Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes

Subject: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 18 Mar 06 - 01:39 PM

A cursory forum filter search suggests that 'Catter Greg Stephens has failed to toot his own horn on this one: not my review, but a reference to the recent flattering review of the Boat Band's "A Trip to the Lakes" at Musical Traditions.

See also:
Harbourtown Records page for the cd. (Hey, Greg, let the Harbourtown webmaster know they've got an old title (from someone else's cd) on that page!)

and the Boat Band.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Mar 06 - 03:23 PM

I notice Greg's celebrated version of "The ballad of Stalin"...In which he plays guitar with "no hands," is not included in the sleeve notes.
Suppose it's better live....Ake

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:57 PM

Ake: The Stalin Song will be on the next album, along with "Tractor production up again", "The Second Five Year Plan" and other MacColl classics.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 01:01 PM

If anyone happens to be driving up(or down) the M6, I'd be very grateful if you'd look in the "Taste of the Fells" shop at Forton(Lancaster) Services. It's on the northbound side, but there's a bridge so you can get to it whicever way you are going. Theoretically about now copies of the CD should be going on sale there, and I would love a first hand report of whether they are being prominently displayed.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 07 Aug 06 - 06:12 AM

Yo Gregg,
         Apparently there is a featurette on The Boat Band in The new fRoots, issue 278/279. 'Available now from all good retailers' as they say. Except in Hull!!!
                   Trombones, the true path.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:45 AM

Rock'n'Reel Magazine
Jan/Feb 2007

THE Boat Band
*****
A Trip to the Lakes

Renowned previously for their chiefly Cajun material, and for their particularly wild live shows and sessions, "A Trip to the Lakes" takes a different path, being a celebration of the traditional music of the Lake District region that many thought largely lost. Through the tireless researches of the Boat Band's guitarist, banjo player and melodeon player Greg Stephens, the tunes from long-dead legendary Cumbrian characters like William Irwin live again.
    The Boat Band's fiddle player Kate Barfield wrings every ounce of emotion and passion out of her instrument, and is obviously just as adept in the traditional music of this country as she is in the Cajun tunes she's known for, excelling throughout and injecting a splendid upbeat feel to everything. Her talents come to the fore in the superbly arranged tune sets whilst Greg's banjo skills grace some particularly fine polka sets. The album is supplemented by a magnificently researched and fascinating twelve-page booklet that retells the life and times of the Cumbrian fiddle player William Irwin.

Sean McGhee, Editor.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:48 AM

fRoots Magazine

The Boat Band
A Trip to the Lakes
Harbourtown HARCD047

It's several years now since Boat Band mastermind Greg Stephens opined that what English music needed was a dash of the spirit offered by the Anglo-Cajun bands, like his own, then riding the wave of popularity. On this album the Boat Band have done just that, setting aside their Cajun leanings and attacking the old dance repertoire of Cumberland, Westmorland and North Lancashire. This, however, is no new departure for Stephens, whose Beggar Boy of the North LP blazed the trail for Northwest musicians nearly 20 years ago(NB that should be 30, Greg S!).

    You'll find slicker groups around in this age of youthful virtuosity,and some listeners will find the Boat Band rough and ready, but they play with a refreshing honesty that conjures up the spirit of proper traditional musicians far more convincing than many of their peers. Not for them the voguish tendency to syncopate everything to death, or getting bogged down in sulky jazz chords. Melodeons, fiddle, guitar and tenor banjo play with the kind of straight-ahead drive that dancers would appreciate, and the rasping, tapping and thudding of possibly home-mde percussion adds greatly to the rhythm. The range of textures achieved by different combinations of these instruments is impressive; particularly striking are several stripped-down and hypnotic arrangements banjo and guitar.

