Bampton Folk Club
Another lockdown, no chance of playing together in the pub, a postman from Airdie hits the big time thanks to a recording of a shanty on TikTok taking the world by storm. What can you do?
Well, you can figure out how to record collaboratively and remotely, you can figure out how video editing works and you can…
..do The Wellerman!
Bampton Folk Club is delighted to be supporting Bampton’s Annual Donkey Derby organised by The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Junketing (SPAJERS) raising money for the older residents of the village.
We will be on the field all day, right next to the Beer Tent of course, providing musical entertainment between races. Come and say hello and find out what we’re all about!
Bampton Folk Club is incredibly proud and utterly delighted to announce the very first spin-out band from the club: The Beamdunes! Several founder and regular players with the club have been performing in local pubs over the past few months under the banner of Bampton Folk Club to a flood of positive feedback and great online reviews.
The decision to form The Beamdunes was an entirely natural and logical one to ensure the continuity of Bampton Folk Club and to further the gigging ambitions of the members of The Beamdunes. The (now) Beamdunes had concerns that with more gigs (and even a festival!) on the horizon the Club would begin to be seen not so much as a folk club but as a band which might inhibit occasional players from joining us on our Sunday night sessions at The Romany Inn.
So Bampton Folk Club remains exactly that, the friendly, inclusive Sunday get together to play, sing and learn folk songs and marvel at some of the more tangential departures from the folk genre! But best of all, to a man and to a lady, The Beamdunes are fundamentally committed to the continuing success of Bampton Folk Club and will continue to form the regular core of our sessions – quite simply the best of both worlds. Bampton Folk Club continues with increasingly seasoned (and often marinated) musicians at it’s heart and The Beamdunes benefit from the club and occasional players’ influence introducing new styles, songs, tunes and inspiration.
Particularly with “home turf” gigs at The Romany, The Beamdunes are also committed to giving club musicians a friendly and supportive environment to make their stage debuts as guest players, after all a significant number of The Beamdunes made their performance debuts with the Club at The Romany in October of 2017 with the A Cappella opener, “South Australia”, an impressive way to earn your stripes!
Please take the time to follow The Beamdunes on the social media networks of your choice and lend them the fabulous support you’ve shown while gigging under the Bampton Folk Club banner; same people, same musical influences, same barnstorming bouzouki and banjo jigs and reels, now with a shiny new name and logo!
http://www.beamdunes.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/TheBeamdunes/
https://https://twitter.com/TheBeamdunes
From all of us at Bampton Folk Club, we wish a very happy, prosperous and musical 2018 to everyone who has supported us over the past six months: visiting musicians at our sessions; everyone who’s been to see us gig; our long suffering families (many members of which don’t even like folk music – you know who you are…); Mike and Glenys for hosting our Sunday Session at The Romany Inn; and all the villagers who have offered helpful advice and constructive criticism.
Come and see us in 2018 at The Romany on Sundays and look out for our gigs on here, our Facebook page and the Folk In Oxford website.
One last, chilled out, turkey-filled session of the year because… just because!
Romany Inn from 7:00pm until we’ve had enough.
Some risk of residual Christmas songs, jumpers and hats.
We’re all very excited to be heading for Brize Norton on Saturday 16th December 2017 to play at The Chequers Inn, the home of outstanding Sunday carvery!
Does three Bampton gigs and one Brize Norton count as a tour?
Pinch, Punch, first of the month…
And with the first of the month comes our first gig of the festive period supporting the Bampton Garden Plants Christmas Shopping evening. https://www.facebook.com/events/1750552531913335/
Then Saturday of next week, it’s a full set in the Barn (aka the Function Room) of The Morris Clown. https://www.facebook.com/events/158327791431902/
And to round things off it’s off to Brize Norton and The Chequers Inn on the Saturday following that! https://www.facebook.com/events/297152667449726/
Sunday sessions at The Romany will still be happening on 3rd and 10th December too. We’re not sure about the 17th yet but that will be it until we’re back on 7th January next year.
You’ll start to see these posters going up around the village and surrounding areas. We’re all just a little bit excited to be getting our thing on in “The Barn” aka the function room at the back of The Morris Clown. the set list is set, rehearsals underway…
Our slot at the Bampton Garden Plants Christmas Shopping Evening has been changed to 8:00pm. That shouldn’t deter you from coming earlier though as the other acts are a fabulous Bampton School Choir and a Silver Band playing all sorts of Christmas classics.
See you there!
A huge, huge thank you to the dozens of lovely people who turned up to our very first performance at The Romany in Bampton, your support, encouragement, applause and goodwill made it a very special night indeed. For some of us that wasn’t just Bampton Folk Club’s first performance but a personal first performance too and the response from the audience has left both debutants and the old grinders buoyed and eager to perform more. Once more, thank you!
We didn’t come away from The Romany completely unscathed though, two dozen enthusiastically delivered songs resulted in bruised hands from animalistic tamborining and bleeding fingers from rather too energetic strumming on top of some, also self-inflicted, less than clear heads.
A plea to the lovely people of Bampton and beyond who came to support us, we are really chuffed that we spotted a good number of you recording us on mobiles (see, these little things, that you thought we were worth recording, gives us such a buzz!). We’d really appreciate it if you could share those videos with us, indulge our egotistical side and let us watch ourselves… Well, partly that but mostly it will help us to see things that we can improve on for the future. Either share them with the club on Facebook, post them on our wall or pop them on YouTube or similar and send us a link.
So what’s next? Is Bampton Folk Club going to retreat to the village hall for another few months? Not a bit of it! We’ve already committed to three more dates before the end of the year:
1st December 2017 8:00pm – Bampton Garden Plants Christmas Shopping Day.
9th December 2017 8:00pm – The Morris Clown “Folk Barn” (aka The Function Room).
16th December 2017 8:00pm – The Chequers @ Brize.
Times are correct at the time of writing but please keep an eye on here and our Facebook page in case of any changes.
Don’t expect all the same songs either, we’re all buzzing after Saturday night and we’re determined to polish a few more tunes we’ve played with and to bring some completely new ones in too. We’re definitely keeping “Dark Girl Dressed in Blue” though…
And retreating back to the Village Hall? We’re not doing that either. Mike at The Romany is now going to host us in the warmth of his restaurant area on Sunday evenings for our regular weekly sessions and practice, how could we say no to warmth and beer? We’ll be starting there on Sunday 22nd October and making noise from about 7:00pm.
One final thing, if Saturday at The Romany was the first you’ve seen of Bampton Folk Club please remember that fundamentally that’s what we are. We welcome any musician of any instrument (I’m not sure if a theremin has ever been used in a folk number but if that’s your thing we’ll make it work) or none, so if you want to sing or just come along and listen then just don’t be a stranger. Come in, get a beer and pull up a chair. It’s time we went out there with this though, we really would like to find a fiddler, a box player (and we’re not fussy what flavour) and a whistler (that’s the Irish tin whistle rather than uncle George who whistles a mean ditty in the bath).
OK, that wasn’t the final thing, the final thing is the same as the first thing. Thank you again all you lovely people who came to see us on Saturday, genuinely we loved it because you made us feel great. Thank you, thank you and thank you again!