a bit of the French brogue...

Last night we had the Trotwood family at packed Deal Friday Folk Club. This intergenerational melee of talent was, well amazing! If you closed your eyes you could have been in a small back street pub somewhere in Kerry....

The Secret Sea Celebration... Weds 24th Feb Folkestone

There is a benefit evening for the Folkestone Rescue an independent lifeboat service at The Lanterns 24 Rendezvous Street Folkestone CT20 1EY
The evening will have a 'sea theme' and there will be a real electic mix of indie bands, comedy, singers, poetry, folk and perhaps even the odd piece of Driftwood ...Cost £5 in advance or £7 on the door ....
Folkestone Rescue : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117470281791

The St Valentine's weekend.....

Busy weekend coming for all us Driftwooders. On Friday we are doing a mega practise at Sue's (we are in process of learning a some new (old) songs for our Folkestone Gig on the 24th) - So looks like we will miss the Deal Friday Folk Club again (hear there was standing room only at last friday's). [on the following 19th Feb Trotwood from France are playing]

On Saturday is the official re-opening of the Astor Community Theatre (Stanhope Street Deal CT14 6AB). Dave & Maggie are singing in Choir at about 2pm and at 4pm there is EP launch of Deal's fab Cocos Lovers. 
BTW : The Astor & Smugglers Records are hosting a weekly open session in the balcony on Thursdays from 7:30 if you fancy it


Saturday is also the AGM of Deal's green group DealWithIt at 2:30pm at Dealability in Victoria Road - we are sending the Roadie as an official delegate.


Sunday [just after the canoodling & chocolate Ed] sees the running of Deal Tri's Dover Half Marathon  at the Duke of Yorks School Dover starts 10:30am - Some of us are helping and we are sending the Roadie on the race as our official delegate..... Then a sound check in the Folkestone venue


Yes going to be a busy one ... a real massacre!

Buddy can spare a dimme ... or some Loose Change?

A good day on Saturday 30th Jan at the folkie-friendly Good Intent in Rochester for the day long 'Loose Change and Friends' sessions.

Some really good sets from Border Crossing, Loose Change and Folkestone's Mike Broomfield. There was nearly twenty acts during the day from all around Kent, including Driftwood

Thank you 

Loose Change

for organising a great day!

Photos are at Driftwood's Flickr site

The Folkestone Tapes......

Driftwood had their first experience of being professionally recorded on Saturday or shall I say the poor sound engineers (Mike & his mate Steve) had their first experience of herding cats.

It was a long day which produced three of the band's current fav's and there was more kit there that you could shake a stick at (IMHO there also seems an awful lot a food there as well!. Ed)

The photos of this epic session can be found at our Flickr site here

I will let you know when the MP3 are out-and-about

Big Driftwood thank you for our patient sound engineers Mike & Steve

I understand now why they give you dog-tags on these runs....

I never understood why instead of medals you usually get on Marathons this particular tough series of coastal trail marathons hands out dog-tags as a finishers mento.

It was the Portland Bill one Saturday - Portland is basically a very hilly stone quarry connected (at this time of year) by mud & pools of water.  About two minutes after this photo was taken I clipped my big foot on a rock and went flying. Cuts and bruises, a broken garmin and some very sore ribs. Once I picked myself up I noticed the nice 400ft drop to the left... Hmmm .... Guess I have answered my question

Finished in 4:53 after the three miles of running along Chisel Bank.... Thats another roadie story

Errr is this mic on ?

Driftwood after several months of moaning & sulking by the Roadie are finally going to record some of their songs, so he can have some MP3s for the website and MySpace page.
Who is going perform this miracle of audio science (& medical - there is bound to tears! Ed) none other than folkestone's favourite singer/songwriter Mike Broomfield.  I have already started the petition for beatification for his efforts this coming Saturday... good luck Mike, you are going to need it!

Unfortunately, The Roadie will not be there witness this momentus event as he is running around Portland Bill in Dorset on another of his off-road trail marathons.
Shame....

Full report next week, so dont go changing channels.

And the band ate on .....

There was a thaw in Deal so band practise was back on for this Sunday for Driftwood. Things were going fine for an hour or so at Driftwood HQ then it got strangely quiet ... the roadie investigated and found the cause for the lack of tuneful delight - Cake.

One band member who will remain nameless ( but he knows who he is...) had smuggled it in. I despair!

A Roadie's life can be like herding cats sometime....

It may be freezing outside; Inside we are Spinning

The winter besieged Deal Folk Club on Friday had a guest spot from Mick Groves member of the Spinners. A small but select audience were privileged to hear Mick render several favourites of his friend Ewan McColl and many songs echoing his native Salford.

www.mickgroves.com

Trevor & Hannah-lou video of Deal Folk Festival FolkSong Competition 2009

The Deal Maritime Folk Festival held an competition for new folksong in Sept 2009. This was won by Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou  for their excellent Alottment Song.

I have just found the brilliant video they made of the event - Can you spot the Deal landmarks and persons of note? Hint there are at least two members of Driftwood in the audience of this deserved win...


If you cannot see the embedded video follow this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KdN497zaEE

All IMHO
Roadie

PS If you look carefully you can tag the Cocos Lovers busking in high street....
PPS Isn't funny how Deal & Folkies look better in Black&White....