Last Wednesday, January 25th was the day of the Andy Roberts featured evening at Haverfolk, formerly known as Havering Folk Club. Why did they change the name? I don’t really get it, you’d have to ask Simon or Peter. Anyway, after a recent period of not playing guitar so much really, I managed to get in just about the right amount of rehearsal time in the days before and decided to go ahead with the plan of  doing three new songs and basing the rest of the entire setlist on my own material, much as I had done so for the guest night at Romford Folk Club, nearly a year earlier. The full set list for the night as actually played is viewable with links to each of the songs on my own wiki, here at :  January 2012 setlist   and any upcoming gigs are on the Main page, such as the one at Loughton on Thursday April 19th, 2012. Setting off for the venue was a bit traumatic, as an electrical fault had caused a series of cancellations on the main from Liverpool Street Station to Romford, so we went to see what the buses were looking like, just missed one, and saw that the traffic on the main road was choc a block. So we went back to the station and waited for the next train due, which should have been a half hour wait under the abnormal circumstances but then that one was cancelled too. There was nothing for it but to lug the two guitar cases and ourselves onto a busy number 86 bus and just sit it out as we chugged our way up along the occupied bus lanes and through the congested area around Ilford. We would arrive late for the start of the evening perhaps, but not late for my own appearance due around 9 O’clock which in the event we turned up well in time for. So that’s the transport news, then. A bit of a preoccupation with people who live in the London area I’m afraid. The gig itself went well, I thought, I was reasonably happy with the performances and the guitars stayed mostly in tune. The turn out was good, and people said they enjoyed the music, so that’s a big result, and one of the best things is that Linda’s front row video recording managed to capture the full setlist with no problems, so we have a decent audio and visual of all 21 original tunes. There’s a possibility of bringing that out as a DVD which will become the latest release from me to replace the few copies of the “Sampler” EP I’ve been carrying around for almost three years now! I think I ‘ll be turning the soundtrack into three episodes for the podcast series, and uploading a few songs to youTube as well, but the first one I’ve got processed is the finale song where I managed to get two violinists up on stage with me, namely John Foxen and Richie Barratt with Pep on Banjo and I think you can just hear Bernie on concertina and Mickie Brown on harmonica as well. Here’s Cajun Music Cajun Food live at Haverfolk

Andy Roberts Podcast episode #48 features six songs performed live at the opening night of the new renamed “Haverfolk” club at the new venue, the White Horse on London Road, Chadwell Heath.  Full address is The White Horse, 118 High Road, Chadwell Heath, Romford, Greater London  RM6 6NU I quite like The Stables Function Suite as a room, the acoustics are bright and loud unlike the previous venue The Moby Dick, which deadened everything. It could be a bit on the friendly and intimate (small) side if everybody turned up at once, but that’s better than shrinking the audience through having an unsympathetic atmosphere, which the White Horse doen’t by any means. So Wednesday August 24st signified the first night for the old Havering Folk Club – Now Haverfolk at the White Horse, at which I can arrive promptly by taking the train to Chadwell Heath station and then walking around the corner for about ten minutes. No need to take an additional bus, which makes it less hassle to get from as well of course. Being August, several of the regulars were away including a contingent visiting the Whitby Folk Week, so there was enough time to do two sets, and I was invited to perform an extended 2nd set to end the evening, which is how I come to have enough material to make into a podcast episode, a collection of six songs in total, four of which are self compositions and two are traditional. Here is the download podcast link, file details show notes and set list for podcast number 48: Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes Download MP3 to save – 33.8 Mb in size, playtime 23 minutes 29 seconds :- 48 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 48.mp3 Andy Roberts Podcast #48 Shownotes Show Notes for Podcast 48

Cormorants - Andy Roberts original Sitting On The Bank  - Andy Roberts original The Wreckers’ Prayer  - Andy Roberts original Captain Coulston – Traditional folk song Truro Agricultural Show - Traditional folk song Yellow Boat  - Andy Roberts original

  Andy Roberts Video Podcast Live from Haverfolk Cormorants

Sitting On The Bank

The Wreckers’ Prayer

Captain Coulston

Truro Agricultural Show

Yellow Boat

Podcast 40 is from part 2 of last Sunday’s afternoon session with more rehearsals of old songs as a trial for April 12th and a cover of Bob Dylan’s Hurricane – just because there’s time enough. Here’s the download and play link etc: Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes Download MP3 to save – 32.1 Mb in size, playtime 22 minutes 15 seconds :- 40 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 40.mp3 Andy Roberts Podcast #40 Shownotes Show Notes for Podcast 40

Hurricane – Bob Dylan Living Here – Andy Roberts Joan of Arc – Andy Roberts Mazet – Andy Roberts Cajun Cooking – Andy Roberts

Orbit Tower

Here’s another version of podcast episode 31 re-recorded on Wednesday morning with most of of the same songs roughly, as the one which went out live on Tuesday evening. So if you were there, online watching the show and chatting with Linda in one of the realtime boxes then you should notice this isn’t exactly the same performance. The instrumental guitar pieces for example, as improvisations will be will be very different. I’m sure one or two sings are missing too, and one or two added. That’s all part of the process. And the new strings will be over twelve hours old now as well, instead of being only 12 minutes since restringing. I had even thought of doing the restring live on the podcast itself, as a piece of performance a-r-t but Linda said it wouldn’t make a very good audio podcast and I came around to that point of view eventually. Here’s the web player, download link, tracklist and show notes for Podcast Episode 31:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url: http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885 You can also download the MP3 from this link 31 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 31.mp3 Podcast Episode 31 Show Notes Show notes and information for Andy Roberts Acoustic Guitar Podcast Episode 31: Episode 31 broadcast on February 1st, published on February 2nd 2011. 1) Mozambique Words and Music by Bob Dylan

2) Shifting Sands

Words and Music by Andy Roberts 2) Reason To Believe

Words and Music by Tim Hardin 2)Last Subway Home

Words and Music by Andy Roberts 2)The Wreckers Prayer

Words and Music by Andy Roberts 2)Nobody Knows You ( When you’re down and out)

Words and Music by Jimmy Cox

For this week’s podcast because there couldn’t be a live show, so  I’ve done something a bit different. Instead of recording the show and then maybe ending up with some songs for youTube, I’m making the podcast out of videos that I have already on there. It’s the best of my youTube channel from 2010, my pick of five from the most popular songs on there, strung together with a little bit of introduction. Links, play, download

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes Download MP3 to save – 28.0 Mb in size, playtime 29 minutes 06 seconds :- 28 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 28.mp3 Episode 28 Shownotes

One More Cup Of Coffee – Bob Dylan Song live from Havering Folk Club( >25,500 views) Big Eyed Bean From Venus – Captain Beefheart tribute Grow Fins – Captain Beefheart again The Wreckers Prayer – Andy Roberts Song Live at Walthamstow Folk Club I Hate the White Man – Roy Harper‘s song

YouTube - andyrobertsmusic Channel Watch the original YouTube Tracks Here:

Episode #19 in Andy Roberts series of acoustic guitar podcasts was recorded on Tuesday 9th November 2011 and published today on the 10th. Inspired by friends’ lists of 15 songwriters tagged and copied in Facebook, I played songs by Neil Diamond, Steve Tilston, Andy Roberts, Loudon Wainwright and a bonus track Roy Harper song at the start of which there’s an unfortunate inbound telephone ringtone but I didn’t let that faze me at all, oh no. If you do happen to be listening on an iphone or in a house then the effect could be unpredictable. Here’s the stuff:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes Download MP3 to save – 29.2 Mb in size, playtime 30 minutes 20 seconds :- 19 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 19.mp3 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 19 Show Notes

“I’m a Believer” – by Neil Diamond “One Man Band” – Music and lyrics by Steve Tilston “The Rowan Tree” – Music and lyrics by Andy Roberts

“Samson and the Warden” – Music and lyrics by Loudon Wainwright “Migration” – Music and lyrics by Andy Roberts “I’ll See You Again” – Music and lyrics by Roy Harper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB-DaONDUQs acoustic guitar podcasts

