MAART'S NEWS
Last updated Tuesday 28th September 2004

Hello and welcome!

Maartin Allcock is a multi-instrumentalist born in Manchester in 1957. After an apprenticeship in folkclubs and dancebands, he ran away to join the Bully Wee Band, a Celtic folk group, which led on to an 11-year stint with folk-rock leg ends Fairport Convention, four years with rock band Jethro Tull and a session career which has included more than 170 albums. Now read on...

FRIDAY 8th OCTOBER: LIVE BROADCAST ON BBC RADIO 2
Beth, John and Maart will be performing LIVE with the BBC Concert Orchestra
7:30pm - 9:15pm
88-91 FM and on DAB and Internet radio
Also appearing, erm, Donny Osmond...
and presented by, erm, Ken Bruce...

Accommodations Rome - Deals & Reviews


In June, out of the blue, I got an eMail from Beth Nielsen Chapman, whose new single, "Free", has been getting a lot of airplay on BBC Radio 2. I played on her second album, "You Hold The Key", along with Simon Nicol. She invited me to go and play a song with her at one of her gigs on her June UK tour. So I went off to Manchester Academy 2. I arrived in time for soundcheck and it became apparent that I would be playing more than just one song. In fact I played about five on the night! Beth was accompanied by John Ragusa, an excellent flautist who also plays trumpet and the conch shell. After her tour, Beth and her chap Res came over to Snowdonia to visit. Unfortunately the weather was appalling (it being Wimbledon time) but we had a good time anyway.

Then Beth asked me to play on her Irish dates in July along with John Ragusa and her son Ernest Chapman III on guitar and mandolin, so Jan and I took the HSS, the high speed ferry or the Vomit Comet as they call it in Dublin.. The first performance was at the Smithwick's Source Festival in Kilkenny, along with Katie Melua, Bob Geldof and James Taylor, who we had dinner with. It was a great day and we made a lot of friends. The next day was Galway, in the Roisin Dubh, a sold out gig and the first time we'd all played a full gig together. It was a truly great evening which will be long remembered by all who were there. The last gig was in Whelan's in Dublin, a great gig I've played before with the Fairports. Among the audience were Paul Brady, Kieran Halpin, Fergus Feely, Ciaran Tourish and Frances Black. We adjourned after the gig to Ciaran's place for a party... All in all in all a great time with some wonderful people. Jan didn't want to leave Ireland, but then it usually has that effect on her, bless...

I've just sorted out a songbook to accompany Beth's new album, Hymns, too, which will be on sale on the tour.

I was recording recently at Blue Moon with Joe Topping, who has an album on the way. Joe plays nowadays with John Wright, but is a great songwriter in his own right. Other guests incluse Martin Brunsdon, Angus Lyon, Gerry Conway and Chris Leslie.

 

NEW MAART SOLO ALBUM - NOW AVAILABLE!

You can now order Maart's new album, "Serving Suggestion". Just click on the picture above.

There is a CD review from Q and MOJO writer Rob Beattie on the New Album page. The album is priced at £13.00 +p&p, and is available now. Click here for prices inclusive of postage & packing for UK, Eurozone and US. You can also buy online here via PayPal. It is also be available by sending a cheque (pounds sterling only) to Squiggle Records, PO Box 31, Harlech, LL46 2WQ, Wales. If ordering by cheque, please include your eMail address if you'd like to receive further mailings (from us only - we don't give out our mailing list).

IT'S HERE!!!!
It looks fantacker!!!

It's a 136-page second edition of the first Fairport book I did back in 1993, with 14 extra songs, new photos, new artwork from the original artist Dave Gleeson, and lots of tablature for the first time. Priced at £25.00 + p&p and is available now. Click here for prices inclusive of postage & packing for UK, Eurozone and US. You can buy online here via PayPal. It is also available by sending a cheque (pounds sterling only) to Squiggle Records, PO Box 31, Harlech, LL46 2WQ, Wales. If ordering by cheque, please include your eMail address if you'd like to receive further mailings (from us only - we don't give out our mailing list). It has been pointed out to me that page 28, the first page of Crazy Man Michael, has quite a few chords missing. You can download the corrected version here. You need to print it from the icon in the Scorch toolbar, next to the flame icon. Also there is a mistake in Now Be Thankful - it should be stone not storm...

I'm nearly halfway through my long-threatened Sandy Denny Complete Songbook which will be out in time for Christmas. It features all the 52 songs she wrote and will have several pages of photos too.

I've recently been recording for a Granada TV drama, "Loving Lola". More details as I have them.

There's also a six-part ITV series, "Distant Shores", set in Northumberland starring Peter Davidson.

Nick Bicât's band for "Distant Shores" - L-R: Jamie Payne, director; Nick Bicât, composer, programmer, keys and guitar, lots of TV stuff, lots of movies; Maart, bass, mandolin, bouzar, mandocello, cümbüs (a fretless 12string wok-banjo); Angus Lyon, six times British accordion champion, duh, accordion; Troy Donockley, whistles; Keith Grant, legendary recording engineer; Kathryn Tickell, Northumbrian Pipes; Sir Danny Thompson, double bass; Peter Knight, violin. Not three bad, eh? Barbara Dickson has also contributed her vocal talents to the song that Nick wrote for the series with his brother, and John Kirkpatrick has been playing too. When I first met Keith (who by the way has recorded everyone!), he suggested that we go model together for garden gnomes. I said OK, as long as I had the wheelbarrow and he had the rod...

I've signed an Artist Agreement with Line6, who make the Variaxes, the POD, Flextone/Vetta amps and lots more. I know this is going to be a great relationship and I'm really looking forward to adding the Variax Acoustic to my collection. All the electric guitar sounds on my album were done with the Variax 500 through a POD Mk1 and I use the FlextoneII+ amp live. A very exciting new development is the Variax Workbench software which will be available soon, allowing you to design your own guitar and tuning, then fly it in to your Variax!!!!!!!! More about the Variax below...

There's an interview I did last year for the Middleton Guardian, the local paper from my hometown, online here.

 

Thanks to my chum Midge Ure and Alan Townsend from Sutherland Trading Ltd, I'm using Crafter guitars quite a bit these days. The 12string in the photos here is the CTS-150-12/N thinline which is a really really good guitar. It feels like a 6string to play and the sound is huge. It's in tune all the way up the neck, even "up the dusty end where the money is". I use it on nearly every gig now and every night someone comes and asks about it. The most amazing thing is that it only costs £369.99 list! You can maybe find it cheaper on the high street, but this is a professional instrument at a medium price. I also have the 6string version, CTS-150/N, again a top gigging instrument. Besides my prized Stefan Sobell Model 3, I use the ML-Rose 6string guitar for recording. This features solid rosewood back and sides and a solid spruce top and is very nicely inlaid with moon and stars of pearl and abalone. Also I have a DSP1 acoustic amplifier, a two channel 30w amp for acoustic guitar and a microphone, with digital effects built in and a nice wooden cabinet, which comes in really handy at folk festivals where there isn't really time to do an efficient soundcheck. Sounds great. You can have a look at the whole range at the website by clicking the link above. Unbelievable prices.

I've been using a Variax 500 too. A whole guitar collection in one instrument! Made by Line6, it uses digital modelling to recreate the sounds of some of the most coveted guitars ever, from Les Pauls and Telecasters and a Strat to jazz guitars, dobros and even acoustic guitars and a banjo(!). This is saves a lot of time on such gigs as Blue Tapestry where I'm changing instruments for every song. Now I have them all in the one instrument! I reckon I'm probably the first person to have used a Variax at a British folk festival (Gilly Darbey, Wombwell, 2003). The prices have just come down on the 500 and you can get 25 great guitars for £500 now! There's no excuse anymore... There's the Variax 700 out now, with a worry stick (vibrato arm) and a carved top, but I think I'll stick with mine. When I need a worry stick I have a perfectly good Strat doing nothing at the moment. The acoustic version should be available soon. I really hope they get round to making a bass version...

The new G7th capo - It's beautiful, it's fantastic, it's sexy, it works! I've used it on acoustic and electric and it's fab. Click on the photo to find out more. I gave my first one to James Taylor (namedrop, namedrop), who told me that he really liked it. He went on to play his first five or six numbers with it, so that's good enough for me. You can see pictures of JT with the capo here. I've also introduced them to Altan, Jerry Donahue, Martin Barre and John Martyn among others. Apparently there's a prize for whoever gets the first one to Eric Clapton...

 

I live on the west coast of Wales, near Harlech in Gwynedd, and it's a very beautiful place.