25-Apr-09 Christian Aid Charity Concert

We had been asked some time ago by Pete Cryer (of local folk duo Old English) if we would like to take part in this charity concert and we readily agreed. We're always happy to play for good causes.

We took our Bose L1 sound system with us, and the sound was superb. The concert was held in the hall of St Georges United Reformed Church in Morpeth - a fairly sizeable room with a very high roof. The Bose effortlessly filled the room - and, unlike conventional PA systems, wasn't overpowering for those closest to the stage.

When we planned our set list in advance, we hadn't known whether Jimmy's guitar (Rio) would back... and so all the songs we played tonight were with Val on the 12-string (Missy)... Jimmy would have used Val's 6-string (Nams), but we were pleased to give Rio his first amplified outing since surgery at Fender GBI. He did not disappoint - welcome back, Rio... good to have you back in fine voice.

We started proceedings at 7:30 pm prompt and did our 25-minute set (thus allowing for a 5-minute change over for the next act to start on time at 8:00 pm). Our set list was:

• 'Back Home To You' (Allan Taylor)


• 'Passin Thru' (Randy Scruggs and Johnny Cash)


• 'Different Dreams' (jiva)


• 'When' (jiva)


• 'One More Song' (jiva)

The audience laughed in all the right places during our easygoing introductions, and they joined in the spirit of our usual competition as they sang really well with 'One More Song'. At the end of the set MC Al Giles asked the audience if they'd like another song from jiva, and there was a resounding "Yes!" with much applause... so we happily obliged with:

• 'Some Way Home' (jiva)

We were followed by Piper's Fancy (a group of Northumbrian pipers), a young lad called Richard Cooper who played hornpipes on his banjo(!) and some whistle tunes, two young girls Sally Graham and Charlotte Kennedy who played violin duets with a little bit of clog dancing thrown in for good measure. Old English took the stage to finish off the night with the audience joining in to the end.

The local population had come out in force to support this good cause - we'd guess there was around 70 people - and, with the obligatory raffle too, we suspect lots of money was raised.

Well done to Pete Cryer for organising such a grand night. Pete also videod much of the evening, so there may even be another jiva video on the way... watch this space.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace

24-Apr-09 Park Head Open Mic

First, hopefully of many, open mic nights to be held at the Park Head Hotel in Bishop Auckland. Phil Graham and Gary Grainger had been asked by the owners of the hotel to organise a night... and, if successful, the promise of more nights!

Well, the night was a great success - 13 acts turned up to play! This meant everyone was restricted to two songs each, whether a solo performer, duo or whatever but it meant everyone had a turn. There was a small PA for those who wished to use it, but we and many others played acoustically.

Note: This was the first live performance for Rio since his return from surgery - and he sounded magnifique!

Acts on the night were Gary Grainger, jiva... we played 'Back Home To You' (Allan Taylor) and 'Passin Thru' (Randy Scruggs & Johnny Cash)..., Steve & Barry, Ian Swinburne, Maggie Gee, Jamie & Craig, Teddy Mikalski, Naz, Wilf Allen, John Wrightson, Rebekah Findlay, Nick Brooker and, of course, Phil Graham to finish the official part of the night.

Then followed a more informal arrangement where some people got up to play again, new and impromptu musical collaborations were made... this was still going on by the time we left for the 50-mile drive home.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Park Head Open Mic MySpace

23-Apr-09 Welcome Home Rio !!!

After the rain comes the rainbow...

It's been a troubled time, especially during the last week while we've nervously awaited news of Jimmy's Taylor 910CE-L7 Brazilian Rosewood guitar. Things just haven't been the same around here, and the music hasn't sounded quite right.

We are extremely grateful to Taylor and Fender GBI for their prompt and thorough action in sorting out the problem.

You can imagine our relief when we drove into Newcastle to pick up Rio from Guitar Guitar and found him safe, well, much recovered and in fine voice. They hooked him up to a small AER acoustic guitar cube amp so we could check out the electrics - all was well. Back home we plugged him into our Bose L1 system and were in awe of the gorgeous sound... could his voice be even better than we remembered?

Full steam ahead with the music again... look out for us... we'll be the ones grinning from ear to ear (especially Jimmy).

Thanks for listening. :>)

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace

20-Apr-09 Terry Ferdinand's Bishop fm Folk Show

Terry Ferdinand hosts The Folk Show for Bishop fm Radio, broadcast every Monday evening 21:00 to 23:00 GMT. We went along this week to give moral support to our long time friend, Richard Ridley.

As usual the two hours flew by with live songs from Richard and from Phil Graham... we performed two ourselves - Terry said that we couldn't have jiva in the studio without hearing the "dulcet tones of the gentle giants of folk". So we did 'Tommy' (Kelly Joe Phelps) which we dedicated to Terry as he loves this song done by us, and also our newest song 'When' (jiva), as we had received a few requests for this.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Terry Ferdinand MySpace
BishopFM
Richard Ridley MySpace

19-Apr-09 The Monkey Folk Club

Return visit to the Monkey Folk Club which has recently moved from the Delaval Arms to the Monkseaton Arms and re-branded from The Bluestone Folk Club to The Monkey Folk Club. We also took along Richard Robinson (stage name Richard Ridley). Jimmy and Richard played in various guises and bands back in the 1970s. There was a good crowd in this evening - some faces we hadn't seen before and some we had!

We had decided in advance (as always) on which songs to play, so we had both 12-string guitars and a single 6-string tonight. With Jimmy's bottom pair of strings downtuned to D on his 12-string we sang '4 + 20' (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)' followed by 'No Telling' (Linda Thompson) both with Val playing her 6-string. Then we performed 'Small Town' (jiva) which has us both playing 12-string - Val's guitar in normal tuning, and Jimmy's with the bottom strings downtuned... wow, the audience were well away, joining in heartily... super stuff. For our second spot we did 'Some Way Home' (jiva) and 'When' (jiva), and again there was enthusiastic joining in and a great response.

It was a good night all round.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Monkey Folk Club website

18-Apr-09 Lionheart Radio

Having donned the jiva garb we made our way up to Alnwick for a first appearance on the Lionheart Radio Folk Show Club which is hosted by Dave Forshaw. Dave is also the organiser of the Clennell Hall Folk Festival which is on 8th - 10th May... we'll be there with half hour slots in the main marquee and the bar as well as hosting some bar sessions too!

Also appearing on the show were good friends few broth, and the three hours flew by with a good mix of CDs, mp3s and chat interspersed with live songs from us and also from few broth. We performed:

• Different Dreams (jiva)
• Some Way Home (jiva)
• Back Home To You (Allan Taylor)
• Passin Thru (Randy Scruggs and Johnny Cash)
• Love At The Five And Dime (Nanci Griffith)
• Louise (Paul Siebel)
• When (jiva)
• Dream On (jiva)
• One More Song (jiva)

During 'Dream On' Dave lit his lighter and was gently waving it in the air (it reminded us of how it must have been at Woodstock for Melanie... peace man) - and few broth joined us adding extra vocals to finish the night with 'One More Song'... they've also added it to their own repertoire - we love it when people do our songs!

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Lionheart Radio Folk Club Show Ning
few broth MySpace

18-Apr-09 jiva 'n' The Buff

Having had a very busy March we'd planned a fairly restful April - but, Jimmy's guitar problems had robbed us of any prospect of peace and tranquility. And we'd not been in the best of health either - maybe the stress was getting to us... So it was even more of a pleasure to have friends Barry and Barbara visit and stay over.

After a lunchtime snack on Friday 17 April we decided to take a walk along the sea front to St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay. To say the least it was bracing! It certainly blew some cobwebs away, and built up an appetite for an evening meal out at The Three Horseshoes where we were joined by another friend, Richard. Barbara presented us both with a Buff - a most innovative piece of clothing that can be worn as a scarf, a bandana, a muffler, a mask, a balaclava, and many other ways limited only by one's imagination - many thanks for this lovely kindness, and we think the Buff may feature in the jiva 'persona' for future performances.

Saturday saw us drive up to Warkworth for an interesting look around the castle, some retail therapy and a cheesecake pig-out! We were due to be studio guests of Dave Forshaw on Lionheart Radio that evening, so Barry and Barbara set of back to the North West as we collected the guitars and stands and donned the jiva garb.

