Spotify

After 10 years we're finally going on Spotify, which I know will come as music to the ears to many of our fans (excuse the pun). We've famously avoided the streaming service like the plague, initially making a stand against something that is so ludicrously lopsided in favour of the music platform as to make it barely worth anything to the artist. And for a band with as modest a reach as us, it's about as worthless as an ashtray on a motorbike, financially speaking of course.

To paint a picture of just how paltry the split is, Spotify pays the artist £0.0031 per stream, meaning it will take 300 streams of a song to generate just £1. Or, to highlight just how desperate it is, if we had monetised our 81 thousand plays on SoundCloud to date, we would have earned a whopping £250 over 10 years. £25 a year. Or just £2.08 a month. Between 5 of us that's 41p, which couldn't even buy you a chocolate bar 10 years ago. So you can see the numbers need to be almost immeasurable for it to be worthwhile income. Of course all money is worthwhile, if not for us, then for someone else it can be the difference between life and death, so when you look it like that, it does make for sober reading; "for just £2 a month..."

But we didn't save a life, instead we made a stand, alongside our peers Coldplay, Prince and Neil Young. And naturally our continued boycott has really affected Spotify and I can't tell you the amount of times we have declined their many inroads and invitations to make peace. 

In later years when our stubbornness had worn down, it was duly replaced with laziness; the idea of uploading whole albums and signing various forms became another one of those jobs that never gets done, like defrosting the freezer or dusting the book shelves. I've lost count of the amount of times I attempted to do it, read the 'how to' guide, watched the 'introduction' video and then got easily sidetracked by any number of really important things like social media validation and sports results!

People kept saying, why aren't you on Spotify? We can't find you on Spotify? And we'd smile and make our excuses and try and sell them an album even though CD players are disappearing like the ice caps. Because an album gave us 10 whole pounds and we knew that we'd need 3000 streams to replicate that online. 

But it was a losing battle and one that we have inevitably lost. There are many perks to Spotify and the main one being that you lovely people can listen to us whenever and wherever you want, not just in the car! 

And to borrow a famous quote by one of our own, "when you give, you get back" and I know you guys will continue to support us when we finally release our third album (next year I promise!). Plus I know the physical copy means so much more, even if it is a struggle to play it. 

And so next week we will finally upload our music onto Spotify, a company that claims it's made a loss every single year; must be due to our boycott hey! Poor old Spotify, it's only worth 54 billion.

Anyway one of the longest running sagas is about to end, and The Odd Folk will finally join the mainstream. We've sat on this fence too long. It's been like resisting the vaccination. 

And has it harmed us, probably, another benefit to Spotify is it circulates your music to a far wider audience.

Oh well, just another notch in the bedpost of How NOT to be in a Band!

Thighs of steels

It's been a bit quiet of late, after the trolley dash summer of trying to fit in as many gigs as we could before the bass player had a baby, it's all died back again now, as it mostly does in winter.

We've done our best to avoid one another and give a bit of breathing space to this passion project now hurtling into its 11th year.

11 years! Quite remarkable really, I did a timeline the other day and realised the accordion player has now been in the band for five years, which is ages; it only feels like he replaced the guitar player the other day, but he's almost been in the band longer than him!

The timeline also drew attention to just how top heavy we are, or bottom heavy if you like, in the first 5 years we released two albums and an EP, and the next 5 years we released sweet diddly squat. Although that is soon to change as the third album is well on its way. We've just received the demos back from our recording sessions in Wales and they are sounding very encouraging. Everything is in place for us to record and release next year with only the small matter of raising thousands of pounds left to cross!

In other news we are expecting the piano player back this winter after 18 months away in Portugal, we're not sure how long he's staying mind, or whether he's back in the band again, I'm not sure he does either, and it will be pretty hard to dislodge the deputy now but perhaps there's room on the broom for both, we'll see. 

we can't dislodge the deputy !

In more other news we are launching the podcast next month, or Oddcast to be precise. Myself and the bass player will be recording the first session very soon, of course he doesn't know this yet, but that's the plan anyway, or my plan at least. It will likely be an hour of music and songs and we'll take questions and suggestions and it will be hopelessly bizarre as you can imagine and in time guests will come and go and all of the secrets will find their way out because you can't quite censor your tongue like you can your hand. And if successful, it could go some way to replacing this medium, which is now in it's 8th year and 91st entry having amassed a readership of over 25 thousand! Another remarkable feat the timeline recently threw up. 

In yet more other news I have just returned from Holland and Belgium having taken my mother out to see some friends and do some research for our upcoming bicycle tour next year. And no I don't mean me and mother, I can't remember her ever being on a bike in my lifetime! Rather the band are planning a cycling tour and have been ever since the bass player and I road out to Brittany some years back. 

--  The  Odd  Folk's  flying  bicycle  tour --

This image has always inspired me and with Holland and Belgium being so flat it seems like the best place to try it. I don't know whether the full band will attempt this, our most foolhardy adventure yet, but I know at least three of us will. It will also be filmed so you can all watch us get horribly lost, have our instruments stolen while we camp in a forest somewhere north of Antwerp and generally fall foul, fall over and fall out. But it feels quite apt trying this on our 11 year anniversary, which is, of course, the 'steel' anniversary and bikes are made of...! So there is logic somewhere along the way.

Lastly, in final other news, we are planning Merry Folking Christmas this year, if the climate allows of course, so hopefully that will go ahead and we can all raise a glass together. Well not all of us, because not all of us live in Penzance, in fact in the demographic of blog readers, hardly any of you do, so really very few of us will raise a glass, in person at least. But what the heck, you get the drift.

