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Here's a question. Does anyone out there happen to have a means of recording video that they're not regularly using, that they might be willing to lend me for even just a weekend sometime? This is with a mind to getting YouTube-able vids - just live footage of me - doing some of the songs I'd like to be getting out there. Time was, people said 'send us a cassette'. Then it was 'send a CD'. Now it's YouTube on the website, and 'send us a short vid'. And I want to do the Green Thing, and not buy something I could perhaps borrow. Non-financial terms: baked goods, sneak MP3's of unreleaased material, house concert at your place, etc... |
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I don't often post new lyrics here, partly so as not to spam you, partly because I'm well aware that not all lyrics work well as text on a page. However, I've just completed something that I feel deserves sharing here. I came across a letter yesterday, in my computer files, that I'd written to a friend on the loss of her mother, and that sent me hunting through letters I'd also written to two dear women sho have since died. I wish there were more of them. Sadly, there are none at all to the third woman who appears in this song - only the knowledge that she inspired me to be the mother I am to my own daughter. * * * CIRCLES This is how the circles touch, and this is how the circles turn I remember her with pleasure; This is how the circles touch, and this is how the circles turn And I remember her with wisdom This is how the circles touch, and this is how the circles turn And I remember her with honour This is how the circles touch, and this is how the circles turn Words by & © Talis Kimberley 19th November 2009 |
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That's that, then: Friday 4th December I shall pop along to the Swindon local radio station (not BBC Radio Swindon, this is a local community station) and do a couple of live songs with a bit of a chat. The show is 'Art to Art', on Radio Swindon 105.5, from 1pm till 2pm. Apart from the fact that their studio is distressingly close to the Magic Roundabout, which I have not yet negotiated, that's about all I know; I met Rob and Katherine from the station at the Book Swap on Saturday and they seem jolly nice people. It's an art programme, literature and culture. Now I just have to decide which three songs to prepare. Answers on a postcard, or better yet, in comments below... |
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I've had a few of these in recent months - getting a song, and getting at the same time the perfect gig for it. Harvest song for a harvest supper. Orchard song for an orchard. Yesterday was another such; a new song, 'A Change of Heart', found its tune on Tuesday, and I gigged it yesterday. That's a pretty tight turnaround, for me, I usually perfer a bit more bedding in time. However, this was the song for the gig, because the audience yesterday was a group of green organisers gathered together by the Wiltshire Worldchangers in Devizes. I've had successful gigs before, but oh my! It felt like I was setting the place on fire. And I only sang four songs - Jam Tomorrow, Wolf at your Door, Camel (the organiser's favourite, by special request, though I'd have sung it anyway) and A Change of Heart. It's a 'yes we can' green song, which I've been needing, and it was very good to me yesterday. The after-gig chatting was dynamite too... and I went by bus, putting my money where my mouth is! * * * After that I met some radio folk in the afternoon for a cuppa, and it seems I'll be doing a bit of a live session on local radio in a few weeks. That'll be fun - just a a couple of songs and a bit of chat. * * * And...I'm delighted to announce that I'm performing in Southampton, at the Art House Cafe, on Sunday 29th November from 1.30pm, one of their 'slow Sunday' sessions. I've not been before, but I believe it's a rather special place - a community cafe with crafts and recycling and green stuff and skillswapping on the side. (The website certainly paints an inviting picture). Anyway, I'll be there for the afternoon doing a big bunch of songs. If you're able to get there, I'd love to see you in the audience and we'll have a cuppa between sets. Please tell anyone else you think might like to be there! |
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... how some songs are improved immeasurably in the singing by a well-placed and energetic 'Woooaaah!' |
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Long, long ago, I had inlays printed for a cassette recording. Too many inlays, I recall; the numbers just stacked up that way. As they're unscored and unfolded, they're quite good for bookmarks. Or.. coasters. You could paper a very small room with them - well, one wall, perhaps. Or something. And I also had far too many of the 'Rapunzel' insert for Archetype Cafe printed - the little four-page comic with artwork by David Morris. Again, coasters, bookmarks or very quirky wallpaper. They're probably going in the recycling unless anyone is missing theirs or has a really creative use for them. * * * In other news, I had a lovely session yesterday with a fiddler friend... hmm, thinking ahead here... and we recorded bassoon parts for two of the Hearth and the Hive tracks on the weekend. Still moving forward with that. Though we did think, early Sunday, that the wind would be too strong and that it would scupper any recording; hurrah for a better-fitting back door with better sound and heat insulation - and a catflap. Memo to self; when recording; (a) switch off phone, (b) put up 'recording' notice to alert callers, and (c)... take the collar off the cat. |
