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Michele's September 2011 Newsletter
Greetings Music Lovers
Well, seems a long time since WoodWorks - which was great - apart from a couple of hours shower (well, downpour really) on Sunday, but thank you to everyone who turned up, some of you for both days, and hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. There are pictures up on the Marston Vale website. I have been asked to do it all again next year, so if you have any suggestions, now is the time to let me know!
However, more immediately, are the next two events at the Corn Exchange, starting with:
MIKE HARDING'S AUTUMN TOUR 2011 www.mikeharding.co.uk
"Me, a guitar and some daft stuff"
THURSDAY OCTOBER 27th at Bedford Corn Exchange 8pm
*Tickets £15.00 (and concessions) 01234-219519
*******Ticket price includes a pre-gig session with Bedford's own Celtically Connected FAERIES WEAR BOOTS from 7pm to 7-45pm in the Howard Room where you can relax with a drink, meet some old friends, and enjoy some great live music prior to the main event.
For those of you familiar with Mike's weekly Radio 2 folk programme which started in 1999, you may not be aware of his many other interests and achievements.
Fifteen years after giving up touring the folk clubs and festivals, folk singer and comedian, writer and broadcaster, Mike Harding is back on the road with a vengeance. Following a try-out tour of arts centres and small theatres earlier this year, Mike’s decided he enjoyed it so much he wants to do it all over again in the autumn.
In October and November he’ll be taking his own unique mix of folk songs, monologues and daft stories to theatres and concert halls from Bedford to Blackpool, Scarborough to Stratford.
In a career that’s lasted almost 50 years, Mike’s built up a back catalogue of over 20 albums and even made the charts in the 1980s with his single “Rochdale Cowboy”. Less well known is the fact that he’s been equally prolific as a writer with over 20 books and 8 plays to his credit.
Well, seems a long time since WoodWorks - which was great - apart from a couple of hours shower (well, downpour really) on Sunday, but thank you to everyone who turned up, some of you for both days, and hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. There are pictures up on the Marston Vale website. I have been asked to do it all again next year, so if you have any suggestions, now is the time to let me know!
However, more immediately, are the next two events at the Corn Exchange, starting with:
MIKE HARDING'S AUTUMN TOUR 2011 www.mikeharding.co.uk
"Me, a guitar and some daft stuff"
THURSDAY OCTOBER 27th at Bedford Corn Exchange 8pm
*Tickets £15.00 (and concessions) 01234-219519
*******Ticket price includes a pre-gig session with Bedford's own Celtically Connected FAERIES WEAR BOOTS from 7pm to 7-45pm in the Howard Room where you can relax with a drink, meet some old friends, and enjoy some great live music prior to the main event.
For those of you familiar with Mike's weekly Radio 2 folk programme which started in 1999, you may not be aware of his many other interests and achievements.
Fifteen years after giving up touring the folk clubs and festivals, folk singer and comedian, writer and broadcaster, Mike Harding is back on the road with a vengeance. Following a try-out tour of arts centres and small theatres earlier this year, Mike’s decided he enjoyed it so much he wants to do it all over again in the autumn.
In October and November he’ll be taking his own unique mix of folk songs, monologues and daft stories to theatres and concert halls from Bedford to Blackpool, Scarborough to Stratford.
In a career that’s lasted almost 50 years, Mike’s built up a back catalogue of over 20 albums and even made the charts in the 1980s with his single “Rochdale Cowboy”. Less well known is the fact that he’s been equally prolific as a writer with over 20 books and 8 plays to his credit.
Posted on 13 Oct 2011 by michele
Winter & Fall 2011 Newsletter
Greetings Music Lovers
Well, seems a long time since WoodWorks - which was great - apart from a couple of hours shower (well, downpour really) on Sunday, but thank you to everyone who turned up, some of you for both days, and hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. There are pictures up on the Marston Vale website. I have been asked to do it all again next year, so if you have any suggestions, now is the time to let me know!
However, more immediately, are the next two events at the Corn Exchange, starting with:
MIKE HARDING'S AUTUMN TOUR 2011www.mikeharding.co.uk
"Me, a guitar and some daft stuff"
THURSDAY OCTOBER 27th at Bedford Corn Exchange 8pm
*Tickets £15.00 (and concessions) 01234-219519
*******Ticket price includes a pre-gig session with Bedford's own Celtically Connected FAERIES WEAR BOOTS from 7pm to 7-45pm in the Howard Room where you can relax with a drink, meet some old friends, and enjoy some great live music prior to the main event.
For those of you familiar with Mike's weekly Radio 2 folk programme which started in 1999, you may not be aware of his many other interests and achievements.
Fifteen years after giving up touring the folk clubs and festivals, folk singer and comedian, writer and broadcaster, Mike Harding is back on the road with a vengeance. Following a try-out tour of arts centres and small theatres earlier this year, Mike’s decided he enjoyed it so much he wants to do it all over again in the autumn.
In October and November he’ll be taking his own unique mix of folk songs, monologues and daft stories to theatres and concert halls from Bedford to Blackpool, Scarborough to Stratford.
In a career that’s lasted almost 50 years, Mike’s built up a back catalogue of over 20 albums and even made the charts in the 1980s with his single “Rochdale Cowboy”. Less well known is the fact that he’s been equally prolific as a writer with over 20 books and 8 plays to his credit.
“People often asked me why I no longer toured – the answer was always that it wasn’t a conscious thing,” says Mike, “I just ended up climbing and trekking in the Himalayas and doing other stuff like writing books on church architecture and fly fishing and they sort of took over.”
“Well now, I have removed the stake from my heart, binned the garlic and rolled back the tomb lid and I’m heading for a gig somewhere near you.”
Despite his lengthy absence from the clubs and concerts, Mike’s retained a link with up to a million of his former fans through his weekly Folk, Roots and Acoustic show on BBC Radio 2.
But he didn’t expect such a tremendous response to the try-out tour in the spring. Every show was a complete sell out with most of them asking if they could do a second, or even a third, night.
Mike’s autumn tour retains the title of his spring outing: “Me, a guitar and some daft stuff”. It promises an evening of songs, stories and monologues. With over forty years of material to draw on, the man once described as the “grandfather of alternative comedy” will be re-visiting a repertoire that has had audiences collapse with laughter all over the world.
Mike’s particularly looking forward to visiting Bedford as it’s one of the few towns in the UK he’s never done a show. He remembers performing in a folk club pub near Bedford though over 30 years ago.
“I can’t remember the name of the pub but what I do remember is that my big bass concertina fell apart that night.” He recalled. “The instrument featured hugely in one of my songs - The Strangeways Hotel - a comic song about Strangeways Prison in Manchester. This was a really important number in the show and in fact became the b-side of my only hit, The Rochdale Cowboy.
The concertina was very old, the size of a suitcase, with fretted wooden ends which had pretty much been eaten away by age. After the gig that night I looked at a caved in mess of buttons and springs.
“ ‘Ah’ said the bloke I was staying with, a teacher in a local school, ‘I can fix that’.”
“Next morning he went into the school that he taught in very early and borrowed one of the aluminium kick plates off a classroom door. Sneaking into the metalwork room he cut two endplates out and fretted them to the original design. That night I had me a hundred year old concertina with new metal ends. Can I say, to protect the guilty, that the school has since closed – but if anybody is still wondering where the kick panel went from the chemistry lab. It’s on the ends of my concertina.”
And he’s heading South - but not too far - with shows in Nottingham, Leicester, Stourbridge and Tewkesbury, as well as to Bedford Corn Exchange.
“I considered going even further South but if you go much beyond Bedford you drop off,” he explained.
Posted on 13 Oct 2011 by michele
