Lion on the wall surrounding Cardiff Castle. April 22, 2010
Hello all:
We took the night off, so-to-speak. We didn't go out to a club tonight. We started, but Kristi realized somewhere early in the journey that there was more than one town named the same as the one we were going to, and further, that we wouldn't make it on time. As things turned out, we came back to the hotel and watched a movie on TV. We were both disappointed in ourselves for not being more disciplined in our directions, and for spending an evening that would have been more fun at home in Tacoma. Oh well, so life goes huh?
The last couple of nights have been a hoot though. We had a great time in Bristol. I guess Bristol is our kind of town. It's interesting though that there are so many singers who sing really softly there. They speak really softly there as well. I guess in that respect I don't quite fit, but I never felt that way. The first club we went to was the Nova Scotia Club. Harry was the only one there when we arrived. He told us quite a bit a bout himself without us asking too many questions.
The club was, as is not unusual, in a room above a pub. The building looked uninhabited, and was advertised for sale on one side. We ignored the signs of urban decay, and parked our car, walked around the building, and found what we were looking for. I don't know what's wrong with U2. You just have to be driven enough, and have enough patience to not give up on first glance. Sometimes it's not there. There are little disappointments in life, but most of the time things work out OK. That would have an exception in the case of the Iraq War. Also, there's some disappointment on my part about the Afghanistan war. Well, there's also health care, but need I go on? We did find the club, and it turned out to be a nice night.
The Nova Scotia Acoustic Music Club was once just a simple folk club. According to longtime members, there has been some turnabout there, but mostly for the good. It is an exceptionally young club. That is not to say that it is a completely young club. There were a lot of folks there who were about my age, but there was a significant component 40 and younger too. This can be fairly unusual in folk clubs in England. When we first arrived there was only one club member there, Harry. In only minutes we found out that Harry had run away from home as a child, hade worked in the porcelain factories of Staffordshire, and was a huge Woody Guthrie fan. He is also a country music fan, and an independent kinda guy.
Bill, and Nicki showed up next. They, if not the club organizers, certainly were taking on that role for the evening. Neither of them was the MC though. That was Humph. I continually find the fascination with American culture here intriguing. The Nova Scotia FC is filled with people strongly influenced by American music. Throughout the course of the evening there was everything from accapella traditional singing to full on rock n roll with (of course) acoustic guitar. There were a few outstanding songwriters there, and a lot of not so outstanding, if earnest songwriters as well. There were 30 people who played, which is an exceptional night anywhere. This particular club uses an open stage format, as opposed to others who use the song circle format. We were given an extra song at the end of the night. The MC, Humph, had forgone a turn at performance, so I think it was a compliment to our earlier performance to get another song. Of course, we don't know what the usual procedures were for the club.
To get to Bristol from Newport one must cross the Severn River on a huge bridge, which takes a five pound fifty toll on the way back. We just wax philosophical about these kinds of expenses. At the end of the evening a couple of people gave us cards, and suggested that we keep in touch. This came in handy the following night, as Kristi looked all around on the internet for a place for us to play, I called Humph at his home and asked him for advice. He directed us to a small pub in West End near Nailsea. Nailsea isn't a huge town, but West End is anything but a town. On our way there, convinced that we were going the wrong way, we turned around and headed back into Nailsea. When we asked a passing pedestrian where our destination lie, she advised us that the very narrow road we had been following was the appropriate way to go, and would indeed land us at our destination if we were wary, and realized that the pub we were looking for was very plain, looking more like a house than a pub.
Kathy Rock n Roll- See Steve in the background talking to Humph.
The Blue Flame Inn lies at an intersection. Maybe it's the crossroads from the song where Robert Johnson meets the devil. Perhaps that crossroads is a place in time, that wanders from place to place. If so, this particular night it was on a rural road in Western England. The room where the sing-a-round was held had a bench all around, and a few tables with chairs as well. There was a tiny fireplace with a fire burning in it at the end of the room. There were mostly guitars, but there was a guy who played autoharp, and a woman who played the banjo (she must have been pushing eighty). There were all levels of performance, from extremely competent to not at all. There was a woman who had been at the Nova Scotia who sings rock n roll songs in a whispery voice, and you can see that she is struggling to find, and properly finger the chords on her guitar. I would guess that she was in her late forties. There was another couple who left early who performed a Cindy Lauper song (Time After Time), and a Cat Stevens song (Wild World).
Note the fireplace at the end of the room. This is some of the guys from the Blue Flame Inn.
Humph, who had invited us, sang mostly his own songs. They were all very good songs, and one of them was really funny. He also sang a couple of old 20's pop songs. He is a very competent guitar player, and he also brought along a ukelele, which he played on a couple of songs. As it was a small crowd, all of us got to play a lot of songs.
At the break, I exchanged CDs with Humph. He usually is part of a duo, so the CD is a duo CD. His partner has had a cold and didn't sing at the Nova Scotia, and didn't come along to the Blue Flame Inn either. The CD is more or less (mostly more) recorded live. It will be interesting to hear what he thinks about all of the accompanying instrumentation on our CDs. He bought a copy of "Big Red Smile" after we played "Big floppy Hats". I exchanged "Raven Speaks" for his CD.
The owner of the pub, Mick, was kind of an unkempt guy with a ready smile, a guitar, and a harmonica on a rack. He was an interesting songwriter, writing with basic chord progressions and singing his own point of view on life. He used two different guitars, and removed them to the hallway when he wasn't on. At the end of the evening he made a point to talk to Kristi and I,and be sure to know that we were always welcome at the Blue Flame Inn. Did I mention that the toilets at the Blue Flame are outdoors?
Has anyone who I'm sending this to ever heard the "Dalesmith's Litany"? It's a song. One of the guys at the Blue Flame sang it, and I thought it was a good song. It has roots dating back to the 1600s. That is, it is influenced by a song called "Beggar's Litany" written in the 1600s You can look it up on YouTube.
Oh yeah, we have continued to be tourists as well. We went to Cardiff, or environs a couple of different times. We went to a Welsh village museum near Cardiff that was absolutely fantastic. There were a couple of traditional Welsh farmhouses,
and there was a castle
there as well. There were also workers housing, and some small shops like you might find in a village. It was an opportunity to see how people on the high end, and the low end of things lived, and contrast them immediately. It's an amazing contrast, and not that long ago that people lived this way. Yesterday we just went into Cardiff and walked around. We went to the part of town where the Cardiff Castle is located. They wanted 10 pounds 50 pence for each of us, which seemed a bit spendy, especially as we were a little late in the day, and we've seen a few castles by now. In the end we visited the National Museum of Wales, and there walked through an archeology exhibit, which was great. Driving in the city here is a nightmare, although I've driven worse streets than Cardiff, there were some moments of difficulty. I don't know yet what we are going to do today. We will probably go to the Newport Folk Club tonight, and tomorrow we play an entire show in Orpington where we've played almost every tour since 2002. I hope this finds you all well. Keep the home fires burning.
Steve Nebel
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