Issue 17 12/2000
The FolkWorld Top 10 2000
FolkWorld has compiled once again a Top 10 of the year 2000. And
now we want to know from you, which was your favourite CD of 2000. The results
of FolkWorld's Reader Top 10 2000 will be published in the next issue.
Those who cast their votes will take part automatically in a CD competition
where you can WIN twice 4
CDS at once (of your choice out of a selection of eight folk music
(promotional) CDs)!!!!
Go to the FolkWorld Top Ten and the Voting
Form.
Altan
members open Pub
Ireland. Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh and Dermot Byrne, core members of Ireland's probably
best traditional band Altan, have bought a pub in Teelin in beautiful south
west Donegal. This is an area the band take a lot of their music from and the
pub "Cúl a 'Dúin" is - of course - a music friendly venue.
The owners won't be seen very often in their pub, though, as Altan keep up their
successful story. After having done a 8 concert tour in Holland, they have celebrated
the vote of their album "Another Sky" as Traditional Album of the Year in the
Irish Music Magazine. Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh and Dermot Byrne will then appear
in the successful String Sisters project at Celtic Connections Festival in January
in Glasgow, before Altan head out to the USA in February for a four weeks intensive
tour. After that the band returns to Europe for a couple of dates in Norway,
before crossing back to the States for an April tour. Details at www.altan.ie
Photo: Altan's Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh & Dermot Byrne; Photo by The Mollis
Successful Zwolle Session
The Netherlands. There is a succesfull folk-session in Zwolle, in the Netherlands.
Every second Sunday of the month in the afternoon, starting at 2.30 p.m., at
Zamenhofsingel 5, Zwolle. Just pack your whistles or guitars into your bag and
come along... Additional infos from phantommask@yahoo.com
New Scottish collective
record company
Scotland. A group of Scottish independent record labels are to put together
a collective company with the aim of establishing wider distribution for their
products. The musicians, who include some very well known names in the traditional,
contemporary music scene, have been experiencing some problems in finding distribution
for themselves. It is obviously easier to work with established record companies
who have large catalogues, rather than deal with the administrative hassle of
working with many different individuals.
That this collective company takes the abbreviation ARC (for Artist Realisation
Collective) might become a bit of a problem, with a big Scientology-related
World music record company having the same letters. Still this
ARC, not related to the other one, seems to be a positive venture, aiming to
offer distribution companies an administrative central contact to all top quality
independent musical groups and individual artists in Scotland and Eire who perform
regularly on Festival/Concert stages in Europe and the U.S. Plans are to launch
the company in 2001, when a sampler CD featuring the artists concerned will
be released. This will be available to distribution companies only, and not
for general release.
Peter Stott of Artist Realisation asks for comments and advice on the sense
of such a project. One first advice from FolkWorld already: Change the name!
Still we wish good luck for this interesting venture.
Contact is: Artist Realisation, Peter F Stott, 11 Harling Drive, Troon KA10
6NF, Scotland. Tel/fax +44 (0) 1292 316968. pete@naereal.freeserve.co.uk
Sido Martens (ex-Fungus)
needs our support
Holland.
Two issues ago FolkWorld published an interview
with Sido Martens, then still one of the Fungus members. Only a few weeks
after this interview our reporter heard that he left the band for a second time
in his career.
Now Sido Martens has launched a unique project. He is looking for at least hundred
people who would like to invest in his new CD. He wants to make a personal work
without any influence of record-company or other institutes. So he is looking
for these people who are willing to pay 100 Dutch guilders before the end of
January. The money he will use for renting a studio and pay the expensive of
guest musicians (and knowing Sido, this will be top-musicians). The investor
gets a newsletter, a personal numbered and signed CD and is invited to the presentation
concert of the CD.
FolkWorld thinks that musicians who take these kinds of initiatives should be
supported. This is the way to make a work that is 100% the musician. Another
reason for supporting Sido is that our Dutch correspondent is highly impressed
by Sido's concerts. So, if you live in Holland visit his web page and read more
about this project. If you live outside Holland, contact Sido at his personal
e-mail address and ask how to participate in this unique project and get yourself
a personal collectors item with beautiful music.
Internet: http//listen.to/sidomartens
E-Mail: martens@bart.nl
News item by Eelco Schilder
Australian Folk Festival
live in the net
Australia/Tasmania. The Cygnet Folk Festival - the leading folk/world/roots
festival in the Australian state of Tasmania - is planning a second live webcast
this coming January 2001, on 12-14th Jan. The festival website at http://www.cygnetfolkfest.southcom.com.au
will feature a live feed in Real Audio from one of the concert venues.
This year the festival is proud to feature major Spanish band Felpeyu as well
as many Australian acts from the mainland and Tasmania. You can already hear
tracks from 10 bands on our website right now. So it looks like there is no
excuse to visit this big festival - if not in person, than at least virtually...
Portuguese top web mag
Portugal. Some colleagues in Portugal are running a very attractive and professional
internet magazine on tradtional music, which is highly recommended also to FolkWorld
readers. At-Tambur is written in Portuguese, but they will provide
a service that automatically translates the content to english, using ALTAVISTA
Babel Fish free Service. Although the translations are sometimes quite miserable,
it is definitely better than understanding nothing at all from this interesting
mag.
At-Tambur.com is an electronic World Music magazine that delivers information
about portuguese traditional music and dance, and everything that happens in
Portugal around World Music. This portal is updated every day with news, and
weekly with CD reviews, articles and sounds from researchs about Portuguese
Music, collected by musicians and ethno-Musicologists all over the country.
At-Tambur means in Arabic "the Drum" and in Persian "the Guitar", and this word
is the origin of the portuguese word "drum", but maintains - in some regions
of southern Europe - both meanings.
Visit At-Tambur at http://attambur.com. The
Translation Service is at http://www.attambur.com/translate.htm.
As FolkWorld, also At-Tambur offer a free newletter subscription; this is found
at http://attambur.com/mailing_list.htm
HARLEKIN RECORDS - Your source for FOLK MUSIC (North America, Ireland, Great
Britain), COUNTRY, BLUEGRASS and related music. Always more than 10.000 different
compact discs, LP-records and video tapes in stock!
Harlekin Records and
its full catalogue can be visited in the Internet!
Contact address: E-mail: Harlekin-Records@t-online.de;
Jürgen Feuß, Postfach 110142-FW, 28081 Bremen / GERMANY. Phone: +49
421 7 49 10, FAX: +49 421 70 0051
Interactive Online Guitar
Course
Internet. Will we need in future "real" music teacher, real music
workshops? At least there are test for alternatives - or simply additions. "The
World's first truly interactive online guitar course", as they say, has
been launched by Songplayer.com, "making music tuition easier, faster and
better".
This online guitar course is completely free, and is especially useful for those
wanna-be guitarists who own a guitar and haven't yet quite worked out how to
play it. Launched worldwide on December 1st, this unique set of lessons has
been designed to teach individuals at their own pace. Starting at a very basic
level - "What's the difference between an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar?"
- the virtual tutor uses photographs and video to guide the novice right through
to playing simple songs. This course has several major advantages over traditional
methods, such as: It's the most inexpensive way to study guitar. The student
has full control over what they want to learn and when they learn it. Any part
of the course can be re-visited at any point. Anyone following the simple steps
will quickly be able to play simple songs. Once the simple songs are mastered,
guitarists can learn to play along with their favourite stars. See songplayer.com
Skye and Lochalsh Traditional
Music Project
Scotland.
Louise Mackenzie, a native of Nigg in Easter Ross and accomplished traditional
fiddler, composer and music tutor, has been appointed to co-ordinate an initiative
to encourage and promote different aspects of traditional music in Skye and
Lochalsh. Her post - which is for twelve months initially, but with the possibility
of running for a further three years - has been created as a result of a 65,000
Pound funding partnership involving the Scottish Arts Council's National Lottery
Fund, the regional LEADER II Programme, Skye and Lochalsh Local Enterprise Company
and The Highland Council.
The initial inspiration for the Traditional Music Project came as a result of
a feasibility study into sector's potential commissioned in 1997 by the Skye
& Lochalsh Local Enterprise Company. Following intensive consultation by local
company Macmeanmna, the study concluded that a wide spectrum of traditional
music activity was already on-going in Skye and Lochalsh, ranging from instrument
tuition in schools and private coaching to píobaireachd competitions and Féisean.
However, the study identified several areas worthy of attention - notably local
township-based tuition and the promotion of large outdoor events. The study's
main recommendation was that a year's pilot project should be run and this should,
ideally, pave the way for a further three years work in the sector.
The project is also seeking to employ community-based co-ordinators, and would
like to hear from people who might like to be considered for a range of part-time
contracts coming over the next few months.
Louise will be based initially within the Féisean nan Gàidheal
office in Portree. Her contact address is Skye & Lochalsh Traditional Music
Project, c/o Féisean nan Gàidheal, Nicolson House, Somerled Square, Portree,
Isle of Skye, IV51 9EJ. Her telephone number is 01478 613355, fax 01478 613399
and e-mail louise@feisean.org.
