Our last rehearsal of the year last night gave us the opportunity to work on some new material. And to re-arrange a couple of favourites. We had a "staff do" first with a mug of tea and a mince pie, then jammed a bit before going over to the Blue Pig for some IPA and Rockin' Rudolph. Well it is nearly Christmas.
From the current set list, our version of "Bonny Black Hare/ Dirty Gertie" which we worked on last night now has an extended instrumental bridge featuring a new arrangement of a jig which fiddle player Eddie has been itching to introduce for ages. This is a long number,(actually it's two numbers-one "segues effortlessly" into another. Because BBH/DG runs to about nine minutes, we didn't put it on the album and we didn't get a chance to do it at any of our three appearances at the Bedworth Folk Festival.
BBH is a jolly good song-Fairport's version being our favourite-and Dirty Gertie is an acoustic version of a song we did when we were a rock band. Lyrics by Graham Caldicot, an ex-Parrot who also wrote part of "Vacuum Cleaner." We hope to keep it in our fuller sets for a long time-we all enjoy playing it, and where we have performed it, audiences have been very responsive.
We are also working at a slightly lengthened version of "D.I.Y." We would like to finish our set(s) with this number, and use it to thank the audience and highlight individual musicians before closing the set.
New stuff. Our revenge mission on awful Lancashire Sentimentality sees " I'm only a Poor Little Rhino" played back to back with " Albert Balls"-a song in the "Bryan and Michael " tradition, celebrating an artist whose tag can be seen on subway walls everywhere.
Newer still-what other folk band but us would attempt a Beyonce cover? Coming soon- "If I were a Goat." And a new ditty swiping waspishly at those Bankers (Cockney Rhyming Slang) who " Slit the throat of Woollies ."
