Going overboard

As I've mentioned before, I am a member of The Aude Shantymen. Or the Old Singing Men as she tends to describe us. I'm just coming up to completing two years and I've pretty much enjoyed every minute of it. It has been nice to spend time in an all male group. Not tht we get up to anything we couldn't get up to in mixed company but for whatever reason, it is more relaxed. As one of the guys says, we are his garden shed.

Over the two years we have got much better, (I'm not claiming credit), and we have gone from a group of about 6 to 12 when we are all there. There are also only so many sea shanties you can sing, and due to a tie up with where we rehearse, we have had to extend our repertoire into some folk songs.

Probably the vest known of the shanty groups, certainty in the UK, are Fishermen's Friends. Based in Cornwall they have become the medias go to group if they need some singers and there is sea involved. Two years ago, the members of ASM would certainly not have put themselves in the same class as the Friends but given their latest album, where reviews tend to show them as not being up to standard and our improvement, members of our group are talking of us being as good. Now, I'm not sure that is exactly true, but if there is a big difference over the two years, and yes, we have improved, it is the confidence of the other members, few of which have any real music knowledge.

And so we are going to make a cd, mainly for marketing purposes, but if that went well then I think they might try a full album.

I still don't think the Fishermen's Friends will be having a sleepless night tonight though.