   The tunes themselves are terrific: jigs, hornpipes, reels and polkas, skirling melodies as rugged as the Cumbrian hills, with many a twist and turn. Despite occasional glances across the Scots border and the Irish Sea, this is as far removed from 'Celtic' music as it is from southern English polka-dom. There are some fine waltzes too, and two songs which are perhaps less compelling than the instrumentals. All this, plus a well-researched, informative and entertaing essay on 19th century Cumberland fiddler William Irwin- a source for several of the tunes- makes for a very enjoyable collection.

    www.harbourtownrecords.com

Brian Peters

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Dazbo
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 11:21 AM

I wasn't sure about this CD at all the first time I heard it but it rapidly grew on me and there are some really good tunes sets on it.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 10:34 AM

Dazbo: interesting what you say. It's a fact that many people didn't like it at all when they first heard it, but it has actually become very fashionable now and highly praised, extraordinarily so for a very simple record. Funny thing, fashion. I think it was probably Eliza Carthy's championing of the record that started the ball rolling.
   The backlash is starting, though: I'm told, though I haven't seen it, that English Dance and Song magazine has given a bit of a drubbing to my new one(the reissue of the 1978 "Beggar Boy of the North"). Paying the price for reissuing juvenilia, I suppose. Forgive me, I knew not what I did. Or it might be because my EFDSS membership has lapsed. Please buy my records, people, then I will have enough money to renew my subscription.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 11:18 AM

It would be remiss of me as the lucky recipient of a copy of this CD direct from the star himself. (No folks it's not favouritism, I was lucky enough to have Greg as my Santa this year.) Not to mention how much I enjoyed this CD, and as has been said earlier it improves with further listening. I found the vocals a bit thin first off, but they have a charm of their own which doesn't show immediately.
To sum it up, well done The Boat Band, and bring on your next CD.
Giok

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:13 PM

Recorded by Greg and Crookfinger Jack in 1978. Every tune a great one, fitted together in excellent sets with brilliant individual playing and really interesting collections of people and instruments.

I am sure that if anyone has the original on vinyl it will be worn out by now so to time to renew if not get one it will bring much joy!

Who was it who said:

If you like good music
Some of that .......................
Here it is in shed loads

Cheers

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 01:15 PM

Sorry, The CD is called Beggar Boy of the North on Harbourtown Records.

If you are Club Organisers book the Boat Band they are brilliant. They don't always go by Boat but some of them have bus passes so they come quite cheap so to speak!

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: treewind
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:10 PM

It's a good review in EDS by Neil Brookes. He's a bit critical of the balance between instruments in the mix, and apparently Greg "takes the opportunity to snipe at certain 'southern' musicians" but I don't remember reading anything too offensive in the notes.

Overall he's pretty happy with it. "Nearly thirty years later, the music from this accomplished, though evidently short-lived, seven piece band doesn't seem dated" and "a worthy and interesting release".

You'll have to get a copy of EDS to see it all...

Anahata

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 04:34 PM

I just think the Beggar Boy is much more exciting than the review suggests. And I think NB could have written about the music because that's what matters.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Effsee
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 07:43 PM

OK. Having read all these rave notices, a shameless scrounge for promo copies for my programme on Caithness FM. You send 'em , I'll play 'em.

Caithness FM,
Neill Gunn Drive,
Thurso,
Caithness.
KW14 7QU

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:25 AM

treewind/anahata: damn right I took the opportunity to snipe at those effete baby-eating southern musicians.That's why I issue CDs, for a free run at the liner notes. That Rod Stradling would sell his own grandmother for a new polka. Well, for an old polka, anyway. Cotswolds, indeed. Jumping up and down waving your hanky in the air, I ask you, what kind of activity is that for a man?

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 07:18 AM

You have to do something to burn off the excess from eating all those babies!

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 08:11 AM

I think I should point out that this kind of subtle under-statement by Greg is the soft under-belly and political wing of the Para-milatry Northern Front for the Liberation of Tunes. Not to be confused with ..................... and if you want the real face of Northern Resistance Google The Front for the Liberation of all Colonised Tunes (Marxixst-Leninist)

Comrades the time has come!

