Blyth Power : News Page

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 moved once again, and this time festivities will take place at the jolly splendid Goat Inn, in Skeyton in darkest Norfolk. Well, it keeps Mr Cooper happy so you know it makes sense...

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 Green Grow the Rushes will see the light of day until the usual years interim between releases has passed. There are new songs, there are songs previously done with other formats, and even two live favourites from the 80s, tragically overlooked by the Stalinist revision programme before now...
Having said that, given the rate at which the old man is currently churning out new songs this may all be subject to change.

Loathe as we are to talk about anyone other than ourselves, here are a couple of news items concerning colleagues of ours. Firstly, we are very pleased to be able to pass on an invitation to the launch of a new Pressgang CD. The band are back with the definitive line up including George, Damien, Cliff, and Tony, and a new recording Outlandish will be launched at the After Dark Club in Reading on November 28th. Anyone turning up with a previous Pressgang CD or T-shirt can get the new one for a fiver. We were listening to Fire on the way back from the studio back in the summer. It rocked utterly. Nice to have you back chaps, and have a good one.
For the many of you who enjoyed Tres Y El Ingles at Lumb Farm this year, and have been asking for further information, we can now advise that the band have a My Space page, with preview mixes of the band’s new recording. This can be found at www.myspace.com/tresyelingles and they will be back at the Ashes next year, so keep watching Dora the Explorer, and you might be able to tell them yourselves how much you enjoyed them this time.

Our old chum Aston has knocked up a very limited edition 25th anniversary t-shirt, printed front and back, which is now available in the Blyth Power Shop. There were only 30 XL and 30 L made so do be quick to avoid disappointment. As they are printed front and back and are such a limited run the price is £10.

So, we finally have it! Land Sea & Sky, 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 we enjoyed unleashing the finished CDs on you all at Lumb Farm. 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.

Finally, the book is at the printers. Here’s the blurb from the back of the cover:
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 and of course available now for preorder. 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…

Many of you reading this will be aware of our colleague John Palfrey (Vicar to most of you), but you may not be aware of his plans for the coming year or so. Here then is all you need to know:

'In September I’m going to Cambodia (one of the world’s poorest nations, following a devastating civil war) for 6 months as a volunteer marketing officer for a small but enterprising orphanage in the town of Siem Reap. My task is to tap into the country’s burgeoning tourism industry, creating child sponsorship opportunities and worthwhile training for the children. So – I need to raise sponsorship to cover my basic living costs.
Thus I request the gracious fans of the legendary Blyth Power to visit my appeal website Cambodia Appeal and if you are able make a small donation. From there you will find links to our work in Cambodia, and my blog which will bring you witty and amusing dispatches from Mid September. If you run a business you can advertise on my supporters page, linked to the blog which will run throughout the project. Or you can give directly to the orphanage via the weblink on my supporters page.
Cambodia Orphan Fund is a registered charity in Cambodia, and UK registration should follow. Please check my webpage for more details, updates and a mission statement.
Thank you.'

Thanks to Mr Simon Sweetman for affording us more publicity than we've had in the last twenty years when he did his stint on Antony Gormley's Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Not since a Blyth Power t-shirt appeared on Countdown have we been such aa household name...

Who would have thought that Mr. Joseph Porter, noted fascist swine, money-grabbing business man and multi-media tycoon would have been thrown out of a band for being too much of a po-faced little anarcho. Sadly, this is precisely what happened, and as a result he was no longer a member of Null & Void by the time they came to record with Joe Strummer at his studio in Camden. Bugger!
He did record some material with them, though, and this is now available on a CD called All Burnt Out, which re-issues most of the band’s recorded works, and includes some of the best songs that Mr. Porter ever played on. Songwriter Andy Barker is responsible for all the material on the CD, and we recommend it wholeheartedly. Look for more at NULL & VOID

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