Until next time :)

Sweet notes

I love this photo of our founding member, I love the glint in his eyes, the promise of mischief and adventure, but yet the kindness and reassurance that you're in safe hands. Perfectly sums him up. Don't worry this isn't an obituary, even though the photo lends itself to that, it's the black and white finish isn't it? It immediately speaks of yesterday or yesteryear, of another time, of another era. Definitely not helped by me eulogising about him either, as though he's no longer with us. Which of course he isn't. In a way. Certainly in the band anyway. But he is very much is alive and well and today is his birthday. I've long wanted him to contribute a blog to this site, like the rest of the band, on more than one occasion, but so far he's eluded us. So I thought I'd write about him instead, and maybe when he reads it he'll come running back to change the facts and tell things how they really were ;) But really I hope he reads it and realises how much we miss him, miss his steady hand on the tiller, his calming presence and his dry sense of humour.

My story with the guitar player began a decade before this band. In another band. A very different band; as spotty teenagers, pre GCSE, in a covers band playing Radiohead and REM. It was rather short lived, it didn't really gain us the attention we all craved, from girls, so we quickly upgraded to a rap band which was much cooler and gave us an edge and bought us much closer to the opposite sex. And it was quite successful too, for what it was, we gigged a lot, gained loads of experience and we even recorded an EP at the collage studio, although I'm not sure what happened to it, I don't think we ever pressed it. Our next band was a flamenco outfit and this time we did press an EP and ordered boxes of them, but we never played a single gig so it was pretty pointless in hindsight. But it's all stepping stones, it's all good lessons for when the real thing comes along. 

And the real thing was The Sam Brookes Quartet, which is what this band started life as, named after the guitar player and promising much more than two friends could provide. His theory being "If we call it a quartet we have to get other musicians involved!" As it happened we only ever got one, the piano player, and the rest is history as they say; the band was born, our journey began, much of which is documented in these blogs. And by the way I'm not here to write a chronicle on the guitar player and list his achievements, instead I want to focus a little on the man himself and what he bought to the table, and what we lost when we left, or went on gardening leave.

Sam is the wise old head, the calm and sensible tonic to my wild abandon and Shelley's unpredictability. It's easy to say we wouldn't be in this band if it weren't for him, but it's true, and that's not just cause he founded it either, but because he held it together. Quite literally. We wouldn't have navigated those early years without him. Not a chance mate. It's no secret that the piano player and I (both cousins) have clashed, sometimes spectacularly, often hilariously, it's part of the make-up and magic of this band, it's what makes us dysfunctional and why we changed our name to The Odd Folk. But if it weren't for the guitar player we would have gone our separate ways. Almost immediately. His was a selfless job, he did what was needed with a professional pragmatism. Never showy, no ego; he let me steer the ship, but he certainly kept us afloat, and bailed the water out when we got in too deep. He kept his head when all about him were losing there's. In all our years I don't think he ever even raised his voice. But he was stern and he often had the final word. 

He kept fairly good accounts too, made sure 'the band' always took a cut, so we always had some money in the pot, that's all gone to shit since he left, we all got too greedy and started living gig to gig, sharing money out without a thought for tomorrow. We even started sharing CD sales out too, which is kind of an unwritten rule in music, we should have enough in sales alone to make two new records and pay ourselves to do it, but the sad truth is we can't afford to record a single track and we'll probably have to ask you guys to front it, again. It's not right or wrong, we've lived hand to mouth, most musicians do, it's rare to be in a position to save for a rainy day but with the guitar player at the helm, we almost did; for a drizzly day at least. 

He very much became 'the band', we used to joke while on tour whether the band would let us do this or that, as though it was an actual person, some shady boss that you had to report to. I remember once in Berlin and I was asking whether the band could buy us all an expensive cocktail one night and he just turned to me with his wry half-smile and said "we are the fucking band!" and we all fell about laughing. We had a few cocktails that night!  

He had no ego, which is rare in music, he was almost a kind of anti-ego, he hated the limelight, he famously used to turn his guitar down on solos and take one step backwards into the shadows. 

Musically he was a joy, a great combination of styles, famed for his finger picking dexterity but it's his sweet notes that really leave you weak. They pop up in random places, single notes, almost out of context, against the grain, they're like little whoopsies, that make the hairs on your neck stand to attention and your heartstrings pang. 

This is all sounding too much like a eulogy isn't it. Perhaps I better stop talking about him in the past tense and start thinking about the possibly of him playing music with us again, which are the noises that I'm hearing. He left the band when a combination of babies and business' almost buried him; there I go again, making death references, what's wrong with me! But you get the picture, it's bloody hard to juggle work and play isn't it, it's what's kept us mid-table. In the years since he left (he's recently been overtaken by the bass player in appearances but still stands in a lofty 4th place) the babies have grown up a bit and the business has started to take care of itself, and perhaps there's a urge to don the cape again? But the music has changed a lot, the band's evolved, it's not the same beast that it was, better in some ways, worse in others. It's a transitional period, and quite fitting that it's coming at a time when the piano player himself has unofficially left the band.

Anyhow, that's noise for another day. I just wanted to raise a glass to a dear friend on his birthday! Happy days old boy and welcome home!

So this is what we missed!

We're a mid-table band, middle-aged, mid-life, middle of the road, call it what you will, this isn't our only career, it isn't our primary focus, and it can't be, we're juggling 10 kids between us with half a dozen mortgages and there is no money in mid-scale music. 

The point I am trying to make is, this is our hobby, this is our release, our creativity, our holiday; so when all that was taken away from us last year we were all a bit restless, a bit pent up and stir-crazy, we were longing for those far away heady days when we would lug our gear across the country and try to fit on a stage no bigger than a shower tray, when we would drive 100's of miles to festivals just for that hit of 'exposure' and maybe a case of warm Carlsberg thrown in to boot. It wasn't the glamour my friends, it was the camaraderie of life in a band, that's why we did it, and that's what we all missed so much.