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: treewind
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 08:16 AM

Greg, your remark may be partly tongue in cheek but there's obviously some resentment behind it.

You claim to have set up your recording session as a reaction to all the publicity that "English Music" was getting in the south. You need to understand that musicians and researchers in the south were dealing with a different set of problems: traditional dance music was dying out, the EFDSS were indulging in an American square dance craze, your typical "folk dance band" sounded like Mantovani on two piano accordions, and when a few surviving musicians were discovered who seemed to have a bit more English tradition behind them (Scan Tester, Bob Cann, The Bulwers etc.) the traddies got really excited about rescuing a style of music and dance that had nearly died out and that was English (as opposed to Irish, American or Scottish). I'm sorry if their enthusiasm went over the top, but there was a palpable sense of discovery and excitement about it all.

In the south, the view about northern music (especially in the NE) was that it was doing fine thank you very much, and didn't need a lot of reviving. In fact some of us were quite jealous. As for Cumbria and Lancashire, I don't think I knew much about that at the time (I didn't know much about anything at the time), except there seemed to be a lot of clog dancing from those areas, but you were probably quite right to make an effort to put your musical area on the map.

Even so, I don't think you should pick on Rod Stradling as speaking for everyone else. He doesn't represent my views, not those of many other folk musicians I know in the south of England, about what's English or what's traditional. There's one or two other folk around here who I have to get on with but don't share all their views about everything either. It unfortunate that few outspoken and controversial people get all the publicity.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with Morris dancing, even Cotswold, when it's done right.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 08:38 AM

I don't know the background to greg's post re Rod Stradling, but I thought it was inadvisable in a thread (presumably) designed to promote your CDs, greg, to have a dig at "effete baby-eating southern musicians". You never know, some of them might be reading the thread and may be put off buying your CD.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 08:51 AM

I think it's middle-of-the road, revisionist appologists of the neo-Stalinist NFLT that have failed to liberate our southern sisters and brothers from the Stradlingite oppresion of slow polkas and country walzes.

er, if you get me point

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:30 PM

"You claim to have set up your recording session as a reaction to all the publicity that "English Music" was getting in the south........ I'm sorry if their enthusiasm went over the top, but there was a palpable sense of discovery and excitement about it all."

When I started getting interested in playing tunes on squeezeboxes, there were only two kinds of session available in which to play: "Irish" or "English" - the latter comprising Southern and especially East Anglian dance music dominated by the polka, with a repertoire lifted mostly off the Old Swan Band's first LP. The title of said record, "No Reels", was deliberately inteded to wind up EFDSS types who enjoyed the sort of mid-Atlantic dance repertoire that Anahata describes, but it didn't half annoy some musicians in the North, who were well aware that the reel is a part of the English tradition.

It also has to be said that some of the "English" music sessions going on in the seventies could be turgid affairs, the predominant melodeons not always being played with the kind of skill we take for granted now.

I daresay that kind of thing was in Greg's mind when he wrote those sleeve notes. Certainly it was an important motivation for Jamie Knowles - the chap who did more than pretty well anyone else apart from Greg for the revival of North-West English music. His tune books (Northern Frisk, Northern Lass, and contribution to the publication of Joseph Kershaw's manuscript) have been a great influence on many musicians, including Eliza Carthy.

And if anyone wants to play this kind of thing, there's a session in the Swan at Dobcross on Thursday nights where you'll get plenty of it. Incidentally I believe Rod Stradling's new band is now playing some Northern stuff too. The final defeat of the poncey South!

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: treewind
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 06:17 AM

It's all about marketing and publicity innit!
Around the time the original Crookfinger Jack recording was released, though I was surrounded by the (SE) English music revival I was a great fan of Northumbrian music and never felt it was excluded from English music. As I said above, I didn't know much about current practice in the NW and Yorkshire, and Jamie's books (to which Greg contributed much, of course) were a revelation a few years ago.