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I played a very nice little gig last week, for a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust event, at one of their nature reserves. There was a huge table laden with apple and pear and cherry baked goods, all home made, and as you all know by now, I do rather run on tea and cake. I had a delightfully attentive audience for my short set, particularly including the beekeeper, for whom I was especially pleased to sing the bee song. Turns out he's a folk music fan. Hmmm... The set was, I think: The Orchard Memo to self: remove knitted fingerless mitts before commencing to play. I wandered along to Caravan Caberet at Lower Shaw Farm later in the evening to give them Fourteen Hundred Hours, and hear Kathy S give a very creditable performance of Mich Sampson's 'Father's Honour'. We've been auditing and editing the vocal takes on the album this week, and reviewing what needs adding. Progress, steadily. Lots of singing into the wardrobe. We've tended to get 'cloth' in around two takes, and then sometimes go for one 'with risks', which occasionally result in happy accidents or extra energy. Going well, really. |
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Thank you so much to the filk community for awarding a 'Classic Filk Song' Pegasus award to my song 'Still Catch the Tide'. I am immensely honoured, and touched, and hold this event entirely due to the many good souls who have been performing this in recent years when I have not been... I'll revive it myself, one of these days, and surprise you all, but in the meantime, truly: Thank you. |
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What a lovely, lovely event that was! Beautiful old village church with the pews pushed aside into 'rooms' for the visitors, table spread all down the centre with lovely, homemade food, local Scouts being invested in their troop, a little lad of maybe five reading his harvest poem, and a warm welcome on every side. I had an utter Cadfael moment when I set my hand to the great iron ring that opens the ancient door of the church. Apart from one glitch - bouzouki string went on me, didn't actually snap, the inside bust and the outside just stretched, so it wouldn't tune, and I hadn't time to faff with it - I had a truly lovely time performing to a very intent crowd, in a gorgeous building, with lovely acoustics. After limping through Appleby Fair I hastily redrew the set in my head, ditching the rest of the bouzouki songs, and what I ended up performing was as follows: Gathering Summer In (of course! It was a Harvest Supper!) All this and I got fed, plus I had my dear friend A with me doing her first stint as roadie, and she was excellent, and she had fun. It was completely heartwarming to be at the heart of a village gathering with every generation well represented and active at the event, in a church which was clearly so much more than a museum piece or a shell for an institution. I think time travellers from any of twenty centuries could have walked in and felt they were still among their own people. |
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Storming recording session on Sunday with the new recording booth - my wardrobe. No, really - the mic goes way back between the blue flouncy blouse and the embroidered scarlet linen top, and with both doors open for side panels, and a cat curled up asleep on the bed behind me, off I went. Four scratch tracks (Gathering Summer In, Upon Rampisham Down, Tell the Bees, and Ostrich) and some album vocals for The Hearth and the Hive (Vitruvian Man, Ladybird Year, Worlds End), plus a backing vocal besides. That's a good afternoon's work. One lovely moment when we had a good take in the can already and went for another just for fun - at which point I knew I could take a few risks and try things as they occurred to me; if they didn't work, no great loss. Whooooo... a bunch of it worked. In the film version, We'd also got a fire lit for tea-in-the-parlour. Sunday High Tea is a bit of a family tradition here. As it was, we ate in the parlour anyway, and the habitual crumble was duly demolished (rhubarb, apple, one last nectarine). Was that Summer's Last Hurrah, then? Because it truly feels like Autumn today. I'm knitting new red alpaca mitts for P as fast as I can (given that I'm adapting the pattern furiously on the fly) and my shawl is My Friend. Cat curled up asleep on patchwork cushion on rocking chair in kitchen = domestic bliss. Wishing you all a peaceful and candlesome Autumn. *As opposed to my oft-spoken maxim: 'But I can't dance in the wardrobe!' or 'Sed in vestibularum non possum saltare!' |
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It has become apparent that this is the name of the vintage clothes shop with aspects of tearoom, which is sited in Zed Alley along the road frtom Archetype Cafe. I say 'aspects of tearoom', because the owner didn't plan to run a tearoom, only she can't be expected to sit mending lovely old clothes for the shop all day and not have a pot of tea handy, and where there's tea, then there's, you know, cake, and if she's having tea and cake, then she's going to share with her favourite customers, isn't she? So she'd better have more teapots and multiple cakes. Oh look, a tea room. And she always, *always* wears a hat. Sometimes it's a bowler, sometimes a grey half-topper, sometimes it's a tricorne; if she's feeling frivolous it's a feathery fascinator. Those days she breaks out the carnival masks as well... |
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I'm very fortunate to have a rehearsal space these days. At last I have the tools I need all in one place; the music stand groaning under the printed sheets of lyrics requiring work, the lists of songs and gigs and dates and themes tacked up to the wall beside me, and a great big space for the sound I make to resonate round before returning to my ears. Lovely. I find I'm writing songs slightly differently as a result. Usually the lyric arrives first, and will generally be completed within days, if not the same day, if not the same hour. However, whereas I used to begin with melody attached to at least some of the songs, the music now seems to wait for me. What I now get with a new lyric - bear with me here - is a sense of the feeling I'd get having just heard the tune I don't have yet. My task is then to define what music creates that set of sensations. I'm having all sorts of fun with finding out how to get the melody to go where it should, but by a route which isn't necessarily obvious; satisfying, yes, predictable, no. Along the way I've been learning which guitar chord feels most like spinning yarn, how to open the trapdoor at the bottom of a song, and when to throw bar lines out the window. |
