One of the highlights this year has been appearing a few times on Bishop fm radio (based in Bishop Auckland in Co. Durham) and becoming good friends with the folk DJ (Terry Ferdinand). There’s a piccie of us below on our first visit as live studio guests. We’ve been on the show a few times this year and in November took part in a Folk Fundraiser concert to raise cash towards full FM over air broadcasting. Unfortunately, our last scheduled Bishop fm appearance of 2008 had to be re-scheduled due to illness... so listen out for us as Terry's guests on Monday 19th January at 9 pm.
jiva with Terry Ferdinand at Bishop fm radio 17th March 2008
Another highlight this year was in January when we took possession of a Bose L1 sound system. This is a system to die for – totally unlike conventional PAs that have front of house speakers, on-stage monitors, backline amps and huge powered desk with harsh and muddy sound! The L1 has a line array of 24 small speakers in a 7ft pole, 2 double-speaker bass units and individual ToneMatch mini-mixers on our microphone stands. The sound is awesome… CD-like clarity with sufficient volume to fill the venue without being too loud even right next to the pole. We’ve been able to use the system a number of times through the year and it’s just great having confidence that the sound produced will be right… no messing with dials and sliders, just set up, plug in and perform.
After a quiet start to the year due to coughs and colds and general lurgy we spent a week in Ingleton in February. We’d been invited to take part in the Ingleton Folk Festival Fund Raiser and so decided to take a week off work, book a cottage and visit clubs in the area. We played at The Plough Sessions in Staining, near Blackpool, on the Tuesday. This is run by duo called Penny Black who are raising money for Arthritis Research and we offered our services free for this good cause. We are now firm friends with Penny Black… more of that later. On Wednesday we visited the Alison Arms Folk Club in Coppull and on the Thursday we guested at Wigan Folk Club in… Wigan! Our friends Barbara and Barry who live nearby came to see us at the Alison Arms and Wigan, and it was good to catch up with them.
In March we did a bit of a wild thing! Allan Taylor had told us that the Clarence Folk Club in Blackpool were running an Allan Taylor theme night and he said “you should get yourselves along there”. So we did! We drove three hours to get there, waited three hours to play two songs to finish the night, and then drove three hours to get home again. But it was worth it… we had a great time and made a lot of new friends and re-met some old ones. We were treated a little like ‘celebrity’ by the organisers as clearly we were ‘in the know’ about Allan Taylor having become friends and worked with him on his revised songbook.
That month we took part in a Hiring Fair concert in Saltburn where we had a 30-minute spot and the following day we had our first performance on Bishop fm.
April was a strange month. Val was made redundant. Following on from the Northern Rock situation (and even worse things as the year has progressed) the housing market just slumped and the firm had to make a number of people redundant. Fortunately she received 3 months pay in lieu of notice and was told to stop working with immediate effect! She’s not yet been able to find full time employment but we’ve been managing to survive on Jimmy’s salary alone. There has been a small amount (very small) of temporary work that helps the finances along. We won’t bore you with the irksome details of claiming Job Seekers Allowance but that too (for a while at least) was helpful.
The other major event in April was Jimmy’s job being offshored to India! So he spent most of the month training Sachin (the representative sent over from the company in India). This was quite stressful and hard work. But there was a lighter side too and we have become firm friends with Sachin and his wife Nams (who joined him later). We had taken Sachin out to a local folk club so he could experience a real English music activity (which he enjoyed enormously), and we took them both out for Sunday afternoon tea at a lovely tea shop in Blanchland. They loved it and had a great time. More on Jimmy’s job situation later.
May was a busy month – we took part in a charity concert at Longhorsley (raising funds for Children’s Aid). We had our second appearance on Bishop fm radio. On the 6th May we met up at Croxdale Folk Club with our friends Steve and Kristi Nebel (from the USA) who were over again doing a UK tour. We first met them a few years earlier and it’s great to get to meet with them when they are over. Later in the month they came to stay with us for a few days. They were guesting on Bishop fm on the Monday night and then at our local folk club in Cramlington and we all performed together at both venues doing two of our songs (“Dream On” and “One More Song”). They suggested the name jiva and the jivettes, and it stuck! We’re hoping to go to the USA next year to spend time with them in Tacoma!
In June we guested at Netherton Folk Club (we are booked again for April 2009). The middle of the month we took ourselves off to Oswaldtwistle Mills for one of a series of musical events through the summer organised by Penny Black (in aid of Arthritis Research). The music took place in the large Marquee at the rear of the shopping complex in grassy grounds with play area and pond etc – and again we have made some new friends. The end of the month found us taking part in the Durham Traditional Music Festival with a 30-minute slot for their Hiring Fair.
