The Catskinners

A wee gig and a new upload.

2010-09-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

We've a wee gig on Tuesday 21st September in PIVOPIVO in Waterloo Street in Glasgow

Doors about 8pm

Admission £4.00

Gary, the chap who runs it's trying to get a series of folk events off the ground so we thought we'd chip in a bit and help out.

There are some young singer songwriters on the bill as well. Come along and support this venture.

New to the playlist is our version of St James Infirmary blues.

This started off one night in Lauries when John was just idling through a chord progression between songs, and I reckoned Roland Kirk's Serenade To A Cuckoo fitted nicely with what he was playing. St James Infirmary sort of followed on after that. A few days later we were recording some demo stuff and we thought it would be fun to put that down, and use the concertina as the lead intrument on the song part. So we did a quick rough and it sounded ok so there you have it.

Back at last

2010-07-23T03:27:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus it's time this blog was updated.

Straight away there's 4 new freebie recordings for you to download.

We recorded a big bunch of stuff for the "Feline My Way" album, but that's still in the (long) pipeline because we're lazy buggers who like making and recording music better than all the hassle of actually packaging and marketing it, so we end up with enough stuff for about two complete albums, and no actual albums. haha!

I'll put more stuff up soon, I promise, along with pics and stories of what we've been up to over the past few months.

Anyway enjoy the new stuff.

First up's Doomsday in the Afternoon. Lots of people have recorded this song, and it's sort of found its way into the modern tradition, although John actually wrote it.

Next is Davy Lowston. Never seal. You'll get stranded and have to eat nothing but seals and seagulls for years.

Then there's Paddy the Moocher. This is another McCreadie original about the beggars of the 1950s and the beggars of today. All failed by society.
This was big fun to record because we skinnered it completely.

The final new upload for today is Jim Jones at Botany Bay with a wee tune tacked on the end called "The Princess Royal". Both traditional, this gave me an opportunity to use the new octave tuned harmonica Trish gave me at Christmas, and John got to mess about in open tuning.

Right! I promise I'll put more stuff up soon.

Toodle pip!

Ken.

2nd Annual Lowe Syndrome Fundraiser Saturday 5th September

2009-09-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

Oh No! Three and a half MONTHS since I last updated this blog!!!!!

Summer's been and gone and we've been spotting and sessioning around as usual, and doing wee bits and pieces for the album.

We've also been arranging the second fundraiser for the Lowe Syndrome Association , this time at the Georgian Hotel in Coatbridge on Saturday 5th September.

People are queueing up to take part in this event.

On the bill so far are:

The Catskinners
Clark & King
Claire & Gavin Livingston (The Icing)
David Stevenson - Scottish songwriter based in Cambridge
Adriana

We're also hoping to see Gifford Lind and the gang from Dunfermline Folk Club who put so much into arranging and performing in last year's concert at Dunfermline Athletic's stadium.

Lorna can't make it as she's stuck in Canada.

We're doing the gig this year in collaboration with Coatbridge Rotary Club and Intimate Gigs

Tickets available on the door £8/£6(concs)

Kickoff around 8pm.

It'll be a good show. Come and join us.

Catskinners on Celtic Music Radio from the Oran Mor

2009-05-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

After the fun we had with Lorna on CMR the other week, they've asked the Catskinners back in to do the 10 am slot at the Oran Mor on Saturday 23rd May (that's tomorrow).

Jim King and Steven Clark are scheduled to go on at 11, but we'll probably end up sitting in with each other.

Choon in and listen.

http://www.celticmusicradio.net/

What's been happening this month?

2009-05-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

Well.

The Lorna Lavelle Band did the opener at the Star Club on the 16th April. Lorna was jetlagged all to hell, but the professionalism was all there.

Then there was Jim King and Steven Clark's album launch onthe 24th.

I recorded them at the Star Folk Cl ub early in 2008 and we finally got the editing finished and the album released.

It's called "Tougher Than Suet". Find out more here and here and here, and it's a damn fine record.

The launch was in Dows in Queen Street and we had a rather spiffy session after it.

People travelled from all over the world and Shawlands to be there.

Here's Jim and Steve looking performy.

Then the Lorna Lavelle Band had a live broadcast spot on Celtic Music Radio from the Oran Mor on the 2nd May. Here's John and me tuning up in the empty bar.

They recorded it and put it out on their listen again feature. The sound is a bit iffy because they had some techy problems.

After the Oran Mor we were all off down to Girvan for the Folk Festival, which was good fun this year. We managed to find a session in the Hamilton Arms with a bunch of good musicians and singers, then over to the Roxy for sunset in the beer garden where we got in tow with John Morrison the Silver Fox for a tune or two.

