Pica Pica

On the Session site to which I occasionally contribute (not much these days – Lingpupa is my current handle) I have been known to join the popular sport of bating Dick Miles. (If you read it, you’d know why). But I really, really do feel sorry for him now – his concertina got badly damaged by fire. Best wishes for a speedy and not-too-expensive recovery.
Here he was on a good day in 2005:

Things have been a bit busy the last few weeks, as I’ve been helping set up another website for Karma Samten Choeling. Take a peek at: Karma Samten Choeling

I’ve also heard from an old Oxford buddy, Keith Bloomfield, recently retired from being UK Amassador in Kathmandu, who sent me a link of a singing friend from there, who does sound as if she has a really nice voice: Telepathy

Take a look!

The Tuesday session at Kelly’s stopped operating earlier this year. Partly as a result, in September we started a session at the Riverview Hotel in Balmain on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. Thanks, Sarah, for this idea!

Anybody who is particularly interested that can find out more through the session’s group at Yahoo.
It’s the nature of sessions to be unpredictable, but the first two nights have been successful, so here are a few pictures.

A general view of the pub, which you can see is “old-style”. This one was taken before the first session actually started.

New South Wales, to its shame, has an astonishing number of pokies.
The pubs and hotels depend on them for income, and the Hotels Association has made large contributions to the governing party to maintain the system of large “boofhead” pubs through an expensive licensing scheme. The State government also has become financially dependent on the large rake of it gets from these machines. Nobody likes to talk about the broken lives that pay for all this. Anyway, this pub has, I am proud to report, possibly the pokiest pokie room you will be likely to find:

Some of the players on the second evening:

And here is another view:

A star visitor on the second evening was Ruth Boylan, who had been teaching at the Gundagai festival:

And finally, another view of some of the players, lit by flashlight. This does not give such an atmospheric view, but you can see more clearly!

So far, so good!

3 April 2007. Back upstairs again in Kelly’s on King, Newtown, Sydney.

I don’t need to make many comments about most of these!

Thinking about it..

Playing and thinking:

Playing:

Even more playing:

A contributor to thesession.org/who escaped the picture three weeks ago:

More and more playing:

A slightly different angle:

Even less comment:

The audience was enthusiastic:

Not playing, dancing (though we want a harder surface):

The landlord says “Well, it is an Irish pub”:

Another Tuesday in Kelly’s on King, Newtown, Sydney.

The barman is just bringing the free drink, so this was about 9 o’clock:

Massed concertinas of Kellys. Chris Ghent had brought along one of his new fabrications – players seemed to like it.
This picture also includes a Mystery Regular Contributor to thesession.org/

:

Here is another Mystery Regular Contributor to thesession.org/ enjoying a few nice old tunes:

Ivan the Steamreeler:

Ben, Occasional Contributor to thesession.org/.
He also plays bodhran, but I have suppressed the evidence:

Kevin – eminence grise? Give him half a chance and he’ll tell you about www.irishmusicianssydney.com/.
(If you’re pretty, a quarter of a chance will do. Something like “Come and look at my website dear”):

Last night I went to a dinner in honour of HH Dalai Lama’s birthday, where I met a Tibetan musician.
Don’t get me wrong – I like him, I like his music. But these Tibetan flutists have got it nicely sewn up, haven’t they? Drench it in reverb, improvise in a minor key and hey presto – mystical, meditative, mountainous, moving…

I have many, many pictures from sessions. These are from the last one I attended in Ballydehob. They are in no particular order.

Alan:

Derek:

Gill:

Sue:

Chris:

Gubby:

Jen:

Roger:

Mary:

Dave K:

Mike:

Dawn:

Dave:

Not a session – the Dirty
Polkas: