2020 Singles, Syracuse, When The Roses Are In Bloom, In The Haze

 

I made something of a New Year's Resolution at the start of the year that in 2020 I would put something out in my own name. Up to that point I'd put out Cloudwalking in the Concreteworld back in 2004 and a second EP, Moments Stolen Back in 2009, so it had been quite some time.

The unexpected lockdown has largely been a massive pain in the backside, but it seems to have aided me in fulfilling this resolution at least!

I've already blogged about the album that was put together, Cestrian, but I've not done a piece on the three singles that have also been put out there.

First up was Syracuse

I'd not written a full song with lyrics and everything for almost two years. This emerged out of a couple of chords that I'd been playing around with for a while. It didn't take too long to get into shape, once I put my mind to it. It will be difficult to play live on my own, maybe the Dicey Rileys could try. The few solos are a key part of the song, really. It was the first song mixed by the label with separate tracks and it's a lovely mix. It would go well with some joss-sticks, I reckon.

The b-sides Psycho Baby and Shake My Tree were False Poets demos that went unused, one of them getting the Support Band treatment.

Fast forward about six weeks to the summer and the second single from Cestrian was released. NICE016 When the Roses Are In Bloom

It's a more sombre affair than Syracuse, probably a stronger song. I think Lockdown was starting to take a toll. You can hear that also in one of the b-sides, another original Away from my Door. It's pretty miserable, really! I did a lively trad song The Millers Three Sons to perk this particular release up, but I do like Roses. I probably prefer it to Syracuse, really. It's got one or two chords borrowed from Forever Changes which helped set it on its way.

The Support Band did a meditative mix of Syracuse to round things off and set up the album release nicely for July.

It was the last release to be recorded on my trusty old Zoom MRS-4 recorder. Maybe if I did it today, there would be more guitar parts on it, rather than the 4 tracks of acoustic, bass, solo and vocal, but the arrangement quite suits as is.

NICE017 In The Haze

b/w (There'll Never Be) Another You.

Both songs were written, well finished on the same day, I think. I had a week off work in September. Tiers were announced. Trips to the pub were to be put on hold. Both songs informed by the sense of missing people. The b-side came first. With the a-side, I recorded the main part in the morning, just some chords I liked the sound of. When I came back to it in the evening, it already seems to be in some sort of song shape. It's the first release to be recorded on the Tascam Model 12. It's an improvement on the MRS-4. Again, only four tracks used, but there's a lot of depth there. I set up a small vox amp to play some grungey open chords on, possibly with some flange on and the label obliged with another very tasteful mix. It was released digitally less than a fortnight after being written and recorded, so it didn't really get any promotion, but that's ok. 

All artwork above by sydelic.

I've not done any livestreaming during the lockdown, but I made a video of me playing the two singles that I can get away with playing on me own. Maybe I should be playing my own things more regularly?

Who knows, but I do hope that inspiration, isn't too far away cos I did have a lot of fun putting these. together.

NICE017 Cestrian

 

As I write, it's been a couple of months since my debut album Cestrian was released, so after the initial rush of interest has dimmed it's a good time for me to blather on about it and dispel any air of mystery which may have built up around this, the 17th Nice Mind Records release and the 4th to make it to CD.

Lockdown 2020 played a part in compiling and composing Cestrian. Obviously, I couldn't do much at all with The Dicey Rileys or The False Poets. Taking inspiration from Kevin Phillipson's marvellous The Fool and the Moon my soundcloud recordings going back almost 10 years were plundered and I found a little inspiration on the way with the essential help of the label to get it all together. 

The songs were recorded by myself on my trusty Zoom MRS 4. I think I bought that in 2001, possibly from Sounds Live in Newcastle (RIP, Sounds Live). I was actually talking to the lad who used to work in there the other day. His dad was one of the owners and he said rumour had it that they went bust, so if anyone thinks that, Sounds Live didn't go bust, the business was wound down and the owners are enjoying as pleasant a retirement as you can do in a Corona infected country, I guess. Also, heavily featured, the ever trusty Fender DG21S acoustic guitar that I got from Windows in, 1998 I think for about £225 which was pretty much that semester's student grant, which I quite luckily caught the tail end of before they were banned for good. Ok, that's enough of that. I'll waffle on about the songs now...

Syracuse

I think I put this together not long after discussing an album with the label, or maybe just before as I was contemplating it. It was the first song I'd written since Ghost Ship nearly two years before. I put the main body of the acoustic down first, filled it out with the bass then added 2 or 3 solos, leaving spaces for verses. Lyrically, I don't like to say too much without spoiling other people's meanings that they may attach to it. There's a myth attached to a river in Syracuse, which I just like the sound of, really. I sort of used that to come up with some lines and images for the lyrics. I think there is some label influence on the song here. I know whitevanperil and Support Band like to stretch some music out and I've kind of done that here with repeating two chords for longer than may seem necessary. I think I did alright in putting the solos down and being able to remember when the thing changed!

Syracuse was my own and the label's first single. The link above on the song title takes you there. 2 b sides which were False Poets intended songs acoustically demo-ed but never used by the band. One of the songs stretched out psychotically by the Support Band. As it's a single the download is only a quid. I mean, come on! Also, and this is rather technical, Syracuse was the first song on the album that the label could get it's hands on individual tracks of the songs as I could transfer the files of the individual tracks separately whereas, with the older songs the label had to do its best with my mixed of the whole song, if that makes sense. 

Pockets Full of Rime

This is the oldest song on the album. Written and recorded in 2011, so the only pre-Poets song here. The tune I wrote on a break in the Lakes. Do you know, I can't remember how to play the bloody thing! I get the main part, but there's some manoeuvre I do leading into the end of the verse which I remember thinking at the time "Ooh, that's clever!" well, I've outwitted my future self there. I think I was getting to know Tristan quite well then. The lines were kind of inspired by reading the wikipedia entry on Tristan and Isolde after he'd been talking about his name, just to set me off, really and get some images to play with. The internet age sort of dumbing me down by googling things instead of actually reading a book. It works well on the headphones this one and it's pleasing to go from one of the new songs, the opener, to the oldest of the selection.

Kirsten's Song

This is one of the few songs I've written the lyrics first for. I think I wrote them pretty quickly at work for one of my delightful colleagues who said that nobody has written a song for Kirsten. Regarding, the squeezing in the lyrics, when having a cup of tea made, I don't like my tea bag squeezed. I'm a stirrer not a squeezer, you see. She was putting algae in her smoothies, I think, which seems quite unconventional and we find out that giraffes and mooses moo. I'm sure you would get along with Kirsten if you met her. I miss working with her.

The only appearance of mandolin on the album, a cheap one at that. It doesn't half rattle along. I was a bit embarrassed about it, really, thinking it was just a laugh, but there's nothing wrong with that and it rightly claims its place on the album. I quite liked that the NARC article refers to it as vaudevillian. 

Charlotte's Tune

This tune came to me at the end of the fancy cheese and pork pie section of Morrison's in Chester-le-Street. That melody on the recorder was just playing in my head for some reason, so I let it play it and kept repeating it till I got home. The only words I could think of was "Charlotte at the window" to the start of the tune. Charlotte being my Uncle Dave's white long-haired cat I'd met during a recent visit. I couldn't think of any more words than that, but it's still dedicated to her. It went down quite well on soundcloud and got called a sweet tune. It's not a fancy recorder. I would've liked a wooden one. There's a couple of slightly raspy notes in there, but just about getaway with it. It's funny when tunes come to you like that. It doesn't happen very often. I think it might happen more when not stressed!

Gaia's Answer

The album changes tone a little here. I'll not say a great deal about it lyrically other than I don't think I would have written it if I hadn't on a whim went to the Great Gas Gala in Balcombe one weekend in August 2013. I met some pretty amazing people there. I didn't get in any bother. Musically the riff seems to have been informed by my guitar part on Tristan's Did It Feel Real? I was writing songs quite a lot then. The Poets were over a year old. I guess it's like a muscle, songwriting or music making, the more you do it, the more comes through.

Fortune All Around

Topographically linked to Chester le Street market. I was back living at my home town after some years in Gateshead and living in a flat on the Front Street for a few fairly happy years, I'd say. It was good to be back in Chester. I picked up a strange book from the market one day by Dion Fortune. I'd not read anything like it. I've some more of her books to read. The only other one was a book of short stories, The Secrets of Dr Taverner. One story, A Daughter of Pan, was great. I don't think I've any songs dedicated to any authors. Dion must've made an impression.

Mad Machine

There's a few words about this on The False Poets blog. This was the original, semi-drunken recording which the label gave a lo-fi sheen to. I don't think I had recorded it brilliantly, maybe cos I was half cut. So, remotely, during lockdown label business discussions, why not have it wrapped up as some sort of answerphone message? I'm trying to get a message to you! It's so important I have to ring you up and tell you about it. The "End of messages" bit at the end makes me chuckle. Is there a scene in Phoenix Nights when Brian checks his voicemail and he gets told he's got no messages? It's quite fun to play with songs in this way. The label encourages and facilitates this sort of thing. Give the label a follow on various social media platforms! I can't on Facebook presently. Some git hacked me account and was trying to fleece friends and family in my name, godammit!

Mad Machine was to be the last song on Side A, but I went and wrote another lockdown song...

When The Roses Are In Bloom

The first music I've written in my garden. The lyrics written a few days later on one of my daily permitted exercise walks in the local countryside I can get to from my door. This was the second single, released a month before the album. In terms of online plays, it didn't do as well as Syracuse, which was a little disappointing. It's not the happiest listen, to be fair. In fact, it's possibly one of the saddest things I've written. Maybe. It could be lockdown was getting to me. I tried to perk it up with the b-sides of The Miller's Three Sons which I think might be the only time I've recorded tenor banjo. I also sort of wrote another song Away From My Door. I say, sort of wrote, it was more mucking about in open G tuning and then playing it back and thinking I could fit a few lines in here and there. There's a bit of self referencing to older songs I've written. I'm so self obsessed it's ridiculous! I should probably see someone, really. Thank you for reading this! 

The Support Band reference the previous single with this meditative remix making the Roses release an EP with 4 tracks. So, again, as with Syracuse, the label had split tracks to work with here, so there is lovely touches of reverb to different instruments that was more easily done when there was just my whole mix of the songs to work with.

That's side A brought to a close in rather sombre fashion, I think. I like the title. It sounds like what song titles used to be with crackly 78s when there weren't too many motor cars on the road.

A Fistful of Quavers

I'm pretty sure I recorded this the same day I did Cestrian. This was early afternoon tho. The False Poets had disbanded very recently. My creative train was about to crash off the tracks. The rate of songs from 2012 through to 2014 was about to hit the buffers, just like how I'm running out of train analogies now.

This is quite good fun. Pretty much an improvised piece. It's heavily informed by Side B of Love's debut album, maybe Mushroom Clouds, more specifically. Here's an acoustic guitar, dick around with a chord or 3 and see what comes out. Don't ask about the title. Maybe there's a play on words with the musical note and the curly crisp thing, but then the quavers are doing that anyway by being shaped a bit like quavers, or something. It's getting late. I should get to bed!

Autumn Colours

Written quite quickly whilst in the Poets in 2013, I think and living in Gateshead at the time. Some nice big trees outside the tower block. There wasn't much else to look at. Musically, kind of informed by some of the stripped down Blood on the Tracks recordings, just get a relatively simple chord change and put on repeat. Maybe it could be arranged to work with a band at some point? Autumn is starting to come on now. Half of California is on fire presently. Not sure if that is autumnal or not...

Apple of Your Eye

Topographically linked to Chester Moor as I wrote the second verse on the way up to see Chester Town play Alnwick at Moor Park. First game of the season and the Cestrians keeper got sent off after ten minutes. I think it was a draw in the end. If I remember right, Chester went a goal up just before the break only for Alnwick to equalize directly from the kick off. Quite amazing, really. 
The Poets have rehearsed this a couple of times and it sounds good in a band setting, but we haven't persisted with it. It's one of my favourites. Some tasteful mixing done by the clever bastards at the label. It's not a very long song, but it has some lines in that I am most pleased with out of my collection of scribblings.

The Dirge

Possibly the piece de resistance, the centrepoint of Cestrian. The Dirge. Discussions with the label at the beginning of lockdown on what tunes to take from my soundcloud had Dirge in E Minor on the back hob. An instrumental yang to Charlotte's Tune's yin, The Dirge was one of those tunes which came to me whilst I was going about my business. As with Charlotte's, it was a case of letting it play out, this time whilst walking down the Front Street on a grey day, past the empty shops and down by the daytime drinkers of G.W. Horners before getting home to transcribe the bloody thing on the guitar. Compare the soundcloud recording to the album Dirge tho. I was aware that the title track of the album is an instrumental and Chester deserved having a few words said about it, so I suggested to the label adding some verses I had written about the town into the Dirge and see if that works. It's the NARC guy's favourite track of the album. Stellar work in the mix by the label. The full verses to The Dirge are here. Written in a creative writing workshop in the much missed Willy Nilly which I sang about here. The work shop was delivered by a writer lady, I forget her first name. Robinson. I used to work with her mother in Peterlee. It's a Smalls World!

Cestrian

This was written and recorded in one go I'm pretty sure on the night of having recorded Quavers. I thought it would be interesting to play some sort of electric guitar over some DADGAD tuning. DADGAD does have a Celtic feel to it, which for some obscure, possibly misguided reason I associated with Chester-le-Street. My electric guitar part is played on my Sheraton, rather than my Squier Strat which was injured at the time. It's played through a small Vox amp in one of its pre programmed settings, so no pedal used. WVP added some touches to the final mix, too. I didn't really know what I was playing musically. I might have had a can or two. I think there might be some frustration coming out there as the Poets were going into hiatus and I was losing the opportunity to let rip on the guitar in a band for a little while and there I was back in Chester, but it was alright. I met up with old friends I hadn't seen for years. I was back on the Front Street, not far from Spoons and The Bridge at the bottom was good for a laugh and within a year or two I'd play a St Patrick's Day set in there and then the Dicey Rileys would get going and just along the way from the flat was the studio the False Poets would record their album in. I could just about see it from the windowsill I was sat on making the Cestrian noise for the hell of it. It all worked out in the end.

Reviews:

Well, NARC did the piece above I linked to in Kirsten's Song. Label scribe VH Monks did a cracking press release. When I get back on Facebook, I'll take it from there and update this. 

The ever dependable and true Mr Rocking Magpie did this review here.

I sent it off to a couple of other places, but overlooked for now.

Tremendous artwork on the CD by sydelic. There's still a few available, you know!

The label has a new desk now, so you might be getting some other things soon, but for now, that's yer blog for Cestrian. Thanks for taking time to read about it and see you further down the log.

NICE011 The False Poets & The Support Band - The Daily Permitted Exercise LP

Strange times call for strange measures and so I find myself saying a few words about NICE011 in which a hitherto snappy garage band finds itself desperately releasing krautrock in an attempt to ease the Nation's anxiety at the loss of liberties imposed upon the populace to stave off the threat of that malign entity the Corona Virus. Benign nebulous entity The Support Band did not have to be asked to provide assistance in creating something to compliment the Poets' work to provide the label with it's first split lp offering.

Let's rewind a little first, tho to October / November 2019. We'd just recorded The False Poets' album in a few days. We did this slightly earlier than planned as Dinny got himself a job overseas, so briefly we were down to a 3 piece with Oli shifting to bass. I think we had a couple of rehearsals like that before Oli called on his mate James Grice. The two of them play great together. Rehearsals were quite amusing. Oli would often be the last to arrive, and rather than say anything would introduce himself by plugging in and us all just playing something random along with it. I'm not sure if any off those things got recorded, but we did make some interesting sounds. We did our first gig at Bubbles in a first round heat of Battle of the Bands in the February. It was apt that it was there as it's where me and Tristan saw the Whodlums back in 2012 and decided that night to give the whole band thing a go. Tristan used to be a judge there, too. I think Bubbles used to be known as The Cellar Club in the 60s? Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac played there, as did Davey Graham and more recently Dave Grohl played there before he joined Nirvana when he was in a band called Scream. Despite the name of the place, it's actually a really good little venue for live bands. We went on after Kitchy Retro and before Not Now Norman and had a great time. Unlike when Tristan was a judge, the winner of the heat was decided by votes. The guy on the mic announcing the winner had us thinking we hadn't got through, but apparently we did. By one vote. Big cheer. Hugs. Still waiting on restrictions to lift for Round 2 16 months on....

That's A Girl I Know taken from that show.

The False Poets rehearsal which spawned Daily Permitted Exercise occurred at noon on Sunday 15th March 2020 at Nemix Rehearsal rooms in Newcastle. All the news and media was about the virus and its implications for the UK which, with a Liverpool v Atletico Madrid match taking place just a few days before us convening, was soon portrayed as a reckless super spreader event. You could feel the stress, that something significant, if wasn't coming, was already here. The guy working on reception was in gloves for the first time and was cleaning vocal mics after every rehearsal to prevent the spread of infection. I had to ask where the mics were as for the first time they were in a small drawer under the vocal pa, sparkling like new. They'd normally just be left in a stand. Everything was neurotically, terrifyingly clean.

As I did with pretty much every rehearsal I brought the Zoom H1 to record proceedings to have a listen back to. It's been a godsend that device. Tristan looked into them and picked one up from Maplins on Grainger Street in the early days. A recommended piece of kit! The rehearsal was split into two parts. What became the Daily Permitted Exercise presented itself quite spontaneously after a break halfway through the rehearsal session. I might have been the last of the four to join in. I couldn't tell you what key it's in. I'd guess F#m. James seemed to lead the way with whatever he was playing to Oli. Sounded pretty good, just go with it. It was probably the most sombre sounding thing the band had created. Maybe that's to do with the collective strain of what everyone was going through and worrying about at the time. The hook turned out to be a 14 note motif that repeats itself endlessly. The final mix is more or less the same length as that improvised live jam with some added atmospherics and fractured guitar from Mr Whitevanperil, an honorary False Poet. After the rehearsal I headed off to The Culture Bunker to drop off the Zoom H1 as I knew there was something there with that one piece. It turns out, for whatever reason, that that particular piece of music was the only thing to have recorded satisfactorily that session as I'd coyly shoved the H1 down the side of a couch in the Nemix room.
The album was released 12 days later, by which time the country was in lockdown and only allowed out once a day for work, essentials, medical help or one session of daily permitted exercise.

For me, the Daily Permitted Exercise (Outdoors) is one of the band's most interesting tracks and is testament to the talents of Oli and James. They've not been involved in the recording of Strange Season, but the door's always open. Well, government restrictions and circumstances permitting.

Going back to the split lp, as I mentioned in the blog on NICE004, The Support Band are often to be relied upon in times of crises. They injested The Poets' tense, incessant groove and dissolved the bones of it to issue a much clearer exercise of one's inner whateverness on The Poets' straining motifs.
Guillotine was something dropped off at White Gables Recording Studio on a previous visit and was just waiting for some companion pieces to go with, which, with these tracks, it seems to have found to round off the album.
I was present at the session when Guillotine came to be. Much like broth and cob, The Support Band presented it as is telepathically. They created two other incredible pieces the same day as Guillotine, however those two pieces of music remain lost in our space time dimensions. The music of those two tracks hang suspended in the November air of White Gables where part of The Support Band are able to go back to and visit and rest upon their gently frozen auras, much like a hammock. The label has a better recording desk now, so that we can capture future Support Band effusions more successfully. Actually, there's already some new Support Band stuff in the pipeline. With Guillotine there are plenty of inputs going into the desk, but the output from the desk goes onto the 1 track Zoom H1, so if the output levels from a recorded performance are no good the recordings get lost, if that makes sense.

Going back on myself yet again to Track 2, The False Poets' first Nice Minds live release is the closing track from our set at Bubbles on 13th February. Here is the setlist which Oli drew up for the night, by the way:

For the track on the album, the intro jam, which was also happily in the key of E, was welded onto the set closer. For us to open our first gig in 6 years with something none of us had an idea what we were doing with is fair enough, I suppose! I think we've done better improvised things in rehearsal, but not bad for a first time live effort. It actually reminds me a bit of some of the music found on this here release, which is no bad thing. That version of Did It Feel Real? features the only vocals on the album, so maybe it's more irksome, or funny, to me that I get the lyrics quite a bit wrong in the first verse. It's all good fun and shows where the band was at before live grassroots music was banned.

So, that's NICE011. Rehearsal rooms were closed for a few months, live performances, at our level, anyway, completely impractical and likely to get you arrested, so the band was derailed. When rehearsal rooms became available again, Oli was due to go to college. Dinny was overseas. The label had splashed out on a new desk tho, so me and Ian got together in the Autumn to record some of his drums and to help keep me out of a strait jacket.

NICE008 The Dicey Rileys - The Lambton Worm

The Lambton Worm (NICE008) is the second release on Nice Mind Records by The Dicey Rileys and our first live E.P.
We were kindly asked to provide some entertainment for the Christmas get together of the Coxhoe Local History Group after one of the club's members had come to see us play at the Crowtrees Working Men's Club in Bowburn.
The event made the local press as the history group were having the first get together at a new venue for them, namely St Andrew's Church Hall.

Ok, so there's a picture of us playing to what looks like an empty room, but there were actual people there! It was a lovely evening and an excellent venue for us. The photo gives you an idea of what the hall looks like and, as is often common of church halls, the acoustics were good. We got to play a couple of sets and, as the recordings turned out well, chose a selection of songs from the evening to put out as a live E.P.

The Wild Rover
Pretty much the closing number of just about every Dicey Rileys gig. I thought we would pay homage to The Dubliners with this track opening the release, as they did on their debut album. Speaking as someone who was born in the mid 70s, I can't recall coming across this song on the radio or television growing up. It's still a song that so many people know that it always goes down well at the end of the night despite this.
The song goes a long way back. There was a broadside ballad printed in 1678 called 'The Good Fellow's Resolution, or The Bad Husband's Return from His Folly'. The term 'The Wild Rover' does not appear in what was one of a number of Bad Husband songs around in the 17th century, however, the landlady verse is near identical. Over time the wayward son returning to his parents appears to have replaced the Bad Husband returning home to his long suffering wife.

The Lambton Worm
If I could find a couple of lines to say about the origins of the previous song, how much could I write about that of the Lambton Worm? That's the thing with folk music. There is always a story to tell. There's always a rabbit hole, or in this case a well, to disappear down...
Bearing in mind we were playing for a local History Group, it had been asked if we would say a word or two about the songs we were singing. Step forward Bob for his debut lead vocal on this Durham folk song. Bob, as something of a local history scholar himself, takes exception with the Alan Price version of the song which did nothing to reverse the misconception that the hill that The Worm wrapped itself around was in Penshaw. It wasn't there, as Bob so rightly points out in the final verse. The actual hill that the Worm encircled was in Fatfield. The Dicey Rileys, righting cartographical inaccuracies of local folk songs since 2019. Bob did such a thorough job of introducing the song that at 6 and a half minutes for a 3 minute 13 second long song, were Roger Waters to repeat Bob's feat for Shine On You Crazy Diamond parts 1 through 9, he would have to talk for over 52 minutes straight. I don't think he could do it and believe me, Waters can talk!
Bob does a great job here with delivering the song on its live Dicey Riley debut here. It's sure to be a regular in our sets. Up yours, Penshaw!

Mrs McLeod's Reel / Drowsy Maggie
A couple of reels we paired together. You may be able to see the video of it here. Mrs McLeod's Reel gets a mention in one of Joyce's Dubliners stories. Grace, I think. Jigs and Reels I first played live at a birthday do for my granda Joe at The Forester's Arms, West Sleekburn. I've a lot to thank my Uncle Alan for, for getting me into that. Here's a clip of The Rambling Rileys playing Drowsy Maggie at Joe's birthday bash in 2013, I think. I couldn't read music then. Alan just showed me to play along with the chords. Big thank you to my Uncle Alan for the push to learn this cracking social music. We pull this two reels off pretty well here, I reckon.

Geordie
I first came across this tune twenty years ago on an Incredible String Band bootleg tape of their BBC radio sessions. I'm not sure who sang their lead vocal as it sounded like neither Robin Williamson nor Mike Heron. I think it was from 1971/72. I don't think it was ever officially released by them. About the same time as I heard that haunting version, I picked up a tatty first edition copy of Penguin Book of English Folk Songs edited by Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd for 10p. I couldn't read music, but the cover was cool and it was only 10p. Fast forward 18 years and I'm flipping through the book and see Geordie in the book and, with my newly acquired, rudimentary music reading skills courtesy of the jigs and reels revelations as outlined above, was able to figure out a chord progression for the group. I capo 5th fret to contrast with Dave's root-note rhythms. We've managed to put a good stamp on this song which was our opening number on the night recorded here at Coxhoe, so we certainly hit the ground running, albeit in a quiet way that night. The soundman did a good job on mixing the instruments on this track.
To include a few notes from the aforementioned book, apparently the ballad was well known in England and Scotland. The different countries' versions had different protagonists, however. The English hero was less of a nobleman and more of an outlaw. An old black-letter ballad names the hero as George Stoole of Northumberland, who was executed in 1610, although Lloyd's notes suggest that the song probably pre-dates this 17th century 'Robber' version. I wonder how long back the song goes?

Peggy Gordon
Paired with Geordie, is another take on a moody ballad from The Ghost Ship. I thought we were playing this particularly well on the night, then possibly stumble a bit at the end when as soon as I thought that. It's a lovely song! One idea for the E.P. was to have 3 opening lively tracks and then 3 more atmospheric, moody tracks, of which Peggy Gordon was to be the second. See the entry for the next, closing track for as to what happened to that idea...

Roddy McCorley
So you might have noticed the E.P. cover has an old mine works in the background, and you may be asking what the folk that has to do with The Lambton Worm. Well, initially the E.P. was called Farewell to Cotia and the closing track was a moody lament by former resident folk poet of Chester-le-Street, Jock Purdon. Since preparing the E.P. we got word that Jock's family wanted to meet to discuss royalties, so we had a quick rejig and dusted off a rousing track recorded during, but not released from The Ghost Ship sessions. There are some really good Jock Purdon songs we could do something with some day. I guess it's just the time to get the legalities and all that sorted. It remains something we'd very much like to do, should we get the time.

Thus ends NICE008. One of the best performing releases on the label in terms of plays to date. It's as good a place as any to get a taste of live Durham folk music whilst society is in lockdown and such wholesome activities are strictly verboten.

The Support Band - NICE004

The Support Band - NICE004

Of all the acts upon the diverse roster of talent at Nice Mind Records, by far the most curious and ill-defined are The Support Band otherwise known as Support Band.

The Support Band (aka Support Band) are a nebulous entity, a bit gassy and shapeless. Certainly out of shape. They don’t tend to talk as such, but if you can tune into them you can sort of guess what it is they are trying to communicate.

I’d heard of their existence a few times before the first time that I actually encountered them which was in November 2019 at White Gables Recording Studios when they kind of just presented themselves unannounced although they did have a very familiar feel to them, if you get what I mean? That they were always here, just unnoticed. They actually have a bit in common with wombles as they like to use things that are lying around, although the rubbish that the Support Band use tend to be bits of sound that are left lying unused by Nice Mind Records artistes. So it was in November at the inaugural session of White Gables Recording Studios that The Support Band presented themselves.

Now, what I’ve disclosed about The Support Band so far, may make you feel a little unnerved by the gaseous entity, but there really is no need to be. It’s a truly benign organism. I get the impression that they can be relied upon in a time of crisis to fill in when the label needs a hand and thereby the audience. I do know that they respond well to the burning of myrrh, so I have to make sure I keep stocked up on that for whenever they feel like summoning themselves. They were very happy that the myrrh is from Mount Athos which they communicated to me is a great place to hang out. 

For NICE004, which is the first Nice Minds Records release to be recorded at White Gables, The Support Band found an unused instrumental acoustic guitar progression of mine that I hadn’t done anything with and they strangely morphed it into a spacious, healing sound aura which they impressed upon mine and my label partner’s minds should be named in honour of the broth that we had fed them. (Most of which I cleaned up later as they can’t really eat properly). Cob was broth’s supplementary piece of music that they left us with to put out to an unsuspecting public as the label’s first release recorded at White Gables Recording Studio. The recordings you hear on NICE004 are as they were presented by The Support Band in the studio in real time, as we understand it. I’m not sure how they understand time...

I don’t really know what else to say about The Support Band. They’ve since done something very strange to the already a bit weird Telstar which opens the label’s monthly podcast. I’m not sure where they picked up the submarine that they put on that... They do seem to keep popping up to lend a nebulous hand with label duties, so I'm sure it won't be too long til you hear of them again.

Thus ends the blog on The Support Band NICE004 which counts towards part of your 5 a day.

NICE005 Chris Riley - Cloudwalking in the Concrete World and NICE005again

NICE005 Chris Riley - cloudwalking in the concreteworld

This is both the label's first and second re-issues, in a way. It is the first EP that I ever made, back in 2004. The label reissued the EP in November 2019 on Bandcamp & again in October 2021 when we prepared it for release on streaming platforms with an additional 7 bonus tracks of songs that I'd written and recorded either solo or in various bands from 2003 to 2005. 

When I first recorded Cloudwalking I had been playing live quite a bit in the two years or so prior to putting it down. I was on quite good form before getting into a regular job and girlfriend and things.

I had been in a band in sixth form some years before, thrashing around in Psychlone but the acoustic guitar malarkey was a lot different. Open mic nights were a good place to start in the early noughties. The best I came across was at The Beamish Mary. The first couple of appearances were with my mate Iain Davidson. Here we are on our first time up there. You can just see Iain sat behind me there (Dean Lowery of Psychlone and False Poets fame is also in shot)....

I think Handle With Care we used to do. Iain's brother Stu might have had words when we did the Beatles I Should've Known Better for being too bleeding obvious a song choice. It was a good grounding in the Mary. Three songs you got and everyone listened and clapped. Fantastic acoustics in what used to be a chapel and great beer from the bar next door. The Lamplight is as fine a pint as I've ever enjoyed.

Kevin Phillipson used to open and close the nights. Good standard of playing and performing.

I soon started going up on my own and would've played most of these cloudwalking songs up there and they were well received. I used to get plenty of gigs via Insangel, a local promoter type. I think I remember opening for a band called The Avenues at Sgt Pepper's in Newcastle. I opened for Greenspace a couple of times at The Tanners. Their bass player was a fan of my stuff. He got the boot before they became Lanterns on the Lake and did alright for themselves. I think my best received gig was at Simma's Acoustic Circus in The Bridge Hotel. I didn't often get the chance to play to a room full of people who were there for the music. I was second on and went down a storm with my own stuff. Never got asked to play again, mind. Other players on the scene at the time Country Jim, Pete Hardaker, John Egdell. I remember Trev Gibb making an appearance at The Archer when I shared a bill with a couple of the Blackflower lads. 

I needed a bit of prompting from my friend James Gawman to get a day booked in a studio to get some songs down being what you find here on the EP. I can't remember how First Avenue was the studio of choice, but it was a pretty good one and one that I've used since with The False Poets. David Curle did a fine job recording.

Something Wonderful

I've put a fair few of James Gawman's lyrics to chords. This seemed to fit to open the EP with. I recorded a home version years before on a mates 4 track. In the months before recording this I put a lot of effort into adding the chord progression which makes up the instrumental break. It's mostly intuitive guess work but eventually I found something to give it some musical diversity it was asking for previously. 

Joining me on this and on The Fox and The Moon Tune there is the brotherly rhythm section of Adam and Graham Sinclair. Fine musicians from Waldridge who didn't need much instruction. I thought it would add an extra dimension to the EP than just me on the acoustic. Adam's girlfriend at the time, Sarah Williams, adds some tasteful colour with her fine flute playing on this and the instrumental breather.

Cabbage White

An open G tune, second fret. I played it instrumental at Waldridge Fell Club in 2003 and then added some words before getting it recorded. I used to play around with my tunings more in those days. It could help suggest different melodies when playing if put in another tuning. I tend to just stick to standard tuning now tho I am partial to a dropped D for a bit of resonance. It's a lovely song this one although there's someone I know who's told me it was a bad choice of butterfly for the analogy cos they've got a green tinge, the Cabbage Whites, but I've chosen to ignore that and you should too if you want to get the most out of this track.

The Fox

I think this was the first finger picking song I wrote. Plenty 7ths and the rhythm give it a jazzy kind of feel. The lyrics were written at a Creative Writing class at Park View I went to one evening. The exercise was to write a poem about being a fox during a hunt. I verbalised some percussion at the start of the instrumental break. David Curle recording said that bit was obscene.

breather

Another open G tune. Capoed 6th fret, possibly. Not sure what key that makes it. The last thing to be written before this EP session but musically one of the most satisfying. I just called it breather as a gap in between three songs either side. Nice flute arrangement by Sarah and Adam and double tracked in places by Sarah. I just let them get on with it. It looked like they were having fun.

The Moon Tune

I wrote this in my year in Greece. A couple of lines are lifted from the Book of Ruth, I think. Me and Adam recorded a version a year or two before with the short lived scratch band Mock Fish which is included in the Again release as a bonus track. It's a short but sweet song with plenty going on but not too busy.

