Welcome to the home of ‘The Family Mahone’ on the internet.
This site is titled ‘Nostalgia and the Future’ for a reason- well two reasons. Firstly ‘The Family Mahone’ are no more. Secondly there is a future.
Sir Charles is building himself an Empire at media City. Donal is planning world conquest with Blue Grenade, and a possible solo project. The Good Doctor is happily farming n-gauge sheep in the Chester commuter belt, and of course, him and Christy still take to the boards with Full House. Christy is recording local folkies, and threatening to play them on the air. DJ is a Grandad and loving it, meanwhile Rusty (that’s me by the way) is devoting his time to growing his own food and a bar tab.
Three members of the band met yesterday in another guise. It was the almost annual ‘Friday Busking Club’ Christmas party. We hadn’t met since my comeback gig at Telfords on St Patrick’s day. We played some songs, and we drank some beer, and we agreed, that it was unlikely that the full band were going to gig again. People have moved on.
The Busking club is not, however splitting up. We have been making plans. We started in about 2004 with a simple aim. Busk for an hour, then nobody allowed home until we’d drunk the takings. We took to Christmas parties when we couldn’t be arsed with the busking anymore, but after the Absinthe Vindaloo incident, we’ve contented ourselves crashing the odd open mic night.
We intend to do a few ‘Busking Club’ gigs this year, so stay tuned. We’re planning a new name and a new look as well as new material.
OK folks. All good things come to an end, and it looks like Chester’s third oldest open mic night ends on Wednesday. We’ve had a great time, and a lot of support from staff and musicians alike, but things change, and we are marking change with a PARTY and you’re all invited.
The Bear Beats Band, Rusty Mahone (whoever he is), The Glendale Family, Luos, Alx Green and many more we have a line up a FESTIVAL would be pleased with. The pub will be full , as last nights often are, and the night will be special.
A fine venue with quality real ale, decent sound, ace staff and a tank of fish.
All open mic performers welcome. Hosted by Chris Ingram and Rusty Mahone, often with spots from both of them!
It was nice to be gigging with a couple of my old band mates again. We had planned a lot more practice, but it didn’t happen, and the noise we made was ‘good in parts’
We’re not as young as we were- these days gigs take their toll. Here we have some ‘before and after’ shots
First Chris
Me next!
Mark however, kept his cool, posing for photo’s with the locals.
The ‘new’ ‘Dubliners’ stuff went well however, so I imagine we will plunder said repertoire deeply. It was nice to see so many folks there. Thank-you all.
I’ve only ever really been in two bands in my life. Really. Only two.
OK, there have been dozens of names, hundreds of personnel changes, a fair few fallings out and varying degrees of success!
I was born in the village of Moulton in Northamptonshire. If you were in the right ‘circles’ you joined the Morris Team, and even though I wasn’t, I did. Moulton Morris Men were and are a ‘force’ in Traditional dance. They took me round Europe, introduced me to beer and fueled my passion for performing to the point that I have never quite been able to put it down. If you know traditional music, the chances are that you will have heard of at least one Moulton Musician. People like Dave Jolly, Simon Care, Garreth Turner and Guy Fletcher have all donned the yellow, blue and red.
So Moulton Morris was my first band. I was involved from about the age of twelve on and off, but by fifteen I was hooked. Dave Jolly left the in-house ceilidh band (Pandamonium with an ‘a’) leaving an opening for myself on casiotone and wasp and Simon Care on melodion. This incarnation was called ‘Captain Thunderbox’s Old Thirteenth’, and we played ceilidhs for money. Good money for a fifteen year old. Meanwhile, Simon and myself were playing at school with a fair few others under the name of ‘Aunt Thelma’s Candlelight Orchestra’ which had a core membership of three plus a drummer. We also had a trio of singers (female) and a further trio of flautists (yep, female)
I’ll post some stuff about early ‘Thelma’s at a later date- we did make a tape, and I’m having it de-hissed!
This post is about the MK2 version. Still Simon plus drummer Marcus Campling and myself, but with a punky guitarist called Ian. Cath Thompson was the last standing of the sextet of females, and she played the flute. We’d established ourselves on the festival circuit as an acoustic trio, and this was our attempt to be a five piece folk-rock band. My keyboards had improved with a load of roland gear that I could bore you with, but won’t. Most of the tape ‘Aunt Thelma’s Two’ is pretty horrid with hindsight, but one track has sort of stood the test of time. It was made on a four-track cassette machine either in ’83 or ’84- certainly before ’85 as we had progressed on to vinyl by then.
The track is ‘The Cuckoo’s Nest and Bacca Pipes’- two traditional Morris tunes. If you want to know what a folkie understands about the term ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, google the lyrics to the song of the same name. Then google the term itself, and giggle at all the whimsical idiots who really should do better research. Bacca Pipes is a variant of the old English classic ‘Greensleeves’, and our two-key rendition is quite closely stolen from early ‘Albion Band’, but as Simon later joined the Albions, it’s alright. Possibly.
Anyway- here’s the Video- I might write about the photos one day. It starts off with my Rick Wakeman impression, but everyone else piles in before the end, and we just about hold it together until we stop! If you enjoy watching as much as I’ve enjoyed making- I suspect you were in the band!
The ‘Blag Brothers’ are two members of ‘Full House’.
Chris Lee aka Christy Mahone and Nick (Bilbo) Mitchel make a fine noise at Chesters finest intimate venue. Add myself into the mix, and you have ‘Russell Mabbutt and Friends’ We are playing at the ‘Bear and Billet on ‘Paddys Day, (2012) from about 8.30!
Looking forward to this one! The poster says it all really. Meet a real life brewer, drink his beer, eat a pork pie then listen to the soothing tones of myself and Mr Chris Lee as you drink more beer!
If you’ve read this far, now for the bit that the poster doesn’t say. You don’t need a ticket to get into the pub. The ‘Meet & Eat with Drink’ is taking place downstairs, and we are playing on the small stage!
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