Early July we had a brand new performing experience – in Borders bookstore! This had been organised by North East Live, a small organisation who arrange and organise a number of musical events. It was a very novel experience (forgive the pun). Mid-month we were back again at Folk At Natures World Festival near Middlesbrough where we joined in the singaround session on the first day with a specific 20-minute spot on the concert stage on the second day. It was a lovely sun shiny weekend and we had a smashing time.
2nd August is Jimmy’s birthday and by coincidence we were invited to two parties that day so we went to both! (And yes, we played and sang at both…) Mid August found us playing at Gateshead International Sports Stadium! We were taking part, as entertainers, in the Cancer Research Relay For Life event. Quite a humbling experience. Over the August Bank Holiday weekend we took part in two more of Penny Black’s concerts – these had now been moved from Oswaldtwistle Mills to Fleetwood. There had been so much rain that the marquee had had to be taken down!
1st September we were back at Bishop fm to do the evening show, having earlier in the day been interviewed for a Desert Island Discs types of programme being put together by Terry for his series, to be called “Folk Up Front With Ferdinand”. That was a lot of fun. Later in the month we took part in the Busking For Cancer week and we played and collected money from three of our local folk clubs – we passed a tin around and the generosity is just amazing!
And then it was time for a week’s holiday. We went to Fife and had a lovely week staying in a cottage in Cupar (not far from St. Andrews). As always we took in a few clubs and singarounds and so… paid a visit to Dunblane Folk Club on the Sunday, went to see Allan Taylor at Glenfarg Folk Club on the Monday night, Tuesday we were at the Acoustic Brew in Dunfermline (held in the upstairs room of a small café) and the 19th Acoustic Music Club in Largoward on the Thursday night. We had the Wednesday and Friday off and came home, shattered and needing another holiday! We got home on Saturday just in time to go and see Allan Taylor at The Davy Lamp in Washington! That wasn’t the end of it for September as the end of the month we took part in an acoustic evening concert at a social club in nearby Seaton Delaval.
There was no let up and October found us doing a show for a local walking group in the Longsands Café on the ‘bank’ of the boating lake in Tynemouth. The following week we were over in Morecambe in Lancashire guesting at The Smugglers Den pub. We’re booked again to play twice next year! The day after we went to a Guitar and Songwriting Workshop with Brian Willoughby (ex Strawbs) and Cathryn Craig – that was good fun.
November we went to stay with friends in Manchester who had booked tickets for us to go (again) to see the Slava Snowshow. If you’ve not seen it you must – it is the most exciting spectacular of mime! Later in the month we took ourselves up to Scotland for two days (Dunkeld – just north of Perth) to go and see an American singer-songwriter called Tom Pacheco. He has some amazing songs.
On top of all of that we have been to see a number of acts this year, Anthony John Clarke, Show of Hands, Brian Willoughby & Cathryn Craig, Steve and Kristi Nebel, Allan Taylor, Melanie, Ewen Carruthers, Emmy Lou Harris, Ben Sands, Marian Bradfield and Ralph McTell! In addition to the Slava Snowshow we’ve also seen the Kodo Drummers and Noise Ensemble – loud! And we’re off to the local pantomime (Humpty Dumpty) later this month.
So that brings us nicely to December. We've been taking it easy this month as the coughs, cold sore throats etc are bugging us again - and we mostly stayed at home keeping warm and gathering our strength.
Dotted throughout 2008 we’ve spent some time recording a debut CD (including three tracks recorded live at Cramlington Folk Club) and designing the artwork for a friend of ours, Jim Wigfield. He was delighted with the outcome - glass mastered, replicated and professionally packaged. We’ve also had two website commissions to ensure that we’re kept busy!
We mentioned earlier about Jimmy’s job situation. Having had his job offshored he had been put on assignment to another part of the company (quite stressful and a heavy time critical workload), and then out of the blue he received a call to say he was to be made redundant! So, as of 19th December we're both unemployed. There will, of course, be some money coming in and early pension but we’re going to have to take stock and work out what we can and can’t afford and whether or not we need to try and find some sort of employment – that’s always assuming there are jobs out there to be had. The unemployment figures are high at the moment and finding work is not going to be easy for us old ‘uns.
The additional freedom will give us the opportunity to take our music even further afield and we’re looking forward to planning full activity for next year. We already have a number of bookings!
Best wishes for the coming year. Hopefully our paths will cross again soon.
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1 comment:
A good reaqd from what has undoubtedly been an interesting year for you both.
Thanks for sharing your lives and welcome to the world of the "retread" (as opposed to retired)
Best wishes
Phil & Janet Graham
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