Monday's Song

I'm possibly least happy with this one on the EP. Maybe it could do with some violin. The mouth organ is ok. I did a version at home that had a better feel to it that is included as the last bonus track on the Again re-issue. It felt like a little bit of a breakthrough when I wrote this one in being able to summon a feeling on a guitar and with my voice.

Summer Sun

Another open G song, capoed 4th fret. I did a take of this which I thought was ok but David Curle suggested I do another and it was much improved. Maybe I was getting tired. The lyrics are ok. I wrote the tune not long after Monday's Song and the two tunes were an improvement on what I'd managed to come up with before.

Just a quick word on my trusty guitar, a Fender DG21S. Bought in the Spring of 1998, I think from Windows in the Central Arcade for about £225. Student grants were getting phased out in the UK at that point. I used that semester's grant to buy this which it just about covered. I knew very little about guitars. I just was told when I buy an acoustic to make sure it's a solid top because they get better with age. 

The action was quite high on it. Legendary North East guitar-smith Les Toons, saw to that a few years later. He said to use a light gauge string on it, whereas previously I was using battered quite heavy ones for La'sy rhythm playing. It's still going strong now, 22 year on...

The original cover for the EP was designed by the divine Teresa Puig who was lodging at my mam's at the time.

I managed to sell about 20 odd of these CDs, which is quite a lot, really. I got a local graphics firm to print some covers off for me and just used to burn the discs at home. There were a couple of reviews. Here's one from Ross Lewis who I had yet to meet...

The following year, Ross recorded a few songs by The Mandalas which at the time included Peter Dinsdale, Iain Davidson, Marty Wilkinson and myself. Waiting on a Smile and Ode to Bill are included in the Again reissue from this session. Ross' Dad Tommy Lewis saw me a few years later at Ashington Folk Club and said to me afterwards "You're worth listening to." Probably the best review I've ever had that, off Tommy.

One radio session followed the release of cloudwalking. A live one for Sunderland Uni. I drove Adam and Sarah through and we played breather and Positively Halcyon and possibly another. I think I recorded it later on the radio but the reception was really bad. I'd completely forgotten about that. 

I wrote a couple of songs in the months after like Precious Touch, the demo of which is another Again bonus track, and Positively Halcyon but not too many for a while after that. It's a nice EP, if I do say so myself. I wasn't really paying too much attention to whatever was going on at the time. Maybe that's why at 16 years of age it seems to bear up ok.

Cloudwalking in the Concrete World (Again)

In the Autumn of 2021 when preparing to put Cloudwalking online across all the various streaming platforms, I took the opportunity to include some bonus tracks, demos of previously released songs and a few that have yet to have an official release. Both the label and myself had the idea of appending an Again to the end of the EP's title. It's just a digital release for now out on October 1st 2021. It may have a CD run if gigging regularly becomes a thing again.

So, a quick word on the additional 7 tracks....

Waiting On a Smile and Ode to Bill

As mentioned above, these two songs were recorded by Ross Lewis when in the band The Mandalas, two of four songs recorded that day, 10th April 2005, if I remember right at Paul Jeans' Tranwell studio somewhere up the A1 Northumberland way.  Smile was probably the best recorded that day. That's Iain Davidson on electric guitar and me on acoustic. The song was originally called More to the Core, but I changed a couple of lines for something a bit more mainstream. The acoustic guitar is in open E tuning, learnt from The Stone Roses' Your Star Will Shine. Ode to Bill probably not as strong a song, but included here because why not? Some nice drum fills from Marty on Bill. Good drummer, Marty. The last gig the Mandalas played was at the Black Bull in Sunderland. A Battle of the Bands gig. We came second to a trio called Restaurant, Paul Liddell on the PA and judging. Restaurant were slicker than us and had some good, strong pop songs. Paul complimented us on our sound which reminded him of Neil Young, which may have come from Bill's Ode.

Show Me The Way

Following that gig, hopefully not caused by the devastation of losing out to Restaurant, Iain decided to step down and Mandalas became a 3 piece. It was at a Sons and Daughters gig at The Archer that the name Justroy was drunkenly chosen for the new line up. Someone from local band Minotaurs referred to it as the worst band name he'd ever heard on a local music forum. We did have a good email address tho: seekandjustroy@yahoo.co.uk

Justroy gigged pretty regularly in 2005 and into 2006, two or three times at The Cooperage, The Tanners, somewhere in Hartlepool, Sunderland pubs, The Derby at Bishop Auckland... We were quite tight for about a year or so. The promoter for The Tanners had an exotic sounding name on the local internet forum. Hermingita. I thought he might have been from the East or something. When I met him he was from Wallsend and he said it was pronounced Her-minge-eater...

Anyway, Show Me The Way! This, a song of mine from 1997, took us 50 minutes in all to record including setting up at The Cluny. We scraped onto the line up of a local music CD. Local bands had to apply and, if successful, you got two hours studio time to record a song. There might have been some funding available from North Tyneside Council to put this CD release together. A couple of months later local muso Paul Jeans started a thread on the local internet forum asking "Is this the worst local music compilation ever?" I'll dig out the copy of it I have somewhere....

Paul may have been a little harsh, although I've not given the disc a spin for so long. I'm going to put it on now. Opening up the CD is Ashington's h.e.d. with the very sexy Porn Kitchen. Opening up the inlay of the CD we see Neil Brannigan is on Vocals and Guitar for H.E.D. Bran used to run Bubbles, formerly The Cellar Club, and his catchphrase was saying Nice, Mind after things. This used to grate on my mate Tristan a bit, so kind of for a laugh it was suggested as a name for the record label you all know and love when we came to decide on a name for our label. Cut Glass Accent next up on the CD. Sounds good!

Anyway, Show Me The Way! It's a good song. Maybe there's a little bit of the La's in there. I didn't plug my Squier into an amp. The producer passed me this little red box called a Pod and said, "Here, plug into that". Hey, presto! instant amp sounds. Show Me The Way was one of the first songs I wrote. I spent a bit of time working out the solo. That's me, Peter Dinsdale on bass and Marty Wilkinson on drums. Justroy disbanded not too long after. Marty was playing with a punk band called Barse that used to get lots of Scandanavian gigs and dropped off radar. Dinny got the call years later for The False Poets and remains very much on radar.

Precious Touch (Demo)

Another open E tuning song. This recording seems to have more atmosphere than the studio version I put down for Moments Stolen Back in 2009. Some tasteful tambourine in there somewhere.

