PaNiKaTaK
News Archives
2006
November 2006
12th.
Well, as they say, Lancaster Baptist Church was a blast, what
a super hall and great folk to play for - even produced a blast from the past
for us as someone requested the foot and mouth song - The Fair Eden Valley and
we were able to perform a pretty fair version after a couple of false starts.
Great evening look forward now to New Hutton next weekend - phew all go - and we
just spent spent Sunday in the studio at Morecambe with Rick - all go.
Still it keeps us out of trouble - Lord alone knows what sort of mischief I
could be getting up to without Panikatak - could even be writing more letters to
the Westmorland Gazette about the Lake District planning board and having them
not publish them 'cos they were potentially libellous. We need to play
Coniston soon - we have a little seedling of a song that I think could be
appreciated there once it comes into bloom. It has a sort of bearing on
the National Park and is called 'The Lakeland Clearances'.
early Nov.
Oh dear - blown it again - still at least I have something
here for you to read - Note the change of time for the forthcoming Lancaster
concert - 7.30 as opposed to our usual 8pm start. Some will assume that
this is on account of the fact that I am progressing in years and need to be
taking cocoa at 9.30 prompt or else the trousering goes all awry. This is
of course a malicious rumour that I have a suspicion could have been hatched in
the backrooms of the Ambleside Health Centre where who knows what sort of
shinanigins go on now that the NHS has but almost collapsed. Keep up -
keep up.
The recent concerts at Ladyholme for Cancer Care and then Grasmere for the
village hall were enjoyed by all in fact we have a letter from Grasmere saying
that those who missed it and have heard about it were- as Shakespeare said -
they rue the day they were not there. Don't be in such a state come and witness
the next do in Lancaster
Hoots the noo.
September 2006
Well the Christmas clobber is now going up in Hayes Garden
Centre so the school summer holidays must be nearly over and I've just updated
this website. About time I hear you say. A busy autumn and Mo has
been poorly most of august so we wish him a speedy recovery back to his bass
sicks (- a sickening pun 'cos he plays bass guitar -in case you didn't know).
Don't forget to vote for Panikatak as your all time favourite folk band
somewhere and pop up and see us some time - its all in a good cause. I do
wish we'd had a daughter I would have loved to call her Charity, who knows we
could have been living near Storrs by now - the amount we've raised in her name.
Och aye.
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May 2006
the last concert on 5th May went off well with, once again, guest visits from Hamish F. McPuke who features on our recent cd and Daffydd of the black rock. The raffle prizes were amazing all donated and proceeds went to the British Heart Foundation. Ian who keeps track of these things says we have now raised over £35,000 for the various charities over the years. "Good oh", as they say in Porthmadoc. We are now entering our quiet season as these teachers disappear for most of the summer on holiday, etc. Who knows maybe we'll do some busking somewhere - Ian still has fantasies about busking on the London underground but then he is a doctor and most of their world seems to be based on fiction - well according to that documentary I watch on telly called Green Wing is it? The session that Heidi started on Thursday nights at the Rifleman's Arms in Kendal seems to have blossomed and grown to almost a complete bar full of musicians with ourselves and a group called Mountain Road forming the mainstay. Still it gets us out of the house, as they say.
Best wishes to our loyal reader, "Hoots the noo", as Hamish would say.
March 2006
I have spent much time in the darkened room by the flickering screen (reminds me of a song my mother used to sing) trying to put sound in here for you and hope I may have succeeded at last - a couple of tracks - as a trial for now. So as both the Dome - our millennium hymn and The Fair Eden Valley - our foot and mouth anthem are little performed by us anymore I thought I'd stick 'em on as free downloads. Go to the products page and follow the links and it should all work for you let me know how you get on at mail to panikatak
February 2006
The 4th of Feb saw us performing at Ulverston at the famous Sports and Social Club down near the leisure centre. With special appearances by both Hamish McPuke from 'The Skips' somewhere near Glasgow and Daffydd y Garreg Ddu from somewhere near Llanwrtyd Wells. It was one of those nights when most things progressed at a pace and interpretation of their own from a subtle blend of brilliance, eg Chrissie's rendering of 'Feels like Home' to a blank moment or two as guest Daffydd forgot what had happened to Roberts the Bread when he bumped into Blodwen the Fawr. Nevertheless it was a super evening enjoyed by all, even the band and it is more than likely that we will be there again. The evening was topped off by a musical exit from the car park by Dafyyd who's car had developed an intermittent 'horn fault'. It seems that in very cold weather the horn on off switch, situated in the steering wheel sort of has a mind of its own for the first minute or two of driving from cold. This is characterised by an embarrassing beep beep for the first few hundred yards of travel - which it did from the car park at Ulverston at midnight or so - apologies to anyone locally trying to sleep, the upset was not intentional. Presumably this won't happen on April the first when we are at the Stickle Barn as it should be a bit warmer then.
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2005
Hasty News - December
Christmas Greetings and a great 2006 for all
who happen upon this slot !
We had an outstanding Christmas dinner at the Hallgarth Community Centre in
Kendal when we did an "After Christmas Dinner Concert" in the centre a
week or so ago.
The menu was traditional Christmas fare with soup starters, turkey and all
trimmings with Christmas pud. for afters - then cheese and bickys and coffee -
and congratulations to the frenzied few who beavered away to produce it all as
the standard was better than some I've had in some of our so called top hotels
locally. so good in fact it was difficult to play after being tempted to
eat far too much.
