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Pete Atkin / Gigs / New gigs! |
10.07.25 at 07:55 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by S J Birkill |
Regret we still have no booking for The Pheasantry this year. Seems their new gigs-management person doesn't know a good pizza when it's handed to him or her on a plate.
However, there's a new gig coming up, thanks to MV member Steve Brown, and this one's in Exeter. We don't yet have a confirmed date, but it should be before the end of the year. Pete's e-mail newsletter, out today (Wednesday) reports:
Quote:
Long-time - and I do mean a long time - loyalist Steve Brown has responded
to my plea in Newsletter MV2503 for more possible gigs by suggesting one in
Exeter, with luck before the end of the year. I have of course said Yes,
please.
His chosen location is downstairs at the Mermaid in Gandy Street in Exeter
city centre, a cosy club-style venue with a stage and its own bar, and which
is just a short walk from Exeter Central station, if you're coming by train.
There is no definite date as yet but if you think you may be able to come
please do e-mail Steve at <vanished.venues@gmail.com>. He's organising the gig
himself, so it would be enormously helpful if he could have some idea of the
probable response.
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Stay tuned to MV or the Smash Flops Gig Guide for info as it comes.
And, moving into 2026, perennially faithful host Nick Westcott has re-booked Pete for the Lamb Folk Club in Eastbourne on Wednesday 20th May. Once again I quote Pete's newsletter:
Quote:
The award-winning - well, if he isn't, he should be - Nick Westcott has
booked me for the latest in my record-breaking - well, if it isn't, it
should be - series of appearances at the Eastbourne Folk Club for WEDNESDAY
20th MAY 2026. I know, I know, I haven't yet got my latest Moleskine either,
but I am properly committed and further details will appear here and else-
where a bit further down the line. At this point the only virtual certainty
for my set list is "Wristwatch For A Drummer", since for Nick not to request
it would be simply weird.
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Steve
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Pete Atkin / Music / Suit of Lights |
02.07.25 at 20:31 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by S J Birkill |
Intrigued by Pete's account of his rediscovery of the song "Suit Of Lights", which he performed, for only the second time in public, at last week's gig in Woking?
Well, Pete has recorded a new demo of the song (complete with bonus unintentional ungual percussion accompaniment), which can now be heard here.
Steve |
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Pete Atkin / Music / New Atkin/James covers |
02.07.25 at 09:06 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by S J Birkill |
Now, here's something different -- "Catching the Light", an album of Pete & Clive's songs sung by a singer new to me, Tim Benton.
Tim has recorded his selection of 18 songs at south London's Underhill studios, with accompaniment, arrangement and production by Simon Wallace. Tim's website includes a number of these, some with video, while 'Biro' for one is available via Spotify, with others to follow.
What do you think?
Steve
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Pete Atkin / Gigs / Re: Woking, June 21st |
28.06.25 at 20:05 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by Avner Greenberg |
So glad to hear about your latest gig Pete. May they keep coming along. What a delicious playlist, along with the recently excavated Suit of Lights, which I'd love to hear one day.
Thank you Chris Harris for putting on the show. |
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Pete Atkin / Members / Re: New members |
11.06.25 at 11:36 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by ChriRHarris |
Hi all,
|'ve just re-joined MV's after being on Pete's mailing list for the past few years.
I first encountered Pete and Clive's songs through, I think, a girlfriend at university in the early 70's, I've just looked at my copy of Beware OTBS and I had written my name on the sleeve, so obviously I was lending it out at times and protecting it much as possible.
Over the years I've seen Pete several times, including with Clive in (again "I think" ) Basingstoke.
More to the point Pete and Clive's music has always been part of my musical life as I occasionally perform in public, mainly at the folk club that I now organise. The Anchor folk club was started 30 years ago this September in the Blue Anchor pub in Byfleet, Surrey and ran weekly until the pandemic. During Covid days we remained active on-line (Zoom and Youtube). Post Covid we moved to a new venue in Woking when I took over organising it and we now usually meet twice a month. But... see BELOW.
I've always performed (I hesitate to say "sung"), a selection of their songs, mostly the more humorous ones (Ballad OAUW, Original OHTTB, Stranger IT) plus, of course, BewareOTBS and GirlOTT.
Ballad OAUW was the first song I sang at the Anchor Folk club and has always been the first song I'll sing when, very occasionally, I perform elsewhere.
Beware of The Beautiful Stranger (Oh that's what he means !) is top of my list for Desert Island Discs ( I'm still waiting for the call). I love the mid song twist when she is revealed as really a stranger, a similar effect to even greater effect happens in Canoe, another favourite of mine.
In Aug 1997 I was fortunate enough to be on holiday in Derbyshire with my family when I saw a poster for a festival in Monyash, a few miles from our campsite, featuring our very own Pete Atkin. So I dumped the family for a day and sat in a tent, in a field, listening to Pete and other's music. Brilliant !
Subsequently i was a member, 'though not a very active one, during the early days of the MV bulletin board (or whatever it was.)
BELOW
HOWEVER... my main impetus for re-connecting with MV is to last minutely (?) remind everyone that Pete is performing at our club venue in Woking on June 21st, the weekend after next. If you'd like to come alone and haven't yet let me know then please email me a PAWoking2025@gmail.com to reserve a place.
Details are on the PA website and the Anchor Folk website https://www.anchorfolkclub.com/.
Briefly, it's £10 cash on the door and post code for ANDY'S CAFE is GU21 3LG.
That's me done for now , Chris
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| 7 |
Pete Atkin / Newsletter / Newsletter - latest edition |
11.06.25 at 08:31 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by S J Birkill |
Those of us signed up to Pete's occasional e-mail newsletter will already have seen his timely reminder of the upcoming (on the 21st) performance at St Andrew's Church in Woking, along with his recommendations for a good book to read in the interim. The event has been arranged by Chris Harris of Woking Folk Club, though this gig is separate -- it's not a folk club meeting -- and places are still available. Full details in the newsletter or in the Smash Flops Gig Guide.
Chris became a member of MV in the 1990s when we were a mailing list, and he's recently rejoined us here. I'm expecting a post from him in the next day or four, promoting the gig.
If you're reading this and haven't seen the latest edition of the newsletter, all is not lost: every issue is archived on our (you guessed it) Newsletter Archive page, at www.peteatkin.com/newsletter.htm. The "Go To Latest" button at the head of the page will do just that, and you can subscribe for future newsletters using the form at the foot of that page.
Steve
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Pete Atkin / News / Wizz Jones has died |
01.05.25 at 09:19 |
| Started by S J Birkill | Newest post by S J Birkill |
Influential virtuoso guitarist Wizz Jones died at the weekend, aged 86. Himself inspired by Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Big Bill Broonzy, Wizz was a pioneer of the instrument across the folk and blues spectrum during the 1950s and 60s, along with contemporaries including Davy Graham, Alexis Korner, Long John Baldry, John Renbourn, Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy, inspiring a generation of young British guitarists. He was a charming and gentle man, very modest and easy to talk to.
Wizz was a member of Midnight Voices in its days as a mailing list between 1997 and 2004, and appeared as a guest artist at two of our MV gatherings during that period, at Milton Keynes (Stantonbury School) in October 2000 and at Hebden Bridge (The Picture House) in September 2001.
Here is a video of Wizz, shot by MV's "Fat_Ed" (Brian Hazelden) in 2012. Coincidentally this performance also took place at Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, this time at the Trades Club. The song, Atkin/James's 'Touch Has A Memory' appeared on Wizz's 1987 album "The Grapes of Life".
Robin Denselow has written an obituary for Wizz in The Guardian, here. |
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