9/7/08.

Phew it's been quite a busy year and it's taken me this long to get down and write a summary! Despite the recent bad weather/storms/tree-havoc in the North, we've enjoyed great round of spring and summer wedding/community shows that have taken us round our usual 'stomping grounds': Lakeland, the Eden Valley, North Lancashire. May was especially busy with nine gigs over the month. All great shows; folks flinging themselves ragged around the dance floors and having a whale of a time (funny expression, that!): So thanks for booking us everyone and getting stuck into the dancing; it's been a very enjoyable and inspiring time that's lifted the paule of gloomy weather and glum world news.

Just got fab news that we're heading of to sunny Dorset in December for another rural tour of community venues; This will make a very good follow-up to our highly succsesfull rural tour of Lakeland/Durham in Winter 2007 (see below). Details to be posted just as soon as we get them.

Just as in January, the practicing is continuing as were gradually gathering material: Another album? If so, we think it will be even more 'stripped down' and acoustic, and we're starting to feed the new tracks into the shows. New tunes include Carloyn's fabulous tune 'Merz' written for the great German Artist Kurt Schwitter's 121st birthday. Kurt spent the last years of his life creating ground-breaking art in Lakeland, including the amazing Merz Barn installation in Langdale, soon to be restored to it's former glory. Carolyns tune is a fitting whirlwind of energy. Mike has also dug up an old Strangefolk classic he wrote in the 80's : 'Fields And The Glen', a dark and brooding 'earth mother' type ballad, and the band are working up a rich brooding version that is gauranteed to raise the goose-bumps. See you all for now, ta for reading this and do take the time to have a good browse of the site

Cheers! Mike

12/1/08

Welcome to the new year 2008, folks! Here I am at Striding Edge HQ, just drawing breath after our mammoth 'Borrowdale Johnny' tour, (see below!) and shaping up the bands activities for 2008: Looks like there plenty more great gigs coming in for 2008! We've also got some practices in our diary over the coming months, in our traditional leafy practice place of Witherslack, South Cumbria, to start shaping up some new songs tunes and dances. We always love getting together to kick new songs and tunes about, when we get the space in our hectic shedules.

All systems go, then, for 2008. January's always a great month to be in the office, as the phones always going with both old friends and new wanting us to play for them in earnest! This really wets our appetite for the coming year...just hope there's enough Friday and Saturday nights in the year to fit everyone in! We've also got more gigs going on in January than we usually have, so 'roll on' the month!

2007 was the busiest year ever for Striding Edge, with a total of 74 shows completed: Testament to the the fact that we have become probably the most popular roots band in the region!

And what a great year it was too!

A terrific round of gigs over the winter spring and summer led to the 'Borrowdale Johnny' tour in the autumn/winter, to launch our brand new album. This was a hugely successful concert/ceilidh tour, taking in 16 community venues that were mainly packed to the rafters with attentive listeners (for the concert) and dancers (for the ceilidh!) Now read all about it....

'Borrowdale Johnny Show' went out to 16 village halls throughout Cumbria and Durham, from September through to mid December!

Many folks came to see us launch our brand new album 'Borrowdale Johnny' with these very special shows. At most shows, a seated concert presenting a sequence of songs and tunes from the album started the show, telling the story of Borrowdale Johnny's epic journey from Borrowdale and back again.

This was followed by a ceilidh dance which will gave the audience a rousing couple of hours to enjoy themselves on the dance-floor, interspersed with some 'floor spots' from the band, including clog dancing, border pipe playing, and big chorus songs (Including the classic 'Sally Grey') that everyone loved singing along to!

This tour was organised by 'Highlights' and 'Way Out West' rural touring schemes. Our great thanks to Barbara Slack and Bob Pritchard for all their hard work in putting this excellent schedule of dates together! The tour took us to community venues around Cumbria and County Durham; the bed-rock breeding ground of our brand of music, which made it a highly exciting and energising 'down to the roots' tour for us, and our local audiences. We practised hard to make these the best Striding Edge shows ever. As you can see by the comments, we went down a storm on every show, which made us realise that we suceeded!