So this year when restrictions were finally lifted we were as eager as ever to jump back on the 'band wagon' and get back on the road man! And despite adding a couple more babies to the odd folk creche, we were all well rested and ready for action. Or so we thought.

The first few gigs back were ropey, at best. The lineup had taken a seismic shift when the piano player failed to turn up in the summer. We were a little light so we quickly drafted in The Deputy for the season and he kinda re-imagined our sound. It's a little like when the accordion player stood in for the guitar player and then ended up replacing him. I'm not saying that's happening now, but something is certainly bubbling away. By early summer we'd been up to Wales to begin work on our long awaited third album. By the mid summer we were purring. But by the end of the august we were absolutely exhausted. 12 gigs in and we were ready for another lockdown. 

The workload certainly takes it toll. And I know we've written about it before, but what goes on behind the scenes is enormous, and after a year out it's even heavier! Cause you guys only see 20% of the band; us turning up, tuning up and prancing around on stage, with maybe a drink at the bar ;) 80% of band life is behind the scenes; all the jokes, the traveling, trying to Tetris all your gear in the back of the van, all the arrangements, the arguments, disagreements, the triumphs and disasters, all the song-writing, and back stabbing, and admin, and chasing payments, the hustle, the promo, the planning, the logistics and then losing your van keys. That's the real magic folks, that's the grit and drama of life in a band. And we'd missed that part too. 

And the festivals, how much have we all missed them? Carrying all our gear across the site in search of the perfect spot to camp, the merging of so many sound systems carried on the breeze, crowd cheers and laugher and snippets of conversation, the distant music while you sleep, the random chat that wakes you in the middle of the night, or filters into your dreams, that first scratch of a hangover in the morning, the hopelessness, the search for breakfast, the extra cost of stuff, that festival tax, the first sip of cool cider around the midday mark, the ache of your back and the throb of your feet, your head under a tap to wash away the fug, it's all worth it, and the feeling at the end is only happiness, that you shared something with other people, in a sort of stolen time, a little bubble that feels like forever but is over in a flash. 

It's funny taking a year off, pining away for the good old days, for the resumption of normal service, cause when it arrives you're like: "So this is what we've missed!" Maybe a year out makes you rusty, or maybe we were so eager to get back to gigging that we booked 12 in 8 weekends which is something we would never do in the old days, especially as we're expecting a baby in the middle of it all. It's all very how NOT to be in a band! So at least we're still en point! And there we were thinking the loss of the piano player would somehow tighten us up and bring an end to the mistakes that have plagued us. But no, it seems firmly ingrained in our psyche; already this summer we ran up a bar tab higher than our wage, drove into a lamppost and then lost the only van key. It's hard making up for lost time and trying to pick up speed, and it's bloody tiring. Guess it's lucky we're a mid-table band hey, I don't think we could do this full time.

But it has been worth it, seeing all you lovely people again, listening and dancing and sharing our songs and stories, it's what makes this such a special hobby and one we will chase to the end of the rainbow.

So there you have it, the end of our summer season is fast upon us folks. We have our final gig this weekend and then we can sit back and reflect, burrow deep into our day jobs and our families. But don't worry, we'll be back next season with a brand new album and hopefully a return to Europe too. 

Losing the guitar player was hard, losing the piano player harder still, but it's all part of the cycle, the show goes on and the music changes and evolves but the intent remains. We're in a good place; 10 years in. Same again? I'd say :)

The Big Heist

It might be helpful to think of bands as families. Sometimes it definitely isn’t, but sometimes it is. For the purpose of the next few paragraphs it might be. With some families it’s pretty clear who’s in the family and who isn’t. You’re linked through blood or marriage. In these families maybe there’s a Gary who has been in a relationship with your Aunt Linda for 25 years but they never married so your mom would say he’s not really IN your family. Maybe you have an Aunt Abby who isn’t biologically related to you, has never been in a relationship with anyone but shows up for holidays and is the first person anyone calls when they need a dresser moved or have an extra ticket to see the Bee Gees tribute act. But is she IN the family? After decades OUT Pierre finally got IN, when laws changed and he could marry great uncle Bertrand.

 

Most bands that have been around for a length of time have accumulated a multitude of former drummers, van lenders, tour bookers, t-shirt designers, sofas to sleep on, providers… and I think that they are all in the family in a very real sense even if they are not technically in the band.

I’m not IN the band, except for when I am. It’s a fine distinction, and maybe in many ways a meaningless one. It's the deputy here by the way, in case you're confused and thinking the singer is getting all mysterious! When the bass player couldn’t do a European Tour a few years back I filled in for him. When the accordion player couldn’t do some dates last year I filled in for him. Now the piano player is in Portugal and I’ve been filling in for him this summer. 

 

Last night I was watching the film Paddington with my partner and my daughter. My daughter is young and is going through a stage of being frightened by films. Not specific films or specific things that might happen in films, maybe it started that way but now it’s graduated to being the idea of films in general. TV programmes are totally fine. Before some of you get too carried away with coming up with theories as to why this may be the case and solutions mined from your years of parenting - don’t worry, it’s all under control, though I do appreciate your concern.  

 

Anyways, we’re watching the film and it’s all going very well and I get a text message. 'Emergency. The band is in trouble. There’s a blog entry that needs to be written.' (It’s actually this blog entry that you’re reading at this moment, though I didn’t know it at the time for obvious reasons). It needed to be done by the end of the weekend. This weekend. Which gave me about 24 hours. The singer was at a festival and unable to write it because he was being festive. I don’t know what the other band members were up to in case you were wondering.

