Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?

Subject: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Helen
Date: 16 Apr 98 - 11:00 PM

Hi

I'm going to the St Albans folk festival (NSW, just north of Sydney, a "town" with one pub and a few houses, a river - of sorts - and lots of trees. It's a very pleasant camping & music-sessions-around-the-campfire-weekend) and I wondered if I should wear my Mudcat t-shirt, or to re-phrase the question: are any Australian Mudcatters going to be there? Alan & Alison for example?

Helen

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 17 Apr 98 - 02:55 AM

G'day Helen,
See you at St. Albans. Check out the "Beat Around The Bush Band" - we'll be playing for the dance on Saturday night and sometime on Sunday. I'll be the one with the Foster's Lagerphone.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: alison
Date: 17 Apr 98 - 04:19 AM

Hi,

Yes we'll be there. I'll be the one in the middle playing most things except guitar.

Please do make yourself known to us. I'll be there from the Friday night right through.

Slainte

Alison

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 20 Apr 98 - 02:54 AM

Sorry about that, but the Fairy Godmother will beat me to death if I nip off to St Albans instead of battling two button accordionas, one concertina, two whistles and only just possibly!) a nose flute at various points in the Bush Ball '98 down at Bundanoon (almost exactly halfway between Sydney and Canberra.

Unfortunately we always seem to clash with St Albans, but there are only so many Festivals. The best palce for Mudcatters to get together may be the Australian National Folk Festival (Just passed, at Easter, in Canberra permanently nowadays). It's a bloody great Festival, although it seems to have had 53,000 folkies this year and rendevous get difficult amid such madding crowds.

Regards,

Bob Bolton New Mudcatter, but frighteningly old folkie)

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Apr 98 - 04:28 AM

Hey

I finally get to meet some Mudcatters in reality mode rather than cyber mode. Sorry you can't make it Bob but enjoy Bundanoon.

Helen

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From:
Date: 20 Apr 98 - 04:52 AM

Bundanoon is one of my favorite places, Bob. For future reference, where is the Bush Ball held there? I might try to "happen to be there" at that time next year.

Murray

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Apr 98 - 02:09 PM

You good folks have got me feelin' like James Garner in __Support Your Local Sheriff__ (a fine & funny film). He wants to get to Australia but never manages to do that! Think o' us here in the middle o' Illinois---and have a fine time!

Art

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 Apr 98 - 07:15 PM

G'day Murray'

Bush Ball (unfortunately clashing with St. Albans Festival)

The Bush Ball is the name we have used for the past 2 years for what started as the Heritage Ball (back in NSW Heritage Week, 1979). The new name emphasise that we have moved it to a beaut country hall (the Soldiers' Memorial Hall, Bundanoon)and we try to organise some other distractions to make a weekend of it.

The date is usually the opening weekend of Heritage Week - generally the Anzac Day weekend (more clashes). I have been floating a proposal around the Bush Music Club and the Sydney Folk Page to create a Folk Dates/Events Register to minimise clashes. It's a great - it only needs: A/ Someone silly enough to agree to do the work B/ Someone to persuade folkies to plan ahead C/ Someone to convince folkies that they should tell people what (and when) they are planning D/ Someone to host it on a prominent site and E/ Someone to get folkies to look at it before deciding on dates for events!

Yeah, well it looked like a good idea.

Regards

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From:
Date: 22 Apr 98 - 09:35 PM

Thanks Bob.

Yeah--the school holidays are always a time when somebody wants to visit us from outside of Sydney. They want to see the sights here rather than go to the Country, so there is that kind of clash on Anzac day too.

I did notice that the event didn't appear on the list of festivals on the Sydney Folk Page.

Regards, Murray

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 Apr 98 - 09:52 PM

Greetings and felicitations Murray,

Yeah - it is on the Sydney Folk Page Dances listing (now) but it was not until I noticed its absence (a week or so back). This is the sort of co-ordination that is not the strong point of folkies. (Lovely people but they can make anarchists look positively regimented!)

One extra reason for picking Bundanoon is that it is almost exactly halfway to Canberra but I don't think the Ball organisers succeeded in telling the Canberra mob about it, either! Still, it is a nice hall, a nice town and this is a good event for it to re-emerge from the mists of "Brigadoon".

The other reason is that Dave Johnson (author of our "Bush Dance" (tunes) book now lives just down the road at Penrose and his is the director of the Heritage Ensemble - a valiant attempt to get together 20 or so musos from Sydney (and surrounds) bush bands with more "classical" or "orchestral" instruments (cello, viola, clarinet, saxaphone and explore the effects of arranging and conducting instead of free-for-all.

We released a cassette from our 1990 and 1996 programmes ("A Fine Heritage" - listed on Sydney Folk Page) last year but I have not yet convinced them that this end of the 1990s actually listens to CDs. Still working on that one!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 27 Apr 98 - 06:12 AM

G'day,
Great to meet another mudcateer in person for the first time. If Helen hadn't introduced herself to us at St Albans we'd have recognised her by her Mudcat T-shirt.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Aussie Mudcatters: going St Albans festival?
From: Helen
Date: 27 Apr 98 - 06:41 PM

And I recognised Alison and Alan because they were right where they said they would be - playing in their bush band on the stage.

What a nice festival - lots of lovely people and music, and a beautiful country setting. Not counting the interesting altercations in the wee small hours about **** hurricane lamps being a ***** fire hazard in a ***** tent, etc etc, and the woman standing in the middle of the camping ground yelling out at the top of her lungs to the very loud, but very wonderful singing session: "It's 3am for **** sake. Can't you shut up now. Some of us are trying to get some sleep."

Art, Sorry you couldn't make it this year - maybe next year you can come over/downunder and see us.

Helen