Well, that's December sorted then!

I'm not gigging tonight with Tim (as Wilderwood), as my voice sounds and feels like my vocal cords have been sandpapered by a maddened baboon. Thankfully, we have useful friends, so Liam (the Unfeasibly Tall Melodeon Player, or UTMP for short) is going to be stepping in for me, and substituting tunes for songs, and generally being me in a "foot and a half taller, and playing a melodeon and not singing" sort of a way.

Hopefully this will give my voice a chance to recover, as it badly needs that chance at the moment. *Cough* The cold has mutated into one of my truly classic coughs (one of the "who put that band of steel around my chest and forced me to inhale feathers?" sort of coughs).

In other good news, I got us a gig at our Local and Organic Centre (it's way more than a shop, so I've given up calling it that) for "Baggsy Not Norma", and Tim has got us even more. The diary now looks like this:

[Baggsy Not Norma: Victorian and Traditional English Carol Singing
Fleetfoot Mike: Fleetwood Mac Tribute Band
Pigeon English - English Ceilidh Music & Dance which rocks harder than a rocky thing
Higgledy Piggledy - English Ceilidh Music. Rocks slightly less. But a good laugh]

BAGGSY NOT NORMA

2nd Dec - Sleaford Farmer's Market, 10.30am-12.30pm
3rd Dec - Sleaford Christmas Market, 12.00 - 1.00pm
- Heighington Carols, 2pm - 3pm
5th Dec - Lincoln Drill Hall, "Drill Hall Unplanned" 8pm
6th Dec - Welbourn Village Green, 6.30pm(ish)
7th Dec - Lincoln Christmas Market Main Stage, 6.45pm - 7.15pm
9th Dec - Lincoln Christmas Market Main Stage, 12.15pm - 12.45pm
- Lincoln Christmas Market Busking in the Bail, 1pm - 3pm
10th Dec- Lincoln Christmas Market Main Stage, 3.45pm - 4.15pm
16th Dec- Lincoln Farmer's Market (time tbc)
20th Dec- Radio Lincolnshire, on the Folk Show, 6.30pm (tbc)
- Pub Tour of Uphill Lincoln and the Bailgate
21st Dec- Welbourn, Joiner's Inn, 9pm onwards
(Date to be confirmed - "Friendly Farmer" Saturday Lunchtime Carols)

PIGEON ENGLISH

8th Dec - Pigeon English Lincoln Public Ceilidh, IMPart Centre, High Street, Lincoln (All Welcome)

FLEETFOOT MIKE

9th Dec - Westwood Hotel, Peterborough, 9pm - 12midnight
22nd Dec- Bar Red, Kings Lynn, 9pm - 12midnight

HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY

16th Dec- Somewhere In Newark, 8pm onwards

I think we can quite safely say, "Blimey"!

Well, that was fun!

Tim is running through a few things for the gig tonight. The gig that I can't make because a 2 hour vocal workout in a smoky pub whilst suffering from the aftereffects of a cold and a very current chest condition and cough probably isn't a good idea.

This *would* be the night that he decides to re-work up "Copperhead Road", wouldn't it? The night when I'm not going to be there? I'm a HUGE Steve Earle fan, and "Copperhead Road" is my favourite song from way back when I wore head to toe leather all the time, and rode a variety of motorbikes (some legally, many not) as my preferred method of transport.

The last time we played this was as an "afterward" to a medieval gig. We'd done the period stuff, and had received a request for a brief 20 minute slot of 'party' music. I'd bought my bagpipes about a month previously, and couldn't really play anything other than a drone on them. "Copperhead Road" really needs bagpipes. It really does. It's just... an awesome track when done right. Lyrically it's good, but musically it really moves me.

So I heard the thunderous D chords drifting down the stairs just now, and I grabbed my pipes and run up to meet Tim, somewhere down Copperhead Road.

There's a wonderful feeling to picking up an instrument that just feels *right*. I don't have it with any other instrument except the bagpipes, but it just felt so good to finally play that song as I always heard it in my head.

I find that I don't mind not singing quite so badly if I can play the bagpipes :-)

Expect to find this making it's way into more sets in the near-future ;-)