September Shanty Sing at the Press Room

Subject: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: curmudgeon
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 11:11 AM

Saturday, 18 September is the date for this month's shanty / forebitter session at the Press Room in Portsmouth NH from 3:30 to 7:30 PM. Besides some good songs from the usual suspects, programs for the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival will be available. We also hope to have a few unusual suspects. Is this your weekend in our area MMario?

Hope to see some of the Roll and Go gang who have rolled and gone for the last two sessions.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: GUEST,Charley Noble
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 06:22 PM

Tom-

Looks like at least 3 of us are coming down. It's been much too long. We've got lots of new old songs to swap.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: curmudgeon
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 06:59 PM

Great hearing from you, Charley, and 'twill be better hearing you. Will you be coming down for either of the PMFF singarounds as well? I know two weeks in a row is a bit much to ask, but...

See you next Sat -- Tom

PS Anyone else?

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 07:10 PM

Not I Tom. I am babysitting twin boys + a two year old brother. Wish me luck.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 10:50 PM

Sorry, Tom, but I'm off to Baltimore/Annapolis/NYC for the two weeks following the shanty swap. Capt. Bunker's given me some great leads to track down. I'm sure I'll come back with a few songs from whomever I run into at the Cat's Eye Pub.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: curmudgeon
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 06:22 AM

We'll miss you Mary. Good luck with the kids. See you at the Maritime Fest?

Be well - Tom

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 08:41 AM

Tom and Linn-

Any sign of Barry? It would be nice to sing with him again.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Brían
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 11:53 AM

My apologies to everyone. I won't likely be able to make this one either as I am working. I hope to drop in some time(unannounced most likely). See you soon, I hope.

Brían

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Charley Noble
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 05:38 PM

Tom and Linn-

Looks like Nor and Eli will be joining Judy and I in the van pool to the Press Room. Hope the place isn't too smoky. It's been much too long since we've been able to make it down.

Anyone else coming?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: curmudgeon
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 05:47 PM

Good to hear that Charley.

Saw Barry and Justine at the session last Friday. He was not sure what he'd be doing, but at least he knows about both events.

Brian, you've got to do something about that job; I don't think I've seen you since February.

Jeri's planning on being there, and Bruce and Dave and maybe Kevin and MMario opined earlier this year that he might be around. Haven't seen JustAnotherDave in a year.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Brían
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 10:39 PM

Jeez Tom if it was last Saturday I coulda made it. Unfortunately, I am about up to my ears in various projects and obligations. I am considering some way to get down to Portsmouth soon, hopefully before it starts getting snowy and icy.

Brían

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 10:00 AM

Tom and Linn-

Eli is particularly looking forward to singing with Barbara again, and Nor would love to hear Jeff do another round of "Mandalay."

By the way (thread alert drift) does anyone have any appropriate songs for when a neighbor's truck smashes into the corner of one's shop? I was just settling down to morning coffee and heard this tremendous crash! And when I checked outside there was this large utility truck backed into what was left of the corner of our attached shop. This is the same corner with the gas space heater sticking out and the first thing I did was make sure that the gas was turned off; we could have had a serious fire! The neighbor had started up his truck, set the parking brake, and then went back upstairs to get his daughter, and I guess the brake didn't work. The good news is that his truck wasn't damaged. However, the concrete foundation block on top of the concrete pad is trashed as is the space heater. We've done photographs, called the police, the insurance people, and two contractors who will provide the repair estimates which will probably run $4-5 thousand. And we're supposed to be off to Baltimore on Monday. What joy!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 10:06 AM

my response to this seems to have gone astray -
I was in that neck of the woods Labor Day weekend - so much as I would like - I won't make it back.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 09:15 AM

I've been so busy with the temp job I haven't had time to send out e-mail reminders to a lot of the usual suspects. (Haven't been to the last six Press Room Friday sessions, either, alas.)

The rain is bucketing down again, but not quite as bad as last month. (Well, I haven't checked out the Mekong Delta and Lake Perdurabo yet -- or the Priest Road Falls which use my driveway as the streambed.)