 

The Paddington back-story is included for the purpose of removing any veneer of glamour from the proceedings. We don’t operate from undisclosed rock star locations. I know you know that already, but it seems of some importance. After all you would think of things differently if the paragraph read:

 

I’m in the studio coaxing atmospheric sounds from 1970s synthesizers and I get a text message. Emergency. The band is in trouble. There’s a blog entry that needs to be written.

 

or

 

I was riding my Harley Davidson down the coastline, I stopped for a moment to admire the sunset and I get a text message. Emergency. The band is in trouble. There’s a blog entry that needs to be written.

 

A band can be like being in a family, but also a business, a sports team, a monogamous relationship, an extra-marital relationship, an abusive relationship, a biker gang, a church group, an addicts recovery group, a pottery class, a book club and plenty of other things. Sometimes when you’re really lucky it feels a bit like being part of a rag tag group of petty thieves planning a big heist. The Big Heist. The one that will set you up for life sipping umbrella drinks living on a tropical island. The one where no one gets hurt, where everyone gets to wear goofy disguises and the gutsy detective with domestic difficulties will never find that tiny clue and put the pieces together.

The Odd Folk are working a big heist and I’m in on it!

And what’s the heist? Well it’s not actually stealing something in this case. It’s making something, something potentially immortal; an Album. But at the very real risk of extending this metaphor too far and compromising it’s structural integrity - maybe it really is about stealing something, creating a perfect moment in time and capturing it before it gets away.

Bands have two separate identities; the real time one and the recorded one. When we perform live that’s happening in real time, the audience is experiencing and directly influencing and being a part of something that will only happen once and then when it’s over it lives on in individual memories that change over time and become unique to each person. Well, that’s probably a bit of wishful thinking, most of us probably don’t remember much of anything about most of the gigs we’ve been to.

The recorded identity can be revisited countless times by countless people and exists outside of the passage of time. We might change our opinion of the music, get sick of it and grow to like parts of it we didn’t before. Maybe the guitar effects sound really out of date now, but the recording itself doesn’t change.

 

Some bands are considered great live bands that never managed to quite capture the magic on studio recordings and some bands have meticulously (or through sheer luck) managed to capture something timeless on a recording that can never be replicated or equalled in performance. Some bands try to make every detail of a live shows sound as much like the album as possible, others want to capture as much of the raw energy and spontaneity of a live show as they can on the recording. Some bands just need something to sell at gigs so the can cover fuel costs. 

 

Every band has a part of them hoping that they might be able to make the rarest of the rare; the Great Album. Lots of bands have a few great songs, most bands have had magic nights where the crowd was amazing and everything fell into place, but the great album? Now that’s the big prize. The one where you start it from the beginning and you don’t want to skip any of the songs. The one that seems to be alive and timeless at the same time and connects the whole big family surrounding every band.

 

Yeah, it’s not like the old days. A good portion of people don’t have CD players anymore, stream all of their music online, and would never consider listening to an album from beginning to end. Vinyl records have made a comeback for a certain population, but the idea of recorded music being something you can hold in your hands is for many an old fashioned idea. Does that really matter though?

The planning is under way, meetings are being held in secret rock star locations and texts are being sent during family film nights. There are demo recordings being mixed and evaluated, recipes are being tweaked, microphone positioning is being discussed, melodies stumbled upon during late nights in Belgium are finding their way in, memories of times gone by and things yet to come, familiar sounds and some surprising ones.

Watch this space for more updates.

 

The heist is in the works, and you’re all invited.

 

How to be in a Band

When we write and upload these blogs, other than a few stats the website gives us on how many of you read it and roughly what countries you all live in, we don’t really get much of a picture. I imagine a good majority of our readership have seen the band at some point, perhaps we’ve shared some drinks and even slept on your sofa. But I’m also told a good proportion of you have never been to a gig, maybe never listened to a track, and definitely not offered up your sofa. So then the next question is what do you all read it for? That demographic is more interesting to me - the bass player - and if pushed I’d probably break it up as follows:
 
40% of you are our friends and extended family, people who live in the band’s home county and who we often see smiling in the crowd, or smiling on the beach, or smiling in the Co-op. You read mainly because you like us and want to keep half an eye on the next gig, or the last one (shame, you missed a good one too!)
 
30% of you are our fans from further reaches; friends we’ve made in Holland, Belgium and other countries we’ve left piano leads in. Friend’s who have a copy of our album thrust into their hands upon leaving Judi’s glorious campsite and welcome us in. You read for a dose of Anglo nostalgia and a glimpse into what we get up to when we aren’t making a mess of your sofa. 
 
A good 20% of you are musicians or are at least interested in music and use these as a guide for how not to do it. You avoid all the pitfalls that we make continuously and your band are now getting all the gigs that we didn’t.
 
5% are the singer’s ex-girlfriends. You’ve heard half the songs are about you and want to keep tabs on any future releases!
 
At least 3% are bots because robots like reading too and some of these stats don’t add up. I mean 624 readers in Russia!?
 
And the final 2% are our current partners and family members trying to work out where the hell we were all weekend and what that strange smell is now we’re back. 

And while I’m in the mode of completely-made up statistics I’d like to add just a couple more. Of this very diverse readership I’d split you up as follows: 
 
A wicked but small 5% of you know of our reputation for misadventure and tune in to hear us fail. It hurts but we appreciate your loyalty regardless

A further 5% of you don’t necessarily want us to fail, but definitely don’t want to miss it if it happens. That’s fair.

And the remaining 90% of you, the resounding majority, are on our side and are rooting for us. You chuckle at our misadventures but you smile at the silver linings. 
 
So this one goes out, partly for that 20% who are embarking on their own musical journeys and keeping tabs for any tips to help them along the way, but mainly for the 90% who like hearing that we sometimes get things right. 