 Moon Tune

This was recorded at Washington Arts Centre on 9th Feb 2003. The reason I know the date is because Laurent Robert got sent off not long after he put Arsenal on the ropes with a classy equalizer. The Short lived Mock Fish recorded four songs, two of mine and two by the other singer Martin, eeh I forget his surname. This was the last one we recorded. The producer was really struck by it. I was playing the bass initially and he said, No, you're playing the bass like a guitarist, the song needs a different bass part which he showed to me or Martin. I think Martin, cos I recorded the guitar tracks which I had all figured out. I thought the Cloudwalking version was better than this one til I went back to this version for the reissue. I think the producer did a good job with a nice warm mix. Mock Fish played one gig, I'm guessing in November 2002 at The Garden Farm supporting Newcastle based The Psychedelic Breakfast who I see have recently put their back catalogue on streaming services. Hangin' Outta Windows is a cracking tune, although there is some choice language in that one.

Summer Sun and Monday's Song (Demos)

Recorded at home not long after recording the Mock Fish 4 track EP. I stuck these two tracks on the end of a CD with the four  Mock Fish tracks on before and my mate Gav said the best ones were these two home demos. Not massively different to the versions on the EP. Maybe a better vocal on Monday's Song on the demo and Summer Sun Demo included to show off my bongo skills. 

And thus ends the blog on what I was up to cloudwalking musically between the early to mid noughties.

 

NICE003 The False Poets

The False Poets

Beginnings

I've got a distinct memory of my mate Tristan Sturgeon throwing me the suggestion of starting a garage band called The False Poets in 2010. "That's a nice idea", I thought tho dismissing it as a pipe dream.

I met him through Ashington Folk Club which I had started going to a couple of years before then. He used to do the sound, a little begrudgingly sometimes cos he didn't really like folk music. We kind of struck up a bond of friendship which gelled further after I played the Elevators' I Had To Tell You one night at the club. It helped that he was a smashing bloke, too.

I don't know what had changed in 2012, but the idea was raised again one night in Bubbles watching The Whodlums, "Why don't we start a garage band and play some of those great songs that we love?". I used to be in a thrash band in sixth form with me mates from Chester-le-Street, Peter Dinsdale and Dean Lowery who play bass and drums nearly 20 years before. There's some dreadful footage of us playing at one of Dean's house parties at about this time that Tristan and me resolved to give this a go. Dinny and Dean were both up for the idea of starting a garage band. Stars seemed to align whereas two years prior they hadn't. I remember going for a pint in The Elephant with Tristan the weekend before the first rehearsal and him being very excited and saying it couldn't fail. We set ourselves the task of getting four songs to sound ok at the first rehearsal of 16th June 2012: The Haunted's 1-2-5, Primitive by I can't remember who, I'm Gonna Make You Mine by the Shadows of Knight and You're Gonna Miss Me. The recordings are somewhere. We were fine from the off. It really was no trouble at all.

I blogged after a fair few of those early productive rehearsals where you can see what songs we were playing. Rehearsal 6 our first original tune Stick or Twist came to be and that set Tristan off writing songs which then spurred me on. I've never written so many songs as during that two year period that the Poets were running for. I really thought I couldn't do it any more. I learnt a fair bit from him. We spurred each other on quite naturally.

After a couple of years and with life kind of getting in the way, the False Poets got knocked on the head more or less two years on from that first rehearsal.

Fast forward to Spring 2018 and we decided to see about getting the band up and running but fate was to deal the cruellest blow and take Tristan from us just when everything seemed good to go. He was telling me that his son Oliver is really good on the guitar and with a fine voice as something we could do in the future.

When we got together with Oli in the summer of 2019 it was with the intention of focusing on the original stuff. As great as those Nuggets songs are, ours aren't too shabby either.

The Album

12 songs, just over half an hour's worth of music. Money and time fairly tight. Dinny was about to take a job overseas for a couple of years. I was happy to go back to First Avenue where we recorded a False Poets EP in 2013 and I'd recorded an EP in 2004. It was Dinny who pushed for Northside Recordings, however, having been impressed with the relaxed nature of recording when he laid down the bass to Ghost Ship with the Dicey Rileys.

In the end Northside and Angelo Citrone did us a very good job of replicating a retro sound for the songs which all have a mid 60s flavour to them. Angelo uses a tape echo unit and a vintage sound desk which suited us. We had two days booked. In late September, early October, both Sundays. We pretty much recorded the songs instrumentally in an order I had drafted for the tracklisting, if I remember rightly. One or two runs through of each song, often with me mouthing the lyrics over the noise.

I called round the studio between those two sessions to lay a couple of acoustic tracks down (A Girl I Know, Set It Free, Stomper) as well as a few vocal tracks. The second full day was vocal tracks, a few overdubs and the mix.

The Cover 

Tristan painted the image for the cover around the time he left in 2013. He told me it was intended for the cover.

I believe it was later displayed at a Pitmatics Painters exhibition. It's the third CD for Nice Mind Records and a fine work it is, too. The Deluxe Edition comes with a lyric booklet as well with exclusive artwork. We've still got a few available! Haha

The Songs

Stick or Twist

The first False Poets original. I was fooling around albeit quite purposefully with a chord progression which the rest joined in on, Tristan singing "The grass is always greener..." over the top of it as he fancied it sounding like the Jesus and Mary Chain's In a Hole. I used that green grass line to tag a load of blues clichés onto. Add on a couple of chords to a hooky tagline chorus and hey presto a False Poets original!

Call the Doctor

The song on the album for which there were two full recorded versions. It was the first one in the album sessions to be recorded. We had another go at it later in the session when we were warmed up and it is this version which Oli put his vocal to as it has a lot more energy.

A Girl I Know

Our surfiest number. Angelo suggested an acoustic guitar track to fill out the instrumental section. The opening riff bears a striking similarity to The Molochs' Get A Job Blues you can hear on their soundcloud. Ours pre-dates theirs tho and I doubt they heard ours.

What It's All About

A last minute decision to include this song in the album sessions. I had to meet up with Oli the night before to give him the chance to actually play the song before we went in to record it the next day. He did a great job on slide guitar. I wrote the tune on the bike into work one day and had to wait until I got home to find out what chords fit the few verses I'd written. Tristan thought it was like The La's. I'm not sure about that, but there's a definite early Beefheart vibe to its blues groove.

Set It Free

One of two songs on the album that I play on the Sheraton rather than the Strat. I capo on the 5th fret to give it a Byrds type folk rock feel to contrast with Oli's chords. Ian uses some tight brushes rather than sticks so as not to be too overpowering.

She Was My Woman

One of Tristan's trilogy of 12 bar blues garage rockers, the other two being Call the Doctor and Stomper. A good song but one that we seemed to have most difficulty in getting down tightly. I had to completely overdub my whole guitar track as there were far too many dreadful notes in my first take which is now thankfully deleted. It worked out well in the end. The production really suits She Was My Woman.

Tell Tale Heart

The last track recorded at the end of the first session. There was one abortive take before we managed to get this hot take down. Ian was praying whilst playing that we got to the end without cocking it up. We were all elated after this take and broke for lunch. That's me on Strat and Oli on Sheraton here as per Call the Doctor.

