TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

just  to let you all know, you can now pre-order the new fairport cd     '4play' 76/79  from my web site      

http://www.folkicons.co.uk/swarb.htm







Edit: Added link to Swarb's site

The buggers at Amazon are undercutting you, Swarb.  Many of us have already ordered it there.

Jules

Message from Amazon that the delivery date has been put back a few days.

At least my new Emily Portman CD came today.

Really?

Mine says "dispatched 14 July" with an estimated delivery date of Friday ...

Yes I have had a dispatch confirmation too. Perhaps they under ordered.

Mine arrived (ordered a while back on Amazon) this morning (he said, smugly) and I've been listening all day in the car. ;D

Definitely of its era, but crisp and well produced.

same here

Yep, mine too...arrived smugly today. apparently even the postman looked smug, he was about 3 hours earlier than usual so he'll be in the pub early! Listening now, on disc 2. Some songs not fantastic quality but the spirit is present on every track so it doesn't matter. General Taylor is just brilliant, as is most of it. I loved this line-up. Saw them quite a few times, Bristol Uni, Dudley Town Hall (where they carried on playing after the house lights had come on) ...erm....a couple of other places...this is a fantastic cd. Thanks Swarb! Oh gosh....Peggy's bass solo on Sloth now playing....awesome!

Arrived yesterday and played on long trip top Dublin and back - lot of songs I'd never heard live before - glad I bought this one.

Picked up a copy (from HMV) on the way home last night - cracking album - including, as Dave says, a bang-on-form Sloth - never let anyone say that Simon Nicol is not capable of being a lead guitarist - his playing on this track is just excellent!  Hints of RT in there, but its very much Simon's own imagination and technique.  The fiddle, bass & drums aren't half good, as well... of course.  That's a pretty damn funky rhythm section!

Flowers of the Forest also a stand-out for me - I wonder if we'll hear that at Cropredy?

Just a thought - I'd like to hear the current line-up play "When I Get to the Border"...

All in all, a big  ;D

Unfortunately the person who mostly seems to say it is Simon. I suspect it is not so much that he can't do it as that he doesn't enjoy it.

I assume what we really mean is being a lead ELECTRIC guitarist

Exactly - lead ELECTRIC guitar.

(but if he can play that well while NOT enjoying the role, what would he be like if he really loved it?)  ;)

I've always rated Simon as an electric guitarist.  I remember (and I know I've mentioned it before) the Albion Dance Band at Folk Song '76 in the RFH when he let rip with a solo piece which elicited the comment "Bloody hell - is that just him?"

They played "When I Get To The Border" (at least they did in Weston-Super-Mare) on the 2001 Spaced Oddity tour, pretty sure that was the current line up. Jolly good it was too.

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They played "When I Get To The Border" (at least they did in Weston-Super-Mare) on the 2001 Spaced Oddity tour, pretty sure that was the current line up. Jolly good it was too.
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I remember that too, (they played it in Southsea, I wasn't at Weston-Super-Mare) a very pleasant surprise !

Amazon have finally dispatched my copy. At least it sounds like it is worth waiting for.

My copy waiting for me when I go back home.   :)

Jules

My copy came today. I was blasting it out as I drove through Ball Hill/Stoke in Coventry on my way home from work. Does Swarb still live in that area? I know he did about 13 years ago when I lived here.

he does.

Same here.

I received mine last week via international post and have been enjoying it ever since.  Bruce Rowland really blows out the speakers.

And here.  Loving it.

That's Fairport Convention!

It is marvellous, even with tape hiss, flubbed notes and dodgy guitar bit in Journeyman's grace. Reminds me of the band I fell in love with in 1989 (Yes, a latecomer, but I wasn't even a twinkle when the lads and lasses started out) in a dismal student halls of residence overlooking a remarkably dreary ring road and bus station. Thank you Mum and (Late) Dad for buying me all those tapes and CDs when you came to visit! [I recall waiting for them to bugger off so I could listen to them!]

It also reminds me of driving round Lancashire with Tippler's Tales blasting out at full volume. What a crazy dude I was back in the 1990s!

I always loved this lineup of Fairport... It's what I always think of as 'folk-rock'. There's folk and there's rock.

What's 20 volts between friends?

That's Fairport Convention indeed. I love them now but...this was my favourite line up, no doubt about it. Energy, funny, great musicianship...I wonder if the punk thing gave them a bit of something or other?

