Friday 26 August 2011

Spooky tunes and much more

It’s been a busy couple of days in the music front down in here in the bottom left hand corner of Scotland. No sooner had I escaped from work than it was time for the Spooky Men’s Chorale at the school here in Kirkcudbright as part of their UK tour. It was a sell out. Not so sure that I want to embed videos in the blog as I think that on more ancient machines they can contribute to slow running but I’ll put a couple of links in where I can find them. The Spooky Men were preceeded by fellow Aussie, Kate Rowe, who kept us thoroughly entertained with a few of her songs.


For her final song, Space Rabbits of Brocklevoons, she brought on her other half, who I’m pretty sure (somewhere around 100%), is one of the Spooky men, to help lead the audience (that’s us) in the words and actions of the chorus. I was rather worried for my glass of wine – they do very civilised concerts here abouts.


More Kate here

Then it was on with the spooky men . I must say that they were excellent but it would be far more accurate for you to have a look at the links and pictures than for me to try and describe them.







Abba pah! this is the definative Dancing Queen.





Their website here

Yesterday there was more music. There was an afternoon session in the Coach and Horses in Dumfries. A fine pub to play tunes in on a Thursday afternoon – quiet with nice acoustics, probably something to do with the stone floor and brick walls,….oh yes, and nice beer.


In the evening I popped over to Gatehouse where Mary Barclay was giving a concert of mainly self penned stuff with her husband Doug Carroll. I’d only ever seen her on the internet before. She plays mostly rockier stuff with a band and apparently this kind of concert is quite unusual for her. She and Doug writes a jolly good tune and she has a quite stonking voice. The first picture here isn’t them, it’s James Smyth who came on first for a few fine tunes.


You'll notice, more wine for this concert - Dumfries and Galloway is after all Utopia.




Jamie Wright (the song that is)


Mary and co here

I popped into the Masonic at Gatehouse for their usual Thursday session on the way back to find it delayed somewhat – everyone was at the concert. It was soon in full swing – much noisier than the Dumfries session in the afternoon but a good end to the day neither the less.

6 comments:

Kim Ayres said...

It's Smyth with a Y and no E on the end :)

Sandy's witterings said...

Thanks Kim - I'll sort it as soon as I can get to some wireless internet. I can't do it on this machine for some reason.

shoreacres said...

What an absolutely delightful post - not the least because the "Spooky Dudes" are completely delightful. I came here first last night, but one link led to another and... well..

In any event, I laughed and laughed, and promptly sent the links off to a friend who lives in Milton Keynes. She's going to be quite irritated that she missed the fellows when they were in her neighborhood in July. She hadn't heard of them, either, so I'm quite pleased to have put her on to them. She usually knows everything important long before me!

Again, wonderful post.

Sandy's witterings said...

She and thee will have to keep an eye open for them the next time they tour Shoreacres. If I've given you the edge and put you ahead of the game with your friend then I'm very glad to have been of assistance. Thank you for dropping by and commenting.

Zia Wolf-Sun said...

Great photos...no doubt great wine...and great woman? lol... Cool guys those Spookies :)

Becky said...

I agree...pure delight! I laughed out loud. What great fun!