MAWKIN:CAUSLEY concert!

A ‘Fiddles’ Update…

Hello to all who read this!

Just a quickie to say that there are some very exciting goings on in the mawkin camp at the moment, were are hoping to have a five track EP of M:C recorded and out by early summer with a full length album release in Febuary next year… We’ll keep you posted….

Other News - James Delarre has decided that a PGCE just really isn’t for him! so he heads back into the violin workshop to make, repair and restore all manner of stringed instruments, place your orders here! He is currently working on his very own website that will be up soon but in the meantime if you have any enquries than please email him on james@mawkin.co.uk

All the best

Mawkin outpost no. 74629C

Evening All,

How about this then, first diary entry in nearly 10 months!

Well alls good with Mawkin. We’ve just completed a frantic but successful festival season again - so mission complete for another year. More recent news would be that we’ve just completed the fresh 3 track Mawkin:Causley Demo CD which has been posted both to local and national radio stations so keep your ears peeled. If you’re lucky we should have them downloadable soon from mawkin.co.uk if we find time.

On a more personal level James is working with Morris Offsping (www.morrisoffspring.co.uk) with the likes of Saul Rose & Matthew Keagan-Phipps whilst juggling the Jim Moray trio including Nick Cooke on Melodeon. www.jimmoray.co.uk. Fiddles also begins his PGCE in Woodwork/Design & Technology

Dave too has just come home from touring Northern Europe with a slovakian universal-signed pop singer songwriter Jana Kirschner http://www.myspace.com/janakirschner . We haven’t yet got a debrief but perhaps something may appear on the messageboard within time.

Danny has taken a leaf from Dave’s book has started operating as an Artist Rep specifically for the Askew Sisters www.askewsisters.co.uk but at present has escaped Mawkin by climbing Snowdon or there abouts.

Goldsmith is keeping himself busy after being re-enthused with his Melodeon Research Project. After working in Essex for a month he has retreated to Suffolk for the time being.

Keep posted for up and coming Mawkin & Mawkin:Causley performanes through our newsletter or our constantly updated gig list.

All the best,
Mawkin

Well. I’ve just looked at the last diary entry dated 2nd of July, has it really been 5 months?

Looking back, we’ve done alot. We had a busy time in July, Abbotsbury Festival (our largest audience so far) supporting Show of Hands,  Waltham Abbey Folk Club, Cambridge Folk Festival. August hottened up and we had Sidmouth, Broadstairs and Towersey Festivals where we played the opening ceilidh, a concert, and supported Eliza Carthy & The Ratcatchers on the last night. A truly great couple of months. September we hit Wallingford and Swanage Folk Festivals, played at a beer festival in Chelmsford and a ceilidh a freshers week fayre at Winchester University.

October came, and I recieved some good news- I was into the Semi Final of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award final! a couple of weeks past and I played the semi’s and got into the final! A rigourous practising schedule to learn Roundabout by Eric Roche  (click on it to hear my final performance) . I didnt win, but at least I learnt the tune.

So, here I am, its not long till christmas and it will all start over again, Feb brings a short tour, April begins another, and the summer brings more festivals, more music, more fun.

Keep checking the “Tour Dates” page for details of forthcoming gigs, have a good christmas and new year and we’ll see you in Feb.

Over and Out.

Dave

Mawkin Outpost: 481116233234

You may have noticed the new layout of the website, let it be said that variety is the spice of life, new website, new tunes and of course the new album. We hold ourselves collectively responsible for neglecting to keep ‘you guys’ up to date, and for that we appologise sincerely, so lets play a quick catch up. Over the last five months, for five months it has been, since our last post Mawkin have played, i am reliably informed, over thirty performances. A few highlights for you.

Tudor Folk club, a lovely club upon Alex’s Uni stomping ground, wonderfull acoustics, Very intimate. Mawkin won the ‘Hancock Horizon Award 2006′ presented at the High Barn by James Partridge, an Honour and a Privilage. It was also excellent to return to the ‘New Roots’ competition and support Goldsmiths hero Mr John Kirkpatrick and his son Benji, a superb night. We went on from there to travel to a string of festivals including, Folk on the Pier, Wychwood Music Festival, Ipswich Folk and Boat Festival, Chelsea Music Festival, Leigh on Sea Folk Festival,the highlight of which being Wimbourne. Having set off during an England World Cup game and the roads being clear, Mawkin arrived with plenty of time to spare and soon fell into the good company of Sir Ian Giles. After these pleasures we were soon on stage supporting ‘Show of Hands’ a wonderfull opportunity to play in front of a great audience, one of the best nights of the year so far.

