Driftwood Lite @ the Deal Zero Carbon Concert

Driftwood Lite (Rose & Sue) played the Deal Zero Carbon Concert on Sunday 28th Nov. Despite the snow there was nearly 300 people there and great atmosphere ...

Driftwood duo played the cafe area with the bicycle powered smoothie maker jamming with us! ...  Great sets from the Hoodeners, Old Lone Gin Band, Spyplane, Mac& Clive, Way Out, Ravenshill and Bottles who made it on to the main stage (without Dave!)

Roadie powering the Cocos Lovers

Well done the Roadie, Will & Kieran for organising a great day...






All photos are here > http://www.flickr.com/photos/43967078@N03/sets/72157625369995107/show

Scary Driftwood....

And they did not need makeup!

Driftwood played Halloween at the Rare Breeds Centre in Kent on Thursday and Saturday - A couple great evenings as we were playing in the departure lounge for the tractors taking people to get the bejeebers scared out of them in the woods ....

Some 800-1000 people had Driftwood with a very creepy Adrian O acting as the MC (think of a mix of funeral parlour meets Widow Twankie and you get the idea) inflicted on them [In my humble opinion the 'woods' were a relief to most of them Ed.!].


The set included all the greats like 'Bad Moon', a 'Drop of  Uggy's Blood' and 'What should we do with the Drunken Vampire'.... enough said.

Well done Adrian for doing all four nights.

The Rare Breeds Centre is fantastic and inspiring place. It gives people with a variety of needs a home and a real anchor in the community and its got some pretty amazing animals too! http://www.rarebreeds.org.uk/

Driftwood Video @ the Astor

Driftwood played the Astor Cellar sessions during the recent Deal Maritime Folk Festival - This Video is by Martin GoodSmith



Just in case you cannot see the Video here is the link http://youtu.be/wuRguEZywT8

Deal Maritime Folk Fest 2010 - We are Driftwooded out!

What a great weekend ! So many acts and great music throughout Deal this last weekend. We reckon there was about 100 performers (there were a lot of dancers on saturday) all doing their stuff for free.

Sue is busy building her own 3 string Nuru Bass after a pretty amazing concert at the Astor with Nuru Kane & the BFG.

A massive thank you for all of you who supported us at our eight sessions - especial thanks to Pat & Lin from London, the lovely Lynda, Jan & Peter for the photos, raffle & support... We totally enjoyed all the sessions we caught - what a lot of talent there is in Deal & Kent!

Video of us in the Ship is >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehd_55O6UgU

Hope to get our flickr pics later in the week

Blean Woods Benefit 11th Sept

The new Driftwood lineup

Driftwood had a great day playing at the Blean Woods Fest for the Kent Wildlife Trust down at Strode Park in Herne - Bottles, Adrian O and the Whitstable Hoodeners were on the billl. ( as too were some very large vikings, wooden horse and a dancing badger - did I mention the rather strong ale they had there ?) ...

A really enjoyable day we did a hour set and then spent a couple of hours busking to small groups of the public ... we even did 'Manchester Rambler' for the Rambers Stall!


Our Photos will be here 

Raise the Roof at Blean 5th Sept

Driftwood played at the benefit for Blean Village Hall, nr Canterbury -'Raise the Roof' on Saturday 5th Sept. Along with at least 16 other performers the day long event manage to raise an amazing £1200 for the hall.

Shows the awesome power of folk..... Well done to everyone involved, especially Carol...

Our photos can be found on facebook and at our flickr site here

Driftwood Lite at Ash Mini Fest 2010

Driftwood Lite (Sue abducted by aliens again - aka the 'family') played at the mini folk fest organiser by by Adrian Sullivan at the Chequers Inn in Ash (between Canterbury & Sandwich). We really enjoyed ourselves - great company and great music....

Big thanks to Adrian for organising & inviting us....

You can find all our photos at our flickr site here

Driftwood at Broadstairs Folk Week

Monday was a busy sunny day for the Driftwood collective at the Broadstairs Folk Week - we did four pitches and played & sung for over four hours.

Day did not start well as Rosie had OD'ed on Italian coffee and could not strum for the first 30mins! Many thanks to all those who stopped to listen, the few folkies who jammed along and the lovely Rita for showing that you can dance to anything... managed to catch our pals the Deal Hoodeners busking and Loose Change at the bandstand and Sue Watson's session on the 'Songs of Kent...'

Hopefully we collected lots of money and will be invited back next year.... all our photos can be found here

Ash Folk & Curry evening 31st July

Big Driftwood thanks to Adrian O for organising the Folk & Curry evening at the Chequers in Ash..

Driftwood playing as trio as Sue had a note from the family.

Enjoy yourself ....Driftwood Summer Ball

A big thanks for the all performers who wasted (or got wasted ? Ed.) a lazy driftwood afternoon in Kent.

Special mention in despatches to Dave & Maggie for being nimble hosts and feeding the assembled hordes....

Never has so much cake be eaten by so few....

Pictures can be found here

Driftwood go back to school....

Driftwood 'Lite' (without Rose who had to stay in for detention at work) played for their most enthusiastic audience at River Primary School in Dover on Friday 16th July.

Some 120 year 1 & 2  joined in to the Smugglers Song, Pirate's song, yellow submarine, whale story and a edited version of the 'drunken sailor' (the Grumpy pirate).

Driftwood Videos from Hythe

Driftwood videos from the Hythe Festival session are now online in shiny HD....

The Video can be found at our YouTube Site here

Driftwood at the Hythe Festival

The Driftwood collective were busking in Hythe High street yesterday as part of the Hythe Festival on a very hot day - big thanks to the organisers for inviting us, Mike & Lynda for their support, all our friends & family who came, Emma for the drum jam and the staff at the Kings Head who kept us refreshed....

Photos of the day can be found here

A couple of videos (in HD says the Roadie Ed.) will follow

Tilmanstone Folk Festival June 2010

Great day at the Plough & Harrow in Tilmanstone - massive Driftwood thanks to Adrian O for organising yet another fanastic event........

Driftwood snaps can be found here

Pics from Wickhambreaux fest...

Pics from Sunday 30th May Loose Change & friends session at the Rose Inn in Wickhambreaux - includes Loose Change, Ramblin Boys, Bottles, Heather & Jim from Rochester, Quidnunc, Jim, Don and Driftwood collective.... apologies if we missed anybody! Photos are here

Rumble in the Jumble II:

Driftwood and Mac Mckean did a monster three hour set at the St Leonards' Spring Celebration in Deal

All the pics can be view here

Busy weekend coming up - Friday off to support Mike Broomfield  in the Ship in Folkestone, Sunday we are with Loose Change in Wickhambreaux Beer Fest and Monday evening  at the Chequers in Ash supporting Mac & Clive at a Curry evening

Canterbury Climate Fair - Photos

Another great weekend with over 25 sessions for a great cause

Our Photos can be found here

Driftwood playing AIG in Deal....

Driftwood playing 'Show of Hands's Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed - one for bankers & politicians everywhere.....



Busking in Deal on 8th May 2010....

Just in case you cannot see the embedded video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EjSlXhiyqs

Driftwood playing at Canterbury Climate Fair 2pm on 15th May

Canterbury Climate fair is next weekend - 15th & 16th May in Central Canterbury (The Parade and St George’s St ) between 10am  - 4pm. Organised by Canterbury Greenpeace.

There will be eco-traders, NGOs, ethical exhibitors and green entertainers. Stalls include CPRE, Greenpeace, Dover Bees, Fairtrade, Oxfam, Eternal Energy, Slow bread, Greener alternative, FOE, Canterbury Plants, People & Planet, Sustrans/Spokes, Wildwood, Friendly Soaps, Driftwood, Conker Conservation, WEDG, UKC, Moven Smooth and New Internationalist Deal With It will be having a stall there on Sunday 16th - so call in and say hello....

Driftwood are playing at 2pm on Saturday (its Rose's birthday) - there is a excellent line up for the two days:


Saturday: SpyPlane, Adrian O, Deal Hoodeners, Stuart Pendrill, Loose Change, Les Cruttenden, Driftwood, John Barden & Brian Rogers, Mac & Clive and RedEye + more to be confirmed


Sunday:  Fred Holden, John Gisbey, Mike Wood, Dave Ferra, Spygenius, Stuart Pendrill, Loose Change, Bill and Chris, Jim Bryden, Bottles, Standard 5, The Bluegrass Boys and Gavin Randall (but not necessarily in that order!)
http://www.canterburyclimatefair.org

Driftwood Busking in Deal 8th May

Driftwood busking in Deal High St on Saturday 8th May - Joined by friends from Deal Folk Club -Lynda, Eddie, Cath and Adrian.