That yell and funny guitar note in Journeyman is because Simon got an electric shock off the Mike, I asked him was it ok to include it   nice you picked it up ha ha  

I am patiently waiting for payday to add this to the shelves!  The bits I've heard sound great.  Shame there's no Jack Orion though.  I'd love to hear that one day...

You can hear that on either Tipplers Tales or The Boot.

Great track!

Jules

Yeah, I think the Tipplers version is up there in my top 10 Fairport tracks.  Never heard a live cut though.  So begins the annual search for a copy of The Boot!

I don't think I've been to Cropredy in the last 25 years and *not* seen a copy of The Boot (those stalls in the village, the, er, Boot fair).  Trouble is they are nearly always on cassette.  Don't often see it on CD but a couple of TAWers from around here have got (relatively) reasonably priced ones (below £50) on eBay in the last year or so if I remember correctly.

In mine too.

Jules

Thank you, Xmas present contributors, for my copy. Lovely package, awful sound. Reminds me of those dayglo cassettes that were so ubiquitous at record fairs back in the day. Unfortunately, when you can buy Joni Mitchell's remastered Blue for three quid on CD, a bunch of overstretched cassette copies of audience tapes for four times the price doesn't really cut it in terms of VFM for me.    

Yes, regrettably that is pretty much what I thought about it too. I have played it twice since I bought it on release. It has interesting documentary value and serviceable versions of a few songs (notably Ditching Boy and Sloth) but it is quite hard work to listen to. There have been other live albums from Fairport with similar issues over the years.

Parts of it are worse than others, but it was never anything other than a collection of audience recordings, was it?  It sounds pretty much like I expected it to sound.  Years ago now, but in the past I've paid money to people for tarted up audience recordings on a silver disk...To be honest I'd much rather Swarb got my shilling than A.N.Other.  It gets played a lot more in J-S Towers than many other more pristine sounding Fairport recordings of recent years... I like it.

Same here,it was my in car entertainment for a good few weeks ,but then I know we both are used to lo-fi live recordings,and it helped that I knew what I was getting in advance..I also agree that if Swarb and the others are benefitting that's all fine and dandy with me.
With these things it's the performance you have to concentrate on,rather than the quality of the recording,and there are some fine performances here.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't be without it. Just as I wouldn't be without Who Knows & Many Ears To Please but I get more listening pleasure from Farewell Farewell, Live or Before The Moon from the same eras. In places it is just a little too lo fi, though some of it is fine as you say.

Good for you! I'd have enjoyed some of the playing more if I'd been able to hear it above the tape hiss. Mind you I may have been slightly misled about the quality by the Amazon review which read "With Swarb as a lead singer in those days, his remastering of these tracks is as masterly as his violin playing has always been...The music is of an era long past, but the sound is crisp" *looks meaningfully at Andy Leslie*

(If anybody out there is reading this and wondering whether to get it or not) It really isn't that bad...

If anyone is reading this and wants a copy, let me know...

I played mine once and spilled hot tea on the cover and wrecked it.  It's put me off playing it again because it reminds me what an arse I was to spill that tea!   :'(

Jules

I had a similar incident with Counting Crows' August & Everything After in 1994 and have never played it since!  ;D

i too enjoyed the cds. It is true that the sound quality is varied. I don't think I could make it all the way through sitting in my easy chair sipping a cold one and just listening. But on a long drive with the windows down and the volume cranked it's awesome! The performances themselves are breathtaking

I only played that once for a different reason - I thought it was incredibly dull.

Jules

Well, there is that too.  ;D

I enjoyed it and didn't think the sound was that bad. It is certainly a lot better than the live Renaissance CD I just bought! (The original Renaissance lineup with Keith Relf and Jim McCarthy.)

To be fair, some of the instrumentals - notably the Matty coda - confirm what a superb guitarist Sir Norm really is. Astonishing work, I wish he did more of it.

"Sir Norm"?  I must have missed out on that one.   ???

Jules

A play on "Simon".

Canny Capers - Medley Of: Step Away from the Bass/ Sir Norm De Norm/ My Gypsy Pal/ Conway's Cognac. I think you can guess who is who in this particular line up? As I understand it, there was a story involving a restaurant bill, a steak and chips, and the adoption of a footballer-sounding nom du plume for tax purposes...  :o  

Thanks, lads, I am simultaneously enlightened and none-the-wiser.   ;D

Jules