25 March 2008

Most important news is that at Ashington Folk Club on St Valentine's Day Val popped the question to Jimmy - facing the audience, and pausing ever so briefly for dramatic effect, Jimmy said "yes"... cheers and applause all around! We plan to tie the knot in 2009, so watch this space...

Having been invited to play at the Ingleton Folk Festival Fundraiser on 23 February, we happily obliged - playing in both the afternoon and evening bashes. We hired a cottage in Ingleton for the week, and used it as a base while we explored  a little of the North West music scene. We played at the Plough in Staining, the Alison Arms in Coppull and the Orwell in Wigan... met some friends, made some new ones and promised to return and play again.

With hardly time to draw breath following our return home we played a short spotlight set at the Foggy Furze Folk Club in Hartlepool - special thanks to Chairman Ian Ferguson for allowing us to debut our fabulous new Bose L1 system at the club. And then at the weekend we took the system along to the General Havelock at East Sleekburn where it created lots of interest because of its sleek looks and crystal clear all around sound.

A few days later it was back to Blackpool for a theme night of 'Allan Taylor songs' at the Clarence. A night of great music performed in many different styles - we were treated almost like celebrities and closed the night with our take on 'Back Again' and an as-yet-unreleased 'Back Home Again' before we did, indeed, drive all the way 'Back Home Again' for a few hours shut-eye before work the next day.

The following weekend we drove down to Loftus for the Hiring Fair - although sorely tempted to take the Bose, we thought it would be more practical for everyone if we just played through the house PA... maybe we'll take the Bose another time.

Next day it was a live appearance on local radio station Bishop FM where we squeezed in six songs (four self-penned and two 'dralons'... loose covers).

And all through it there was the usual round of singers nights at local folk clubs, late nights, little sleep, some precious rehearsal time, recording a local songwriter friend... and finding time to do the day job too!

As you can see from the jiva MySpace profile there's little prospect of things slowing down as requests for us to play make their way into our schedule.

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