 |
|
MAART'S NEWS
Last updated Wednesday 1st February 2012
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 over 200 albums and now also lends his experience to record production and tour management. Now read on...
HUW WILLIAMS & MAART
Huw and Maart have started gigging now and a great success it is too. There is a new website, in its infancy, here.
CALAN SECOND ALBUM OUT NOW
The new album from Calan, out now.
My most recent production job, Jonah, the second album from top young Welsh traditional band Calan, is now available from Sain Records. Calan have been storming the festivals for the last couple of years, and this summer they've been appearing at Whitby, Shrewsbury, Fylde, Moseley, Bromyard and Derby festivals. I produced their first album and it was great to be working with them again. It's been wonderful to see how these youngsters have progressed since their first demos. The band is now appearing live as up to a seven-piece. Huw Williams has been standing in for guitarist Chris Ab Alun, sensational drummer/percussionist Alex Moller (Gwibdaith Hen Frân) joins the band for the bigger gigs, and Alaw Ebrill Jones joins her sister Llinos Eleri Jones on harp. Altogether they make a really wonderful noise, and well done Huw Williams for coaching them and honing them into a great focus for Welsh traditional music with flair and pzazz. Special mention in dispatches too for ace engineer Siôn Jones, who made the job fast and fun.
DAVE SWARBRICK FIDDLE TUNE BOOK NEWS
Photo by Bryan Ledgard
Still waiting for clearance now on this definitive project, featuring the work of Dave Swarbrick from his contributions to the Ian Campbell Folk Group in the 1960s and the first solo album Rags, Reels and Airs (1967) through the solo albums of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, his work with Martin Carthy, Fairport Convention, Whippersnapper, The Band Of Hope and Swarb's Lazarus right up to some as yet unrecorded tunes of Swarb's composition. The copious notes on the tunes have been proofread and added to by Swarb, and next we're on to photo selection and artwork. There are over 300 tunes in all, running to over 240pp. We're looking at a limited run of 500 copies, and a sale price of £45, a very reasonable price for such a collection. It's yet another mammoth task in the series (three Fairport Convention Songbooks, Sandy Denny Complete Songbook, three Richard Thompson songbooks...).
INTERVIEW IN THE ROBERT PLANT FANZINE
I recently did an interview with Liz Hames from the Robert Plant fanzine, The Lemon Tree (nowt to do wi' Swarb!). I have known Robert on and off over the years through my involvement with my hero Dave Pegg. I had the great fortune to work with Robert on his solo album, The Fate Of Nations, and he's always been one of those heroes of mine. There was a track where I played virtually everything, Colours Of A Shade, and here's a link to a deeper insight to the track.
EMAIL SESSIONS
I've been doing quite a few sessions by email recently where people send me a track, I do my bits and email it back. Latest session was for new song demos for Beth Nielsen Chapman. I've been studying the Apple Pro Certification curriculum for Logic Pro 9 and I pretty much know the program inside out now. It's like having the keys to the best studio around. I love this century!
HUW WILLIAMS & MAART
Huw recording in Maart's front room. Photo by Maart
Welsh singer-songwriter Huw Williams wrote a lot of songs for Fairport Convention when I was in the van, and I produced the most recent album for top Welsh traditional band Crasdant, of which he was the guitarist. I also produce his protegés Calan, who have gone on to wow festival crowds from Cambridge to Lorient. Huw is also Wales' leading exponent of the art of step (or clog) dancing and is the author of the only book ever published on the subject! Huw and Tony Williams (no relation) played as a duo for many years and toured with Fairport in 1995. In the interim he has been working as a commissioning editor on BBC Radio 4.
FAIRPORT CONVENTION SONGBOOK THREE
It's quite a few years now since I remade the Fairport Songbook One and in the meanwhile they've had a few albums out. There's a new one, Festival Bell, just out, so it's time for me to start a new songbook. I was thinking of including a few of the more requested songs from the long out-of-print Songbook Two, although in retrospect I don't think there will be room.
GOLD G7th CAPO
That nice Nick Campling at G7th presented me with a Special Edition Gold Performance capo. It's very sexy and it looks fantastic on the Sobells and the Faith or anything with gold hardware on it. He gave me one of the special black ones too for my Jan's black Faith FECM, which matches this guitar:
FAITH PARLOUR GUITAR
The very nice people at Faith guitars have given me a beautiful little parlour size guitar, model FMEHG, more of which you can see on my gear pages. I used it on the Beth Nielsen Chapman tour in October. Solid spruce top, rosewood back and sides, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge, Shadow Nanoflex pickup and Shadow SH863 preamp built in. An absolute peach. I had Rab at Patrick James Eggle Guitars set it up for me and it plays like a dream. Patrick designed the Faith range.
THE RICHARD THOMPSONGBOOK
The three volume Richard Thompsongbook is available now from Richard's website. It looks fab. Over three years I transcribed 157 songs for this mammoth series. I learned so much! There is TAB for some of the songs, not all, and it gives some insight into the great works of one of our greatest songwriter/guitarists.
THE HARLECH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
In 2010 I bought a great sample library, Kirk Hunter Complete Strings II, and it's already been used for orchestral arrangements for Ralph McTell's and Desi Friel's recent albums. I have studied orchestral scores for many years and played in orchestras in my youth, so I have a good idea of how it should all sound. I am able to work on these at home and email the finished sound files in. I so love this century! I've since bought the matching woodwind section, so I'm enjoying learning how to use it all...
MADELEINE ALLCOCK
My eldest daughter Madeleine has her own website. She's an illustrator and designer
and is now in her third year studying Illustration at Loughborough University.
Click on the picture to go and have a look.
JERED ALLCOCK
This fantastic cabinet was made by my son Jered, who is studying furniture design in Oxford. He's called it Strata, and represents two different types of layers, the left side being layered like slate, and the right side smooth.
The left side is made from Swiss pear and the right from flamed maple. The design is echoed in the drawers inside.
It really is a beautiful piece.
I now have a Flickr site which you can view by clicking above. I'll be adding as I go along.
MAART SOLO ALBUM
You can order Maart's most recent (2004)
album, "Serving Suggestion". Just click on the picture above.
THE COMPLETE SANDY DENNY SONGBOOK
Click on the picture to see a complete songlist and a free sample...
This 112 page book is only available here. It features all 52
of Sandy's self-penned or co-written songs that she recorded, with notes
on guitar tunings and some TAB and is in the same format as the Fairport
Convention Songbook One v2.0. The fabulous Bryan Ledgard did the artwork.
This is a limited edition of 1000 copies only. Click on the picture above
for details. The first copies ordered went to Mark
Johnson in Berlin and Robert Mulford in London.
NB. It has been pointed out to me that page 64, the second page of No End, has a few bars askew. You can download the corrected version here.
Very nice review from Living Tradition magazine here
I live on the west coast of Wales, near Harlech in Gwynedd,
and it's a very beautiful place.
Have a look here at some pictures.
A couple of my photos are at the BBC North West Wales website here.
Website by Maartin Allcock
