Coronation Trifle

It was always fashionable to ridicule Prince Charles. Even as a child I remember laughing at his sticky-out ears and at the comedians and impressionists who imitated and got us giggling at Charles’ thoughtful but faltering style of speech. I never stopped to think of...

Rehearse Past Mastery

  There’s a musician’s joke that if you want your onstage performance to be as good as it was when practicing at home then you must practise 200% because you’re only half as good when you play in front of people. The truth is that statistically our performances...

The Village Choir

I joined the Village Male Voice Choir last May. As someone who’s life is already full of music it may seem an unusual hobby to take up. But I love it. Choir singing is an abstract art, in the sense that you cannot experience the result of your work any more than a cog...

Choosing a Band Name

We’ve booked a young trio of lads in their twenties to open for McShane & Shaw at the town’s Arts Week on March 23. They play fiddle, accordion, vocals, drums and do traditional and original folk songs with a bias towards rural material. One of them even...

Performing at the Paramount

If you’re a regular reader you may have been wondering where I’ve been. Thank you for your patience by the way. What can I say? It’s been an unusually busy November and December. After the strangeness of the covid lockdowns things have gone back to the weirdest kind...

Go Big with Showmanship

While listening to an old BBC interview I heard Muhammed Ali tell David Frost how he started with his boastful, trash talking poetry. Ali’s words led me down a rabbit hole of memories and investigation on the subject of showmanship. Here it is: When I was a...
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