We should probably all use today as practice for "Talk Like a Pirate Day." (Aaarghhh!)

Linn

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 10:11 AM

I am babysitting twin boys and their older brother. Hope I survive for the Maritime Festival.
Have fun and stay dry.
Mary

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 10:23 AM

And rain means...PLACES TO PARK!!!
I'm doing a lot of drugs to get ready...allergy drugs. Perhaps I'll have a voice by the time I get there. If not, I guess it's 'sing like a pirate' day.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 10:29 AM

Say, that was a nice gathering, especially for those of us who have not been able to attend for a couple of months. Nice to do some chatting as well as singing. Now if I could only remember what Jeri's first song was, other than I'd like to see the words and hear it again. And I'm terrible at remembering people's names.

It was fun to actually draw a few bar flys over who obviously enjoyed the music. If they return in October we'll have to encourage them not to chatter so much while we are singing but they were clearly swept up in what we were doing.

Bruce was encouraged to do "Precious?" which is a lovely song. Tom led things off with "All for Me Grog" which I followed with a Portland parody called "Concrete and Glass." Tom later did a wonderful rendition of "Leaving of Liverpool." Linn did "Nine Times a Night," Jerry Bryant's "Old Shantytown," and "Fathom the Ball." Dave and Bruce did "Limehouse Reach." Nor and Eli were both there for a change and did "Mary L. McKay" "Blood-Red Roses," and "Nova Scotia Farewell"(as did Bruce when he stopped in later). Eli led "Mexico," "Roll the Woodpile Down" and "Haul-Away Joe." Judy led John Warner's wonderful ballad of "Kitty Kane," an intripid woman in the Australian goldfields in the 19th century who worked her way to financial security as a lady of pleasure. Barbara led a spirited rendition of "Cape Cod Girls" and who was it that led "Huckleberry Hunting"? Jeri sanf "Fire Down Below" with a whole troop of volunteer hula-hula dances jumping up on the table on cue and swinging their hips and making graceful gestures with their arms.

Some new songs we were introducing include Nor's rendition of my arrangement of the John Masefield poem "Hell's Pavement" and I led my arrangements of the C. Fox Smith poems "Port of Dreams" and "Outward Bound." Linn also requested that Nor sing Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar"; I'm not sure who set that one to music but it's quite lovely.

Nor and I will unfortunately be missing next weekend's Sea Music Festival in Portsmouth and it's our understanding that there will be at least one open shanty sing at the Press Room during the weekend. We encourage people to attend and to revive the Festival thread and demand updates of what's actually happening.

Looking forward to attending the October Shanty Sing which should be happening October 16th, the weekend of the Great Getaway.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:19 PM

Hey, what a grand bunch of songs! (Good audience, too.)

"Fathom the BALL"!?! My whistle gets wet better in a bowl . . . (grin)

Can't remember (and I haven't had time to listen to the tape) what Jeri sang first. But besides "Fire Down Below" she did "Old Moke Pickin' On a Banjo" and, aha! I just remembered: she started out with "The Titanic"!

Nice seeing (and hearing) Eli -- she doesn't get to Portsmouth that often. But it looked dangerously like work she was slaving over in between songs.

By the way, the pictures on the Performers page at the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival site (www.folkhorizons.org) are now displaying properly (and my name is spelled correctly in ALL the places it occurs).

Linn

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Brían
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:37 PM

Looks like a nice bunch of songs. Hope I catch up with everyone soon.

Brían

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:40 PM

Llynne, there's a surprise for you on a tape from near the end of the session. I can't remember what it was, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 07:12 AM

Jeri --

Huh? (Was I in the ladies' room at the time?!?)

Linn

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 10:05 AM

Yes.
It was probably Barbara's fault.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: GUEST,Charley Noble
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 10:05 PM

Linn-

Well, I never could spell "Bowel."

Off to wander around Fells Point tomorrow.

