Dancing English
After some memorable nights at Sidmouth Late Night Extras ("I love it when kids drag their parents along to dance"), Watson certainly concurs that English dance music is revving up nicely. And it's likely to get a lot hotter before we are through, what with the reissue of not only all Oak's material, but Oysterband's 20 Golden Tie-Slackeners, Stepping Up (the update of the classic Tap Roots collection), Tickled Pink making their first album for a decade and, saints preserve us, the imminent re-emergence of Tiger Moth for one summer only, with a retrospective CD in tow.
It's all looking fine and dandy, but one person at least is hoping the ceilidh boom this time round will provoke some serious mischief. The son of a Moulton Morris Man, Simon Care and his melodeon have long made their own indelible mark on English music in various incarnations of the Albion Band, Edward II/ e2K and ceilidh band Tickled Pink. "When we played the Late Night Extra at Sidmouth last year there was mayhem, which is great! The serious dancers are being kicked aside like they were in the early '70s and now the students are joining in, getting pissed, falling over and thinking, 'This is great!' Which it is. It's becoming hip again. Tickled Pink played a sold-out dance at Haywards Heath and 32 students showed up in pink furry wings, having a ball.