Photo by The Mollis.
Tragic Death: Kirsty MacColl
England/Mexico. British folk/pop singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl passed away
in the Mexican holiday resort Cozumel at a bathing accident. The 41 year old
was run over by a motor boar, sailing in a beach area reserved for swimming.
MacColl, daughter of the British folk revivalist Ewan MacColl, had published
records since an age of 19. She became famous especially by the collaboration
with the Pogues in "A Fairytale of New York, where she sang in duo with
Shane MacGowan.
She leaves two children.
(Reuters)
English Song Project Concerts
in Winter
England. The English high quality a capella trio Coope Boyes & Simpson have
a couple of interesting concert projects in England in the pipeline.
Steve Henderson, whose Mr Kite concerts have done much to raise funds for local
and national good causes in Leyland, has asked the band to devise an evening
of songs in support of the work of Amnesty International to be performed in
the imaginatively designed spaces of Worden Arts Centre in Leyland. "No Tyrant
Dread: Songs of the Struggle for Human Rights" is the title of this Concert
for Amnesty International at the 10 February 2001.
Just two weeks later, the 24 February 2001, they will be singing at an event
for Ashgate Hospice, Chesterfield Miners'Welfare in Chesterfield.
Then, to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the end of the Miners' Strike on
6 March, the trio has put together a new words and music production about the
life and work of coal miners featuring the The Rolling Stock Company - the lively
and talented choir Barry directs and Ray Hearne, whose inspired songwriting
celebrates the spirit of South Yorkshire communities. With traditional songs
and stories, first hand accounts and some of the best of more recent songwriting,
"Hearts of Coal" promises to be funny and moving. The venue is still to be confirmed.
Additionally, they have a couple of "usual" club concerts, not only in England,
but also (in March/April) in Belgium and the Netherlands. All dates and further
infos at the website, or from Georgina
Boyes.
Skye Live - Scottish music gigs around the world
Scotland. Skye Live! is a new free internet live music listing, featuring
worldwide concerts of bands and musicians with a Scottish connection. They list
gigs worldwide Bands listed include the Tannahill Weavers, the Battlefield Band,
Blazin Fiddles and many more. Definitely useful. The address of the site is
http://www.skyelive.com
Photo: Ivan Drever & Duncan Chisholm, by The Mollis
Scotland debut of Tejedor
from Asturias
Scotland/Asturias. One of the best iberian pipers, José Manuel Tejedor, is visiting
with his brothers and group the big Scottish Celtic Connections Festival 2001
in Glasgow. They play three concerts, on the 11th, 12th and 13th January. A
definite highlight of Celtic Connections!
Scottish Label supporting
Brain Tumour research
Scotland. The established folk music label Temple Records (among others for
Battlefield Band) will be supporting over the next three months the Brain Tumour
Research Fund by donating 1 Pound for every CD and book purchased from their
website to this research project in Glasgow. If you want to take this as a reason
to do some online shopping at Temple, or just want to find out more about the
research work, visit Temple's
website.
New Belgian folkclub
Belgium. FolkStage is the name of a very promising new folk club
based in Hasselt. For the next few months, the club offers performances of top
acts such as Barachois, Sharon Shannon, Show of Hands, Rawhide, Wolfstone, The
Levellers. For September, they plan to have a folk festival. More info: http://www.folkstage.com
Photo: Sharon Shannon, Photo by The Mollis
Early announcement...
Belgium. To mark already in the calendar: The Folkfestival Na Fir Bolg in Vorselaar
happens in 2001 from the 6th to the 8th July. Coinciding with Rudolstadt TFF
in Germany, by the way...
Snapshot Results
The last one was a really difficult one, when we wanted to know to what band
these socks belong to. The photo was taken at the Folk Festival in Rudolstadt,
and the photo shows one of Germany's new favourite bands in the roots music
genre, Lecker Sachen.
Photo: Lecker Sachen, Photo by The Mollis.
In the German news you can find as additional news:
To the (older) FolkWorld News of Nr. 16
To the (newer) FolkWorld News of Nr. 18
To the content of FolkWorld online magazine Nr. 17
© The Mollis - Editors of FolkWorld; Published 12/2000All material published in FolkWorld is © The Author via FolkWorld. Storage for private use is allowed and welcome. Reviews and extracts of up to 200 words may be freely quoted and reproduced, if source and author are acknowledged. For any other reproduction please ask the Editors for permission.