It was great to have them stay, and we really should get out more! Looking forward to the next visit.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace

14-Apr-09 Jimmy's Taylor 910CE-L7 In For Surgery

The problems at Phil and Janet's' celebration 'do' pretty much confirmed our fears... Jimmy's treasured guitar would have to go back to Fender GBI (Taylor's authorised repairers). That made 3 gigs in a row where we'd experienced problems - Blackpool (where we managed to play through the gig with some crackles and pops), and Cramlington where we ended up mic-ing the guitar. We'd all but convinced ourselves that it must be a cable problem as there was no problem at home through our super-sensitive Bose L1 system, so we invested in some cables to always carry as spares from then on. So when things sounded real ugly through a different Bose L1 setup, even with swapping various cables, we were devastated.

So back home we plugged into our Bose system and we noticed that even with the Taylor-supplied balanced cable there was noise present, although nowhere near as bad. So we plugged into our system with a good quality guitar lead and whoof! - the noise was awful... crackle, scratch, pop, zap... so we had to switch off the sound system and isolate the culprit. We tried every possible combination of every cable with all of our Taylor guitars... and only one guitar had problems, and much more noticeable with the standard unbalanced guitar leads that you'll find in use anywhere and everywhere... oh woe!

In desperation we contacted Taylor, and told them of our plight. They kindly requested the serial number so that they could then ask Fender to fast-track it for us. And so we went into Newcastle and dropped the guitar off at Guitar Guitar. Frustration and depression are descending.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace

12-Apr-09 Together 25 Years

We were delighted to have been asked by Phil Graham to take part in his and his and Janet's celebration of their 25 years together - not married for 25 years yet, but knowing each other for 25 years... aaahh!

They decided to have a 'do' at their local pub with a chance for friends and family to meet and chat with live music from friends. The running order was Chris Milner, jiva, Brother Crow, Blind Summat, Marie Little, Tri, Ian Swinburne and Acoustica... each with a 30-minute slot. David Pratt, the drummer with Tri (Phil Graham, Gary Grainger and David Pratt) had brought along his Bose sound system - twin sticks. So were confident of, and looking forward to, a great sound...

But no, oh no... horror of horrors (more of this in a later blog), we experienced massive difficulty with a harsh grating, crunching, scratchy, crackling sound from Jimmy's treasured 6-string Taylor 910CE-L7 guitar which was screeching like a banshee! We swapped cables around to no avail, and were even offered a loan guitar (thanks Marie) but decided to totally re-organise our set with Jimmy playing Val's 6-string and Val sticking with the 12-string. In turn this led to difficulty for the embattled soundman and we ended up with Val's 12 being mega loud with Jimmy's guitar being whisper quiet... so we did the honourable thing and cut our set down to 4 songs in total in order to keep the timings on track for the rest of the performers.

Apart from our woes it was a grand night, a little loud and boisterous at times from the huge number of friends who had come to celebrate with Phil and Janet - but it was great to have some time to chat with our fellow performers and friends... here's to the next 25 years.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Phil Graham MySpace

06-Apr-09 'Teaching Terry To Juggle' video

Last month (March 2009) Timi, from Texas, USA visited friends in the UK. Terry Ferdinand and his wife Catherine brought Timi around for dinner and a quiet evening in... well, that was the plan.

Having wined and dined we chatted for a while, and then Jimmy gave Terry his first juggling lesson. Luckily Timi captured this on video, and it has been the source of much hilarity and inspiration too - well done Timi... we look forward to Terry's second lesson.



This video, along with some jiva live performances are on the 'Videos' page of our website.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Terry Ferdinand MySpace
Timi MySpace

04-Apr-09 Another jiva video

We recently (15 March) played at The Hiring Fair at Loftus. Ian Swinburne, who does a great job with sound and videoing, posted a video on the Loftus Open Acoustic site of us playing our song 'Different Dreams'.

jiva. Different Dreams.


Thanks Ian - very much appreciated.

We have now created a new 'Videos' page on our website and added this video, together with the one of us at Borders Bookstore last year playing the Chris Simpson song 'Two Old Friends'.

Links
jiva website
jiva MySpace
Ian Swinburne MySpace
Loftus Open Acoustic MySpace