Belan Hall 1887

Belan Hall has featured in these blogs before back when we recorded our second album Haul Away so I won’t go into too much detail there. It’s a grand wooden lodge in Mid-North Wales, it smells like wood-smoke and old books on the inside and wet grass and wet sheep on the outside. Despite part-owning the place The Singer still needs a list of written directions to get there (phones are of no use here) but when we do it always feels like home. 

The plan was a simple if not fairly ambitious one. Rehearse and record the selection of new songs we’ve had shaking around in our pockets before they gather too much fluff. Capture them well enough to imagine as a finished product without it needing to actually be one. What the hell’s the point of that you - and our partners left at home with small children - may ask? Well while recording Haul Away we arrived slightly naively with too few songs and even less idea of how they should sound. This time we want to sit with these songs a while, play them in all the places we like to play music; sat by the fire with friends, in the kitchen on a quieter day, and our old forte - the car stereo (preferably during a long drive home if the singer has any sway over it). This recording will be the blueprint of our next album, but I imagine we’ll shuffle the deck a few times and add in a couple more aces over the coming months.  

The tentative target was ten tracks in only three days, tentative because during Haul Away we struggled to complete three tracks in that time. But although it’s easy to draw comparisons to the Haul Away sessions this was to be very different; there wasn’t the same pressure and we weren’t the same musicians. I’m not impartial but I like to think we’re a lot better now and certainly far mellower, which counts for a lot when you have tracks to record, dinner to cook and fires to light before dusk and you’re sat debating whether to add a second shaker part to the chorus. The old us would have argued hours away over these small decisions, the new (older) us didn’t waste the energy; the group decision was enough. It tells all that we drove away from Belan Hall after three days with not ten but twelve songs recorded, and perhaps the best of the bunch being penned that very weekend, on the veranda, glass in hand; the sort of occasion we imagine it being replayed in.

So I guess as well as throwing a load of made-up statistics at you I’ve hopefully covered some of the ‘what’ and ‘why’, but with any luck this is where the Singer picks up - either in this blog or the follow up - and covers the important bit, the ‘how’, what made it a special one. He sees beauty in the detail and has a way of painting that picture with words so treat this as the frame. All I’ll add is that besides the music the band’s had a much needed refuel of everything that we’ve missed over the past year and a bit. The long drives together - or what we call our paid counselling sessions - the laughter, and simply sharing the same space and ideas again. And for you, the 90% of our readers who are out there cheering us on, we felt like this was a welcome chapter on ‘How to be in a band’ and how to occasionally get it right.

A new era

It's been a long time since we've sat down on here with the purpose of updating you with actual news, with physical events, real life gigs that you can actually go to, that involve real people and crowds! During the long lockdown months we have been wallowing in the past, gloriously, like pigs, reminiscing with rose tinted glasses, regurgitating all our past endeavours. We've written eulogies about our cars, about our family homes, about our kids, not eulogies about them mind, we just added them up and realised they outnumber us and that's worth a blog too! We've documented that time we nearly died in Sweden, that time the piano player tried to go solo during a pandemic, and we finally disclosed what really happened in Berlin! Or maybe that one's still a secret? Anyway, you get the picture, for over a year we have made no new memories and so trawling up the past is all we've had. 

And thanks to you for continuing to support us, for staying connected. It means a lot and to read your nice comments and from so many of you we don't yet know. It remains our goal to come and find you all. In time.

But now, suddenly, life is almost back to some kind of normal. Is this a new era? Post covid! The calendar is filling up which is crazy cause we don't even have a calendar; gigs are being rushed down on scraps of paper and then lost and doubled booked. Last week I said yes to two things on the same day just because I panicked. I'm so out of practice with the running of a band that I can't remember what to do and who's even in the band anymore? The piano player is still in Portugal and nobody knows (least of all him) if he's ever coming back? The accordion player is about to give birth at exactly the same time as starting a huge theatre job (haven't I taught him anything!). The bass player is off walking in the Lake District and expecting his second child and the drummer's just moved back to the Forest of Dean. Needless to say we are incredibly displaced at the moment, perhaps as stretched as we've ever been, but the show must go on. At least The Deputy is keen and it's quite possible that he will step in for all of us at some point this summer, even the drummer, despite the fact he doesn't really play drums. Yet! 

That's if we remember the songs, or better still our instruments! We had a rehearsal the other day, our first in 6 months and it was hilarious how bad we were, worryingly so. It's one thing forgetting the lyrics, but when everyone is playing different chords, in different keys, it's frightening. A bit like Jazz.

Anyway, we take to the stage in a pub garden this coming Sunday, and I have a feeling half of Penzance will be there. We're up in Wales in late June, then there's this gig on a boat, then back in Cornwall in early July for a run of shows that include an open air theatre, a wedding, two festivals and two arts centres. That's 10 gigs and they all arrived at the same time, each scribbled on the nearest thing I could find; on the chalkboard, now covered over with doodles, on my hand (since washed), on the table (since cleaned) and perhaps most bizarrely on a old envelope that has since been reused and sent back to CTG Windows. 

In other news, there is a stage show being written about this very blog which is kinda bonkers! After some meetings over the winter; Arts Council Funding is being secured and How NOT to be in a Band will be turned into a live show. All these blogs, 85 of them, and some 300 pages of waffle will be turned on its head and bought to life. All our greatest adventures and our very best failures... The plan is to tour it as a live music and theatre show, to show you what really happens behind closed doors, and what really went on in Berlin! So watch this space as they say, which is a stupid saying really, cause this space won't do anything. So maybe watch something else, or better still carry on as normal until we wheel out it in front of you.

The new album is coming along too, it's a bit like watching paint dry isn't it, waiting for updates on this mythical record, here we are talking about the third album for the third year in a row. Groundhog day. But plans are afoot, and with the podcast too! We're planning a lot this year. Probably too much. Definitely too much. It's going to be hard enough to remember the songs and find that scrap of paper with all the important information on it.