The Roxy session didn't last long because it was getting too cold to play - but it was a laugh anyway.

9th May was the Moniaive Festival, and we joined the Babbitty Bowster session musicians on the charabanc down to the Borders.

We spen the day in a six and a half hour megasession in the Craigdarroch which has since been described as the best afternoon session anywhere, ever, so it must have been good. We were in the middle of it and we had a great time. Thank you Moniave.

Here's Lorna having a great time.

On the way back up the road we had a session on the bus..

Tricia had thoughtfully packed a bottle of whisky which helped smooth the journey back to Babbitty's. We all piled in there and had yet another session.

Lorna went back to Canada the day after Moniaive. We did record a couple of tracks with her which I'll post later.

Check out her myspace

More later.

Ken

Lorna Lavelle Band at the Star Club Thursday 16th April

2009-04-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

Lorna gets off the plane from Canada mid afternoon Thursday.

8 PM she will be on stage with us for the opening spot at the Star.

It's a few months since we all played together.

Och well. We're troupers.

More details after the show.

New album "Feline Our Way" on the cooker and nice pics from the Star Club

2009-03-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

John and I spent the last week cloistered up in the studio laying tracks for a new album to be called "Feline Our Way".

It's a while from completion yet. We need to add some more instrumental parts and re-record the odd bum performance once we've had a good listen to the roughs. There's ten tracks almost completed so far with another four planned, and it'll be a mix of John's own songs and songs from the tradition that we've "skinnered".

Some of it'll have the folk polis apoplectic!

The Star Club floor spot went well last Thursday. We tried out some new stuff that we're putting on the CD and people seemed to like it.

Catskinners skinnering.

Star Folk Club Thursday 19th March

2009-03-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

We're helping out our old pals at the Star Folk Club on Thursday 19th March by doing the opening spot for Steve Turner.

John and I are working on some new stuff and some of that will be geting its first outing that night.

They used to call this floor spotting when I were a lad. It's a good opportunity to try out new stuff in front of an audience, and for young acts it can be good for a bit of exposure and experience.

But it seems it's not a floor spot any more. No sirree. If you believe some of the minor acts around the scene it's "Playing Support", so I suppose we're supporting Steve Turner.

Anyway, whatever you want to call it, Steve's a top notch act and well worth going to see.

The big bonus of course is that you get half an hour of the wonderful Catskinners to kick the evening off so get there early!!!

A night at Sammy's Monday 2nd March

2009-03-04T02:57:00.000-08:00

We did the musical spot at the Southside Writers' at Sammy Dow's bar on Monday night.
The writers meet monthly and there's always a lot of entertaining poetry on offer. We had a great time and a few good laughs.

The MC at Sammys is Gail, who up until a while ago was Ian. This was the first time we'd met Gail since she officially became a woman. I think from that picture John's applied a wee bit of lippy as a gesture of solidarity. It looks good on him dontcha think?

New Audio Files from rehearsals.

2009-02-03T07:12:00.001-08:00

John and I were kicking some songs around on Sunday with the 16 track recorder hooked up.

These need to be tidied up a bit but they'll give you an idea where we are just now.

All of these are recorded in a single take with no overdubs.

Which Side Are You On? Written by Florence Reese in the 1930s, this is one of the songs from the Wobblies show. It's missing Tricia's driving drum. She had to call off through illness.

Joshua Gone Barbados Written by Eric VonSchmidt, another song from the Wobblies show, and we did it in the Johnny Cash show too since JC recorded it once. We used to do this with concertina, guitar and voice, but after fidding with it for a while we decided on the broken down drawbar organ sound which, I think, adds a kind of island feel to it.

Empty Pocket Blues An old Incredible String Band song. A jolly wee bluesy thing.

More soon.

Ken

Well That Was The Wobbly concert

2009-01-19T06:51:00.000-08:00

After a bit of a logistical nightmare we got this show on to the stage last night and started more or less on time.

Someone called MickStubbles was kind enough to write this about us on Footstompin:

A most uplifting night! It took me back to my younger days when you started to feel that songs and shared experiences could help to change the world. It is sad that (in my case at least) the optimism of youth fades away with the years - but as last night showed the flame can quickly be rekindled.

I have always been interested in the IWW, especially the background to its formation in 1905 and the role of outstanding personalities like Eugene Debs; and it was good to have a representative from the Clydeside branch of IWW at the concert to tell us about current IWW activities. The Catskinners managed to include a whole bundle of great songs of protest, social and political comment, reminders of industrial hardship and mining tragedy, etc. which I had forgotten I knew but found myself singing along with.

