 | |
 | |
 | ||
| | |
"The Newsletter" | |||||||
<<<< STOP PRESS: LATEST NEWS UPDATES NOW AT >>>> Tim Moon Newsletter Spring 2005 Hello Well, 2005 already and I never did get round to the Winter newsletter. Oh well. Christmas passed in it’s usual busy Moon de Lune way with gigs at Xscape in Castleford and Star City in Birmingham among other fab places. Thanks for all of you that popped in to see us. More Moon de Lunes coming up through the year. Iceland Now, as mentioned in the past, Lucy and I were asked if we would play the part of a farmer and his wife in a film to be called ‘St Agnes Eve’ which would be filmed around Brittany in France. We kind of put it to that back of our minds until last Autumn when we received a call from Phil Knight, the writer (along with Mike Gosling) and director telling us that the project was on and that as it was set in a very hard winter we would be filming scenes in Iceland. By November Phil and Mike had come up to Yorkshire, along with the actress who was to play our daughter, Madeline, to rehearse some of our scenes. This made it real and the weeks after Christmas were spent reading our lines and sorting out Lucy’s passport. Before going on it may be as well to tell a little about the film. It concerns three travellers, a priest, a piper and a fool who are out on a freezing night, so cold that the birds are falling from the sky, and seek lodgings at a farm. Interwoven in the first part of the film is the traditional tale of the piper finding a dead man wearing good boots. Unable to remove them in the cold he saws off the feet to thaw out later. The farmer, though reluctant, gives them a barn for the night in return for music. There is a sequence where the farmer and his wife play a baron and his wife which is based around the St Agnes Eve poem by Keats, there is an affair between Madeline and the fool and... well if you want to find out more you’ll have to see the film. The scenes in Iceland that we would be in would be the farmer and wife negotiating with the travellers for a warm bed while hanging out of the upstairs window and the scene which closes the film of Madeline leaving the farm to make her own way. There were also a few shots of myself working round the farm. So, on grey Tuesday in February we headed off down the A1 to leave the car and the dog with my mother in Sussex and boarded the train for Stanstead the next afternoon. There is always a thrill at an international airport, no matter how often you travel, and after a bit of eating we met up with the cast and crew, finally meeting Ian (the priest ), Tat (the piper) and Sally (Madeline). There was also the crew, Phil and Mike and Andy (organisation and sound), Kate (camera) Eron (general help and Icelandic guide) and Ruth (costume and make up) After passing through customs with all our equipment, which had over run the combined luggage allowance of course, we boarded the Icelandic Express Boeing. Icelandic Express is the airline that Bruce Dickenson of Iron Maiden works as a pilot for, but not on our flight. It’s a three hour flight to Keflavik, the main airport for Iceland, and we arrived with blizzard conditions outside the window and touched down safely. It was here we met Jaan, or the King of Iceland as we knew him, who had made much of the arrangements for our stay in Iceland. He drove us to the town of Helhavnafurah, which is not how it’s spelt, but it is how it sounds. We were put up in a flat with one of his daughters (Eron being another) who after greeting us spoke the wonderful Icelandic greeting, “I’m sorry my cat has farted.”, which is straight from the Monty Python Hungarian phrase book. Next morning we were up early to make the journey to the location in the mountains being given a lift by a plumber who was going up to do some work for Jann. The plumber liked to ‘Freak out in the discos with the kids’ and regaled us with stories of his ageing hippy lifestyle, lady friends, what he thought of Norwegians and demonstrated how to drive through a tunnel with no lights on and no deacceleration until the smell of our fear reached his nostrils! Reaching the location, about 10-15 miles from the town of Borganes, we settled into our new home. It was an Icelandic ‘Summerhouse’ which are chalet’s with underfloor heating all mod cons and a view across a frozen lake. They are very popular with Icelanders, though you can only buy one if you have a ‘normal’ address as well. Although beautiful it was to be 4 days before we could leave as we were not involved in the first few days filming and it was a bit cold and snowbound to go for long walks, even with our thermals and hats and gloves and stuff. And there was nowhere to walk to really. Then there was a day when the TV announced nobody was to use the roads in Iceland because of high winds blowing vehicles over. When we went off to film on Thursday it was an amazing feeling to go into a cafe and mingle with other people (we had Ian, Tat, Andy and Kate in our house) in Borganes which is a small town by any standards ( a couple of supermarkets, two garages, a post office, a jewellery shop[ and two hairdressers). As it grew dark we went to film our upstairs window scene. Phil had got use of a fish drying shed in Borganes which by the magic of cinema and clever angles would look like a tall farm building. Inside, dressed in a Victorian night shirt, long nightcap with bobble and hidden but welcome thermals I played the first scene (first words, “Who’s There?”) with Lucy balancing on a plastic chair so she could pop up next to me and interject at various points. For those who think