrating Tinkerbell 3 and composing a lullaby for it, but they recently capitalised on their discovery by summoning her again, this time to sprinkle a little fairy dust over Disneyland Paris. For the next twelve months a song written by Dillon will be playing twice daily during its "night time spectacular, Disney Dreams", which should keep the entire Dillon/Lakeman hoard in guitar strings and little pointy hats for a while.

It was a great gig, one that brought a lump to my throat very early on - though I suspect that with tonsilitis the lump in her throat gave her considerably more trouble.  She and Sam were ably supported by Jack Harris (who went first) and a band that included Luke Daniels on squeeze box, Emma Sweeney on fiddle, and both Ed Boyd and James Fagan on guitar. When I saw Fagan come on I knew we were in for a treat. I mean, if he's in the band, how good is the main attraction going to be?

In a word, magic.

* Catch them at the Bristol festival, Bearded Theory or Folk by the Oak this summer.

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