I promise to try harder on the news front next year
As my teacher used to say - "Could do better"
April 2005
Alas and alack once again it's been an age since I took to scribbling on this 'orrible machine. We go from strength to strength, 0.2 on the Richter Scale. We did our own fund raising gig last year - the last time I scribbled see below, raised a super pile of money which was almost instantly gobbled up by Angie babe who spent it on new mixer deck, amp and speakers. So it's all gone again - story of my life - just when you think you're winning woops life kicks yer in the watsits again. The Christmas lights do in Ambleside was great again - the do just seems to get better every year and the weather was super. We had a super gig at Storth on 5th March, raising funds for the village hall with our new gear that Angie had spent a fortune on but couldn't get the monitors to work properly, so once again did without. Very well received though, packed hall, super folk in Storth - I'm sure they weren't all deaf .!. We're still slowly working on getting a 'concert' CD out. We recorded two gigs last year and we keep amending and fussing about with the tracks and who knows one day it'll all be ready.
Next concert in Lancaster at the Grammar School - there's posh for you - in aid of school funds I presume but as usual no-one tells me anything, I think they feel it's safer that way so we'll see
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News Archives
June 2004
I am forced to 'screen goggle' to advertise our coming commercial venture - in aid of ourselves, ("there's strange for you", as they would say in Llanfair PG). - - - see ad on the gigs page.
8pm on Friday 25th June at the Ladyholme Centre between Windermere and Bowness (close to the Police Station in case of audience over-reaction). Roll up, roll up, we need the money.
I have been told that a recently formed Panikatak Support Group
spearheaded by Ian's Mum have formed a new 'charity' called the "SPOQ"
fund. Roman soldiers used to have similar lettering on their standards I
understand. I thought it must be something to do with this but apparently
not. I have been at pains to try to discover the meaning of this and in my
investigations I asked Peter Dicken, a postman from the Eden Valley Storytellers
Club. He jokingly, (I think) replied that it meant Send Panikatak Overseas
Quickly. I sort of laughed a little and went on my way. I did wonder
a few days later however and tried to contact him again but I was told that he'd
moved - fairly quickly my informant said, something about redeployment at work,
somewhere to the barren wildernesses of the North East - Hexham way someone
suggested. I thought this a little odd but then there may be a bit of
something in it. I do know that Ian's mum has bought a lot of our cds - I
know we only have two but Ian apparently keeps on - once a month or so,
"We've got a new cd out mum do you want one?" "Well of course
says mum", pays her money and goes on her way rejoicing, marvelling on the
prolific genius of her wonderful son. It may be that she has rumbled him!
She has discovered that the vast library of her cd collection contains lots of
copies of the two cds. if this is the case I can understand this form of
devious revenge. She lived through the war, she understands the true
meaning of subterfuge, sabotage and deceit as practiced by our leaders during
those dark days (and carried on by them ever since). Maybe Peter was right
and her people got to him before I could verify the truth. Maybe suddenly
there will be no more from me in these pages - some anonymous author will write
coherent comments about the fullness of life to a background of repetitive
martial music. Good God I might even end up in France!
I'd better go quickly I can hear someone at the door.
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Older News
Lord is it March already? I suppose it must be, there are a few deranged folk clamouring to know when our next cd is coming out. Either they've lost the previous editions, dog's chewed them, used them to scare the rabbits or, if they have listened to them they are intrigued to see what on earth we're going to do next
Coming out means we have to go in, somewhere, which we haven't done yet, so we're in "stall" mode. Rather like one of our concerts when we are making one of those last minute surprise alterations to an otherwise finely honed programme. That's technical jargon for "Ian's turned over too many pages and he was the only one who knew what was next".
The last time I scribbled here was before the Cancer Care gig at Charlotte Mason (-which is now called St. Martins College if you've been looking at the gig list). This went very well was a packed programme and a packed house and was the first public 'airing' of our most recent band member, Heidi. She has the distinct advantage of being a proper musician capable of playing in keys I never even heard of. Born in the US she undertook a 'roving' musical apprenticeship, spending time in the dreamy assimilation of sounds in the West of Ireland, as you do, oh and she plays a mean fiddle.
Coming up in the gig line are a couple of concerts in aid of school funds, Grasmere Village Hall is a fine venue. We played there before, a year or so ago, with luck they'll have a bar on. The next one is in Bowness down one of those roads almost opposite the Royalty Cinema, upstairs in a the 'club'. The rooms quite a size, we've never played there before but it should be OK as there's most definitely a bar. We have found that our concerts tend to go just a touch better if folk have imbibed a little. Or a lot for those with sensitive ears. Then there's the COW GIG, a Friday night so no excuses for not being there, (that's for band members of course). This is to raise money to help alleviate the suffering of folk on the African sub continent. How long did it take for us to realise that instead of sending starving country folk bread and dried milk it's much more sensible to send grain to grow wheat, to make bread, organise adequate safe water supplies and send a cow. With a little help folk may be able to look after themselves instead of coming back asking for more when the bread and milk ran out. Anyway there is an organisation called, "Send a Cow" and it is in aid of this group that we will stagger and sing on the 19th March, come along for the giggle - and I'm told there will be a bar near the theatre this time. I'm not sure about ticket sales yet but you can always ring our box office ( - Ambleside Health Centre - - oops!)