January 4, 2010
Scotland’s premier winter festival celebrating roots music from across the globe, Celtic Connections, will be starting on Thursday 14th January.
Much like we did last year, we have compiled a special online-only guide to the festival, featuring audio clips and links to buy tickets. You can read it online or download the pdf.
January 1, 2010
Hoot 'n' Nanny
The dubiously-titled Noughties are now behind us and we have another 10 years until we’re back to the twenties.
I was going to reel off a list of predictions about what might happen in the next decade but someone came up with this list of predictions in 2004. Some of these might sound far-fetched but, for one example, research into nanotubes has come on considerably since 2004.
Anyway, rather than struggle to come up with some point, we’ll just bid you a Happy New Year and be done with it!
December 30, 2009
Tim Hart, front left, with Maddy Prior, Peter Knight and, back, Rick Kemp, Nigel Pegrum and Bob Johnson. Photograph: Jorgen Angel/Redferns/Getty
Tim Hart, who died aged 61 on Thursday 24th December 2009, was one of the original members of the highly successful folk-rock band Steeleye Span. When Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention to form a new band in 1971, he looked around for innovative folk musicians who were prepared to perform traditional folk songs with electric instruments. Already established as a folk duo, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior leapt at the opportunity.
More from The Guardian’s obituary.
December 28, 2009
Er… actually we’re not releasing anything today. In fact, we’re not even at work. But as an attempt to keep you entertained for visiting us, i’ll refer you on to armorgames.com, where you can play a range of flash-based computer games designed mostly by people in their bedrooms. Be warned though, this might prove to be highly addictive.
(This has nothing to do with Properganda, it’s something that i do every now and then when i get bored and have time.)
December 25, 2009
That’s right, it’s Christmas again.
A while ago (in the summer at some point) i was thinking about the song The Twelve Days Of Christmas and, thinking briefly about the numbers involved, it struck me how impractical the whole thing is.
There are sources to say that the whole thing is a religious allegory and not to be taken literally (like The Voice and carols.org), others find more literal meanings (like brownielocks.com) but this didn’t dissuade me from doing some number crunching.
By the twelfth day of Christmas, the donor (henceforth referred to as True Love) would have generously donated to the recipient (henceforth referred to as Me) the following:
A Partridge In A Pear Tree
12 partridges in 12 pear trees
22 turtle doves
30 French hens
36 calling birds
40 gold rings
42 geese a-laying
42 swans a-swimming
40 maids a-milking
36 ladies dancing
30 lords a-leaping
22 pipers piping and
12 drummers drumming
This equates to a total of 376 gifts comprising of 184 animals, 140 humans, 40 items of jewellery and 12 plants. (I have taken the cumulative values, as True Love repeatedly donates them per verse.)
Go Rin No Sho (The Book Of Five Rings)
Thinking i was particularly clever, i endeavoured to find out the total retail value of these gifts, based on the values they would have held in the 16th century in England, where the song is rumoured to have originated, then converting it to today’s value based on inflation. (The song is also rumoured to be French but this is a UK blog and there are only so many wrong trees i can bark up in one go.)
December 23, 2009
For the Twelve Days Of Christmas River Rat Records give to you… the opportunity to listen in advance to Ruth Theodore’s new album, White Holes Of Mole Hills. In the words of the nice folks at River Rat:
“One drummer drumming
2 pipers piping
6 strings a ringing
one %!&@? singing
12 whole daaaaaaaaaays!!!
9 whole tracks
played back to back
over 40 minutes long
and with no @*!%ing christmas songs!!!”
[I've censored the lyrics because we don't use naughty words on this blog - Ed]
December 22, 2009
Picture nicked from clipartof.com
On the four-and-twentieth evening of this lunar cycle, the central figure of a well-loved folk orchestra shall be a guest of the British Broadcasting Corporation on their secondary radio-wave transmission system, his words initially modulated into propergated oscillations approximately 14 hours after the sun has risen into the sky.
(Jon Boden will be on Radio 2 at 10:00PM on Christmas Eve.)
December 21, 2009
The popular BBC series featuring world-class musician from both sides of the Atlantic was first aired 15 years ago. Although the last in a series of repeats was broadcast this weekend, there is a cause to celebrate in that, for the first time, the musicians involved will be going on tour.
Here are the dates:
January
Fri 29th – Celtic Connections, Glasgow
Sun 31st – Celtic Connections, Glasgow
February
Tue 2nd – Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Wed 3rd – The Sage, Gateshead
Thu 4th – Waterfront Hall, Belfast
Fri 5th – Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Sat 6th – Royal Festival Hall, London
December 18, 2009
We’ve told you about other people’s favourites, now it’s time for ours! It’s been a very tricky decision but here we go:
December 17, 2009
The nice folks at Navigator and Reveal Records have been discussing their favourite albums of the decade and have been kind enough to list them for us.
JON BODEN (Bellowhead/ Spiers & Boden, Solo Artist)
Kate Bush – Aerial
Tom Waits – Blood Money
Ed Harcourt – The Beautiful Lie
Jim Moray – Sweet England
Mary Hampton – My Mothers Children
Eliza Carthy – Anglicana
Tom Waits – Orphans
The Long Blondes – Someone To Drive You Home
Eliza Carthy – Dreams Of Breathing Underwater
Martin Simpson – True Stories
Drew Hill
Esther Tewkesbury
Jon Roffey
stevekersley
simon holland
andy kiang
Dean Owens
folkboy
lisa goodall
jamiehalliday
