Folksiness

We know how to folking party

I’m sure many people have an image of folk music fans as middle-aged couples in sensible sweaters and walking boots, probably with glasses and slightly crazy hair, sipping halves of real ale while tapping their feet to some guy with a fiddle playing a tune about how “my true love went and left me when she fell a-down the well”.

The Shetland Folk Festival couldn’t be further from that image if it took place on the moon! This is a More

The Barn Raising

In Pioneer times in the United States families would hold barn raising events. Barn raising was something that needed a lot of hands for a short period of time (and no it was not an Enigin Scam ). The family would put on a big fun filled event and their friends and family would come, raise the barn and then have a party.

Barn raising could be a brilliant model that we bring into modern times to help families survive More

The Sing A long

I am really shocked at how difficult it is to get my friends to have a good old sing along. I kept inviting them over and they kept turning me down, until finally I threatened to find new friends with email marketing and they relented. I knew it had to be a good experience so I planned it extensively and here is what I came up with.

• Choose a theme: this should include the songs and the drinks and snacks More

Your face or mine

A show I recently came across on TV that took the knockers off me was YFOM - Your Face or Mine. I think its rigged but it doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what the stupid program conveys. So basically for those who are blessed by not seeing this dumb program - the 2 judges both ugly irritating judge’s ask a couple to come on stage and they humiliate the crap out of them. First off - why did More

Doing my bit for the enviroment

Time to get a new car, and I wanted an more economical and enviromentally minded machine, I settled on the Honda Jazz Hybrid:
An exciting new addition to the Honda family will be hitting the roads early this year: the Honda Jazz Hybrid. Honda’s latest eco-friendly hatchback, introduced at the 2010 Paris Motor Show, is the version of the Honda Fit Hybrid for the European and Asian markets. Its innovative new design keeps the practical features of the very popular More

Yeah, Yeah, Mr Tambourine Man Yeah!

Ah, the simple things: give me them over the complexities of modern-day life any day! One of the simplest things in the world, I suppose, is jamming with friends. My only problem with that is that I can’t play any instruments, which is a sort of spanner in the works when it comes to jamming with mates. But before I go any further, I’m not going to insult my parents – who created me and no doubt passed some musical More

Folk Beginnings

If you’re just getting into Folk and looking for a few pointers, want to check out some differing artists / sub genre’s, find festivals and concerts there’s a number of resources available on-line for doing just that.
A good place to start for a general overview is the Guardian newspapers Folk section. Latest artist reviews along with videos, festival and gig listings and forums for discussion with other users, which is quite popular being the Guardian. In fact the opinion More

Classic Literature

It is a bothering cultural reality that we curently live in and more and more people seem to start caring less about that disturbing fact. Let me give you a slight example - how many people have you seen reading Byron for example at the Stansted Airport Parking areas? The answer is NONE. And how many of them have you seen reading, for example, John Girsham? Well, at least a few passing by every hour.

What are these simple observations More

Pop up Shops for Artists

Owning original art work doesn’t have to cost the earth and in turn as an artist there are many ways to share your art with the public. The formality of art galleries is simply not an appropriate venue to display many pieces and if your intended audience is not likely to enter a gallery, then that renders such a setting redundant. In an effort to put art back into the hands of normal people where it belongs, many independent art More

African Arts

African arts are probably the most impressive ones when it comes to origin and application. The people from the continent still use the natural materials for different depictions, and the tattoos and piercings of many people on the continent are considered to be valuable artistic achivements and also evident for the character of the person they are made on.

The tattooing art in Africa is widely spread, especially in the southern parts of the continent. This has been a tradition More