We ended April with a gig in the Dubliner. Not our best. We started and finished strongly, but we were patchy in the middle. The pace of life, distances, crap public transport, the impossibility of parking in the city, and family commitments can all get in the way of practice. Our lack of practice –... Continue Reading →

17th April 2024: We had our April session on Sunday 14th. The music selected was virtually the same as the March session. I think the players felt more comfortable, so I will leave the selection untouched until the autumn. The combination of Dubliner and session/gig seems to have put a jinx on Liverpool, who have... Continue Reading →

March is always a good month. Plenty of practice and a couple of gigs, Sadly, our little adventure in Grevena didn’t happen. I don’t know if we asked for too much money or if the festival suffered from a lack of sponsorship. Or maybe accommodation was an issue. A brief look at www.booking.com suggests there... Continue Reading →

On Saturday 9th December, exactly one calendar month after my surgery, I went to bed at 8pm. Headache, dizziness, tearing eyes, a sore throat. I wasn’t feeling any better the next morning so I sent a message on Viber to say I would be unable to play at our session. I also suggested Giannis, our... Continue Reading →

I find the unpredictability of our sessions a little stressful, but our November session turned out to be great fun. For me personally, the presence of another two fiddlers made my day. The pub was really busy too. Our band, ThessHooley, made its debut on 26th November. Of course, we had our entourage and camp... Continue Reading →

17th November: We had our second rehearsal in Lost Angeles on Thursday, 2nd November. Very encouraging. We went through the first half of our set, worked out some arrangements and changed the order of one or two tunes. What is also encouraging is the fresh ideas being proposed by my bandmates. Our follow-up session on... Continue Reading →

Our session on 15th October was a quiet one. The bar was quiet too. The highlight of the afternoon was the fact that one of our Greek friends came up with a name for our new band, a bilingual pun: ThessHooley. It can mean θες Hooley (do you want a party?) or Thessaloniki Party. We... Continue Reading →

Angelochori 16th September. It is an unusual venue. It is called The Salt Flat Guardhouse, Το Σπίτι του Φύλακα της Αλυκής. When we played there in 2021 and 2022, the house was in a state of disrepair. Part of the roof had caved in, and one entered at one’s own risk. The Cultural Association stages... Continue Reading →

We had a practice on 2nd August. It was organised in the sense that we had a preset list of tunes and songs to go through. It wasn’t pretty, though! However, I know we will be OK by our next session (10th September) and next gig (16th September). I’ve spent most of the time doing... Continue Reading →

9th July 2023. Our depleted numbers assembled to celebrate the Dubliner’s 8th birthday. It’s amazing what Ken, the owner, has come through from bureaucratic tribulations to Covid. Yet the bar is still there. Our April/May/June playlist did an additional month’s service, but I have finally given it a rest. A couple of days after the... Continue Reading →

Looking forward to our session next Sunday, 12th March. I will need to send a reminder out to the troops. A group of us have begun practising in earnest for a gig on 19th. We are meeting in a tiny theatre called Nemesis – a name that doesn’t augur well! Tuesdays and Thursdays up to... Continue Reading →

14th January. A week ago about seven of us met here for cheese, mulled wine and a run-through of the sets for tomorrow’s session. We were not at our best, so I hope all goes well tomorrow. When we were using Zoom to practice during lockdown, we used YouTube clips converted to mp3s. These were... Continue Reading →

As the year draws to a close, it is time to reflect on the past 12 months. Attempts to form a band have been a failure. There is too much conflation between band and session material and personnel. Finding a practice time and venue that suits us all has also been a huge problem. The... Continue Reading →

On Sunday, 11th December, we had our last session of 2022. Ten of us were there. Personally, being a fiddler, I missed the other violins, but we delivered the full program. I change the music every two months, usually adding around five new items, but with Christmas and New Year coming up, I will recycle... Continue Reading →