Montag, 30. März 2020

Bill Baum's music emporium in Bonn-Bad Godesberg


One group of people who are also suffering are retail shops. Suddenly, they have been forced to close and have no turnover and thus no income coming in, but still have the usual fixed costs to pay like rent and lighting and heating and staff costs. The concept of Schadenfreude seems to indicate that there may be some personal consolation in finding someone who has it worse than you. This is really a „false friend“ though, because one day you may find that there, „but for the grace of God“ go you.

So everyone is currently suffering at the moment, but especially musicians who cannot perform in public and also retail shop owners who cannot open their doors to customers for fear of spreading the virus. So imagine a „double whammy“ like Baums Musikladen in Plittersdorfstrasse in Bad Godesberg which is run by the owner Norfried Baum and Axel Girnus, both fine guitarists and excellent musical shopkeepers.

As if all this upheaval with the Coronavirus were not enough, during the early hours of Saturday morning on 21.03.20 a couple of young males who were probably as lacking in IQ as they were in patience, decided a „smash and grab“ might be fun and „put the icing on the cake“ for Norfried and Axel. Luckily the police apprehended the culprits who were still wandering around later still with the stolen guitars in their thieving mits. Baums Musikladen was nevertheless left with a hefty bill for replacing the large glass shop window. So lightning sometimes does strike thrice.


 With true German efficiency and despite the Coronavirus COVID-19 the shop window was duly repaired and in situ only a couple of days later:


The good news is though, that if you were thinking of using your downtime and home time to play some music at home but are hindered by the lack of some musical necessity in order to do so, you can still order anything you need from Baums Musikladen. The shop is „closed“ to customers, but it is still manned inside and you can call or send an E-mail and your requirements, from whole instruments through sheet music books down to strings, will be delivered within Bonn on the same day. Their online shop is also functioning as normal. That's service with a smile, so you can get to play music at home and do Norfried and Axel a good turn and yourselves at the same time. 
So smiles all round by supporting local musicians and local shops.





Times are indeed hard, but with a few kind words and deeds and gestures, one can often make these troubled times much more bearable for everyone.

Wash your hands a lot and stay safe all of you and remember however bad Corona-COVID-19 gets it will be much less dangerous than the bubonic plague was in 1666. I'm not a betting man, but a contact / mortality rate of approx 1/100 here in Germany currently with Corona compared with 50/100 with the bubonic plague seems a much safer bet. One fine day, when this is all over and things are more normal, one can take a walk up the hill from Bad Godesberg to the small plague chapel in the nearby village of Schweinheim, which is dedicated as a place where the bubonic plague finally stopped after spreading westwards from The Netherlands in the year 1666, the year London town burnt down. So take some small consolation that even bad things, do eventually, come to an end.

Troubling Times


Thanks for the great photos of FCB # 111 from Friday 06.03.20 Detlef!

Never have „the good old times“ seemed so close, and at some times not really that far away, and at other times, simply mind-blowing light-years away.

Now the photo below is unfortunately, all that we are likely to see of FCB # 112 which was scheduled for Friday 03.04.20:

Musicians everywhere are suffering from the government imposed shutdowns. Many of the featured
artists who perform at the folk club are professional musicians and Stables, comprising Mathew Lowe and Daniel Trenholme,who played for us at FCB # 111 back in early March at the start of a planned month-long continental tour had to, unfortunately, break off and head back to London early, after little over a week, as there were suddenly no more gigs left taking place here in Germany.

Apropos Stefan Mönkemeyer, he won't be driving down from Dortmund to play for you this Friday, for reasons beyond our control. I am sure that many of you were looking forward to that evening, especially the ones who were fortunate to catch him the last time he played with us, back in October 2018 at FCB # 95 https://folk-club-bonn.blogspot.com/search?q=STefan+M%C3%B6nkemeyer
The folk club blog, being Google-based, allows searching and if you type a search question in the box in the top left-hand corner and click on the magnifying glass, you can draw on a detailed repository of over 10 years of Bonn folk club history in words and photos.

There is something that you could do though  if you wish to check out Stefan's webpage,
or even drop a few kind words and say hello to Stefan at 
kontakt       at    stefangitarre.dere.de
He's holed up like everyone else at the moment and I'm sure it would be appreciated. You might even see your way to buying a CD from Stefan to brighten up his day and your surroundings whilst you stay indoors and isolated for most of your time in the forthcoming weeks.






Sonntag, 29. März 2020

Detlefs Bilder vom Folk Club Nr. 111 am 6. März 2020

John Harrison


Gert Müller

Sabrina Palm

Steve Crawford






Sonja

Mario


John Hurd


Daniel Bongart



Matthew Lowe

Daniel Trenholme

Matthew und Daniel alias "Stables"





Steve Perry


Ulrike Hund

Stephan Weidt




Rainer Goetzendorf



Alle singen "Jock Stewart" zum Abschluss

Sonntag, 15. März 2020

Folk Club Bonn #111 from 06.03.2020 3SongsBonn Report from John Hurd

https://3songsbonn.com/2020/03/14/folk-club-bonn-march-2020/

Once again we were graced by the presence of John Hurd from 3SongsBonn
at the last folk club. This time John admirably performed a self-penned song about his departed father, Jack. Certainly not an easy task as any songwriter will vouch for. This did not hamper him in any way from blessing us with his usual incredibly high standard of photography and prose which you can now thankfully enjoy, especially as this could well be the last folk club in a while.

Corona, Corona



Featured Artists  Stables aka  Mathew Lowe and Dan Trenholme 




There are more photos from John Hurd available here:


http://johnno.jalbum.net/Folk%20Club%20March%202020/


Thanks again John for once again helping to perpetuate musical magic!

Postponements due to Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

Dear Folkies,

I know from the blog statistics that we probably have a significant number of non-German blog readers/viewers around the world. Nevertheless, even as non-German speakers, you will probably have already gleaned from the new message in German on the right-hand side of the blog that some, not quite so good things, are currently happening, both in the world in general and in Germany in particular:


QUOTE
Next meet
FCB # 112 - Friday, April 3rd, 2020 will be cancelled.

The Folk Club Bonn is temporarily stopping its events due to the general situation in connection with the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and especially due to the recent general disposition of the city of Bonn concerning future public events and gatherings.

Unfortunately, the folk club evening scheduled for April 3rd 2020 will be cancelled.

In the current situation, the folk club team cannot make a statement about when it will continue. The information about the other dates in the next box is therefore only to be understood as an option in the event that folk club evenings can take place again. It is quite conceivable that some things will change in the future evenings with the theme topics and the performing artists.

The folk club team will keep you up to date on the progress of events.
UNQUOTE


Anyone wishing to be directly informed in the future by E-mail of upcoming events can send an E-mail to    FolkClubBonn at gmail.com   and request to be included in the FCB mailing list in order to receive a monthly e-mail update. Simply sending "UNSUBSCRIBE" is all that is required to stop this free subscription at any time in the future.

Let's hope that sometime further on down the road herd-mentality will eventually give way to the more laudable concept of herd-immunity, despite there being as yet no potential vaccine in imminent sight for the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

I personally fear it may be quite a while before we can sing Jock Stewart again. Call me a pessimist, or rather a realist, but history tells us that oftentimes things rapidly constructed in a hurry, can take a whole lot longer to be disengaged and dismantled. Just look at the Berlin wall for example. Please feel free to make me happy and prove me wrong.


On the bright side, we can take consolation that quite often "out of adversity comes opportunity."
Sir Isaac Newton was born in 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire in England and later became a world-renown mathematician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, theologian, scientist, and author. When the Great (Bubonic) Plague of 1665 shuttered Cambridge, where he was studying at the time, Newton returned home for "home officing" and began formulating his theories on calculus, light and colour on his farm, which also served as the setting for the "falling apple" which inspired his work on gravity. So great good came out of Newton's time-out for refreshing new thoughts, inspired by the shutdowns of the bubonic plague in the 17th century.

Portrait of Newton at 46 by Godfrey Kneller, 1689

So do follow Newton's example of using your own unexpected advancing virus-induced free time usefully during the current shutdowns for the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) for some refreshing new thoughts.

One of Newton's most famous sayings was, "Men build too many walls and not enough bridges." This is a thought that we have always born in mind at the folk club and will continue to do so in future, however it turns out to be.



Mittwoch, 11. März 2020

Cynthia

At our 10 year anniversary of Folk Club Bonn # 110 on 07.02.2020, we were blessed among many other things by several contributions, almost as if in anticipation by one month and one day of International Women's Day on 08.03.20, by a host of wonderful local female Bonn singers including such luminaries as Cynthia Nickschas, Astatine (Ana-Maria), Makeda and Larissa Lae. These nightingale ladies certainly put the laddies to shame in terms of both numbers and quality, and the evening was greatly enhanced by their attendance. Thank you once again, ladies, for being, and for being there and for singing so delightfully.

Cynthia, bless her cotton socks, also gifted us with the card below, demonstrating not only her kind thoughts, but also her other artistic abilities. Thanks for that Cynthia! We hope to see you again soon.










Sonntag, 1. März 2020

Sabines und Detlefs Bilder vom Jubiläums-Folk-Club am 7.2.2020




John Harrison

Die Leiterin des Bonner Kulturamtes, Frau Susanne König, spricht ein Grußwort zum zehnjährigen Jubiläum des Folk Clubs Bonn



Der Rock- und Pop-Beauftragte des Bonner Kulturamtes, Herr Hans-Joachim Over

Eva Henneken und John Harrison


Eva Henneken und Sohn Tim

Tim erhält die Ehrenmitgliedschaft im Folk Club Bonn

Zita, alias Annette spielt "Ein Loch in der Banane"

Die Jubiläums-Torte


Die Folk Club All Stars


Barry Roshto am Klavier

Lothar Prünte alias ElPi

Cynthia Nickschas and Friends



Astatine alias Ana Maria Leistikow

Four Fiddlers (Ecki Schwandke, Steffi Hölzle, Daniel Marsch, Ariane Bröker)







"Jock Stewart" mit 10 Geiger bereits vor der Pause


Steve Perry, John Harrison und Barry Roshto

Regine Perry-Mertens und Steve Perry

Holger Riedel mit Unterstützung: Das Schrankenlied

Thomas Neuhalfen

Holger Riedel

Uta Schäfer

Christoph Thiebes

Mario Dompke

Larissa Laë




Mario Dompke, Sonja, Jutta Mensing

Martha

Volker Lindner

Eva Salgado Martinez




Dennis Ledermann

John Harrison mit Makeda (Michalke)



Astatine mit Thomas Neuhalfen





2Sunny mit Schlagzeugunterstützung