Cheerily,
Charley in Baltimore

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: GUEST,BB
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 06:20 PM

Yes, Jeri, I feel SURE that it was Barbara's fault. It's not so much what I say, it's those mischievous tempting LOOKS! And even if it wasn't really my fault, it's funner to say that it was.

Charlie commented on Crossing the Bar, and I shall answer. It was Rani Arbo who wrote the music to that poem. She has recorded it on her album with Salamander Crossing, her old band, album name now mis-filed in the memory banks. If you don't know her, she's a neo-traddie and sometime songwriter who plays very fine fiddle, and lives in CT.

Jeff and I do Crossing the Bar, scooping it up immediately after hearing Rani do it in May 2003 in Peterborough. She has a lovely story about it which is something like what follows.
Either her or her husband's grandmother (can't recall which) came to the States from a non-Anglo country. She learned a good deal of her English from books, and was fond of a high literary style. Upon her deathbed, where Rani was in attendance, the grandmother (fairly out of it, and close to the end) whispered a poetic line, which Rani did not know. They wrote down what they thought she was saying, to see what it was she was trying to tell them. But she wasn't telling them anything. She was probably somewhere back in her youth, in her head, because she quoted a line from a Tennyson poem, and it turned out to be Crossing the Bar. That was the inspiration for Rani to turn the poem into a song.

See you all at the Maritime Fest this weekend.

Subject: RE: September Shanty Sing at the Press Room
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 07:50 PM

BB-

Nice to hear some more of the story of where the musical arrangement for "Crossing the Bar" came from.

Well, I might as well post my musing about exploring Baltimore's waterfront here. Judy's hotel is a few blocks north of the inner harbor so I got down bright and early to check out the U.S. Constellation, all nicely restored and armed with large fiberglass cannons, except for the one they use at noon to startle the pigeons and wandering tourists. I roamed all around her. Well, mostly below as they discourage wandering through the rigging. Apparently once a month they have a music program but not while I'm here. After I left the ship I parked myself on a bench and took our a concertina and serenaded her.She didn't seem to mind and no one else seemed concerned.

After lunch with Judy, I boarded the metro No. 10 bus for Fells Point, that mythical part of Baltimore that Capt. Bunker has regaled us with from when China Sea Marine Trading Co. was headuarted there. I exited the bus at S. Broadway, making my way past the tatoo parlors and sex shops. The first mecca I ran across was Bertha's Mussels which called for a brew while I attempted to pick the brain of the bar keep who claimed he didn't know much about the old neighborhood. Maybe it's safer not to know. There were many alternative bumper stickers on the wall, all parodies of EAT BERTHA'S MUSSELLS. I think my favorite was BEAT BUSH'S MINNIONS. I then wandered down to Thames St. and boldly walked into the Cat's Eye Pub. There wasn't a whole lot going on in the early afternoon other than some gent showing photos of his Florida vacation. They were having a blues musician playing later that evening. Across the street HBO was filming a scene for one of their mini-series and a crowd was gathering. I decided to walk over to the Ann St. Wharf where the China Sea Marine Trading Co. was last in residence, having been tastefully replaced by a French pastry shop. This called for another brew and I went back up Thames St. until a verse from "All For Me Grog" drew me into a new Irish Pub called Slainte. Well, it turned out to be a CD and the bartender didn't have a clue who was singing but he was happy to bring me some ale.

Afterwards I decided to sit on one of the benches on the Broadway mall and practice some more concertina. The pigeons seemed quite fascinated although they were probably hoping to be fed. I did get several nice comments and smiles from people passing by and nobody threatened me with bodily harm or made insulting comments about concertinas.

I had a great supper at an Egyptian Restaurant called The Nile and caught the No. 10 bus back to home base.

I somehow failed to find the Wharf Rat Pub on S. Ann St. but I'll probably track that one down on Friday. That's the pub where Wincing Devil and his gang are supposed to host a shanty sing on the 2nd Wednesday of each month.

Tomorrow it's off to prowl Annapolis.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble