whalebone: Blog

The very nice people at the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine (see our links page) have posted a review of our tune September Reel which you can see HERE. The site offers a great range of articles, reviews and downloads and is a great way of finding out about a wide range of celtic music and is well worth checking out.

Below is a pic taken at the concert we played at the very atmospheric Yarpole Church in Herefordshire last week. Thanks to David Cheshire who took lots of lovely pics on the night (if David reads this, we tried to email to thank you personally but the email address bounced back). Unfortunately, Strange Folk, the festival that was due to take place in Hope Bagot at the start of September has had to be postponed until next year due to unforeseen circumstances.

We’re currently mixing and producing the new album. We still haven’t settled on an album name (any suggestions get in touch!) but we have decided upon a tracklisting but not necessarily in the order below: 

1. Herman the Carpenter
2. The Gathering 
3. Wenlock Hare
4. Three Fires
5. The Boxer
6. Red Moon
7. November
8. Hooty Mullock
9. Cordon Morning
10. Sweet Child O’Mine
11. Wildcat
12. Stairway to Heaven
13. Londonderry Air
14. Wait

It’s going to be the largest album we’ve produced so far.... The artwork is coming on nicely and will be a lot more colourful than previous offerings with lots of photos. Off to have a mini holiday now, then back to play Chorley Show. You can see what else is going to happen at this years show by visiting their website HERE.

Had some radio play on a couple of stations in Canada and America. Andy Donnelly on CKUA played our version of Sultans of Swing on his Celtic Show. The show plays a wide range of Celtic influenced music broadcast on a Friday night and you can listen online and check out the website at The Celtic Show.

Cindy Funk on WYSO (a radio station in Ohio) played King of the Faeries off our live album on her show the Dear Green Place. Cindy plays a wide range of Celtic inspired music each Saturday and details of the show can be found by clicking on the link above.

Also had a production company get in touch wanting to use some of our music for a television programme so we said 'Yes'. The programme focuses on inland waterways and boating and is broadcast on Sky channel 166 Mondays, repeated on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm. It is produced by Serious Lesuire TV and there are four episodes planned to air over the next month.

We've spent quite a bit of time in the wonderful surroundings of Kaleidoscope Theatre the past couple of weeks. In the tranquil village of Kemberton in Shropshire, we've started to record our new album in the Barn Theatre. The acoustics in the room are fantastic and the atmosphere of the space provides a creative and relaxing place to be. So far we've recorded 14 tracks, had lots of fun and have a couple of very new tunes that are in the pipeline that may feature too.  

We're musing about album titles and artwork, but are planning to release the album sometime in the Autumn.

At the same venue, we performed 2 nights of Midsummer Melody concerts with the players of Kaleidoscope Theatre and had a great (and extremely hot) time, which included a small amount of acting by the band.... and lovely vanilla ice cream in the interval - woo hoo. Plans are under way for another run of dates next year in November 2011, the theme will be spooky with ghosts and ghouls, atmospheric music and fantastic (as always) cameo performances by the actors.

We travelled up to Widnes to have an interview with Geoff Speed from BBC Radio Merseyside who presents Folkscene. Geoff ran a highly successful folk club in Widnes during the 1960’s and is recognised as booking a young Paul Simon at the club when he was only 18 and providing accomodation for him for a week, where its rumoured he wrote Homeward Bound at the nearby train station. Geoff was very gracious in answering all our questions about the meeting and the gig Paul Simon played, even though he must be very tired of telling people about it! The interview with us should be aired in the next few weeks, so we’ll post another blog when we hear of its broadcast.

We are also collaborating with Kaleidoscope Theatre at the end of the month for two special summer concerts that will be held in their beautiful Barn Theatre in Kemberton, Shropshire. The concerts follow a day from sunrise to nightfall in music and mime, a unique harmonic fusion between Whalebone's music and the players of Kaleidoscope Theatre. The dates are around the Summer Solstice, so they should be magical evenings – with ice cream available at the interval – woo hoo! See the giglist for more details!

The May dates of the Gathering Tour were great and included some of the best singing we’ve ever had, (at Merthyr Cynog - well the Welsh are said to be able to sing a bit) and some of the wittiest heckling (also Merthyr Cynog!) Minsterworth in Gloucestershire came through with the ‘Best cakes’ title, and Chorley Village Hall (see picture below) was an up roaring experience, but in truth every gig has been enjoyable, and we’ve met some lovely people along the way. The next few dates include Wenlock Pottery at the end of June - a great venue with a fantastic atmosphere, and a beautiful Church in Yarpole at the end of July which has an amazing belfry separate to the Church with the main timbers of the tower being dated to 1192 making it one of the oldest timber framed structures in the country (see the giglist for more details).

Another interesting church we’ve come across recently is in a village called Hope Bagot on the side of the Clee in South Shropshire. It has a amazing yew tree (believed to be sacred) that has been dated at least 1600 years old with a Holy Well nearby that is thought to have healing properties for eyes and used for baptisms hence the dedication of the church to St John the Baptist. We are going to play a festival called ‘Strange Folk’ at the beginning of September to help raise funds for both the church and the ancient yew so look out for more details closer to the time, it really is special place and well worth visiting. Here's a photo of the Hope Bagot yew tree...

We had a great Bank Holiday Monday playing at the Clun Green Man Festival. You can see some pictures below of the fight on the bridge between the Green Man and the Ice Queen that takes place each year on the bridge in Clun, luckily the Green Man won and spring officially arrived so the rest of the day was spent in sunshine, quite something for a Bank Holiday! It’s a lovely festival with a great vibe and groovy people and it was a real pleasure to be able to play there.

As part of the Gathering Tour we travelled down to the beautiful Cotswolds to play Box Village Hall and were treated to a great audience – a collective human metronome the clapping was that good, and an impressive selection of ‘Bring Your Own’ that included a homemade lasagne.... It was a great night and we’ll hopefully get back to play there at some point in the future. The following day we played Ludlow Food Festival playing four sets throughout the day and returned on Sunday to play some more. The weather was pretty awful, but the food and drink more than made up for it and the attendance figures hit a new record illustrating how good the beer and food is – and the large gazebos and beer tent ensured we played in the dry! Hopefully the September Food Festival will be sunny again as we’re playing in the moat...

Getting the first couple of dates of our Gathering Tour under our belts resulted in us meeting some lovely people and it was nice to get back into the swing of things after what seems like ages with lots of planning and preparations. Johnny Coppin played the title track of our current tour on his BBC Folk Roots programme last Sunday. His show is packed full of great music and if you miss the show, you can listen via the BBC i player for 7 days afterwards. The link to the show is on our links page.

We drove over to Lincoln to support Spiers & Boden on their Spring Tour on Monday. After an arduous journey of four and half hours thanks to the M6, we arrived and had a great night. Here are a couple of photos from after the gig...

 

A live session on Radio Pulse gave us the opportunity to play some new tunes and as yet, unrecorded music. Wenlock Hare - a Whalebone original inspired by a night time sighting driving back from a gig last year, Wild Cat - a Cape Breton tune and our version of Queen’s We Will Rock You. Some You Tube footage of the performances can be viewed HERE, our thanks to Ian Michaels of Pulse Radio – the most interactive and technically minded DJ we know!

The Brewood Music Acoustic Club is a favourite of ours. The people are lovely and the atmosphere is always great. Here’s some pics taken by Bill on the night... If you find yourself wondering where to go on a Thursday night, check out their website for details of performances coming up, the link is on our links page.

                              

It's been a little on the quiet side re blog posting and with the inclement weather at the start of the year resulted in a bit of a stuttering start to 2010, with postponements and cancellations. However we’ve been busy behind the scenes preparing and building up to our Gathering Tour which starts next month at Newbold Pacey and Ashorne Village Hall by working on new material and some fresh ideas including a new little tune called Wenlock Hare which was inspired by a moon lit sighting of a hare driving back from a gig last year. Burns night at Wenlock Pottery was very enjoyable and highly amusing pretending to play Scottish tunes all night with all our set being inspired by or written in Scotland including Hotel Caledonia by the Golden Eagles... The Railwayman’s Arms gig at the end of January was another great night, nice to get back into the swing of gigging again, and for once, none of us complained about playing in front of the fire! I think everyone will be pleased when spring finally arrives! The workshops at Eardington Village Hall proved to be lots of fun, playing James Brown tunes with clarinet and flute interspersed with soup, cake tea and great company. We met up with some lovely people and made some great music together.

We managed to get to a great concert by an Irish band called BEOGA held at The Last Inn in Hengoed at the start of February. Their name means ‘lively’ in Irish and they definitely lived up to it. It was great to be a member of the audience and see a band that makes music that is really interesting with the musicians playing really together and tight. They are well worth checking out, just click on the link above. Looking forward to seeing Dave Swarbrick at Newhampton Folk Club later this month too.

Elsewhere on the web we have a review of our first album ‘There to Here’ posted by Ian Mann the Jazz Mann that can be found HERE and some photos of our concert at the Evesham Arts Centre can be seen HERE taken by Richard Kyte. Please note from our previous blog last year, it was VERY hot in that room! That’s the reason we look pink! Looking forward to travelling over to Radio Pulse in Redditch on Tuesday and trips to Leominster and Brewood the week after, hope to catch up with some of you there!

The first gig in December was performing at the Cross Keys in Sellatyn, where we took part in the ‘Xmas Xtravagenza’ staged by Offa Events. The night was great fun with a variety of performers including John Snell – a poet, Five Speed Box - a Ceilidh Band, Kiuydanto - a string quartet, Nostalgia – a female acappella group, John Neilson and Meri Lawes. The night started off the festive season nicely and gave us a chance to run through a couple of seasonal tunes we had been working on for the Kaleidoscope Midwinter Melody shows later in the month. The following night we played at Wenlock Pottery and had a lovely night, met up with some old friends again and continued to get into the festive spirit. We’re returning next month to play a Burns Night...

Made in Shropshire in Shrewsbury went very well again. Thankfully it stayed dry and we’ve been colder! The following day we travelled to Kemberton to play the first concert of Midwinter Melody dates at Kaleidoscope Theatre and the following week we played the second date. It’s the first time we have collaborated with Kaleidoscope and the show went really well. They wrote two brand new beautiful cameos to our versions of A Fairytale in New York and Londonderry Air, with snow and everything which were very memorable and we are planning to work together again in the future. It was really nice to finish off the year with sold out concerts and working with hugely talented people. Hopefully next year will be as positive and enjoyable. Talking of which, we’ve finally had the time to put up some dates on our calendar for next year, we are doing a spring tour of village halls starting in March and through to May which will see us travelling round and about again. Hopefully we’ll catch up with some of the people we’ve met this year and look forward to playing new venues and meeting new people.

As it's suddenly December, and we have a few winter concerts coming up, we've been working on a couple of festive tunes. One of which, In the Bleak Midwinter, we recorded a couple of weeks ago and have sent out as a free tune to our mailing list subscribers, as a thank you for their support and to spread some seasonal greetings from the 'bones. The lyrics were first written as a poem by Christina Rossetti before 1872, but it only became a Christmas Carol after the words were set to a beautiful Gustav Holst composition in the early 1900s. For anyone signing up to the mailing list during December, we'll email you the link for the free download. For people who aren't receiving the monthly Whalemail newsletter and have already signed up, it's probably because we can't read your email address on our list, but don't worry, you can sign up on this website by filling in the little box on the left of the screen :-)

We arrived at Clent Village Hall and played a storming little gig, we all really enjoyed playing, then arrived at the Railwayman's Arms in Bridgnorth, a very HOT but fantastic night, catching up with old Cinnamon friends and breaking strings! We then travellled down to St Michaels in Tenbury Wells, where a monthly event called The Floor is held (and is well worth checking out if you get the chance) showcasing live music and organised by a lovely bunch of people including Andy Cook and Jim Allen. On the same bill were a bluegrass band called the Toy Hearts, and a fantastic guitar player as part of the Remi Harris Trio playing gypsy jazz, swing and blues. It was a night filled with very talented musicians. 

The following day we travelled to a lovely village just outside Redditch to play Feckenham Village Hall, which was fantastic in all respects. Fantastic venue, great audience and a high standard of witty banter. We're hopefully going to return there the end of next year. Next stop was Beckford in Gloucestershire, another lovely village hall with a lovely audience and a great night topped off with some floor stamping and encores, which is always very pleasing. One of the furthest venues on this current tour was Llanfwrog Community Centre, in Ruthin, Wales, which is a fantastic round wooden building with warm acoustics as a result, and an enthusiatic and loud audience. We were lucky with the weather as snow had been forecast on the Welsh hills, but it didn't materialise on the beautiful Horseshoe Pass, so that was OK! Only 2 more dates on this tour, Wenlock Pottery this Saturday, which has already sold out, and our last gig with Beck this year at St John's Church in Pontrobert the week after. This was originally going to be at St Oswald's Church in Oswestry, but we had to have a venue change due to the flip flop wearing Father Philip moving back up north, but hopefully we'll meet up with him again at some point.