Congratulations to Jim McKenna and co. for putting on the show - and for the whole fortnight of the Songwright Festival.

We could have done with more of an audience, but since it was January, freezing rain outside, Glasgow on a Sunday evening, when the public transport's almost non-existent, and whatever was on at Celtic connections last night, we did alright.

Thanks to Jim McKenna and Eric Grant for hosting the show and Jim King for compering.

I'll post some sound files if what we caught on the field recorder was any good.

Ken.

Wobly Concert firming up.

2009-01-14T03:41:00.001-08:00

Eric and Jim from the Glasgow Festival of Songwriting have been busy setting up for this year's event.

Our Wobblies concert in Dow's in Dundas Street on Sunday 18th is part of the festival.

We checked the venue out last night and it's a good room - if they can find the light switch!

The line up for Sunday will be.

Ken, John, Trish Caird, Steven Clark, and Dave Featherstone

Compere will be Jim King who will do a couple of songs with us, and all being well we'll have a special guest appearance from Roisin Caird too.

The playlist and narrative are taking shape and we were sounding damn good at rehearsals last night, even if I do say it myself.

Looking forward to Sunday.

Hope to see you there.

Ken

Wobblies show guests Steven Clark and Dave Featherstone

2008-12-18T01:59:00.001-08:00

The line up for the Wobbly Songs concert on 18th Januaruy is taking shape.

Last night we confirmed that the extremely talented Steven Clark will be joining us. This is a bit of a coup given how busy Steven is these days

Liverpool based, but moving to Glasgow soon, songwriter and singer of angry songs Dave Featherstone walked into the Morrisons session last night and we conscripted him for the show too.

Dave's a fine guitar player and singer with a rather quirky delivery which draws you in while it's taking you by surprise. - och don't ask, just come along and listen!

More soon.

Ken

UPDATE: The Wobblies concert 18th January.

2008-12-12T05:28:00.000-08:00

Things are coming together for the Songwright Festival

Wobbly Show on Sunday 18th January.

Tickets will be £7.00 and £5.00 (concs)

We don't know who'll be sitting in with us yet, but we've been working on some good arrangements of the songs.

The audience better come prepared to sing. That's all I'm saying.

Ken.

The Johnny Cash Fulsom Prison show

2008-11-30T03:14:00.000-08:00

The Johnny Cash at Fulsom Prison Show was last night at the Glasgow Media Access Centre.

Andy Brammer from Wakefield came up and delivered a narration and sang a selection of Johnny Cash songs. We were the backing band, and we did a few of the songs ourselves. That's Andy on the far right of the pictures.

The audience were very appreciative and we had a rerr wee night.

We'd only met Andy on Thursday and there was hardly any rehearsal time so it was real seat of the pants stuff. Great fun though.

Big thanks to GMAC and the SWP for hosting the event.

Wobbly Songs - Fanning the flames of discontent.

2008-11-24T06:46:00.000-08:00

The Glasgow Songwright festival is running in January 2009, again in parallel with Celtic Connections.

As a part of this we'll be putting on our Wobbly Songs show on the Sunday 18th of January in Dow's in Dundas Street.

This was pretty successful last year especially in the light of John taking ill and Steven Clark going on holiday, so we had to do the thing with just me and a bunch of press-ganged pals at no notice, and no rehearsal time. It was a big busk.

It's a testament to the talents of Jim King, Jim McKenna, and Dave Featherstone that we carried that gig off and people generally agreed it was a good show.

Well Songwright have asked us to do it again, which is nice, so we'll try to make sure John's there and we have a complement of guests joining us.

Detils of timing and tickets will appear on the Songwright website in due course.

Ken.

1968 Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison event

2008-11-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

We're playing a fundraiser for Cultures of Resistance on Saturday 29th November at the GMAC cinema in Glasgow.

This is down to Ally Hulett reccommending us to Andy Brammer who's organising it.

It's a night of songs and narrative celebrating .................

Johnny Cash.

Erm.

I was never that fond of Johnny Cash and as a result his music largely passed me by in my journeys with the muse, but I'm a trouper (translate as musical whore) and I'll have a go.

John has no trouble with this. His house is wall to wall records and cds and there's some Johnny Cash stuff in there - and he knows the songs. (If you know John you'll understand why I'm not surprised he knows these songs.)

However, getting involved with this has made me have a closer look at Cash and his work. A lot of the songs are good political statements.

It didn't occur to me that he was a bit of a lefty. Well you live and learn.

Timing, ticket prices etc TBC

More later

Ken