“I Belong to This Band!”
Sligo River Blues - Fahey Arr. Williams
“I Belong to This Band!” is a shifting collective of musicians and other performers who come together to perform a set-list of songs, stories, dances, in celebration of the Folk Traditions of the British Isles.
We are doing R&D residencies and Scratch showings (Battersea Arts Centre, May 2010, Forest Fringe, August 2010; Emergency Platform Manchester, October 2010; You and Your Work, Arnolfini, Bristol, Nov 13th 2010) before a Rural Tour of Great Britain 2011/12.
Chris write a blog post about our first week. Check it out.
(Image: This Band! 1st October 2010, Emergency Platform, Greenroom, Manchester SL-SR: Simon Bowes Chris Williams, Hannah Reade, Jon Aveyard, Gareth Cutter, Philip John Lloyd Sykes)
I.
I had a dream once, and I’m not an old man. A lot of people have had much more significant dreams. In this dream I was standing on the bridge looking East - at very green, fertile valleys, houses and happy people. But this was just a dream, or to quote St. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, xxi (my translation) “-it is one thing to see the land of peace from a bridge - and another to get there” Open G tuning 6th; Keys of G major and E minor [1]
II.
I’ve played cards in England
I’ve played cards in Spain
I’ll come back to London
To play my last game
(Step on her boys, step on her) [2]
III.
A photograph pitted with mould
More scratch than record
North or south clef
(Abraham Lincoln: “no grain left in yankee silos”)
Ricket-fenced horizon, no path, man falling into background scar [3]
IV.
He rambled around the country making songs for the people that asked him to. Possessed of a fine, high singing voice and a battered old accordion, recorded thirty-four sides, Bluebird, Arhoolie, Colombia, did the one-step, the polka, the mazurka, the reel, the cotillion, the varsovienne.
The date and the place went un-recorded: 1939 or 40, walking home from the dance house a white woman lends him her handkerchief.
“I’m going home / to live the life of an orphan…” [4]
* * *
This Band! has been
*Jon Aveyard *Simon Bowes (Kings of England, Sometimes…) *Ira Brand (Tinned Fingers) *Alison Cooper (Magpahi) *Gareth Cutter *Tom Frankland * Hannah Reade (Wandering Swallows) *Eilidh MacAskill (Fish & Game) *Sam McLoughlin (samandtheplants) *Caroline Pugh* Chris Thorpe *Unlimited Theatre) *Chris Williams (Drunken Chorus) *Nick Williams (theybreakinpieces)
[1] after John Fahey
[2] after Grayson & Whitter
[3] after Conan Lawrence
[4] Trad. For Amadie Ardoin