Evesham Arts Centre was the second arts centre in the tour and the first time we played in Evesham. A lovely, if slightly hot venue, with a great bunch of people making it work. We then travelled to a more local gig at Newhampton Folk Club in Wolverhampton to support Bob Fox, who has a lovely voice and a great way of setting the scene for his songs with stories and anecdotes. He sung a traditional Northumbrian folk song called 'Dance Ti Thy Daddy' also known as 'When the Boat Comes In', which grandparents would sing to their grandchildren when bouncing them on their knees. This was a revelation to Char, who thought (shamefully) that it was the theme tune to the Youngs Salmon advert on television... We’re hoping to play there again at some point in the future as it’s a great folk club with a consistently impressive line up of artists performing. We then travelled over to the Bell at Leominster which is usually quite an eventful venue for us, with drunk Dutch people and erratic dancers who refer to Sarah as ‘brilliant young girlie’, but it turned out to be relatively normal Tuesday night.

The following Thursday we returned to The Retreat in Ledbury, where we were very privileged to play in front of their beautiful new back cloth made by the hugely talented Angie Hughes. It always surprises us how late the audience turns up on a Thursday night in Ledbury, they seem to be nocturnal...

The Autumn Tour moved onto Callow End Village Hall on Halloween night and another opportunity to hook up with Beck Sian, which was fab! Donned in skeleton outfit (see here for a photo) and armed with small skeletons called Geoff, Beck played quite a few new tunes off her newly released album ‘Luminous Wings and Unseen Things’ The ‘bones added some backing vocals to ‘Mr Crow’ emphasising to the few people who ask why we don’t sing, why we DON’T sing...

One of the more local gigs of the Autumn Tour was The Gateway Arts Centre in Shrewsbury, a nice luxury to only have a short drive to get there and back, and a good evening was had by all when we got the hang of the semi-automatic doors at the venue! Then on to 'Housmans' in Church Stretton, a newly refurbished Cafe Bar that has been lovingly restored by its owners and is well worth checking out. The menu is fantastic and the food delicious, however Sarah was secretly pleased we were travelling in separate cars after both the guitarists opted for the steak mushroom and garlic salad...

Then the Autumn Tour moved onto Clows Top Victory Hall, which as the name suggests is on top of a hill, which was cold! Here is a pic of the night taken by Rob, and here is a photo to prove Char has smiled whilst playing guitar at some point in time, also taken by Rob at Kidderminster Station a few years ago!

We then travelled over to BrFm radio in mid Wales to hook up with Dan James and do an interview and session ‘Live from the Vault’ to promote Llanbedr Village Hall gig later that week. The gig turned out to be unexpectedly late due to a huge car malfunction, the RAC were employed... Then onto the Three Tuns at Bishop’s Castle the following day. This is a wonderful pub that has an amazing building where we played in a room we didn’t even know existed, despite visiting the venue as customers on numerous occasions... We’ve played in Bishop’s Castle a couple of times this year, SpArC in the spring and a couple of weeks back at the Michaelmas Fair and have always enjoyed ourselves, big thanks to all who came.

The following morning we travelled down to Choice Radio in Worcester to do another interview and to play a couple of tracks. After a week of living on pre packed sandwiches purchased from Garages (Housmans being the only exception) we had time to have a HOT full English breakfast from the canteen beforehand, which made us far more productive! Choice Radio is the radio for the Worcestershire Royal Hospital where we were interviewed by Pete Philips and undertook the first live session held in their new headquarters. Hospital radio provides a very beneficial resource to patients and the hospital community and is often run by dedicated and talented volunteers. We’ll be posting a bit of audio soon so you can have a listen...

As far as the website goes, we have put a new contact form on the ‘Contact’ page, so if you want to get in touch or ask us something please do so, and we’ll get back to you.

Ludlow Food Festival was a massive success for all involved. We played the whole 3 days and did a very enjoyable final set on the Saturday night. Fabulous weather, record attendances and plenty of fantastic food and drink made the festival a great experience. One of the good things about being called Whalebone is the huge amount of scope for puns. This weekend we coined the phrase 'Whaleburn' and learnt that after playing most of the day on Friday, in full sun, that drinking lots of water was the way forward. We also met a very talented chap called Louis who makes amazing chocolate called Chokolit, which after sampling extensively we can categorically state is fabulous.

The following weekend we spent playing at the Bishop's Castle Michaelmas Fair. September seems to be a safer bet nowadays for outdoor events with the weather, so we had another great weekend. The town was full of people and the vibe was lovely. Michaelmas is traditionally a celebration of St Michael the Archangel and coincides with the autumn equinox and the end of the harvest. Old Michaelmas Day falls around the 11th October and according to an old legend, blackberries should not be picked after this date because Satan was banished from Heaven on this day, fell into a blackberry bush and cursed the brambles as he fell on them... Don't say we didn't warn you! We played both days outside at the Six Bells Brewery and were looked after very well by Nev and Sue. The lead guitarist sampled a couple of their products so we have it on good authority that the merchandise is excellent. We will be heading back to Bishop's Castle in a few weeks on the 17th of October to play at The Three Tuns as part of our Autumn Tour. Talking of which....

The first date of the Autumn Tour kicked off at Ditton Priors village hall, with Rich McMahon and The Father Teds. It was great to meet up with Rich again, and a great night was had by all. The following week we played at Rushbury village hall with Daylevel and we always have a giggle and a nice time with Bri and Sal. The next date is in Shrewsbury at the Gateway Arts Centre on Friday 2nd October. Tickets are available from www.ticketsource.co.uk/whalebone.

Our live album, Roosty...Folky...Live and Funky... has received a 4 star review from Kindred Spirit Magazine! Click here to read it!

The album 'There to Here' is finally available, remastered and with three bonus tracks. It will also be available digitally over the next few weeks/months from various digital companies. The CD is available from this site under 'Buy', CD Baby or from us on gigs. We offer a 'bundle' package where both our albums can be ordered for £15, saving £5 on individual prices, through this website.

We travelled up to Nottingham for a gig at the Robin Hood, organised by Folkwit Records. It's a really groovy venue and we had a great gig, after playing all day at Made in Shropshire the day before, we were well rehearsed! We'll be back up in that neck of the woods later in the year to play 'Cup of Tea Folk' at Lee Rosy's Tea. 

Kaleidoscope Theatre in Kemberton provided a fantastic venue for a very enjoyable concert that featured a wonderful cameo performance by Kaleidoscope Theatre Company and we are very excited about returning there later this year for a couple of winter concerts scheduled for December.  The weather thankfully stayed dry long enough to play at Chorley Show, where we all had tans on one side of our face from playing outside. This unbalanced sun kissed look extended to burnt feet too, but it was better than being rained on. It was a great day with a lovely atmosphere as ever. Similarly, Farmer Phil's Festival stayed dry, despite very threatening looking clouds.

We had lovely gig with Beck Sian and Kadie Brimfield at St Aelhaiarn's Church in Wales. This is a wonderful historic church in Guilsfield just outside Welshpool dating back to the 12th Century. The saint acredited with inspiring the church's name, St Aelhaiarn, translates as 'Iron Brow' and relates to a story of Aelhaiarn 'the snooping saint', following his master and his curiosity resulting in him being torn into pieces, then put back together again. This happened at night and one of his eyebrows was lost, so a metal tip off a pikestaff was used as a replacement, leaving Aelhaiarn to live the rest of his life with an iron brow. And the good news is, we'll be back next year with Beck Sian for another concert there, where we can brush up on some more history of the local area!

Our track 'September Reel' from the live album 'Rootsy...Folky...live and Funky...' is available to download free as part of a compilation album entitled 'Many' compiled by FATEA. FATEA is an online music magazine dedicated to all aspects of folk and acoustic music and it's various genres.

The Fatea Showcase Sessions are designed to provide greater exposure to artists that have impressed the Fatea team. Some are already signed, others are carving a solo trail, releasing songs on their own labels, all are dedicated to their music. Fatea Showcase Sessions are exclusively available for a three month period after which it will never be available again.

The Fatea Showcase Sessions are zip files containing high quality, 256kbs, drm free, mp3s. All of this year's sleeves have been designed by David Owen and will form a single piece of art. So if you'd like to have a listen, click the link below and discover some great music for free up until October 31st 09.

http://www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk

July has seen some great gigs and new venues. We returned to Wenlock Pottery in Much Wenlock at the start of the month and had a superb night. Although Andy Murray had lost his Semi Final match at Wimbledon earlier in the day, the atmosphere was great and the venue lovely. Mike Fletcher who runs the pottery is outstandingly talented and has just launched a new 'Raku' range, which is well worth checking out. We also went down to play at Mortimer Country Food Fair, hosted by a groovy book shop in Brampton Bryan called Aardvark Books. We did try to play outside several times but was thwarted by the weather, so stayed indoors mainly, but it was a great event and playing inside highlighted what a really interesting place it is with a huge range of titles. Hopefully next month will be wall to wall sunshine looking at the amount of outdoor events we have!

Unfortunately for us, the Hereford Beer Festival proved to be too successful and sold out of Beer and Cider by Saturday night, so our appearance on the Sunday was cancelled. Apologies to anyone who turned up expecting to say 'Hi', though we're sure you were just as disappointed not to be able to sample the fine ales usually on offer! Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to play there next year.  

Another first was playing at Chase Folk Club in Burntwood. We played with the fabulous Beck Sian again and had a great time. It did however take us ages to find and forever to get home with diversions and road closures proving to be the cheif navigator's nemesis, nearly having to get home via Wolverhampton... We have no idea of the route or how we made it there and back in the end. Think we may need a sat nav eventually... We'll be hooking up with Beck again a couple of times next month at Chorley Show and at St Aelahalam’s Church in Guilsfield, Powys, for a summer evening concert (see 'Gigs & Tickets'). Steve did an interview with Katy Jay on WCR Radio on the way to a gig in Shrewsbury. Katy had seen us play at The Varsity earlier in the year and said some really nice things. Hopefully we'll get back to Wolverhampton to play in the near future.

We have some new photos up on the website (under 'Photos'), taken by Rich Foot of Footprint Photography at Kaleidoscope Theatre in Kemberton, Shropshire. We're really pleased with them as they show us looking like we have a good time when we play live, which we do! The venue is a wonderful theatre owned by the Kaleidoscope Theatre company where we'll be playing in a few weeks time on August 14th. We've also added the option of purchasing tickets on this website (see 'Gigs & Tickets' page) for some of our gigs later in the year. This facility is operated by Ticketsource and provides a hassle free way of ordering tickets online where customers receive a confirmation 'eTicket' with a unique booking reference that can be printed off and presented on the night for entry to the gig. 

It's been a hectic month, lots happening and new developments. The Spring Tour with the fabulous Beck Sian has come to an end with a packed Chorley Village Hall and an atmospheric finale at St Mary's Church in Bridgnorth and Meifod Church in Powys. We've had a great time with Beck over the past 3 months and have played lots of new venues and areas.

We travelled down to Worcester on a very hot Sunday afternoon to play 'Acoustic Lunch' organised by a subsidiary of Worcester Music Festival, some footage of 'King of the Faeries' has been posted on YouTube, see here. Bank Holiday Monday saw a trip to Bantock Park in Wolverhampton playing to a crowd in the grounds on Bantock House. The weather just about held and a great line up of artists provided a great soundtrack for the audience and their picnics!

May's Cinnamon gig saw Adrian Byron Burns appear as our guest, he was awesome and captivated the entire audience, a very fitting artist to appear as our last guest at the venue. The June Cinnamon gig on Tuesday 23rd will be the last music night that we host and organise with Whalebone playing all night. It concludes a four year period, where in one form or another, we've organised an acoustic music each month, meeting lots of talented people and making many new friends.

The beginning of June saw a couple of firsts for us. We played the Woodman Folk Club in Kingswinford and the Varsity Unplugged in Wolverhampton which was a great gig with an amazing sound and a fabulous audience. Sherwood Arts Festival took place in Nottingham, again lucky with the weather, we played a hot and sticky set to a group of groovy arts and talented craft people.

The live album 'Rootsy...Folky...Live and Funky... has received a couple of reviews, one from FATEA (see here) and one from the Jazz Mann (see here). Sunday Folk on BBC radio with Genevieve Tudor has played a couple of tracks off the album the past couple of weeks, 'King of the Faeries' and 'Two Wild Women'. We also took a trip to Redditch to play a live session and interview on Radio Pulse. Some YouTube footage of our version of the KT Tunstall song 'Black Horse and The Cherry Tree' can be viewed here.

Welcome to the new Whalebone website! Over the next few weeks we'll be introducing some of our music to the site, facilities to purchase CD's and bring you news of a remastered whalebone CD that is coming soon... Please let us know what you think through the 'Guestbook' feature.