No real organ news. Rosie has been taking a rest. Apart from a few "tarting up" jobs early in the new year nothing much has been done. I've a few litte jobs on the list but plenty of time yet before our first booking of the year.

Look out for us over the bank holiday weekend in June. Monday 4th at a street party in Bloxham and Tuesday 5th at the festival in Sunningwell (near Abingdon). 

Later in the year we'll be at the "Livestock Festival on Sunday 5th August.  http://www.livestockfestival.co.uk/.
Check their website, it's not about sheep and cattle though I believe there will  be llamas.

"Putting the boot into boutique festival, Livestock is a musical grand tour.

"A lazy weekend’s hoedown in a field. Fine food, local ales and great company.

"Exceptional performers from around the world.

"A heap of fun for kids, with all kinds of activities, animals and old tractors.

"Get off the beaten track and join us. Tickets available here soon."

I've updated the page for Beauty4Brokenness. Our friend Jenny has just reurned to South Africa for a while and sent the news letter appended here.

Rosie goes international

After various schemes to do things differently we ended up back at our regular spot in New Road by the entrance of Oxford Castle for 11 days of the Christmas Fair. It seems our music can be heard for some distance up the street and was attracting potential visitors from as far as Bonn Square and Westgate. I checked this out and you can hear us that far away as long as there are no buses around. All in all an uneventful few days though charity takings were well down on last year.

One event of note. We’re used to tourists taking pictures and video clips but one afternoon I became aware of a young man holding a phone out. It has happened before and we’ve been heard by various friends and relations over the phone but this one seemed to be taking longer than usual. At the end of the roll we got the request, “Could you play that again? ” We did ending with “We wish you a merry Christmas”. At the end we got a generous donation (compared to most this year) and the explanation. He was playing it over the phone to a friend in a café in Bulgaria, who happened to be a local radio producer. First time round the friend had simply put it on speaker so everyone in the café could hear it. Second time round he’d recorded it so he could play it back on his programme later that day. I don't know how good the quality would be at the other end but I guess that makes us international radio performers. Would this be a first?



Happy new year to you all.

Christmas

Just to say that we'll be with Oxford Castle, weekdays only for the next two weeks. Not sure yet whether it will be our normal pitch by the entrance in New Road on on their stand in Bonn Square, but they're only about 100 yards apart and if you get to one and we are at the other you should be able to hear us - traffic noise permitting.

Beauty 4 Brokenness

We've added a new page called  Beauty for Brokenness

This is the main charity we support and although they are supposed to have a web page of their own I've never managed to get it open so until they get that sorted I'm going to post their newsletters here. At the moment it's text only as I can't find a way of getting their pictures to display but I'll keep working on it, it can't be that difficult.

Minor problem but business almost as usual

Nothing to say for a while as things have been quiet on the organ front. We're gearing up for Christmas, checking lights and decorations and so on. Thanks to all those friends who are helping to keep us on the road for a while, often at expense to themselves. They say that's what friends are for but they have gone over and above any calls of duty this time.

Our weekend at the food festival has paid for a couple of new rolls - no titles here as these things can be misrepresented by those with twisted minds - but they're two rolls I've wanted for some time.  I'm still hoping to produce my own rolls at some time and now that Mel Wright will punch them from my files I guess I've no real excuse not to try something out over the winter. The arrangements all sound OK on the computer but the proof of the pudding as they say... 

My kitchen is currently a disaster area as I'm trying to build a bike trailer in the middle of it. Not a trailer for a bike, a trailer for the bike to pull with Rosie on it. Parking in Oxford has become so impossible now, either banned altogether, severely restricted by residents parking zones or just prohibitively expensive that I'm looking into other ways of moving Rosie around the town for local events. It could make the town centre a possibility and keep Headington on the map. Once outside the ring road the problem disappears.

Oxford Castle Food and Wine Fayre

A busy weekend with lots of people about and I suspect a big successs for the castle. Apart from a couple of showers which enforced short coffee breaks the weather was kind and the charity tins benefitted accordingly.
Thanks to my "monkey". Really he was with his own stall from "Swainswick Farm" but spent as much time with us as he did on his own. Took to organ grinding like a natural and I felt confident to leave him in charge while I took coffee beaks and so on. I didn't even get his name but if he's reading this he can have a job with Rosie any time. 

We got several enquiries for future events and I've updated the "engagements" page so no more here.

Look out for us on the streets in and around Oxford and in Woodstock on the 26th of November outside the museum.

Seriously cool

Seriously cool and "Lush"

I had wondered about accepting an invitation to a local rock festival albeit one billed as small and family friendly but it was actually an enjoyable day. The site was restricted to 500 people and by my judgement wasn't quite full but the atmosphere was good. We were right next to the children's tent where plenty of painting, faces and pictures, was going on and a bouncy castle next to that. To our right the main stage, a couple of smaller stages opposite, a bar, catering and book stall around the edge of a site no more than about 100 yards square.

How were we going to compete amongst this I wondered. Easily answered, we didn't. The principle is that each stage makes enough noise that the sound from all the others is drowned out when you are next to it and although we couldn't compete on volume we worked the same way - except that with main stage going you couldn't hear yourself speak by the organ. In practice we played when someone asked, which was quite often, and between acts you could just about hear us if you got close enough. Mary Poppins was the favoured roll.

It was an interesting experience trying to explain the workings in sign language, and a lot of people were interested. The sort of questions asked suggested serious interest not just politeness and were beyond me when it came to modern midi operated organs. Mostly they knew more than I did about how that worked but they favoured paper rolls and card books as more traditional, aesthetically more satisfactory and pleasing to use, and "just more organic". There were quieter spots between the main acts when Rosie was just audible to those stood round to listen and we got a lot of compliments. We were announced from main stage as part of the event as "something well worth a look and listen" and "seriously cool". Several of them thanked us for coming and said they had been considering trying to build one but didn't know where to start. Lots of info re BOGA and John Smith were taken plus info on where and how to punch rolls or to get them made. One idea is to have a small organ on the back of a tricycle playing ragtime that can be pedalled round the sites. I've seen this done by Will Kelders sons so I know it can be done. Another was looking for something bigger, more café organ style though I'm not sure about heavy rock played on it. He wrote his own songs and knew enough about midi files, midiboek and so on though that I reckon he might just manage it. How about a DeCap type organ playing heavy rock at Banbury in a year or so?

All in all an interesting day. Far more interest than you get from a day on the streets, and serious interest, but would we do it again? Well I'd already accepted when were invited for the same day to a village fete that had been rearranged at short notice after a wash out earlier in the year. One of our regulars. I think next year we'll be back at the fete.