My point, I think, is that my lack of attention to NW music was not due to any kind of "them and us" antipathy to the north. The enemy, if anyone, was the EFDSS social dance scene. The south's problem with northern music was lack of awareness, knowledge or material, until Jamie's books came out, and I came across the Fiddler of Helperby, and another fine book of tunes by someone called Brian Peters!

"it didn't half annoy some musicians in the North, who were well aware that the reel is a part of the English tradition."
Yes, it taken a while for that to sink in for me. My year of playing with "Our Northern Branch" helped a lot too.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 07:05 AM

Perhaps I should point out that Rod Stradling selected the Boat Band's "Trip to the Lakes" for a recent Musical Traditions article entitled "Ten albums that changed my life". Rod is also organising a session in the Prince Albert in Rodborough, Stroud, for the Boat Band to have a nice chance to play with some of his effete southern baby-eating musicians(and anyone else, of course).That is on April 23(St George's Day).
   In view of the above, I hope people will realise that my insults directed at the likes of old Stradders are not entirely maliciously meant.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 07:22 AM

Speaking as a Soft Southerner From Surrey (and Further South) who as Brian has spotted is also a fearsome baby-eating ponce to boot, I'm hugely enjoying A Trip to the Lakes - specially the jolly harmony guitar on Iron Legs, which is deshed good ectually. :-) Tom

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 07:31 AM

Stop listening this instant, Tom. These are northern records for northern people.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 02:44 PM

Net Rhythms review.

The Boat Band - A Trip To The Lakes (Harbourtown)

This is a most exhilarating disc, which it's taken me far too long to get hold of! The Boat Band, best-known as purveyors of a specially vigorous brand of anglo-Cajun, have now moved across from the Louisiana swamps to the swampy (in the sense of rain-drenched) valleys of the priceless Lake District for this special project, which arose out of a celebration of traditional music of Cumbria area which marked the end of foot and mouth disease in the area back in 2001. This souvenir of that celebration constitutes a whole album of the "old" dance music of "the Lakes" (ie Cumberland, Westmorland and North Lancs), drawn mostly from the manuscripts of Great Langdale fiddler William Irwin (1822-1889) and other local collectors. The tunes themselves are tremendous: almost all virtually unknown, but absolutely splendid examples of their kind. This is the kind of dance-tune disc to force-feed anyone who says they don't like tunes or dances - for the playing of the four-piece Boat Band is so chock full of life and character. Their instrumentation may appear standard-issue (violin, melodeons, guitar, tenor banjo, percussion), but what they do with it is something else entirely, in a league all its own among dance bands. They generate - and maintain - a driving rhythm, accentuated with some amazingly inventive percussive touches, and achieve a quirky balance with their sparkling, lively and manifestly well-considered arrangements. The playing is forthright and honest, with no frills or flash technical dexterity, but the integrity and guts is what matters and the Boat Band have buckets of it. Their Cajun leanings come through on the two delicious waltz tracks, providing an interesting slant, but in truth I love all the dance-tunes, whatever their metre. The only small letdown comes with the two songs, where the quality of the singing simply doesn't measure up to the playing. In all other respects, this is a real belter of a record. And the booklet comprises a fantastic, copiously-researched and impressively-presented dissertation on Irwin's life and times by leader/guitarist/banjoist Greg Stephens that's worth the price of the disc alone. As for the music, well I'd put it in the car on permanent repeat-play, it would brighten up any dreary journey in the worst of weather conditions (even a tailback on the A591!)



