Current mood:
satisfied
Category: Romance and Relationships
Melody/Tune Player Wanted. If you play fiddle, flute, whistle, pipes, squeeze box, or any combination of the above, a warm welcome awaits you. We are three fun loving, friendly, very experienced, mature musicians – David, Ken & Phil - who play Folk/Rock/Blues with wide ranging influences from the Saw Doctors to Ry Cooder as well as some of our own tunes and songs. Line up consists of Electric Bass/Acoustic Guitar/Vox, Electro Acoustic Guitar/Bouzouki/Vox, and Electronic Drums/ Bodhran/ Djembe/ Darbuka/ Cahon. We have our own rehearsing/recording studio near Scotch Corner with good gear including a Bose L1 PA. If you are willing to commit time and energy to rehearsing, recording, and gigging with us in 2010 and beyond please contact David at david@itude.demon.co.uk
David and Ken and I met last Thursday to consider the future of Trí. The outcome was the advert above. David has been the band’s drummer since our first gig in Newton Aycliffe in March 2008 and Ken was the bass player in recently disbanded Big G. We’ve agreed, subject to a positive response to the advert, that the three of us will continue performing and seek to promote ourselves as a new band with recordings and gigs. There’s talk about taking on a manager to handle our affairs. The name will change as well. Following the double header concert with Acoustica at The Park Head Hotel on Friday 6 November, Trí will be no more and our reincarnation will perform under a different name. We haven’t yet decided what the new name will be so any suggestions will be gladly received. And, if we decide on a name which has been suggested by a reader of this blog, I’ll send a set of Martin Light Phosphur Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings (.012 - .054) by way of a small prize.
So, don’t forget your tickets for Trí’s last gig where we’ll also be saying goodbye with best wishes to our guitarist, Gary. With the excellent Acoustica on the bill with us we promise it will be an historic evening of great entertainment. The hotel, with its pub priced bar, en-suite rooms and secure car park, will be serving roasties during the interval and there’ll be first come, first served floor spots from 8pm. Acoustica will set the show away at 8.45pm. Children are most welcome with well behaved parents.
As I write, it’s raining around Chez Graham on this grey Saturday. The sun is making a spirited attempt to burn through the mist to brighten up the land. Over the way to the west, the ash trees, always first to drop their leaves, are now barren since last weekend’s golden autumn glow. And the sleeping harvested fields through my east facing window, prepared now for winter frosts, are dull, damp and lifeless under the heavy grey cloud sky. Yellowhammers, starlings, lapwings and tits of all species have packed up and gone leaving the ravens, jackdaws, magpies and gulls to the scavenging.
It’s a privilege living here. We moved in on 15th September 1985 never thinking we might still be here and contented all those family rearing years later. We’ve both had many mutual friends in our home down the years, withstood the odd, but infrequent, neighbourly falling out and shed tears over funeral teas for dearly missed loved ones. As a family we’ve celebrated ninety six birthdays, school and career achievements, tinsel and ring-a-ding-dong Christmases. We’ve scraped around for pennies to pay bills and been able to invest wisely in the good times. But, above all, we’ve stayed true to each other no matter which way the wind blew. And with only sixteen houses, a pub, a hotel and a filling station with mini supermart nearby, we can observe the changing seasons and weather unhindered by the backdrop of townscape rooflines and high rise glass and concrete. Our street of seven houses runs north to south so we have the sunrise and sunset each day. The old railway line is now a popular but still peaceful walk between Bishop Auckland and Spennymoor and, beyond the golf course, there are uninterrupted views all the way to delightful Weardale. Only Teddy Mikalski’s fjord paradise could hold a match to our place.
Paradise or not, we got thoroughly wet down town earlier. We’d been to buy provisions for a family dinner tonight to celebrate Padraic’s birthday tomorrow (Sunday). We hadn’t gone dressed prepared for so much rain between Asda, Home Bargains and Iceland. And there’ll be ten of us here tonight – hopefully dry - Janet and me, Padraic and his friend Michael Ramage Walker, who we refer to as ‘fromage the cheese man’, our older son Daniel and Emma Sams, David Pratt and Chrissy Heseltine, Jennifer Kirby and my mum, Margery. The dining table has been extended to accommodate and the ‘emergency’ chairs have been dragged into play. Chilli is on the menu preceded by a veritable Smogasbord (you can tell we’ve been to Denmark recently!) of pickings and appertisers to set the mood. There’s wine, beer and vodka to wash it away to the morning and very likely a session from David me by way of a mini birthday concert. Happy nineteenth, Padraic.
In the coming week I’ll be making my first trip to The Candleliters in nearby Newton Aycliffe. That’s on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, another first visit. This time to The Bridge in Newcastle where I’m opening for my mate and wit-laced raconteur, Chris Milner, promoting his new CD “Four Fields Meet” (www.myspace.com/chrismilnerpaderevski). Also on the bill are my friends from the north, the newly wed Jimmy and Val, aka jiva and Nottingham’s own troubadour, Nigel Beck. All the makings of a good night methinks.
And now, buggar me…..we have blue sky above. Yaaayyyy 
More next week. Stay dry and stay friends.
Phil
Pic: Summer in New Coundon 2008
© FILMAR Photography