these things are glamorous all this takes a lifetime as the same scene is shot from various angles, to cut together later, extra sound recordings in case they are needed to edit in where a car drives past unheard at the time. Next day were the daytime shots of the farmer coming out of the house in the morning, opening doors etc. Then it was down to the emotional scene as I try to make a plea for Madeline to stay with us. As dusk drew in we started on my scene of guiding the travellers to the barn, which has a moment which I hope you’ll see. We also met Yitchel, the Spanish girl who was playing the fool. The casting of a woman in a mans role was to add a little of the mystery to parts of the tale. Friday we left the Summerhouse to return to Reykjavik afilm the scenes where the priest and the piper pass through the gateway to an enchanted land in persuit of Madeline and the fool. For this we went up to the extinct volcano and to the sulpher springs. To be high on a mountain, covered in snow, with a bright blue lake and boiling steam coming directly from the ground was a mesmeric and magical experience. For the scenes here the piper had to play a tune on a brass whistle. As we wanted the scene to look right and Tat didn’t actually play the whistle I was asked to teach him a very, very simple tune. This he learned the fingering for and I recorded the tune, ‘The Pipers Slow March’ for dubbing in later. Following this we made our way down to the town and a look around the attractive coastal town whose name sounds like Have nar furah, which is the Viking centre. Interesting how many words in Icelandic are much the same as Yorkshire dialect, as we both come from Viking sources. For us Saturday was a free day and we headed into Reykjavik to be tourists and see if I could find a Lanspil, which is an Icelandic bowed dulcimer. We enjoyed our walk around the surprisingly small city centre, went up the cathedral tower before getting the call to go to the opening of Radio Reykjavik, a classic rock station that Jaan had been instrumental in setting up. We went via a shop in the suburbs that had a langspil, but which was charging a huge price. We did, however, buy a beatiful book of music for many Icelandic folk songs. The book is illustrated and contained 4 CDs of field recordings from the mid 1930’s. A book to treasure. At radio Reyjavik I was reunited with the portable electric that I bought last autumn (electric blue, about as big as an electric mandola with built in amp and speakers) and we plugged in to a huge amp stack. When we’d sound checked I went live on Icelandic radio and did some very loud versions of ‘Stone Walls and Violets’, ‘Down on the Floor’ and ‘Breathless’. Gratifying that those who were a bit sniffy about my tiny electric were ecstatic when I finished. Young men with long hair came up to me and told me that I raaaawked! I then recorded some promo stabs for them (“I’m Tim Moon, an English folk singer and your listening to Radio Reykjavik!”) including one in broad Glaswegian (I don’t know why they wanted it). In the evening we went to the Viking pub in Hevna..etc where with beer at £6 a pint I remained pretty sober (after trying the Icelandic lager I went onto Morlands Old Speckled Hen, which is a wierd thing to find) and the King of Iceland bought everyone a plate of Icelandic snacks, including meat from a rotten sheeps head, testicles, shark meat that has been pissed on to make it rot and other delights. How glad was I to be vegetarian? But Lucy tucked in and quite like the taste of much of it. Sunday we had another free day and had a last trek around Rekjavik, failing to see either of the museums that we fancied; one only opened on Monday and the other, the famous penis museum has closed down. On Monday it was sad goodbyes as everyone else headed back to the mountains for another weeks filming and we headed for the airport on a nice warm day with bright sunshine and landed in Stanstead in snowstorms and sub zero temperatures. Oh well. Next filming later in the year in France for when I will have to grow the dreaded Victorian sideburns and have them dyed red again. Swarbaid In the early part of the year I was happy to take part in the Swarbaid event at Leeds Irish Centre. I had the pleasure of MCing the event after my set and what a lovely line up to introduce; The Toms (Nappa and Bliss) , Martin Carthy with Tim Van Eyeken (standing in for the advertised Waterson Carthy) , Roy Bailey , Joe Broughton with Kevin (standing in for an ill Vin Garbutt) and The Demon Barbers rounding the evening off. A full house meant that the money raised for Swarb (along with other events in the Yorkshire area) was extensive. At time of writing Swarb is back home and I wish him a steady recovery. I’m playing at and MCing a further Swarbaid gig with Roy Bailey and Gina Le Faux at Hebden Bridge Trades Club in April. See my website for details. INVICTA As I write this I’m a day off the next session for the new album which should see most of the guests contributing their parts to the album. That is Peader Long playing bass clarinet and bagpipes on ‘All On a Winters Night’, Rachel Patti will be singing and James O Dwyer will be playing fiddle on ‘Weedkeepers Daughter’ and Gary Boyle will be contributing some smart guitar work to ‘She Creeps Up Behind You’. If time allows I’ll do some other work around the already recorded songs. More next time. All latest gigs etc on the website; www.timmoon.co.uk All the Best Tim
If you don’t want future issues of this newsletter then feel free to ruin my day by telling me so. | |||||||
| | | | | | | |
| | |