Strangest Folk Club floorspot

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 12:50 PM

Indeed, Ray ~ "Dennis from Grunty Fen". Pete Sayers, who lived in nearby Newmarket, took the name from a stretch of land just south of Ely, between the villages of Witchford and Haddenham [which is where I happen to live]. When he was Liberal MP for The Isle Of Ely, the late Clement Freud used often to win, at Newmarket and elsewhere, with a horse called Grunty Fen.

~Michael (of Grunty Fen)~

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 11:55 AM

FC - it was at an Eric Bogle gig where Mike borrowed my guitar but he did three straight songs with very little introduction.

Does anyone remember "Dennis"? The late Pete Sayers did floor spots at his own gigs dressed in a dirty old hat and coat with a set of goofy teeth, telling funny stories before extracting a Martin Ukulele from his coat to accompany his final song.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 11:54 AM

True Dick, but Brendan Bucket is a wonderful name for his tribute act.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Vic Smith
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 11:51 AM

just off beam or eccentric

Nothing wrong with eccentric. The folk scene would be a much duller, less interesting place without our eccentrics. I reckon that Jim Eldon and Tony Hall might both come into that category - and they are amongst my favourites.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 11:44 AM

Idid not mean to infer bernard puckett was not good , he was very good , just off beam or eccentric, apologies for getting the name wrong it must have been 30 years ago

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 10:10 AM

A pair of locals who were Compass Theatre members used to turn up at Uxbridge and do silly thins - Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' as a rap was one of their regulars

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Flash Company
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 09:16 AM

Someone mentioned Mike Harding a while back, I remember Mike at an Eric Bogle gig saying 'I'll just do one!', then doing a twenty minute intro to a five minute song.
In the best Mike tradition, intro and song had absolutely nothing to do with each other!

FC

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 09:10 AM

Big Al Whittle, you beat me to it. The most bizarre floor spot I can ever remember concerned a bloke in a singaround. When it got round to him he pulled a ghetto blaster and played, not Jack Hudson, but the Beatles.

Actually, this guy had two ghetto blasters with him. One to play the Beatles on, the other to record the evening with.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 09:02 AM

A session at Bonsall in Derbyshire. A bloke took a ghetto blaster out of a carrier bag, and said listen to this, and pressed the play button. It was playing Jack Hudson singing - can't remember the song. I remember Paul Burke managed to explain to the bloke that - it wasn't really how things were done.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Silas
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:58 AM

You lot never saw Dr Sunshines pavement Show did you?

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:42 AM

about 10 years ago,one of the regulars at another club turned up dressed a bit oddly

She is an elegant smart-casual woman & was wearing a daggy pleated skirt with daggy cardigan & slipped on an old wig that was badly cut & held out off her eyes by a bobby pin. She presented an increasingly hysterical & almost orgasmic paper to Madam Dean & the Dept of Women's Studies & their guests on Germain Greer's latest publication where she said housework was sexual.

And the audience became increasingly hysterical watching this master poet & writer perform her piece!

sandra

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:25 AM

I remember a bloke,hoisting a full aluminium beer barrel over his head several times, and following that by blowing up a hot-water bottle till it burst. That was ay a folk club in Motherwell, many moons ago.
Apart from that, the lady with the pre-recorded backing tape, was the oddest one in more recent times.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: treewind
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:24 AM

We had belly dancer Aly Kate Mewse at Duton Hill Folk Club.
She'll be back on March 15...

Aly's one of the dancers on This YouTube video

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:15 AM

Ashcroft=Ashworh Delayed memory syndrome. Sorry Bob!

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:14 AM

Martin Gittens and Bob Ashcroft (I think it was Bob anyway) used to regularly do a two man pantomime over the Christmas period. I don't think it was a floor spot as such but it was not the full guest night either.

The only one I can remember was 'Start Wreck - The Panto'

Insane stuff :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:13 AM

Ah - Floor singers! Are there still such things in folk clubs?

I remember Paul Metzers asking if he could do a floor spot one night and, on another occasion, I remember Mike Harding doing one - He borrowed my guitar. I'm sure others will come to mind once I've posted.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:10 AM

As did I. Ditto. He wrote a special ditty for me for use on the day the Universe was 6000 years old, according to Archbishop Ussher. It was called "I'm a little Dinosaur/Who'll soon be going away". Unfortunately, we didn't get enough time to learn it for the party we were holding

(Don't bother correcting me - I don't believe the world is 6000 years old, and neither does Bernard, as far as I know!)

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Max Johnson
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 08:01 AM

I worked with Bernard for a while at the CAA. Nice chap.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Vic Smith
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 07:27 AM

Dick Miles wrote:-
"brendan bucket"

Pretty close.... for this would almost certainly be Bernard Puckett as "very eccentric poems whilst waving arms around at Islington folk club" was something of a specialism for Bernard.

You will be delighted (or, on reflection, perhaps not) to learn that Bernard's weirdness continues as you can see by clicking on Bernard Puckett - Blood on the Saddle with Ukulele

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 07:06 AM

PS. That was about April or May 1976, not long before I booked you for the first time Dick.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 07:04 AM

Not a floor spot, but:

Opening night of the Dog & Gun Folk Club in Maidstone with guest artist Barmy Brian Williams, a one man band with a mostly Folk repertoire.

He came from the Birmingham area and gave us a rollocking display of what one man can do with multiple instruments (about ten, I think).

Amazing!
Don T.

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 07:02 AM

Iremember somweone doing a very eecentric poem and waving their arms around at islington folk club,some name like brendan bucket

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Vic Smith
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 06:59 AM

Has anyone else ever presented a musical saw duet?

Brothers Jules and Adam Bushell played one at the Royal Oak in Lewes the last time that we booked Duck Soup. Until you have heard harmonies played on musical saws, you have not lived.

(Photographic evidence of this wondrous event by clicking here )

Subject: RE: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 05:23 AM

Mr Green's Punch & Judy from Balckpool Sands. Grove in Leeds around 1972. But to be honest it wasn't a floor spot it was the guest spot and brilliant!

L in C#

Subject: Strangest Folk Club floorspot
From: Rozza
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 05:17 AM

So, what strange floorspots have you had at your club? Plate-spinners? Sand-dancers? Sword-swallowers?

Last night at our local club we had a lady reading out her family history research, including a series of letters from an ancestor wounded in the First World War. Different.