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Two of the songs I sang in the midweek open mic for the Pulsar Poets are up on Youtube - oh, you want links? The Orchard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y205F8fX-O Fourteen Hundred Hours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWuJ3Hicg Inspired by and indeed written at Wootton Bassett at a Repatriation during the Summer. I posted the lyric to this a couple of months ago here. My thanks to David Pike for putting these up. |
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Just for fun, last night, in a little pub. Wearing my new hat. I sang: The Orchard Queen of Spindles The observant among you will spot the debutant song: Queen of Spindles had its first outing, although I won't necessarily always stop in the middle to flesh out the story in prose while waiting for the next line! Still, it's done, and I'm glad of it. And it's a jolly good hat, too. |
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It can be scary debuting new songs - unltil they've met a live audience, it's impossible to be certain how well they'll work, and until they've been out at a gig, they're only half-alive and stumbling round in my head. I got the chance to debut three this weekend, at a lovely and laid-back gig on Sunday for a local nature reserve. As I was entertainment during the picnic, I hadn't made a formal set list, but I think what I ended up doing was as follows: Appleby Fair Kitchen Heroes It was a fine and friendly place to be, and there was cake and there was tea. I'm hoping to firm up a gig at a new orchard on Apple Day in October - that'll be the Orchard coming out again, then! I knew it was a good one. This week I've two open mic events I'm hoping to make as well. I have a couple more debuts I'd like to get out of the way... |
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Songwriting still trundling nicely on - something about Pluto, aonething else about pathways, and I'm really enjoying singing the last few, some of which will get their debuts at a local giglet this weekend. I had an email from Lady Mondegreen - US-based female band of much talent and quirkiness of which I am an honorary member - telling me about a place called 'Cafe Archetypus'. It's not quite Archetype Cafe, but it looks like someone's got the right idea. The little grotto tables are particularly nice. I have bought a new hat; it's a very good hat, and I expect to wear it at gigs, though I'm not yet sure what with. I've also been invited to join a morris troupe, after joining in at a 'have-a-go' session at a local country fair. I blame the hat, myself - it's that sort of a hat. |
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Fruit to stew and fruit to bake. Borrowed sacring – candle’s lit Hestia won’t mind a bit. Cardy cold, not coat cold yet Sky is bright but the earth is wet. Seasons turn, Autumn begin – Gathering Summer in. Hazel in her ragged skirts; Chestnut and her velvet purse Elderberry dark and fine Cordial and warming wine Dusky sloes and pumpkin-lantern-time... Rosehip syrup, scent of red Bottling what the roses bled. Onions drying in the warm. Tassels on the yellow corn. Plum tree harvest: crumble, jam Thankful? Oh, indeed I am! Seasons turn, Autumn begin – Gathering Summer, gathering Summer in. |
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I was at the Kingcombe Centre in Dorset - beautiful place, and their cakes are beyond compare - last week, when they held their Country Fair. It did rain all day, it's true, but it was still huge fun. I had been spotted as a musician (guitar and bouzouki with me in the B&B) and asked if I'd like to sing a few songs during the day? I picked a time and a place, and snook into the Swallow Barn between the Wessex Morris Men. I started, as I so often do, with Appleby Fair, followed by Camel, Jack Hare, Fourteen Hundred Hours, and KItchen Heroes. That was all there was time for then, although I reprised Appleby Fair in the cafe later by request. I'm hoping to go back there and perform on a slightly more formal basis at some point... nature, environmentalism and the English countryside - why yes, I'll sing about that. What a nice trip. And did I mention the cake? |
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The ballot is out: my song 'Still Catch the Tide' has been nominated for a Pegasus Award in the 'Classic' category. Thank you, people! I really will have to record this myself soon - I swear, this song's popularity is based almost entirely on the fact that other people - especially Seanan McGuire! - perform it. I used to sing it everywhere when it was new to me - I sang it on BBC Radio Bristol once, as part of the Festival of the Sea, into a hand-held mic as the reporter used his other hand to hold his coat open in an attempt to cut down on the wind noise. It was a very blowy day. I sang it the first time I was Guest at a convention - Dracon, in Bristol, 1992 I think? Goodness. It fell into my lap, this selkie song. I had a migraine at the time, and I'd gone to bed. The couplets started forming in my head and arranging themselves into verses, and I had to call for my housemate to grab paper and pen and let me dictate the lyric to him in its entirety. Once that was done, I could at last roll over in the dark and try to sleep off the headache. Remembering that, it occurs to me that I haven't had a migraine for ages. I wonder if leaving black tea for the delights of Redbush has anything to do with that? Well. I'm trying to find a slight rearrangement of 'Still Catch...' since the way I used to do it all those many years ago feels to me as it could do with updating a little... if I succeed in this plan, I'll have my webmaster tuck it under a star somewhere. In the meantime, I'm hugely grateful to all the people who've made this song as popular as it still seems to be. Peggie nomination for the little selkie. Golly. |
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I've been having a busy time of it - between a delightful gig at Chiseldon to help launch a community nature area, more songwriting, and a bunch of recording sessions, things have been happening faster than I can blog them. |
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