near-perfect Samhain

Dave built one of his fire sculptures from an upturned rootplate, and we were visited by (among others) Anton, with whom I jammed at the autumn equinox, his jamming partner Síon (Welsh guitar/flute player and long-time Whitstable connection) and friend Martin. They brought a battery amp along so I could plug my saz in an be properly heard, which was a real treat. The last time I played with Síon was Noel's 50th birthday party, 11 or 12 years ago, when he, Inge and I played "All Along the Watchtower" together on a makeshift stage in a front room in Whitstable (shortly before Richard Sinclair played an acoustic set).

It was a perfect, still, mild, starlit night with food, drink and general good things all 'round. We played our way through a whole range of covers (I have a vague memory of Nick Drake's "Place to Be" and Bowie's "Andy Warhol" among them) as well as some of Anton's songs. It was one of those occasions where my fingers seemed to know exactly what to do, effortless. I made numerous attempts to set up my MiniDisc recorder and record some of this, but batteries kept expiring, nothing would work - the ancestors weren't having it (I should have known better).

Anton and Síon have a new-ish band together called "Soup" - they were playing at that recent party where I saw Toby "King Size Slim" Barelli (Anton's 10th wedding anniversary, as it happened). Their bass player, Jim, from Ashford, also plays banjo and banjolin, a bit of a folkie - he was telling me about the Friday night at this year's Cropredy Festival - something a bit special (had I known in advance, I probably would have gone...):


[You can find footage of individual songs here, although I suspect these might get pulled eventually. Surely this was being 'properly' filmed for DVD release?]