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LATEST NEWS

  
5 Jul 2010:  IT'S OUT! JK TUNEBOOK AVAILABLE NOW.
"Jump at the Sun" - the John Kirkpatrick Tunebook - is finally out. £13.00 for 138 tunes over 80 pages - less than 10p per tune!

Quarry House Publishing have decided not to sell copies through the usual array of festival stalls, so for the time being, unless you come to one of my gigs, this is the only place where you can get one. The details won't appear on the Merchandising pages for a while yet, but you can either print off the order form as it is now and add your own requirements, or just post your own order to:
Squeezer, P O BOX 531, Craven Arms, SY9 5WB.

£13.00 + £2.00 p+p for the UK, £5.00 p+p outside the UK.

We hope to be joining the PayPal scheme within a few weeks, so that we will be able to accept card payments via the website at the flick of a switch. This will obviously save a lot of palaver, especially if you are coming at us from abroad. But if you can't wait, send that cheque - payable to SQUEEZER and in sterling currency only - now!
6 May 2010:  THE JK TUNEBOOK - ALMOST THERE!
"JUMP AT THE SUN" - the John Kirkpatrick Tunebook - should be available for your consumption in early June. After a final session this week with compiler and editor Mick Lynn, of Quarry House Publishing, we agreed it was time to press that button!

The 80 pages contain 138 items - suitable for any melody instrument - arranged in sections according to the dance rhythm involved - Polkas & Reels, Jigs, Slip Jigs, Hornpipes & Schottisches, Triple Hornpipes, Waltzes & Mazurkas - with a Miscellaneous group of slow airs and pieces with whacky time signatures. There are a few pages of tunes specially concocted for The Shropshire Bedlams, and seven "Additives" where the artiste has been precocious enough to add phrases and variations to melodies that may very well have been quite happy as they were. Snuggled amongst these is one co-write with fellow accordion sufferer Karen Tweed. Otherwise - All My Own Work!

Each tune comes with Chords, explanatory notes where required, and you'll also find a discography and a few snaps. The whole things is presented in conventional musical notation, with no weird tablatures to grapple with except in the classical "Gigue", where a symbol shows whether you push or pull on the Anglo concertina.

Watch this space for details of how to get your copy when the book becomes available.

22 Apr 2010:  SEA FEVER
Soundtracks 'R' Us! I've done some background music for a short series of three one hour programmes due to be shown soon on BBC 4 TV. "SEA FEVER" goes out at 9.00p.m. on May 4th, 11th, and 18th, and will probably be repeated on BBC 2 at some later date.

The films deal with the role of the sea in British life over the last hundred years, and make use of a mix of old home movies and newly shot footage. AVAILABLE LIGHT TV, the programme makers, who are based in Bristol, have recently produced television series using the same house style, about the Second World War and about Agriculture.

My squeezebox contribution was to arrange various traditional nautical themes to suit the moment, and my son Benji added his many stringed things to some of the pieces. It was a rather disembodied way of working, and I was not involved at all in the process of dubbing the music onto the films, so I have no idea how much of what we did will actually be used. Here's hoping some of it sneaks in!

One sequence features a pattern of air noises conjured up by the full orchestral array I had at my disposal, which turned out to be a wonderfully abstract impression of the wind and the waves. Fans of "The Dance of the Demon Daffodils" CD will know what I'm on about here!
6 Apr 2010:  SOUTHERN SOFTIES
Fans of eccentric singer-songwriter John Shuttleworth, as portrayed by actor Graham Fellows (the man who gave the world Jilted John), may know about this already, but there is now a film starring Mr S available on DVD, with a soundtrack which includes a bit of squeezing by Mr K.

"Southern Softies" had a limited cinema release last year, but is now available for all to savour as a DVD with numerous extras. JK plays a few Shuttleworth tunes on accordion and concertina, and if you search through the extras for long enough you'll come across a starring speaking role in the photo gallery.

It's great fun and brilliantly funny, and I'm thrilled to be a small part of such an entertaining enterprise. I worked with Graham briefly over twenty years ago while he was doing a spell of straight acting at The New Victoria Theatre in North Staffordshire, and it was a delightful suprise to get the call for this project.

Find out more at www.shuttleworths.co.uk.
 
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