We got moved on by the management of the one armed bandit place fronted by a 'coffee shop'. Thank you for bigging-up our street cred!

Big thank you to all those who donated to St Leonards repair funds.

Driftwood are playing on the 22nd May at 2pm at the 'Spring Celebration's at St Leonards Hall in Upper Deal

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/driftwood_deal/sets/72157624017021016/show/with/4588539241/

Chequers Photos

A big Driftwood thank you to Mac & Bill for putting the St Georges gig at the Chequers in Ash - Driftwood photos of the evening can be found here .

A great evening!

Driftwood playing at Ash 23rd April

Driftwood are playing at the Chequers Inn in Ash on Friday evening 23rd April - Bill Howarth is organising the evening ...

Canterbury Climate Fair - 15th + 16th May

Canterbury Greenpeace are organising a two day Climate Fair on the 15th & 16th May - Driftwood  will be playing there (probably on the 15th) and many of our friends from Deal Friday Folk Club are doing sessions. More details to follow...

The Climate Fair will run from 9am to 5pm on the Saturday and from 10am to 4pm on the Sunday.
There will be campaign stalls, entertainers, Fairtrade and organic produce stalls, and displays stretching along The Parade and St George’s Street between the ancient clock tower and historic Rose Lane.

Canterbury Climate Fair website: http://www.canterburyclimatefair.org/
Canterbury Greenpeace: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/groups/canterbury

Birthday Pics....

We have now uploaded the photos from Avril's birthday party on the Driftwood Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/driftwood_deal/sets/72157623653611772/

Gigs Glore...

The Driftwood Gigs webpage has been updated with 10 spots over the next few months http://www.driftwood.uk.net/gigs.html ... more coming so watch this space

feel the benefit...

Big Driftwood thank you to Di and Louie at BlueSkyPie for organising the benefit at the Lanterns for Folkestone Rescue lifeboat last Weds 24th. Well done on raising so much money for great cause!


Driftwood photos are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/driftwood_deal/sets/72157623620188930/

The long and winding (and very muddy) road.....

The Roadie completed his ultra run of 50miles - the Not for Nothing Fifty - on Saturday with his mate Simon from Deal Tri. Lovely run, really nice countryside and we were (comparatively) lucky with the weather. Much respect for the Walkers in the LDWA - some we past at mile 10 came steaming past us at 45miles. Well organised by Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA - probably spent far to long at the inviting checkpoints. Got a lot harder once it got dark, especially on a long section thru the woods - we got lost big time and ended up doing nearly an extra 6miles.  I was not in my happy place on the last 3-4miles thru somme like fields at the end. Big thanks to Si - would not have liked to have done by myself.

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....

Gig of the decade (so far...)

The Winter Ash Mini Folk Festival at the Chequer Inn on Saturday 2nd January 2010 kick started the new year in fine style. If it had been a turkey it would have exploded because it was over-stuffed with an truck-load of talent for twelve hours (there were nearly 70 performers and 30 acts in all).

A day full of folkie heros, four deserve a special mention in despatches : Two of Driftwood's great friends Avril Cameron and Sue Watson got it together on the day to do the two most beautiful songs. We had the soulful Loose Change and the what can only be described as phenomemal Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou (and if you dont believe us check out their Allotment Song on their MySpace Site). Finally Steve O Kane and Fiona McBain did their wonderful Make Mine a Miracle by Driftwood request.

Driftwood thoroughly enjoyed themselves and a big thank you for Lin, David and Pat for coming down from the Smoke and Charlie & Vicky from Deal coming to listen to us. Driftwood photos are on our Flickr Site Click here

A Mighty Driftwood thank you to Whispering Adrian O for organising a great event...Put the 28th August in you Diary for the summer Mini-Fest.

Happy new year from Driftwood

Driftwood had a wonderful time playing with our friends at the Plough & Harrow in Tilmanstone on New Years Eve

There were lots of brilliant acts from Deal and all round Kent (I counted at least 15) ... the pub audience even entertained the players!

You can see many of them at the Ash Mini-Folk Fest on the 2nd January

To see the photos from the evening check our Flickr Site here

Thanks to Adrian O for organising another great event....