The final straw for Ustream came when I couldn’t get the broadcasting service to begin recording anything for podcast episode 16 last night. I was logged in and broadcasting live, but when I pressed the record button after a few seconds it came u with a ‘failed recording’ message repeatedly. Clearly there was no choice, the time had come to switch over to an alternative service and the one I had lined up as most promising to try next is Livestream.com andyroberts - live streaming video powered by Livestream So here’s the new bookmark for the Andy Roberts Podcast Live Show every Tuesday at 7.00pm : http://www.livestream.com/andyroberts The multiple interfaces for broadcasting are a little more complicated than I had been used to ( but anyway, Ustream made it more difficult recently) so I’m not up to speed yet and was definitely a little thrown out last night, but it won’t take too long to get the hang of it.
If you only ever listen to the downloaded podcasts in your own time then you shouldn’t notice any difference at all really, but you may like to try turning up to the live event once in a while, to see what it’s like. Apparently you don’t even need to register an account in order to join in the text chat there. On the performance itself, you will find a medley of Beatles songs and one Lennon solo sandwiched between a couple of original songs. Here’s the links and shownotes for podcast episode 16 then:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes Download MP3 to save – 25Mb in size, playtime 27 minutes 27 seconds :- 16 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 16.mp3 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 16 Show Notes

Standing By – Andy Roberts original song I feel Fine – Beatles Every Little Thing – Beatles Eleanor Rigby – Beatles Working Class Hero – Lennon Winter in Andalucia – Andy Roberts original

Mostly I’ve been documenting which songs I’ve played at Havering Folk Club on which dates over on the Andy Roberts Music blog on blogspot but I decided a short while ago that I’d start putting those posts here instead, I just haven’t stuck to it very well! The idea was that by tagging posts with song titles, I’d be able to look up very easily and keep track of which songs I’m playing mor often than others, and help me seek out those elusive numbers that I’ve forgotten about for long enough that they suddenly seem fresh and new all over again.  But the tagging system never works out quite as tidily as you might imagine, and the dates become a bit blurry as the habit of reporting promptly wears off. So one date that was remarkable was the date when the Australian duo Cloudstreet came to the Golden Lion to do a long awaited guest spot for Havering Folk Club. Wednesday 15th September. They didn’t disappoint, it was one of the most enjoyable evenings we’ve had there over the years, and I even managed to track down their own blog afterwards so I can keep up with where they are touring, ready for next time they are in the local area. As one of only a small number of floor spot artists I had the chance to play two songs, and these were: Joan of Arc Sometimes this happens, and my voice hadn’t warmed up in time for the first song, so I’ve trashed the video and instead here the song as performed for podcast episode 10. I think I’ll leave this one for a while now.

Followed by The Cajun Cooking Cajun Music song.

There’s a nice bright image on that video, thanks to Linda innovating with the video settings on her relatively new stills camera.

Podcast Episode 12 has been the first episode to achieve over 100 downloads within a week, before the next episode is even recorded. Now 100 may seem like a very small number compared to some of the big multi-artist curated podcasts out there, but for me it’s a milestone which represents a steady growth in the reach of the music over the weeks and now months that I’ve been keeping going at this, every week without fail. Of course without much tangible feedback, there’s no way of telling how many people actually listen, whether multiple listens to one download or some who collect files and never get around to listening at all, it’s all a bit of a mystery so all we have to go on for now are the numbers. I’ve noticed that youTube are now allowing uploads more than 10 minutes long, which means that the version of The Same Old Rock which is on podcast 12 can be put up there, whereas before it would have been just a little to long to scrape in. So tonight for Episode 13 I think I may do two more longer songs, both my own. See you on Ustream at 7.00pm  Tuesdays

Podcasting a day early with the Andy Roberts music podcast Episode 11 So this week’s podcast was recorded a day early, on the Monday instead of Tuesday, not that that will make much difference to podcast subscribers, who mostly seem to like to download the show about one week after it’s been published, but for those of you who might on occasion turn up for the live show at 7.00pm, I won’t be there at all some Tuesdays, and this was one of them. Knowing that I was effectively playing to an absent live audience had a curious effect on the performance, which I would describe as slightly more random in a creative sort of way, but Linda described as “less in the flow”. I was worried that it wouldn’t be good enough for me to want to put out at all, so I carried on after the half hour but in the end that just made it a bit more difficult to edit down to size, something I’d prefer not to do really. So the original full length video file saved over on Ustream is not worth keeping really, due to the failing daylight at this time of year on a cloudy September evening, and me not having bothered to find the lamp. I kind of like lurking in the dark though
Andy Roberts is being kept in the dark is the tracklist of links and show notes for Podcast Episode 11:

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url: http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885 You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 28.8Mb in size and 29 minutes 57 seconds in duration from this link 10 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 11.mp3 Podcast Episode 11 Show Notes Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 11 broadcast on September 13th, published on September 14th 2010. 1) Century A Millenium song written by Andy Roberts around 1980

“Century is my song for the Millennium, written in the early eighties looking forward to the year 2000. It’s called “Century” because the term Millennium wasn’t so much in use then, nobody much had started thinking about it yet, and I was still writing COBOL computer programs with 2 digit years” 2) I Am The Way Song by Loudon Wainwright after Woodie Guthrie’s “Standing Down in New York Town”. Just noticed I played this not long ago, in podcast 7 oh well. 3) You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere Bob Dylan Song from Greatest Hits Vol 2 4) Mondura Dam – Andy Roberts song I may have played this recently, not sure now, but anyway here it is again but this time on the 12 string guitar. Music and Lyrics by Andy Roberts.

5) Norwegian Wood – Beatles I kind of love/hate this song, so I’m trying to reinterpret it. The video below will be from a live performance at Havering Folk Club

6) Me and my Friend the Cat One of the early songs by Loudon Wainwright – performed on his birthday. Happy birthday Loudon. Next time I’ll remember the lyrics, OK.

Three songs performed live at Havering Folk Club last Wednesday with the 12 string guitar. When an Old Cricketer Cricket has been in the news recently, not in a good way, with allegations of match fixing but sometimes any association is enough to prompt a vaguely relevant song or song title. Or sometimes just because of one lyric within a song, it doesn’t matter if anybody else gets it or not. Any excuse to break the agony of having to make a decision as to what to play next! So this is When an Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease written by Roy Harper adapted by Andy Roberts

I do have another version of Old Cricketer online here but that’s played on the six string, I don’t really know which is the best performance from myself, perhaps you would be so kind as to “like”, “favourite” “rate” or whichever is appropriate on any of these videos to give an indication of relative quality, that might then help me choose, thanks. San Francisco This song is San Francisco by Maxime le Forestier, Andy Roberts version with his funny English accent.

Other performances of the same song 1) San Francisco Mazet Not just because I just got back from France but also having met an old friend from the Mazet last week.

Alternative takes:

Mazet Mazet Mazet Mazet

Havering Folk Club continues to meet weekly during the summer months at the Golden Lion pub in Romford even if there are less people able to attend due to being away on holidays or at festivals. With fewer performers turning up on a Wednesday, in that case, it means a bit more time for each and so I ended up singing four songs last week. The first was to align with the previous night’s podcast episode 6 which was loosely themed around the fingerpicking blues style and I’ve been having the tune of Hesitation Blues going through my head ever since so that’s what I played. Secondly, I’d been corresponding about The Wreckers Prayer so that got another airing. Linda wasn’t there to shoot any video so I’ll include some alternatives takes from the Andy Roberts Music youtube account in due course. After the break or rather just before the break, I got called up again and decided on the spur of the moment to do two Beatles songs. I Feel Fine and Norwegian Wood

Episode 5 of the weekly podcast series features 6 acoustic songs with more of a traditional folk music feel to them. Four are my own compositions written in a way that harks back to the traditional English folk song, or maybe British in some cases. It used to be a bit of joke to to an introduction long the lines of “This is a traditional song that I wrote” as if that is such a fake thing to do but these days it’s become more normal thanks to the efforts of folk singers such as Kate Rusby, Tom Bliss and many others brought up in the traditional scene for whom its natural to write songs in that style. The rest of my songs would need be described as “Contemporary Folk” which probably means they sound like they were written in the 1970s, and some of them were… Anyway, here is the podcast player and download link followed by this week’s show notes

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed using the url http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/andy-roberts/id378470885 You can also download the MP3 audio file which is 23.8Mb in size and 25 minutes 40 seconds in duration from this link 05 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 5.mp3 There’s also a stored video file from the live broadcast over at Ustream.tv where the podcasting event takes place on Tuesdays at 7.00pm UK time Video Podcast Episode No 5 Podcast Episode 5 Show Notes Show notes and information for Podcast Episode 5 published on August 4th 2010. All songs performed with the six string Ibanez acoustic guitar

Sitting on top of the World – by Andy Roberts The Wreckers’ Prayer – by Andy Roberts The Rowan Tree – by Andy Roberts Captain Coulston – Traditional /  Steeleye Span Cajun Cooking Music – by Andy Roberts Old Paint -  Traditional

