Another Sherwood Drone

Henry - percussion
Rupert - percussion
John - mandolin, bouzouki (including slide bouzouki), acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, voice, low whistle
me - saz, balalaika, acoustic bass guitar

On Thursday night we were Droning in the open-sided barn-like building close to Sherwood Cottage. This is Vaughan's place, but he was off abroad, and Rupert was house-sitting for him. We didn't light the stove seen in the picture above because of an owl nesting in the eaves - but you don't generally notice the cold when you're playing music - we made do with a few candles and Rupert's spicy Indian snacks. There was absolutely torrential rain just as we were tuning up, amplified by the corrugated metal roof to the point where we could hardly hear ourselves - but this very politely left us alone as soon as we were ready to play.

There were some minor tuning problems with my balalaika. Other than that, a very enjoyable, melodic jam. Sometimes when there are less of us it's easier to be expressive, without the fear of over-playing. I find I can vibe really well with John on the strings most of the time, and there are some good examples of that herein.

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Just after we'd decided it was time to pack up, John launched into a sort of throwaway blues pastiche - not the first time the Droners have played the blues, but it's not something that often happens. It's great though, a really simple format on which to jam (which might explain why it's so popular). Henry used to drum in a prominent London blues band in the 80's - he told us all about that while we were packing up.

Cadgwith Cove Inn, August 1998

I've just finished processing and uploading to the IAA an old archive recording from the summer of 1998. I was travelling with the Dongas down on The Lizard in Cornwall, and we'd been offered a little gig at The Cove Inn in the rather lovely village of Cadgwith.

At the time, we heard that this was a pub where sailors and fishermen still gathered in the evening to sing shanties, etc. (although I never witnessed this personally). I also just discovered via a websearch that Steeleye Span's All Around My Hat album contains a "Cadgwith Anthem" (traditional, I presume), of which I was previously unaware. The canon of Cornish folk music is disappointingly small, we discovered when travelling there, as most of it was lost during the English suppression of Cornish culture. We learned as many tunes as we could find (some of disputed Cornishness - one, called "Newlyn" sounded positively Bulgarian!), but never came across a "Cadgwith Anthem".


Cadgwith cove - photo from http://www.theholidaycottages.co.uk
It was a beautiful day - we walked there with the donkeys, mules and goats from our camp in Coverack and camped near St. Ruan's Well on the edge of the village. A German tourist recorded the music on his camcorder and sent us an audio tape when he got home to Germany.

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illustration from The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England by R.C. Hope
More Dongas field recordings from 1997-1999 are currently in the pipeline.

Another Minimal Drone

Just me, Keith and James T, as with the June St. Stephens session. It felt nice at the time, but the recording sounded a bit lacklustre on first listening (the fact I was on a train didn't help). It sounded quite a bit better the second time. Unfortunately, the last piece didn't get recorded. It was quite long, and very relaxed - I was on the threshold of sleep, and really enjoying the sensation. We were all immediately disappointed when it transpired that the Minidisc recorder wasn't switched on. It's surprising how often this often happens with (what we believe at the time to be) particularly good pieces. But then it fits quite nicely into the worldwide tradition of devotional music - just giving it away as a gift to the Universe, rather than trying to capture it or "make something out of it".

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James did another of his "found" poems based on the University library catalogue. This time it was a list of titles beginning with the pronoun "I" (he's done "They" and "Love" before). I played quite a bit of acoustic bass guitar, although not half as well as I'd like to. I really will have to work on that a bit more.

COTD compilation no. 4

It's taken a while to get this together, but Children of the Drone compilation no. 4 is now finished. The distillation process (which involves moving MP3s from an "everything" playlist to a "worthy" playlist, and then eventually to a "really quite good" playlist) has been further refined, and these compilations should start to come out a bit more frequently. A few pieces have already been lined up for compilation no. 5.


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This one involved Henry, Mark, Keith, John, me, James T, Clare, Matthew S, Dan C, Simon, Vaughan, Philip and Julia using balalaika, dilruba, mbira, saz, bouzouki, acoustic and electric guitars, acoustic bass guitar, tablas, spoons, turntables, voices, cello, mandola, melodica, Wurlitzer, piano, synthesiser, "groan tubes", a Cambodian gong, assorted percussion (and probably some other things too) at Oblique House, Prospect Park, and St. Stephens church (Exeter) and the Rainbow Studio (Crediton) between 03/10/02 and 11/11/04.

Glastonbury Tor blessing

Vicky and I were up in Glastonbury on Sunday for a 'wedding blessing' ceremony on the Tor. My friend Dave, who I meet up with every mid-summer in Avebury, had married Candy some weeks ago, but they wanted an outdoor blessing to follow it up. The ceremony was led by Paradox, a multi-dimensional poet based in London who Dave has done some remix work for (he's also collaborated with Pok for various anti-banking actions, etc. - so I'd heard a lot about him, as well as recordings of his work, but not met him previously).


