BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz

Subject: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Crane Driver
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 05:47 PM

This is an early warning to all Oz Mudcatters (and any non-Oz 'Catters Down Under for the Festive Season). SussexCarole and I arrive in Sydney on Boxing Day and are around and about until January 9th. Part of the time we're visiting my parents, who live about 200(?) miles south of Sydney at a place called Bateman's Bay but we're certainly up for any folk-related events while we're there. We'd love to meet any Oztralian 'Catters who don't mind us singing at them – beware, I may well have the Crane with me!

Happy New Thing!
Andrew

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 06:07 PM

Cranes may be an endangered species and, given Australia's tight restrictions on bringing in animals, it is unlikely you will get a large bird past Customs. Leave it home and have a wonderful time.
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Dead Horse
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:38 AM

Describing SussexCarol as a *large bird* is not likely to improve Anglo - Aussie relations.
CD, think of us poor Brits freezin' our cods off as you crack a tinny on the beach, wont you?

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: freda underhill
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:43 AM

Hi Carole and Crane Driver - I have sent you a pm! looking forward to seeing you, and Rhymin Simon says hi!

as soon as i know exactly when you'll be in sydney, we can gather the clans...

best wishes

freda

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:24 PM

Hi Carole and Crane Driver - I have sent you a pm!
Hows that for a bit of cut &paste Andrew

Gerry

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Crane Driver
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 05:29 PM

Horse - the last thing I shall be thinking of is your cods!!!

Freda - thanks a lot - we'll be in touch

Gerry - we'll see if we can arrange something

Season's whatnots,
Andrew & Carole

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:43 PM

G'day Crane Driver,

We have a few Maccann system players ... a bit towards the outer boundaries of Sydney: Richard Evans, who makes Anglo-chromatic concertinas up at Bell - but plays Maccann, in the Blue Mountains ... ~ 125 km/2 hours away to the west - and Jim Dangarfield who is beavering away at learning on a 72-key (?) model up at Bullaroo, about the same distance up the north coast.

I'm afraid they might be hard to get down to whatever freda organises.

Regards,

Bob Bolton (started on Maccann 1966 ... but cleaved to Anglo (to fit better with mouthorgans / button accordion) for Australian traditional music by the '70s)

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From:
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:17 AM

see ya @ Freda's place (or wherever)

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Dave Earl
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 08:33 AM

Have a good time in OZ

See you in January (15th) at the Ram?

Dave & Elizabeth

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Crane Driver
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 06:26 PM

Bob - I'm not prejudiced - I'll duet with anything! Be nice to see any sort of concertina or anything else that can make it, but don't bust a gut - have a great time wherever you are.

Sandra - we're looking forward to it already

Dave & Elizabeth - ditto, but further forward!

Have yourselves a very merry whatever,
Andrew

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: JennyO
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:03 PM

I've been offline for over a week, so just spotted this thread. I see my friends Sandra and freda have already posted. I'm in Sydney, along with my SO, John Warner (mudcatter jack halyard) and my cat Onyx, and it just happens that we're having a folkie session/BBQ thingy at our place in Earlwood on Saturday 8th January. I'm sure we can get a fair few mudcatters here, Andrew and Carole - especially if they know you are coming.

We had Charley Noble and Naemanson here last year, and I think they enjoyed themselves. It will be high summer, but we have a large shady tree spreading over the BBQ area, which makes it a very pleasant spot for drinking, eating and sessioning. I can send you details in a PM.

Looking forward to meeting you - Jenny.

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 04:43 PM

Andrew-

You'll have a wonderful time at the BBQ if you can make it to Jenny and John's place in Earlwood. There's even a bus that can drop you off within a block of their place. And Bob Bolton plays a fine Anglo concertina. You can have lots of fun taking your concertinas apart and comparing all their intricate mechanisms! Wish I could join you but Maine is about 10,000 miles away.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: freda underhill
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:37 PM

Jennyo will be at Rhymin Simon's on Boxing Day (will you be staying over Jenny?) - I'm wondering about the feasability of us travelling to Woy Woy by train on 27th for a visit, and getting a lift back with you, Jen. Its an opportunity for CD and Carole to meet up with Simon - possibly the only one, as he doesnt seem to be leaving home much these days. we could have a small session.

what do you all think? were you planning to go straight down to Bateman's Bay, CD and Carole?

just tossing possibilities into the air!

freda

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: SussexCarole
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:39 PM

It won't be long now..I really can't wait. I met Rhymin Simon a few years back at Towersey and Freda this year so will be a great reunion for us, and so many new 'catters to meet as well, Jenny & Sandra I can't wait to meet you!!   Brrrrrr it's not far off freezing here tonight so I'm really looking forward to the sunshine. Hmmm Charlie you don't get out of meeting us so easy.....we'll be at the Getaway next year. See you there?

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: JennyO
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 02:53 AM

Yes, it would be nice for you to meet up with Simon. I'm actually going up on Christmas Eve, staying at my son's place that night, then going to see Simon on Christmas Day. I wouldn't mind staying there till Boxing Day, but I'll have Sam (my daughter) with me. On the other hand, if she wanted to go back early, I could always put her on a train at Gosford. I'll have to check with Simon too, to see what he is doing, in the next couple of days when I get a chance.

I seem to be very busy with a million projects at the moment - shopping, putting lights up on the house, and doing stuff in the garden, as well as running backwards and forwards to my computer while my son talks me through various procedures to get it all running properly again. He had to virtually reinstall everything. Ah, the joys (shudder#**+%#!*#!!) of SP2!!

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Crane Driver
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 07:11 PM

Hey - what are you guys up to?   Last time I was due to visit New South Wales, the place caught fire - now the place is apparently under water! Some welcome!

(Don't suppose I'll be let back in, at this rate)

Andrew

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 07:49 PM

G'day Crane Driver,

As we all had to recite at Primary School (from Dorothea MacKellar's poem My Country ... this is the second stanza, which we all remember ... but not the first ... ? ... ! ... ?):

I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons, I love her jewel sea -
Her beauty and her terror - the wide brown land for me!

Well, we have had to learn to live with it. (Hey, it's drying out nicely ... and Sydney's main water supply dam is still at 38% of capacity!)

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 07:27 AM

A session at Simon's sounds great as his back does not allow him to travel to other sessions. He invited my over for Christmas Day but as I'm meeting other friends for brekky, I declined. But a Boxing Day session could be a Good Thing.

Bob, are you going to Gulgong or will you be around, too?

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: JennyO
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:38 AM

Well, I've spoken to Simon, and it looks like we can all go there for Boxing Day. If you guys and freda get the train up, I could pick you up at Gosford station, and you can come back with me later. I will have room for three people if my daughter is still with me there, and four if she has gone home.

Simon says he is looking forward to meeting you again, Carole and Andrew. I imagine a little session will definitely happen.

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 08:26 PM

G'day Crane Driver, SussexCarole, Freda, JennyO ... Uncle Tom Cobley & all ...,

I hope the trip to see Rhymin' Simon at Woy Woy went well. I turned out to be committed for friends and family gatherings from Christmas Eve to Boxing day (as well as my Tasmanian niece & her French Hubby ... visiting from London ... tomorrow!).

Are Andrew & Carole going to be back in the Sydney environs after the cool of Batemans Bay? If there is any other gathering - perhaps at JennyO & Jack Halyard's place ... I might be able to coax my old friend Ralph (who lives only a few kilometres past there) to drop in with his Duet concertina (c. 58-key Crabb).

I was, earlier, overlooking a couple of local players of what Andrew calls "Crane System" ... as I'm more used to the equally inaccurate, but more common term "Triumph System" ... and really prefer the accurate - but totally obscure "Butterworth System" (Butterworth was the inventor and patentee!). It is a very pretty duet system ... and I think I might have stuck with it ... if the strange concertina I bought for $20 ... in Hobart, in 1966, had been one of these - instead of a "Maccann System".

Ralph plays this (Butterworth/Triumph/Crane) system - but very much as a second instrument after the fiddle. So does Frank O'Gallagher - when he isn't making harps! (I think Kingley Forbes-Smith's duet is also this system ... but I haven't seen Kingley & Rosemary for some time now ... I don't get over the Hornsby side very often.) Post-Christmas break is a good chance to get Ralph along to things, as his professional band work, with Pinchgut Mob and Ceilidh is quiet after Christmas - and before schools go back and Australia Day.

I'm taking it easy over this break (well ... maybe getting around to some work around the house ...) and giving the heat of Gulgong a miss ... but I would like to meet any of our visiting fellow 'Catters.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: JennyO
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 09:58 PM

Ah Bob, funny you should ask. We were talking about you up at Simon's and wondering if you were going to be around. Yes, John (jack halyard) and I are having a barbeque and session at our place on Saturday January 8th, and Carole and Andrew are coming - possibly George (El Greko) and Vanessa too. We are lucky with the timing, because C & A fly out of Oz the next day. If there are any other visiting catters out there who would like to come, PM me and I can give you details.

Your friend Ralph will be very welcome. This may turn out to be one of the world's largest gatherings of duet concertinas! Our friend Bill Scott, who also plays one, will be coming too, I expect. I'm sure you will all find a lot to talk about. John's looking forward to it too. It was a lovely session at Simon's and unfortunately he wasn't able to be there, but he has been listening to Andrew's CD with a great deal of interest since I brought it back.

I'll be sending emails out anyway closer to the time to remind everybody. Should be a good one!

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 11:55 PM

G'day JennyO,

Well ... if you want a record gathering of duettists, you need Kingsley ... I gather he still (at least notionally ...) runs the Australian Concertina Orchestra ... although most of the rest play English system ... Andrew would realise that players of English system have to rope in several more players of the same, in order to get convincing harmony ... while duet-players (and even traditional Anglo-players, like myself) just pick up one instrument and belt out both melody and accompaniment lines.

I should go and ring Richard Evans, up at Bell in the Blue Mts, and pick his brains about any other duet players within cooee of Sydney. (We had one the rarest duettists of all - Jeffries Duet ... in Polly Garland ... but she has moved way south - to Cobargo, almost down to Victoria!) Richard is not likely to come down ... Bush Fire duty is pretty tight in this sort of summer ... and he needs to keep a fire watch on the Kookaburra Concertina Workshops!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Kaleea
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 02:07 AM

I'm stuck here in Kansas wishing I could go to OZ!

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: JennyO
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 03:52 AM

Just click your heels together three times and make a wish, Kaleea.

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: karen k
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 07:14 AM

Hey, Carole, my favorite Secret Santa ever (you blew me away) I hope you both have a wonderful trip and I'll look forward to hearing all about it. I can't wait until Getaway time to see you again.

Happy New Year and

love to you and Andrew,
k

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Crane Driver
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 08:43 PM

Hi everyone -

Great session at Rhymin' Simon's - thanks to all concerned. Look forward to seeing you all - and whoever else - at Jenny's BBQ.

Bob - I've got a copy of Butterworth's patent, but I just couldn't face calling myself "Butterworth Driver" - besides, Mr Crane was most probably in on the development, he was the piano maker that Butterworth worked for (as a tuner).

I've twice been at a session with 3 different duets, but never yet at one with all four (McCann, Crane, Jeffreys & Hayden). Now THAT would be a record. I have been at a session with a concertina band, about twenty guys all with either McCanns or Cranes - good eh?

Anyway, see you at the BBQ

Andrew

Subject: RE: BS: CD & Carole - New Year in Oz
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 11:18 PM

G'day Andrew,

I gather that Crane was instrumental in the Sally Army taking up the instrument ... and I have seen a few instruments bearing his name as maker ... although I generally suspect most of the instrument started out in Lachenal's works. The most common name for the system, around here, is Triumph, which many are branded - being made on contract for the SA.

I've seen and handled three Jeffies Duets over the years ... including one that ended up being turned into a 4-row Anglo - 4 diatonic rows, no row of accidentals ... something like A/D/G/C (with the octaves jiggled about, to keep all rows reasonably well in the same range of reed sizes). The owner just wanted to play straight Anglo style for common "folkie" keys without changing concertinas. Richard (who regretfully declines the trip down to the 'Big Smoke') says Polly doesn't play the Jeffries much ... mostly plays 'Triumph' when she is on concertina (and can play jsut about any other concertina you wave at her!)

We had Iris Bishop out here, with Martyn Wyndham-Read, last year and I attended her song accompaniment Master Class at our National Folk Festival ... but with my button accordion. We did coax her to play a few impressive duet pieces on her Maccanns ... it's a pity she doesn't do a solo album!

I'll see if I can get Ralph along to Jenny & John's bash ... but no Polly/Jeffries ... I should have got contact details to you before you headed down to Batemans Bay ... Cobargo is only (!?!) another 90, or so, kilometres south ...

Richard Evans is building a Hayden Duet - for a player out in NSW's Western Districts ... one of these days he might get around to building his own Maccann Duet... if he can afford to keep it! If anything, he should run up a few Butterworth/Crane/Triumph Duets ... there's definitely more demand for them ... as it is, you have to wait for some old SA officer to die to find one on the market.

Regards (enjoy the moderate weather!),

Bob