12th December, 8pm – George Machray
Whether it’s quirky and funny ditties or poignant ballads, George Machray is your man. Hailing from east Lothian, singer-songwriter George Machray is best kent for his comedy and parody songs like ‘Hawkeye the Noo’ and ‘Grubby Thoughts’ – or, fiddlers beware, ‘No Fiddlers Like Folk Fiddlers’. He has a way with words… George is a singer/songwriter from the old fishing and mining village of Port Seton in East Lothian. He writes about what he knows: the people and places found along the Firth of Forth coastline. Their themes meander from the humorous to the serious, from the ridiculous to the romantic. George is a three-time winner at the Glenfarg Folk Club Song Contest and has been the audience vote winner twice in the annual Edinburgh Folk Club Song Competition. He has opened for artists such as Adam McNaughtan, Isla St Clair and Barluath.
George is also our Christmas Pudding for 2023 and we’re looking forward to lots of laughs.
Please contact us here for any enquiries or to ask us add your name to our email list. We promise that will not bombard you with junk email … just keep you up to date about once/month on our activities.
Meets every Tuesday in the Shottstown Miners’ Club
which has good disabled access(*) and closes at 10 or 10.30pm.
We meet in the Miners’ Club‘s lounge bar – a large, comfortable (but also cheery and COSY!) room that is large enough for most of our concerts and all of our singers’ nights. We will also be able to use the club’s large function room for any larger concerts, apart from the occasional collaboration with our pals in Penicuik Community Arts Association.
The only other things you need to know is that there is a good car park and that the door may be locked when you arrive, but a member of the club’s staff will open it very quickly if you ring the wee bell!
If you want to join us via Zoom, please let us know through the contact form.
We’re happy to welcome you as a singer, player, or listener … all are valuable.
Now for the rest of the normal web page …
We are a small-but-perfectly-formed(!), broad-minded and friendly folk club. We have a concert once/month (roughly) and a friendly, hosted, songs-and-tunes session on all other Tuesdays (except when that falls on something like Christmas Day).
We enjoy and welcome all sorts of music – from big ballads to country classics and from tempestuous tunes to poignant pibrochs. Our “hosted” singing/tune sessions offer a relaxed and supportive evening of listening, joining in, airing your new songs or finding your musical feet. If you want to chat about what we do before trying us out – please contact us using the contact form or ring Alan on 01968 678610.
There are other folk clubs run by our friends in the Edinburgh area – for example Edinburgh, Leith , Balerno and Nitten. We try to support rather than compete with one another! We also work with the Penicuik Community Arts Association – a group with broader interests than folk music, but often overlapping with ours.
We’ve started work on a fuller set of FOLK LINKS to help you to find other sources of folkish enjoyment in our area!