The furture is bright, or brighter than it looked over the last year certainly, despite the fact we're all in different places again and expecting two new babies which will makes things trickier. But we've learnt to combat these things in the past. Being on each other's doorsteps seems to make us complacent, and obstacles often bring us closer. And if the last year has taught us anything, it's that we've really missed playing music, and you've missed seeing it too. And that's what's spurring us on. And the loss of Europe as a realistic touring destination has made us hell bent on returning there next year, come what may, cause you always want what you can't have, and whether we come in under the carpet or on bicycles, we will be back!

the next odd folk tour...

So thanks for staying with us and please do come and see us soon. I'm hoping to upgrade the website too, something I've been promising for a decade. Failing that, give us follow on Instagram, it seems that's how a band's progress is judged these days ;) That and how many scraps of paper you can loose. Notches on the bedpost. 

Beam me up Scotty

Breaking type here. Not one for eulogies. And if this has nothing to do with the band then that's on me. But I owe it to Scotty to pen some words to him. And anyway, it does have a link, he was the first drummer we ever recruited, and though he never played a gig, he was courted for years, rehearsed a bunch of times but life always got in the way, of both of us.

He was a good soul with a wicked smile, a man of ideas, a man who fed off positivity although he always had a grumbling nature, which made him almost more endearing. A keen surfer, actor, writer but he most excelled at music, he was an amazing percussionist, with impeccable rhythm and a huge knowledge of world music, a big pioneer for bringing Latin and African influences down here to the end of the land. 

We're a close bunch down here, and though many of us move away and pursue other things, we stay connected, it's a small place, full of big characters, a little cut adrift from the mainland. It's always been a creative hub. And if our parents grew up with art then perhaps, as the decades shifted, we grew up with music and dancing. And Scotty was at the forefront of that, whether banging drums, congas, pots and pans, or perhaps more fervently as a DJ broadening our minds to yet more new and exciting grooves. 

He was someone that was always there when it mattered, you might not see him for months but he always popped up in the right places, at the right times. Lazy tones, softly spoken, worldly, he traveled, chasing the waves, collecting music, coming home with new ideas. Eager to make things happen and when they didn't he could grumble, more than most, and we'll miss that too, that low growl like the warning of a dog. He loved setting the world to rights, having a good old moan. But he loved his home, despite the lack of opportunity, for all the art and culture, we can be a narrow bunch at times, we're dreamers more than doers. And that can be frustrating. 

It's strange to think we never played with him, the one that got away, we rehearsed for weeks in prep for a summer of gigs but somehow it didn't happen. Pity that, he'd have added such a flare and flavour. Pity a lot. I'll miss that winning smile, the bullet wink, the crooked nose, the tousled hair, the dulcet tones. I'll miss the next idea, the next big thing. I'll miss the moaning, taking pride in being middle aged, old before his time.

Life is short. Be sweet to each other.

RIP Scotty - see you on the other side my friend

The next generation

When the accordion player announced he was having a baby this year all the usual fanfare of love and support rippled through the band, and while we all clapped him on the back, I quickly did the maths. 9 babies born in 10 years, what a pity it wasn't 10, cause that would be really spooky; I almost had another just for the symmetry! As it happened I didn't need to, the bass player beat me to it.

10 babies in 10 years! You just can't write it! Which, by the way, is a ridiculous saying. Just like 'you can't make that shit up'. Because quite clearly you can; you'd just make it up, but I don't know why you'd bother. Making babies up would be weird. 

We certainly haven't made ours up; just to endear ourselves to you, or to make it even more remarkable that we have achieved what we have with kids in toe! We're more likely to lean on it the other way; we haven't achieved more because we've had so many kids!

But then 7 people having 10 kids isn't especially groundbreaking when a group of friends hit a certain age. Baring in mind that one person had 3 of them, it means the other 6 had 7 kids which is hardly anything to write home about and wouldn't make much of a blog!

And I'm only counting the 7 regular bandmates here; cause if I counted all the musicians we've used and all the babies born it wouldn't even make a headline. 

20 people had 15 babies! You wouldn't buy that paper.

Maybe I should change tact and talk about... oh wait there is nothing else to talk about! 'We're empty of both adventure and anecdote'. I wonder how many times I can shoehorn the bass player's saying into a blog without him citing plagiarism!

And there is something to be said about having kids, and the effect that has on your life and work. Kids have largely shaped our trajectory and with each new heir that is born, so we are further restricted. Ooo wrong word. Enriched. That's better. But you know what I mean; kids dominate your lives and rightly so. The old way has come to an end and there is a new focus. It's universally acknowledged that having them makes it harder to advance your job and career, and that your work could be sacrificed for up to 5 years. Well we've been churning them out for 10 years now, that means our whole existence has been sacrificed, or maybe 'confined' is a better word. Sacrifice makes you think of slaughter, and we're only a folk band after all.

But has having them really mean't we've not achieved our goals? Kinda depends what our goals were? We've under-achieved in that we're not a famous band, but I don't think any of us set out to be one. Otherwise we'd write a pop song and all the dress the same and use auto tuner and buy 'likes' on Facebook. And we've certainly over-achieved in terms of adventures and making memories. And anyway I think our jobs have restricted us just as much, if not more, than the kids. I certainly try not to let children get in the way of this enterprise, because, let me tell you, without this I wouldn't be half the parent I am. As I have said many times before, the 'release' that being in a band gives - or any hobby for that matter - is so important to your mental health and therefore the health of your children. But I have let work get in the way, because let's face it, this isn't a particularly profitable enterprise, despite our best endeavours, cause we haven't had the time to make it one. Why? Because work and babies got in the way. And there's the rub.

