A now rare appearance of a CH feature in a magazine last month – a piece in ‘Record Collector’ on John Renbourn and Dorris Henderson’s 1960s recordings, on the back of Cherry Red’s 6CD set Unpentangled: The Sixties Albums containing the 1965–68 work of both, which I compiled and provided images for, with David Wells writing the notes.
On the Dorris front, I’ve been digitising a lot of off-air radio session reels for a friend recently (in addition to my own collection) and between us there is almost all of the final two John Peel sessions by Eclection, recorded in 1968. Bar one single A side, these are the only tracks the band recorded when they were fronted by Dorris and one of the two sessions also features the splendid Gary Boyle on guitar. All of my own collection plus a few items from my friend’s are being uploaded as audio montages to YouTube. Sometimes the ‘montage’ is only one image and the audio, but now and again I’ll put time into doing something more elaborate. I was particularly pleased at how a reconstruction of the ‘lost’ 15-minute Pentangle TV show Songs From A Country Church (BBC, 1970) worked out – cleaned up from off-air audio with a load of period images treated and loosely synced to the music. There’s lots of this sort of thing on my YouTube ‘channel’; here’s the link to that one:
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Hopefully by the end of this month the Legends of Tomorrow EP Don’t Go to Nashville will be released digitally via Market Square Music – comprising the all-new title track, sung by the splendid Mickey Rafferty (The Minnows), along with Cormac O’Kane remasters of three older recordings sung by Ciaran Gribbin (‘When It’s Gone’), Paul Casey (‘Liberation’) and Janet Henry (‘People on the Highway’), which have not hitherto been released digitally.
The ‘Don’t Go To Nashville’ sessions were great fun – three in total: the instrumental backing (with Flatts Conigan on piano, Professor Chris Probst on leads guitar, myself on acoustic guitar and Ali MacKenzie on bass), the vocal one (with Mickey Rafferty, Rowena Cairns and Ellen Weir) and finally a drum session with the great Petesy Burns.
I wrote another song last week, ‘Greta Thunberg at the End of Time’, demoed it and stuck it on YouTube. I might record it at some point with a guest singer and the like, but it’s quite liberating to have an idea, throw it down on tape (metaphorically) and push it out there.
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I was thrilled on September 20 to host a ‘Warehouse Remembered’ gig at the Pavilion, Belfast, featuring reunions of four great bands associated with the Warehouse – a legendary venue near the docks that lasted 18 months spanning 1994–96. Those acts were Strawman, Stonefish, the Bush Turkeys and Disreali Gears, along with an all-star spot for Peacefrog founder Dave McLarnon backed by Ali MacKenzie (Bush Turkeys), Bob Moody (Stonefish) and Lonesome Chris Todd (a new addition to the Bush Turkeys). Warehouse founder Chris Roddy turned up (late!) and seemed to enjoy himself. Sensational soundman Matt McIvor recorded all the audio and award-winning design wizard Mark Case filmed it all. No doubt some high-quality audio-visuals will appear online in due course. The show was a charity event and we raised £901 for Fauna & Flora International. Well done all! There may well be similar charitable events in future with the same/other acts from the mid-90s Warehouse scene, and the Pavilion – whose staff and management were very helpful and whose facilities were much improved from their scuzzy 90s reputation – seems the ideal place to have such fun.
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Finally, I’ve researched and compiled (on paper) an exciting 6CD set on a legendary artist about which I can say no more at present. Next time…
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Mark Case’s film summary of the Pavilion concert: