Kelso Folk & Live Music Club
FRIDAYS! Open Mic at the ACE CENTRE 7.30-10.30pm – Pub session at the Cobbles Inn 10.00pm-late

The Kelso Folk and Live Music Club holds two weekly Friday night sessions which are open to all. Membership is £5 per year. Members benefit from:

* Email updates
* Concessions on entry for some paid events
* For musicians and singers, information on external club gigs such as concerts for local village halls or other organisations, where participation is invited
* Voting rights
* Becoming involved and help with activities as one of the team
* Club polo shirt or sweatshirt – order your own by calling in to Promotif on Bridge Street in Kelso, pick your garment and get the club logo embroidered on it!
* Buy the Club CD for a reduced price of £3 (normally £5 to visitors)

The early session (7.30-10.00pm) at the ACE Centre, Ice Rink, Abbotseat is an open mic with an informal stage corner and acoustic amplification. There’s a comfortable café environment next to the club’s meeting. A £2 entry charge is payable by members, shared between the ACE Centre and the club, and includes ‘corkage’ if you wish to bring your own wine or beer. No food or snacks, or soft drinks, can be brought in – these are available, and are very reasonably priced and great quality too thanks to the home cooking and baking. You can have baguettes, burgers, fish’n'chips and a range of other light meals during the early part of the evening.

The club has provided a ‘house guitar’ which is available to members who have not brought an instrument of their own.

The late session (10.00pm until closing) at the Cobbles Inn, Bowmont Street, mixes traditional tunes and songs with popular acoustic evergreens on an ‘all join in’ basis with the occasional standout solo, or a wee group doing something too difficult for the rest of us! Personal mini amplification is welcomed as the pub can be busy, happy and noisy but everyone still wants to hear the music. A small PA system is normally provided.

The Cobbles offers excellent lounge bar or upstairs dining room meals before the club session. Our anchor team normally occupies one table, in front of the fireplace of the lounge bar (section to the left after entering the pub) which is reserved for musicians from 9.30pm. Find yourself a table close to this if you want to join in.

For information and guest artist first enquiries, contact Diane Henderson, scotia195@aol.com (ACE Centre) or David Kilpatrick, david@maxwellplace.demon.co.uk (Cobbles session).

On Friday April 1st 2011 the Small Hall Band, which had been given a grant towards their West and Islands tour by the club in 2010, performed a guest concert set at the ACE Centre.

The club’s AGM was held on November 1st 2011 and a new committee and officers were elected.

Chair – Andrew Hunter (succeeding David Kilpatrick)
Vice-Chair – Diane Henderson (unchanged)
Secretary – Amanda Harris (unchanged)
Treasurer – Ted McKeown (succeeding Peter Fry)
Guest Concert Bookings – David Kilpatrick and Diane Henderson
Club External Concert Co-ordinator – Rick Harris (succeeding Ian Croall)
Publicity – Allan Conochie (succeeding Lesley Riseam)

The club raises funds to support guest appearances and invites artists passing through the Borders, or local to Kelso, to contact us. We can not book large or fully amplified groups and our venues are best suited to solo, duo, trio. We are interested in tuition and workshop proposals. The club may, subject to committee decision, make grants from our fundraising to other organisations or events. The club welcome grants or funding from outside bodies in turn, to develop outreach events and extend the scope of its existing activities. In 2011 a grant of £400 from Youth Music Scotland helped bring in more young members for an allocated open mic period, with the lasting effect of more performances from this age-group.

Thanks to an Easter Basket (made by The Chocolate House, Jedburgh) donated by a club member, the raffle held at the ACE Centre and Cobbles Inn on Friday (April 22) raised £136 for club funds. The winners of the raffle, drawn at 11pm at the Cobbles, were Elaine and Pete Winstanley. It’s was Elaine’s birthday in the morning so she had an early chorus of Happy Birthday (©all rights reserved the Harry Fox Agency etc) and Easter present together!

Thanks to Diane Henderson, Peter Fry and George Weatherly – and the taxi drivers who bought tickets but went home eggless…

KELSO Folk & Live Music Club welcomes everyone – there’s no ‘membership’, you become a member just by turning up at our meetings. In 2010, with some exceptions for pub holiday closures and ‘high days’ in Kelso’s civic calendar, you have a choice of two different venues every Friday night to suit early or late.

Our Open Mic (organised by Peter Fry) starts at 7.30pm in the upstairs room of the Black Swan Hotel – if you can’t find the stairs just ask at the bar (or go in under the sign, the right hand door and up). The room is just for the club meeting – though anyone can come in and join the audience, or volunteer for the open mic. There is a bar and a range of seating, from big sofas at the far end near the bar, tables in the middle, and seats at the performance end.

The Open Mic has a small PA system to help with vocals and acoustic instruments. It’s quiet but conversation is not banned (just move up to the bar end of the room) and performers may invite others to play or sing along with what they are doing. The evening ends around 11pm. There is no admission charge but donations (towards club funds and guest artists) are welcomed.

The format at the Black Swan is one number at a time in turn, round the room, with the usual flexibility in running order if you happen to be at the bar or tuning up and need to swap your turn. It’s a very democratic and informal approach, all levels of skill are welcomed, as are all genres of music.

The Black Swan is also the venue for most guest concerts planned in 2010. To receive information on these, email David Kilpatrick to be added to the club’s announcement list. The Black Swan offers excellent bar meals downstairs from 6pm onwards, and can also offer B&B accommodation which is right in the heart of Kelso and very reasonably priced. It’s a good idea to stay if you are visiting and also want to come to the Cobbles Inn open session afterwards.

The Cobbles Inn is an award-winning restaurant and Friday nights can be busy! Our session does not start before 9.30pm and on most typical Fridays, 10.30pm is when you are likely to catch the music and songs really getting going. If you want a seat, remember that tables are often vacated by diners, but there is also a table reserved for the musicians. Please don’t be offended if we try to rearrange your seating and swap chairs round, the ones with arms are very comfortable for sitting in but impossible for a guitar player or fiddler.

Although there is more traditional and tune-driven content at the Cobbles Session, it is not just folk or celtic and a very wide range of material can be performed. Completely unaccompanied or solo stuff can fit in as well, despite the tradition of all competent singers and players joining in almost everything. We generally have a small amplifier and one microphone, which can help if it’s a busy night.

The music is at the far end away from the bar, it’s a great atmosphere and changes as we pass midnight – loud chorus songs are more likely early on, quiet personal performances 0r experiments with new stuff later on. Chucking out time is normally 1.00am with last drinks at 12.45pm.

As with the Black Swan, dining before the session is possible (ask for a table downstairs and you can keep it for the session). The Cobbles Inn does not offer accommodation. In addition to the Friday night sessions, we have concert nights which may coincide with bank holiday, civic festival and other weekends. These are often on Saturdays. There are also traditional Scots sessions occasionally on Sunday afternoons or evenings.

- David Kilpatrick, Chairman

There will be a busy weekend of music centred round Kelso Folk and Live Music Club’s sessions and guests, alongside the buzz of St James’s Fair in the town square this weekend. Here is our full programme:

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