The Mad Machine

Subtle change in tone for the start of the slightly more progressive side 2. I wrote this song on my acoustic in about half an hour as part of a Facebook challenge to write a song from a list of random song titles. It was Tristan who convinced me that it was a good song and worth persevering with. We doubled the length of the instrumental ending a rehearsal or two before we went into record. Possibly starting to stray a little beyond our garage roots.

When the Morning Comes

Tristan's very first song he wrote for The False Poets. He had a spurt of songs after I managed to finish Stick or Twist. This reminds me lyrically of You're Gonna Miss Me and always feels very comfortable to play. The second of the two songs I play on the album on the Sheraton for a slightly softer feel.

Stomper

Sounds a bit glam rock here, in the mid paced passages, at least. Good fun to play, although I had to be convinced by the rest of the band to put the blues harp track down. It has a tendency to get stuck in your head, this one.

You Are The Way

The second time we've recorded this song. There are some recordings somewhere of a 2013 rehearsal when I was showing the chords to the rest of the band. Tristan said that rehearsal recording would make a good release one day, to show how a song can come together. Here's the band playing it at The Cluny 2 when the song was only ten days old and didn't have an instrumental fill written for it.

Did It Feel Real?

The last song laid down on day one was always going to be this track earmarked for the album closer. We are just branching out with improvisations here. The repeated E and D chords a nice backdrop for Oli to make a racket over. Possibly Tristan's most psychedelic song, he was likely influenced by one of the Golden Dawn's Power Plant songs. He was a big fan of that record. Did it Feel Real? is it's own animal tho and that freedom to improvise and explore is something we have taken forward as can be heard on the live version found here.

Reviews

A couple of reviews so far. We were pleased to get a write up in Shindig! who had this to say about it:

And there's a characteristically thorough Rocking Magpie review here.

We're still very much active, so keep an eye out for gigs and new releases in the months and years to come.

NICE002 The Dicey Rileys - The Ghost Ship

This rambling blog aims to give a bit of background to Nice Mind Records' second release:

NICE002 The Dicey Rileys - The Ghost Ship

The Dicey Rileys are an acoustic folk trio from Chester-le-Street. Although we would not perform together live until a snowy St Patrick's Day on 2018 in the afternoon at The Bridge in Chester and in the evening at The Butchers Arms, the formation can be traced to be back to when I played at The Bridge pub the previous year.

It's funny how snap decisions you can make have a lasting, positive impact.

I had a week off work March 2017 and was feeling at a customary loose end with nothing particular to do. St Patrick's Day was to land on a Friday that year. I wasn't in the habit of gigging regularly at the time, but on the Tuesday decided to go out and look for somewhere that would put me on for an hour or two. Step forward The Bridge! The most neglected, run down and gloriously shabby boozer you could hope to come across when looking for a gig with 3 days to spare provided you finished by 8 cos the place would shut early due to lack of punters. The pub was undergoing a particularly fallow period (it's painfully closed now) and agreed to put me on when I said I would do it for 20 quid. If the barmaid's manager didn't give the ok to put me on I doubt the Dicey Rileys would have got together at all. Like I say, funny how things turn out on random impulses.

I was asked to put a poster together for it, too and managed to come up with this state of the art affair for their window. 

I have to give a mention to a group of friends from Chester-le-Street who were in the habit of going out for a drink down the street every Friday who became known, to ourselves at least, as the Chester-le-Street Red Brigade.

There's most of them there, look. That's Dave front left. What a cracking bunch! The Bridge was great that summer. Cracking jukebox, a secret beer garden, karaoke and dj... I can remember singing I'm A Rover at the top of my lungs with Dave and Bobby of the Red Brigade in that beer garden on one of several tab breaks. It gives you a second wind belting out those tunes with your mates when you're well oiled.

Dave and me soon started rehearsing some of these good time Irish tunes with his dad, Bob joining in on percussion not long after. It took a little while to do some gigs. I'm not sure why. I think I'd fallen out of the habit of getting them. Dave joined me for a couple. One in the Butchers in November 17 and one in Stockton of February the following year. Good harmonies and feel to the pairing from the off.

As referred to above, the live debuts of The Dicey Rileys were two gigs on St Patrick's Day 2018. The Butchers one was particularly lively and was a cracking start to our live career. Only gig I wore a shirt and tie for. I'm really not sure what I was thinking there. 

We've played plenty of gigs around the area since then. So, just a bit of background on the social nature of the music and how we came to be.

Friends, Chester-le-Street, drinking and rousing tunes. A heady combination!

Recording The Ghost Ship

January 2019, recording an album. I always wanted to record an album. I'd managed a few EPs and tracks before. In the end it only took the one day, aged 42.

Northside Recording Studios, again in Chester-le-Street the perfect place to do it. Great recording gear, engineered and recorded by Angelo Citrone who knows all his equipment like the back of his hand. We had 14 songs to record in all. Most of them we recorded instrumentally live, with 4 recorded live with vocals when I played my guitar which I am more comfortable with.

It was pretty straightforward, really, apart from me failing to get a penny whistle track down without causing Bob to have fits of laughter. I had to run through the jigs a few times and The Gentleman Soldier breakdown. I can't remember Dave or Bob having any problems at all.

Peter Dinsdale attended later in the session to add an acoustic bass part to the title track to fill it out a bit. Me and Dave had to lay the vocal down, so Peter knew where we were with it and it worked champion.

Whilst on with mixing the album, Angelo kindly added a double bass part to You've Been A Friend To Me to fill out the sound a bit nicely and give a touch of rockabilly at the album's close.

Over ten years after the release of NICE001, Nice Mind Records was revived for the soon to be released album. In the following weeks there were meetings with the label's creative director in The Wicket Gate to discuss cover art and tracklisting and the like. Roddy McCorley was set aside for the time being, leaving 13 tracks clocking in at under 40 minutes, thereby falling within the label's idea of what makes a classic album length. Although as of yet the album hasn't been pressed onto vinyl (you never know, one day) The Ghost Ship developed a label habit of splitting the songs into sides A and B. It's just too good a format to let go of, I guess.

Here's an an alternative cover:

The CDs look great, by the way. A beautiful design. I'd credit the creator, but he'll not be bothered about that. You should get one tho, from the label! If you haven't got one already, of course. It's a good album. Don't just take my word for it. Check out this review, here!

There's another review here courtesy of the ever-dependable The Crack Magazine:

I do appreciate Mr Magpie's review and am pleased he spoke highly of the original title track. We did do a fine take on Geordie for a ramshackle bunch of Chester lads. The album works absolutely fine tho. Get some beers in from Tesco next time you're out and give it a go.

"My bark of life was tossing down

The troubled stream of time

Since first I saw your smiling face

And youth was in its prime..."

See you soon

Chris

The Dicey Rileys