(Updated 25.1.12)

The Blyth Power Ashes 2012

After an unprecedented flurry of early activity we have filled all the available slots for next year's Ashes Festival and full details can now be found on the main Ashes page. Many thanks again to all the bands signing up. For those of you not in the know the venue has proved such a success that festivities will once more take place at the jolly splendid Plough Inn, in Farcet Fen just south of Peterborough. Please do note that this year the festivities will be on the bank holiday weekend of 24-26th August, and will continue until 12 midnight on the Sunday evening, with you all very welcome to stay and camp Sunday night too. Do stick around. Ticket prices have increased slightly due to spiralling costs, but we are hopeful this year showers shall be provided.

Tickets are now on sale for a measly £20

Women and Horses, Power and War

The selection of songs for the next studio CD is now complete, and lyrics will be creeping onto this website over the next week or so. TDL is so pleased with the way the trilogy turned out that the plan has grown out of all proportion, and now features a trilogy of trilogies... Luckily due to the usual financial restraints it is unlikely Women and Horses, Power and War will see the light of day until the usual years interim between releases has passed. There are nine new songs finished, with three more part written.
Having said that, given the rate at which the old man is currently churning out new songs this may all be subject to change.

Friends & Neighbours

Exciting news reaches us from our friend and colleague Mr Paul Stapleton, known to many of you as frontman of Ashes favourites Pog and Anal Beard. Firstly comes the release of Undisputed King of Nothing, a series of graphic novels set several months after a global pandemic has wiped out the vast majority of the human race. Seen through the eyes of one who is so far the only survivor, it will focus on life in England through the weeks and months following. The first in the series is out on release and details can be found here Undisputed King of Nothing. Eagle-eyed Blyth followers may notice something rather familiar about the title of each in the series.

Mr Stapleton's second current project, BN1, is going to be a semi-occasional comic strip based on conversations overheard and ideas certain people have inspired in his little part of Sussex. For now this can be found on Facebook here.

From Ben Bailey, better known to many as Brother Bemps from The Lovely Brothers, comes the long awaited follow up to Zombies in Brighton. The second in his series of choose your own adventure books, Vampires in Brighton is both bigger and longer, and further details can be found on Facebook here Vampires in Brighton or on The Lovely Brothers website here.

Land Sea & Sky

Land Sea & Sky is of course still available, and jolly marvellous it is too. Playing time is in excess of sixty minutes, so think of this as Blyth Power's 'Happy Hour'. It's certainly no slim volume, and you should look out for a couple of very special guest performances from Mick Tyas and Fred Purser.
Track list is: Fleurs du Mal, Heart of Me, Ass in the Oak Tree, Follow the Band, House of War, On Top of my Lot, Devil and Sister Helena, Battle of Naseby, I Who Came in from the Cold, The Mermaid, Probably Won’t be Easy and Land Sea & Sky. Mr. Porter is delirious with excitement at the prospect of giving some of this stuff the full band treatment, especially the tracks off Death Went to Bed, which has otherwise gone by the board. Blasts from the past are The Mermaid, with revised lyrics, and Probably Won’t be Easy, which missed the boat on Bricklayers Arms and currently languishes in the bowels of our unfulfilled past. Battle of Naseby is the Macaulay poem set to music – the one which Mr. Porter used to recite during guitar string changes, and which almost got his legs broken at Warwick University by a demented monarchist.

Bricklayers Arms

In this fictional autobiography Benjamin Jonson, poet of Westminster, tells of his rise from obscure birth in 1572 to the position of Laureate at the court of James I, as the foremost man of letters of his age. Scholar, actor, bricklayer, soldier and playwright, no other figure of the Elizabethan stage has seen life from so many angles, or written about it with such authority, but Jonson’s star is fading and he is determined that if no one else will record his fame for posterity then he will have to do so himself.
Set against a background of discord, as James’ grip on the kingdom slackens, Jonson’s narrative traces his experiences through war and imprisonment, vice and lechery, to accusations of treason, murder and popery, and ultimately to the questionable honour of a king’s favour, from which lofty heights he reviews his successes, and, most notably, his failures.
Bitter, jealous, and with scarcely a good word for any of his peers, Jonson’s disapprobation extends from the highest to the lowest in the land, and none are spared as his acid tongue paints a vivid picture of the vanities, wickedness, and folly of what history has recorded as a ‘golden age’ of literary culture.
With a page count around the 520 mark, price direct from us is £16.00. Watch this space for availability, ISBN, and all the other stuff you’ll need to know to buy a copy. Interested parties are directed to the sample chapter elsewhere on this site, and if we sell enough there are two other finished books in waiting. No wonder there aren’t twelve previously unrecorded songs on the new CD. The blighter’s used all the words up here…
After even further delays with this than can be experienced on the Harrogate loop during leaf fall, we can report we fully expect delivery in April. Anyone preordering will also offer you the chance to read the unedited version which is 95000 words longer, and will be sent as a document by email in addition to the book.

Cider On Parade

Film making chaps Ben Burgess and Frank Wall have added their superb interpretation of Cider Dreaming Time to YouTube, where it can be viewed along with the previous film based on Cynthia’s Revels. Follow this link Cider Dreaming Time

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