We've all dealt with our babies in different ways; I'm famous for swanning off and leaving mine with their long suffering mother without much any warning, I've never been very good with calendars, every year I diligently start a planner in January and by February it's lost and we're back to "By the way we're gigging this weekend... in Belgium!" 

The drummer, whose son is as old as the band, is the opposite of me, he's incredibly good with calendars, I can message him in January with a gig offer in August and he already knows whether he is free or not. His reply is instant, almost before I've even sent the dam message; PING! "I'm not free it's my weekend with the boy". Occasionally the gig offer is a good one (we do get a few!) and so instead of running the gauntlet of changing childcare, he will simply bring the boy along. Archer has sat through half a dozen Odd Folk gigs, sometimes even up on stage next his dad, and he once joined in on the hi-hat.

The piano player, the only regular to not have children, is the complete opposite of the drummer. He's even worse than me with calendars. I don't think he even knows what one is. If I message him in January with a gig offer in August he will look at me like I am completely insane. February, still insane. March, April, May, totally flummoxed. June, July; "when!?" Even the beginning of August is hard for him to comprehend. By the middle of the month you might see his head tilt as he contemplates a gig in a weeks time. 3 days before and you've finally got him. We're in the moment now. This is where he lives. He's engaged. And then he turns up a day early.

The bass player thankfully knows his way around a calendar and has invented a method to help us choose gigs, The 3 P's; PROFILE, PROFIT and PLEASURE. As long as you get two of them you're alright. If you get all three, fuck, you do the gig at all costs, you take the kids with you if you have to, bring grandma too. We don't often get all three though. Getting two is hard enough. Mostly we just get one, and it's nearly always for profile, or "exposure" as they call it! "People die of exposure!" says the drummer. We've stopped chasing that avenue so much these days, ever since we did The Great British Bake Off Finale for no money, taking two days out off work and kids and driving to a secret location in the arse end of nowhere - so secret I can't even remember where it was - only to get unceremoniously dumped onto the cutting room floor. I think you saw a flash of the bass players red hair for a millisecond, not quite the "exposure" we'd all signed up for. Although we did sell a CD to Mel and Sue, I wonder if they ever played it?

The guitar player; the founder and leader for half of our life, had his first child and lost his footing, starting missing a few gigs here and there, had his second and promptly left the band.

The accordion player, who himself is a replacement for the guitar player, is now about to join the father's club and the jury's out on how he will juggle music and children. Although he is pretty good with a calendar and could rival the drummer in a punctuality contest at least. 

10 babies in 10 years. I can't stop saying it. I can't believe it hasn't been picked up by the press. Surely if we can't make it with our music, we can make it with our stories. This is 'How NOT to be in a Band' - have loads of kids, loose your calendar and die of exposure.

On a serious note with every new addition there is a small part of me that sinks a little further into my seat, in a purely selfish sense perhaps, like I know how hungry I still am, and I can only hope my bandmates keep a stomach for it too. Having lost one of them to the pitter patter of tiny feet; once bitten twice shy and all that.

But mostly kids have bought us immense joy, at being able to share our music with them, write songs for them, take them to festivals and wheel them round in barrows, like we were all those years ago. Watching their faces look up in awe as we take to the stage and feel that heady mixture of pride and embarrassment that this is their dad. Watching them mimic us with tennis rackets as guitars, dancing around in an imaginary world of sound. As much as kids have bought a joy to our music, so music has bought a joy to our kids.

And who knows, now they outnumber us, perhaps someday they'll take over from us too, when we finally become The Old Folk ;)

follow us on instagram 

That time that we nearly died

 

It was -13, the light was gone and we'd broken down in a snow drift in the middle of the Swedish tundra. We were miles from civilisation, there were no houses anywhere and we hadn't seen another car for over an hour. The snow was knee deep, more in the forest, some drifts could eat you whole. Our road had been entirely swallowed up; it was, at best, a memory. We had no phone signal and nobody knew where we were. We sat in the car shivering, preserving the fuel that we'd use up to keep us alive overnight. And then what? Temperatures would be well below freezing the following day. And the following night we'd probably be dead. It was a hopeless situation and not one of the one's we revel in either, this wasn't some jolly mishap we'd all laugh about in the pub; like arriving at a gig without our instruments. This was life and death. The Odd Folk? The Dead Folk more like.

But how on earth did we find ourselves in this desperate place you may ask? And why on earth are we recounting it now?

This blog was always going to be a bit different; after a year without both anecdote or adventure, we've now turned to you for questions and Heidi Claes' what's the most dangerous situation you've been in? really struck a chord. And here it is...

... We'd flown to Sweden, the bass player, the guitar payer and I; one of those stupidly early morning flights that seem a good idea at the time cause they're so much cheaper.

We arrived in Ostersund; a small town in the middle of Sweden. My aunty, who's made her home here, picked us up from the airport and drove us to her farm. We promptly went to bed because we'd been up since stupid o clock and the whole first day was a right off. Should have paid the extra £50 and left at a logical time. 

We'd come to Sweden to go skiing, believe it or not the band are actually avid skiers; the drummer would have joined too if he could get the time off work, and the piano player if he could afford it. It's not an image you associate with us, but myself and the bass player set off annually to throw ourselves down mountains, I find it the most liberating thing. It has quite overwhelmed me in recent years, the hunger to satisfy that itch. It's the first holiday I look for, which hasn't always gone down too well with the family. Probably because I often book it at the last minute and announce the news shortly before we leave. 

"By the way we're thinking of going skiing?" 

"Thinking? Or going?"

"Going"

"When?"

"This month, maybe"

"Have you already booked it?"

"Yeah"

"You know we're having a baby this month!" 

"I'll be home before that, we're going in a couple of days!"