Dave and Candy await their wedding blessing atop the Tor
After the ceremony, we had a bit of a lively jam - Dave on djembe, his mate Tall Paul (excellent freestyle didgeridoo player) on didg, me on saz, and Paradox reciting some poetry. After a while we moved into the tower for increased resonance, and were joined by an old Glastonbury head with a bag of bamboo flutes and a melodica. He was curious about the saz, having seen similar things in Kazakhstan whilst travelling overland to India in the 70's. He mentioned having been in India for seven years, and then returning just in time for the 1984 Stonehenge Free Festival! He also expressed his enthusiasm for the fact we were up there playing music - so often there's nothing going on - which made me realise that it'd been years since I'd had a decent jam on the Tor, despite going up there fairly regularly.


Paradox, Dave, Paul and I jamming after the ceremony
Needless to say, none of this got recorded, but here's a saz remix Dave put together (as 'Nusphere'):

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Big Green Gathering 2005

Musical highlights of the Big Green Gathering for me this year:


image from http://www.realfestivalmusic.co.uk/BGG-2003.html
Shortly after arriving on Thursday I bumped into my friend Jonno (once part of Heathens All) who encouraged me to stick around and see his nephew's band. His nephew Connor is just fourteen, as are his three colleagues, who comprise The Mighty Redeemers, one of the best reggae bands I've ever seen! No gimmicks, no annoying keyboard sounds, just a purist approach to Studio One-style early 70's Jamaican classic reggae - these lads appear to have studied the genre in real detail. They live up to their name. Brilliant.


The Mordekkers sorted me out with a ticket in order to come and record their Friday and Saturday night gigs. I managed to rig up my minidisc setup and get an audience recording of the Friday night set in the Small World Cafe, and someone from the on-site Green Radio was taking a recording off the desk. There were some minor P.A. problems, but the set went down a storm as usual. Stef's mandola was almost almost loud enough this time (usually a problem). The new concertina/shawm dub arrangement was excellent - more of that to come, I hope. This was also their new bass player Henry's first gig. He and drummer Jez make a superb rhythm section, and it can only get better. The Saturday night gig was in the Green Forum tent - much bigger, and with a far superior P.A. There were some small problems with a broken string, etc., but despite the band thinking it was "a shambles", they managed to make a huge throng of festival revellers go completely mad for almost an hour, with people clambering to buy their demo CD Seven-League Boots at the end. That time I managed (with two minidisc machines) to get audience and desk recordings, which could potentially be mixed into quite a nice live recording for some future release.

I got to catch the end of a set from 3 Daft Monkeys - must have been an encore - their version of the Klezmer favourite "Mazeltov". This is Tim, Athene and Jamie - people I'd known in the late 90's in West Cornwall - somehow I've managed to not see them play before this. A shame I didn't see more - highly recommended band.

I was hoping to record some saz jamming with various people I met at the festival, but in the end just came away with a few fragments of me playing with various Mordekkers (and solo). The saz can hardly compete with their pipes and drums, but by carefully positioning the microphone, and using a bit of EQ later, I've managed to make myself respectably audible. As you might expect, the sound is supplemented by the usual festival noises, light aircraft passing overhead, etc.

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I also spent a few hours reading the oddly compelling book Not Necessarily Stoned, But Beautiful by Sean Egan, about the making of the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced. Although it mostly consists of what could be seen as tedious factual information, and despite Hendrix having not meant a huge amount to me, the extent to which this indisputably masterful album was rapidly thrown together in a largely improvisatory burst of creative energy was quite a revelation.

Vocal/Drone collaboration

The long-awaited collaboration between Children of the Drone and the as-yet-unnamed Crediton vocal improvisation group finally happened on Wednesday. I've just got back from the Big Green Gathering and am listening back to the recordings now. I remember the first piece feeling very untogether, a real struggle - but a couple of minutes in it's not sounding half as bad as I remember. The later (after tea-break) sections seem really rather lovely:

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detail from a stained glass window in St. Stephens
Simon (first half) - acoustic bass guitar, piano, percussion
Keith - acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, mandola, percussion
me - saz, balalaika, percussion
Henry - percussion
John - acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, bouzouki, percussion, vocals
James T - piano, percussion, poetry

Vaughan (both groups) - acoustic guitar, mandolin, percussion vocals

Jo, Pete, Ash (Crediton group) - vocals

I'll also be uploading a few fragments I recorded jamming with various Mordekkers (Peni and Stef's band from West Wales) at the Green Gathering, once I've processed those minidiscs.

North Wales

I just spent a week up in Snowdonia, staying in a little electricity-free National Trust cottage near Betws-y-Coed with Vicky and her kids Tom and Claudia. The first full day there was typically grey and rainy, so we stayed cosy by the fireplace, and experimented with a couple of folktunes from Robin Williamson's The Penny Whistle Book (1977) - "Soldier's Joy" and "Lovely Joan" - with Vicky playing recorder, me playing saz, and the kids playing various percussion (quite competently). This was excellent fun (despite Vicky's recurring lapses in confidence, which will hopefully become a thing of the past), but nothing got recorded.


a particularly nice bit of twisty wood near Aber Falls
Last night, back in Exeter, Vicky and I ran through these tunes again, plus another one called "Searching for Lambs" (beautiful). I recorded some of this, and just put together a rough edit of "Soldier's Joy":

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