The Cheerful Insanity of Me

As if 1 dance out wasn't enough for a weekend (which it clearly isn't!), Blackheath are also dancing out this weekend, on Saturday in the Borough:

We're going to be doing something along the lines of:

12.15-13.25 The Anchor
13.30-14.40 Old Thameside Inn
14.50-16.00 George Inn
16.30 A Deli in Deptford for some reason (Your guess is as good as mine!)

I'll probably run off the London Barndance afterwards as it's Fiddlegang.

Now just to find some dancing for Sunday...

There's something really special about opening up LJ friend's list and finding this as the first post. Yey, Fame! (OK, I wasn't part of them 40 years ago due to non-existence, but Yay anyway).

I just love this quote though:

Long haired Morris dancing crew (Blackheath Foot & Death Men) in intensive training for Summer Festivals and Civil Insurrection narrowly escaped arrest after ejection from Woolwich Indian Restaurant due to the role of a meat cleaver in the performance of their traditional English dance

I can just see that happening.

Nearly 40 years later, we are still going strong and can be seen dancing out in Greenwich today, although probably without the meat cleaver. Details here.

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This is clearly what I'm missing by not having a TV.

No idea which side it is on there though. It was apparently Moulton Morris (and if I'd actually paid attention to the link I followed to find it, I would have known that, oops)

So, Wallingford was the last of the festivals I had lined up to dance at this summer, so I suppose that means summer is now over :-(

Lots of other dance outs to come over the next couple of months though, all the ceilidhs will start up again soon and from this week it's back to dance practices 3 nights a week (although that said one of them is actually a dance out this week, so that's not technically true) and then there's freaky things happening a couple of weeks time in the peak district.

Invites are already coming in for next summer though, which means next year looks like it may include Golowan with Thrales, Ely (hopefully for the whole weekend if those of us who seemed keen on the idea this weekend can persuade enough of the others to make a side) and Whitby with Gogs (which by my calculations would lead to a high probability of having a Thrales set at the latter too for an evening tour or two) as definite invites, Chepstow have said they'll be inviting Wild Hunt back again next year and Blackheath seem to have a standing invite to Saddleworth Rushcart.

Next year should be fun.

As I've said previously, I tend to buy quite a few second hand CDs. I had this idea that I'd start posting reviews here, the upshot of which is that rather than ending up writing lots of reviews and boring you all, I end up with CDs slowly piling up next to the computer, so it's probably time to start rectifying this again.

That said I didn't buy the CD currently on the top of the pile and second one isn't second-hand, so that first sentance is complete rubbish and I probably should throw it out the window and start again, but we'll carry on and see where this goes instead.

Anyway, top of the pile is a copy of "Silkie" by Frock which I picked up from bagrec at the first Blackheath practice I went to. Hands up who's heard of them then? No-one? Oh well, there's a surprise. I hadn't either.

Frock were a psychedelic folk-rock group in the late 70s presumably based somewhere around SE London given the last track. The album does have a similar feel to it to some of the work of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span and is generally well executed throughout. Instrumentally the album is dominated by traditional instruments (particularly fiddle) mixed with electric piano, which works really well as a combination giving it the whole folk with a contemporary edge feel.

They also benefit from a really strong vocalist and on many of the tracks (not the instrumental ones obviously) they're able to let her just take the center of attention.

In short, this is an album composed of 9 excellent folk-rock tracks. Apparently, it's so good it's worth £137 (at least that's what someone recently paid for it on ebay), but I'm not sure I'd go that far.

And if your not satisfied with the first 9 tracks, they round the album off with something a little different. Namely this:

The Blackheath Morris Stick Throwing Dance (mp3) (via bagrec)

As the name implies, it's an audio recording of morris dancing, namely Blackheath performing their own special version of "Young Collins" to a backing of Frock.

It's utterly excellent! The world clearly needs more audio recordings of morris dancing...

So yesterday evening, we went all the way over here.

3 hours of travel either way for a 3 hour dance out does seem a little excessive, but it's not everyday you get invited to one of the Cotsworld villages. Although going there as a London side and performing dances from the North-East does seem somewhat like holding up a big sign saying "Look! We're lost".

Bampton itself seems to have several morris sides all with names like The Bampton Traditional Morris Dancers, The Traditional Morris Dancers of Bampton, The Bampton Dancers of Traditional Morris, The Peoples Front of Judea, etc, etc. I got a bit confused by this, so now have no idea which side we were invited by, but it was very nice of them to invite us all the same and, all in all, it's an interesting place to go on the late May bank holiday and well worth a visit.

Our dances generally went ok, although there were a few interesting "variations" and in the last dance the set was just a blur (or it was until I regained my glasses).

I generally have a cord on my glasses when I dance rapper to hold them on, but forgot to tighten it up and somehow managed to pass the sword through it when I passed it behind me with the obvious result when the swords went up in the first chorus. It's quite strange to realise the whole worlds gone blury, there are lots of swords twirling around you and somewhere in the middle of it all are your glasses are hanging there.