25 Minutes 40 seconds 23.8Mb

Back to Havering Folk Club I went along to Havering Folk Club last Wednesday after a week away on holiday and tried to do a vesrion of one of the new songs I haven’t finished yet. I know It didn’t work out very well, partly because I don’t have the lyrics memorised yet and I tried reading from a crib sheet on the music stand, which has never worked out for me in past and probably never will. I can sing and play at the same time, sometimes I can sing, play and read at the same time, but not it seems in front of an audience, standing up and without reading glasses. So I’ve uploaded the podcast versions of the unfinished songs to youTube instead. The one called “Untitled 1″ in the episode 3 shownotes is provisionally called “Trevellas” now, and unfinished 2 is called “Summerhouse” but I also have a plan for combining the two songs into one single work that would be longer and more complex. We’ll have to see.

Sitting On The Bank To recompose my composure, finding myself with a capo on fret 4 I decided on the spur of the moment to sing “Sitting on the Bank” which is a simple song I wrote when I was about 15 or 16 and thinking about leaving home soon. While uploading I noticed that the melody is developing slightly even now, I’m not sure it’s correct to call it a revival though, as it’s never really been out of the repertoire.

The Mighty Quinn After the break and with the list of floor singers completed there was a little time left and Pep kindly asked me to do another, so after 3 pints I decided to do a singalong that everybody knows though it turned out not everybody at Havering Folk Club knows that the Mighty Quinn was a Bob Dylan song. The Manfred Mann cover version was better known in the UK in 1960s and afterwards.

Subscribe in iTunes to the podcast feed using the url

http://andyroberts.me/?feed=podcast Here’s the podcast player for listening online to my Andy Roberts podcast prototype number 2:

You can also download the MP3 audio file which is around 26Mb in size and just under 30 minutes in duration from this link AndyRobertsPodcastprototype2.mp3 The full video file of the show is available over at Ustream.tv where the live podcasting event takes place on Tuesdays at 7.00pm UK time Podcast Prototype No 2 Video Podcast Prototype 2 Show Notes Show notes and information for prototype 2 broadcast and recorded on June 15th 2010. There were five songs performed during this show, including one instrumental, all using the 12 string guitar. Waiting Title: “Waiting” Music and Lyrics by Andy Roberts, first released on The Andy Roberts Tapes

The Nutmeg Tree Title: “The Nutmeg Tree” Music and Lyrics by Andy Roberts, first released on Album 1

Mazet Title: “Mazet” Music and Lyrics by Andy Roberts, first released on The Andy Roberts Tapes

Instrumental Title: “Intrumental” Music by Andy Roberts, first released on The Andy Roberts Tapes

I Shall Be Released Title: “I Shall Be Released” Song and Lyrics by Bob Dylan 1967 Interpretation Andy Roberts

Podcast I had an idea about turning the Weekly Ustream.tv show into a podcast and started putting it into practice. So last Tuesday instead of just recording some of the individual songs during the webcast for uploading to youTube, I recorded the whole half an hour or so of the show, songs and talking, and saved it using the ustream record system. I was fairly happy with the way that went from a performance point of view, it worked better for me than premeditated songs and faffing about with song tit;es description and tags in the middle of a broadcast. The experiment was to see what I could do with the resulting file. I downloaded it to my Mac – ustream provides a file in .flv format (Flash) and when I clicked on the downloaded file it opened an application I’d never seen before! Mpeg-streamclip was able to export in various formats including quicktime, Mpeg4, and audio only. So far so good. The quicktime version allowed me to quickly edit out the five songs from within the video and save them individually as .mov , all ready for uploading to youtube. So this meant that with a small amount of effort I can use ustream for the live streaming show, record it all in one go, and still have the songs available in youtube for embedding elsewhere and so on. But what about the podcast? Ah, well I went away for a few days, so now I’m getting around to it. The audio podcast is here: http://andyroberts.me/wp-content/podcast/Podcast-prototype-1.mp3 and the video podcast is is still hosted on ustream at

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7526414 also embedded below

But this still doesn’t count as a podcast yet until I have it set up as a series you can subscribe to in iTunes or the audio player of your choice. Fortunately I still the rest of the month of June to get that boxed off, since this is still the prototyping period, and I’ve set the goal of getting started for real in July.