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

NICE001 Chris Riley - Moments Stolen Back

During this time of Lockdown, I'm going to write a few words on each release on the Nice Mind Records label, so here goes:

NICE001 Chris Riley - Moments Stolen Back

This is the second of 2 EPs that I've ever recorded, but the first to have Nice Mind Records put to it. My dear friend Tristan Sturgeon, who I would later form The False Poets with, was a massive help with this. I was only really keeping my hand in with music by singing the odd cover at Ashington Folk Club at this time. He noted on a local music internet forum (possibly the NARC magazine one) that a music student was looking for an acoustic act to record as part of his coursework and he encouraged me to get in touch. So, I ended up getting the few studio sessions at the John Marley Centre, Benwell for free, otherwise it would never have been recorded.

I had about four songs unrecorded. I'm not the most prolific of writers, tending to wait til they come along of their own accord. Passing Through and Thistle I purposefully put the effort into completing to give me enough material to make it worthwhile as the sessions approached, however.

Recording sessions were relaxed with Thomas Moon doing a professional job of it. I think I was lacking confidence at that time, which may be evident in some of the vocals. The lead acoustic fill on Thistle took a few takes and I remember Thomas punching the air when I managed to get to the end of that without stumbling at all.

The title of the EP I took from Thistle which was the last song to be written for it. It's the only song of mine in the DADGAD tuning which might be why I only played it live once, in the Folk Bar of Ashington's 'Tute. It went down well. I wrote some of the lines to it when on a walk round Elsdon. I think it was Mike Jessop who made a quip about being careful not to be caught hanging around up there. A village famous for it's old gibbets!

I did record a version of Wild Mountain Thyme in these sessions, but the CD reproduction company noted that that song was still under copyright, so that was pulled from the EP.

One song which did make the final cut was my first recorded interpretation of a traditional folk song Hares on the Mountain, heavily informed by the Shirley Collins and Davey Graham version. There is grainy footage of my playing it of a Sunday lunchtime at The Archer in Jesmond here.

Tristan designed the cover, some old negatives of Ashington streets that he had lying around and helped me get the CDs pressed. I probably got too many done (hint hint there's still plenty left!). I think it was Tristan who wanted a label dreaming up for the design. Nice Mind Records was decided upon for the label name as Bran from Ashington bar Bubbles used to say "Nice, mind" a lot, be it verbally or on Facebook. It's got kind of a double meaning so, cheers Bran!

Overall, I think it's OK. There was a review or two. The Crack and NARC possibly. Nothing to write home about. I don't think it's as good a release as my first EP Cloudwalking in the Concreteworld when I had more fresh faced focus, but in Sugarbowl Moon and Thistle it has at least 2 good songs on it.

It also saw the launch of Nice Mind Records which wasn't to make its next appearance for another ten years...