So off we went. We borrowed my aunties car, piling our bags and instruments into the boot and setting off to Åre; Sweden's premier winter resort. We were to spend a couple of nights in ski city and then drive further into the wilderness to my aunty's old cabin with no electricity or water where we'd 'survive' and get inspired to make music. That was the plan, and the challenge of returning to the isolated hut on the hill at Kamsåsen had been calling to us ever since we'd discovered it two winters previous.

But first we had some serious skiing to do! We spent the days throwing ourselves down the mountain and the nights spending too much time and money in the fancy bars and revelling in some of our jolliest mishaps.

On the second day the bass player dislocated his shoulder.

On the third day, we left. After skiing we had a quick sauna, packed the car, stole a game of Risk from the apartment and headed north into the wilderness. It was 5pm, the drive would take two hours, we knew the road well but for some reason we checked the satnav and found a quicker route that cut out half an hour and stupidly we took it.

... we headed north into the wilderness ...

There were two warnings on the way but we ignored them both. The first happened when we turned off the main road onto an unploughed road but for some reason instead of serving as a wake up call, it only seemed to make us more excited. 

A little further along and the road narrowed and the snow deepened. This time we actually stopped the car to investigate. We had snow tyres, it didn't seem too deep plus the satnav said we weren't far away and we were going downhill. "I think we'll be fine" we encouraged each other, but this was our get out of jail card and I think one of us even suggested it. But instead we ploughed on, quite literally. But the snow got deeper, and the road got narrower and the car went slower and slower until that moment that we all dreaded, when it ground to a halt. 

Outside it was deathly silent and the realisation of just how isolated we were hit home, especially when the guitar player climbed the ladder of a nearby hunters lookout to scan the landscape. "It's bleak" he called down. Our options were limited. We either stay put or continue on foot, according to the satnav we were 8 miles away. "We could walk it in two hours!" I chanced. And for a while that really seemed like an option. Myself and the guitar player even started packing bags. But the bass player wasn't keen. "I don't think we should leave the vehicle, it's our only guarantee of surviving the night!" he reasoned. "How about we push the car!?" said the guitar player. 

And so for the next hour we took it in turns; one at the wheel and the other two pushing. Progress was painfully slow but we were edging along. Until the road started to climb again and the metres we'd gain got smaller and smaller while our breathers got longer and longer. We pushed and panted and slipped and skidded in a monotonous fever, like some abstract contemporary dance company, like three men pushing a car uphill for three miles in the snow. "There's a junction ahead and it's a ploughed road!" shouted the bass player and we all jumped for joy. But like every good disaster story there's always a catch. And this was that glimmer of hope that was snatched away all too quickly. The junction was ploughed, and we could see safety, it was right there, 6 feet away, no more. The only problem was the snow drift in the way; a wall of frozen ice, like a large fridge/freezer on its side cutting us off. 

The next hour we worked in a frenzy, scrambling through the snow like beavers, smashing it with whatever we could find; rocks, sticks, shoes, we even used our skis. Chipping away at this never ending ice block. It was like trying to sand something with toilet paper. The impossible job. And i've lost count of the amount of times we tried the push the car over it. Watching the wheels spin around like a carousel.

And then suddenly lights ahead. A car, maybe. Approaching. We were like Robinson Crusoe seeing a ship in the distance. We ran up the road towards it waving our arms around like lunatics trying to flag it down. Like it had an option! God only knows what the old lady thought when she found us. We talked English. She talked only Swedish, and so we ended up doing a theatre show with our hands, gesticulating wildly like mad directors. We spent an hour with the lady. She had a rope in her boot, she tried to pull us through the drift twice but then the rope snapped and that was that. Defeated, we let her go. She didn't even have a phone. Our theatre show was over. We were alone again in the silence.

"It's cause you stole that game of risk!" said the guitar player. "This is karma"

That spurred me on, I wasn't spending the night in the car and hoping the old lady would think of driving back this way in the morning. We were getting through this even if we worked all night. I sprang back to life; chiselling away at the drift with a CD case; I didn't even have gloves on, or a coat, I was sweating in -13.

As it happened it didn't take much longer. I suddenly remembered that hessian sacks are good for gripping. Course we didn't have any of those but we had towels and after shredding a couple we finally got enough grip on our jumpers to launch ourselves over the drift. We collapsed on the road like sprinters at the end of a marathon.

But like all good disaster stories there's always another twist. We followed the Satnav those final five miles until it ended. Just like that. In the middle of the road. In the middle of nowhere. "You have reached your destination" said the voice. And our destination didn't exist. Realisation is almost more frightening than being in the thick of it. When you're in it, you're just focused on getting out. Adrenaline almost blindsides you and it can warp your thinking. If we had abandoned our car and attempted to walk to the hut, we may just have made it there but I doubt we'd have made it back. And that really scared us. We were silent as we pulled away. Shellshocked. Our only option was to set a course to my aunties farm, two hours south, the fuel was low but we'd make it. On the way after half an hour or so the bass player suddenly piped up from the back, "Hold up" he said, "That's the turning! That's the road up to the cabin!" And it was. We'd finally found it, 20 odd miles from where we'd broke down. We'd been nowhere near. "I'm never using a satnav again" I said.

We arrived at the cabin at midnight. Trying to save us half an hour had actually cost us 5 hours and almost lost us our lives. We had to dig a path to get the door, the snow was waist deep up here. We bundled in and spent an hour lighting both fires to warm the place up, it was freezing now. Almost colder indoors. The place had been empty for months. The bedding was frozen. We had to hang it all up to thaw it out. We lit the candles and opened the wine. All talking at the same time. All telling the same story. Reliving it like it was a jolly old mishap. But deep down we knew it was wasn't. We were very lucky. 

"I think we'd better play that game of risk!" said the guitar player with a wink.