David Kidman February 2007

( NetRhythms review)

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 02:56 PM

What does your Portuguese friend think of it Greg?
G ¦¬]

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 03:09 PM

I don't think I know anyone in Portugal, apart from my nephew Mark's partner. I think you must be confusing me with someone else, John.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Balsto da Loteya
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 03:12 PM

Is very wonderful record, I have heard some tracks, my friend can download all this stuff for free, very clever. I like these tunes and songs, like the music the old Cod Men play sometimes at our town festival time.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 25 Apr 07 - 02:52 PM

Ive got this CD, its really nice.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,I don't believe it !!
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 07:16 AM

"From: Balsto da Loteya
Date: 24 Apr 07 - 03:12 PM
Is very wonderful record, I have heard some tracks, my friend can download all this stuff for free, very clever. I like these tunes and songs, like the music the old Cod Men play sometimes at our town festival time. "

Unbelievable.... "....my friend can download all this stuff for free, very clever" ....

Balsto, don't you realise that if your friend (and you) don't pay for "all this stuff" then the Boat Band (and other bands whose "stuff" your friend has downloaded) earn less money which means that they have less money to feed their families, and to pay their bills.

So Balsto - I'm sure that you won't be upset if my friend comes to your friend's house to steal some of the money that your friend earns this week...

My friend will put a picture on the web so that the Boat Band can look at your friend's money for free, very clever.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 07:33 AM

You should perhaps take Um desengate aos lagos, minha amigo Balsto.

I prefer Gilbert and Sullivan myself, can't beat a bit of G&S can you?

Giok

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Balsto da Loteya
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 10:33 AM

There is very funny saying here in Viana do Castelo. Which means pull this one, there is a pilchard tied to it, pull the other one there is a cod. Perhaps not so funny in English, but very clever here.
Is downloading music for free not good? This is not the folk music of the people? As we say, all music is the folk's music, we never hear the cods singing.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 11:04 AM

Or cod bringing up children, paying food and rent?

Just buy the CD then buy Greg in Crookfinger Jack excellent music bringing much joy for a few squid!

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 11:08 AM

Basto-You are a rubbish person.
you are doing same as nicking gregs cd,s. would you go to CD shop and nick them, no=well then!
dont nivking off internet then.

Anyway=i seen Greg in real life , and i reckon he's poor, (he got a tatty old guitar, mended whith sticky tape), how you think he can ever buy a new one if we dont buy his cd's then?

Anyway, as well= Music is his job, and if you dont buy his cd's he wont have any money, you defineley are rubbish.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Balsto da Loteya
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 02:46 PM

Hey you John person. In Espana, they say take what you like and pay for it. Here in Portugal I say take what you like and avoid paying if you can. You are imbecile John, you cannot spell your own name. I speak the better English than you and I come from Viana do Castelo.Do not come the raw cod with a man like myself or you end up in the big trouble. I bite my thumb at you.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 03:04 PM

Fair enoughski Balsto but dont steal Greg's music. He is a good man and his band make very exciting music that is worth much cod.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 08:30 AM

Bloody foreigners!

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 08:35 AM

I think Balsto should buy Greg a nice guitar and stop messing about with his cod. (I don't believe it exists anyway.)

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 08:47 AM

Bacalhau, is surely what Ballsto would prefer, perhaps as a Bacalhau à Brás.?
Giok

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 09:10 AM

"Ballsto" - Balsto 'L': he's only got one.

[...damn...now I'm hungry...]

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 09:12 AM

Whooops - for Gioks eggs and cod, not anything else.

...shit - not GIOK'S 'eggs and cod', but the recipe to which he linked.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 11 May 07 - 08:07 AM

Qoute-(basto)-"i bite my thumb at you"

Basto-I show my arse at you, how you like that then?
and stop bloody nicking gregs cd,s then.

Subject: RE: Review: Boat Band: A Trip to the Lakes
From: GUEST,Wayne
Date: 11 May 07 - 09:43 AM

Bought a copy in the Old Dungeon Ghyll hikers' bar last weekend. Top class cd. Hugely enjoyable.

I'll get the other one of yours, on sale there, next time, Greg!

Cheers

Wayne