During all of this Mawkin have been working alongside the esteemable Lee Richardson producing our first full length album, this piece of work was long in the coming and has been recorded whenever we were all free at the same time, a logistical nightmare. But having finally managed to record all twelve tracks without too many misdameaners, for the music was all recorded live, we are now putting the final touches in place and shall be holding a special offer pre-release sale at a concert performance at Towersey Folk Festival. The abstract Artist and good friend, Chris Pearson has kindly offered to produce the artwork for the album, each track will have its own piece inspired by the music, expect to see his work and his very goodself at the launch party in October.
I believe thats all for now, just got back from a weekends travel, Congratulations to Percy West for Winning the ‘Steve Monk Memorial Step Dancing Competition 2006′. Its good to use the new website, still some glitches, you may have noticed the Piccys, a nice little touch. We shall also be releasing the ‘Cockle Shed sessions’ in the sound page a twenty five minute long downloadable file of Mawkin rants, ramblings, sessions and guests, we’re all looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading

James

Belated Mawkin Outpost #5892051A

Having finally logged onto the internet and this wonderful website for the first time in months, I realised that we (the band, not my own personal problems) have neglected to write any kind of an entry what so ever. I then realised that it wasn’t in fact the bands problem, but my own, it was or is in fact my ‘turn’ (to use the term lightly) to write something about the last four months. So here is my little piece of immortality on what is the wonderful invention of the internet (I’ve only just got the hang of typing)

Over the last few months (don’t ask for exact dates, you won’t get them) we have performed at one or two (that’s all) cracking gigs. A highlight of the end of the year has to be supporting the amazingly wonderful Eliza Carthy at a Peppery Production concert in Ipswich. This being in Suffolk we knew that we were onto a winner, having left half an hour late, we managed to combat the trivulations of the Ipswich one way system to find the venue without a single U-turn and ten minutes to spare. Without a single string broken and a belly full of beer we played our set quite admirably and went on to settle down to a fantastic Rat Catchers Gig, Good Fun.

From supporting such a glorious performer, we went onto staging our own night of entertainment at the High Barn (Great Bardfield) which turned out to be one of the most memorable concerts that we have played in a long while (this, of course, had nothing to do with the great sound, lighting, hospitality, venue)

So having celebrated the New year it was time for Mawkin to pull themselves together and get cracking on this singing malarkey, this took place at Walthamstow FC (our first singing performance) nervous doesn’t even come into it. Danny then decided to start his festival season early with a brief trip to Cheltenham FF with a group of mates and a lot of beer, the rest of the band just Drunk. Once reunited and July looking closer, we decided to waste not a minute and help raise funds for ‘Stepping on the Eels Foot’ (Dave’s Festival in Eastbridge, Suffolk) Supported by the Fantastic Askew Sisters, with Drums and Piano the Mawkin Dance quartet put on a very ‘interesting’ performance (we enjoyed it immensely)

During the whole of this so far rather restive period in Mawkin’s winter we have (believe it or not) been working on the forthcoming Album which will be released in the summer of this year. So far recording is going well, however as we are all jugging jobs/university degrees were not quite as advanced as we originally wished (I believe there was talk of release in April?!!)

So there we have it, four months of Mawkin magic condensed down to four hundred and seventy odd words (and carried out a lot quicker than my dissertation)

I sincerely hope it was informative and fun.

James

Mawkin HQ #2001378B

It has been a while since we have even looked at the diary page and an entry is definately overdue. As you may have read in previous entries, this summer was mad and it has taken a vigerous program of evenings in with the feet up watching tele and early nights (in real beds) in order to make a full recovery.

The summer ended with Swanage Folk festival and what a way to finish. A ceilidh with Gordon Potts (legend) followed by the Bismarcks and loads of beer. Afterward the time had come to settle down in to boring everyday life. Alex and Dave were back to uni, James and myself back into full time work. I was off to school with Delarre senior and James with newly built workshop set off to make violins. I must say that a break from the crazy summer was very refreshing and allowed abit of time to release the build up of folk tunes flying around in the back of the brain waiting to be hummed at any moment. Just when it seemed that an everyday routine had become normal, along came the gigs again. Mostly private bookings and the normal essex ceilidhs, weddings etc. That was September.
October brought a welcome break from school and provided myself and James a chance to get away from the flat essex countryside and see some mountains. We embarked on an expedition to the Lake District that originally started as an ambitious attempt to climb everything on the map that looked like a solid lump of orange contour lines and camp rough in the hills just like Ray Mears. The dream was soon shattered when we arrived to continuous rain/hail and gale force winds with only 1/4 of the mountains visible below the clouds, plan B was implemented, stay on a campsite with running water, shop, toilets etc and walk to the pub. All joking aside we did climb the second highest mountain Helvelyn (couldn’t see further than 3 metres infront of us when we reached the top but well worth the effort).
We left the Lakes behind with a great sense of achivement and headed for Miss Swifts house for a day of organising arrangements for the forthcoming Maworms gig at C# (ceilidh arrangements being a new concept for the Mawkin boys) but with the help of Brenners professional atitude to practicing (also a new concept to Mawkin) we managed to sort out a blistering nights worth sets. Should be a great spectacle when it comes next Friday (18th Nov).
Finally, we took part in Folk in the Fall at the Royal festival hall on saturday as part of the free foyer gig along side Devils Interval and Meridian with the added bonus of Gog Magog Molly to tie the afternoons activities together. This was personally the highlight of the last few months for me. After 7 or so weeks without a folk festival it was a great reminder of how fun they are got me looking forward to next summer already (doesn’t usually start happening until the winter really sets in). So many familiar faces that we haven’t had the chance to talk to lately due to everyone doing their own things all over the country. It was truly a great day out and what better way to finish it off but in a pub on the river front watching the fireworks.

I hope that i have brought you up to date without boring you too much. Anyone who can make Cecil Sharp House next week must, it can’t be missed.

Funky Crump