"The first ever Lovin' Life Festival sets out to show that it is possible to have fun and enjoy festival activities without alcohol or drugs, though it is not an anti-drink festival. It is for anybody looking for a different way of socialising, including those in recovery from or struggling with addiction or dealing with somebody in their lives who is addicted, or anybody who wants to experience a festival without the necessary inclusion of alcohol."
So, can you imagine playing without a belly full of drink?
How many folks here don't drink anyway?
As for me, I gave up ye olde Beer in the early 80s & have found that I've been enjoying my sessions just as much, without it!
My potion is now what I call, 'Red Diesel' .... Blackcurrant & Water! It's great & doesn't have me runnin' to the loo every half hour & missing good tunes!
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
No.
I often drive up town if I have kids to look after in the morning, and it's great. But I like to get rat arsed too and mess up tunes by forgetting where I was etc.
Do you really need to be sober before you can "love life"?
(Dick Miles would entertain us on this thread ... with his childish inability to discern the difference between "want" and "need".)
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Ha yeah. And that temperance shower would say there are three phases to go through before you can love life:
Want, but don't need.
Want and need.
Need but don't want.
And the final cure, don't need and don't want.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I've recently been at a session where 'tea and cake' was the order of the day. Trouble is, you have to break for 'tea and cake' whereas you can sip away at your pint between tunes Of course most musicians have to drive to a session venue nowadays, so that sort of knocks the pint on the head.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
'twouldn't be the same for me with-out the whiskey and some I've played with inquire if I have any of the "encouragement" with me when we play somewhere other then a pub.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
When I play, I usually don't drink, because even a small amount of alcohol negatively influences my playing, skill, the hearing of which worsens my mood, so I drink more to forget about it, and the playing gets worse, so I drink even more etc. until I pass out.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"So, can you imagine playing without a belly full of drink?"
I can imagine starting playing without a bellyful of drink but I can't imagine it without my belly gradually filling as the night wears on. In any case, we all know that we sound a damn sight better with six pints inside. It's more relaxing, for example we all only need to be in tune on average.
Seriously, if it's my turn to drive I feel bloody miserable about the prospect beforehand but always enjoy it just as much in the end. It's just that you can get so p*ssed off with the puerile behaviour of everyone else...
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
... Well Ptarmi, ever heard this one? ....
The horse and mule live thirty years,
And never know of wines and beers;
The goat and sheep at twenty die,
Without a taste of scotch or rye.
The cow drinks water by the ton,
At eighteen years is mostly done;
The dog at fifteen cashes in,
Without the aid of rum or gin.
The modest, sober, bone-dry hen,
Lays eggs for nogs and dies at ten;
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men,
Survive for three-score years and ten -
And some of us - though mighty few,
Stay pickled 'til we're ninety-two!
... or this one?
If all be true that I do think,
There's four reasons why folks do drink ...
Good friends, good ale, or being dry,
Or any other reason why!
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Nothing wrong with a drink at a session, 'till ya mess your rolls and for the good of others you stop playing.... unfortunately for me this doesn't always take too much to happen...have ta spread it out
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
There is nothing worse than a self righteous ‘recovering’ addict preaching to the world how fabulous life is without their hook. I drink and ‘take drugs’ because I ENJOY it- so what if I’m addicted? I understand the potential health risks (mental & physical). I’d sooner have an honest and pleasurable short life than live ‘forever’ in a self inflicted delusion, exclaiming continually and insistently how happy clappy my secretly dull life is now without it.
We don’t drink & smoke fags and herb because we necessarily have to; we do it because it enhances the life experience. These things are very enjoyable! If you get into trouble because of them, that’s your look out and no-one else’s. It’s your guilt, not mine thank you!
A session in a cake shop?!
Or at a Salvation Army meeting?!
Or a smug Do-Gooders Festival?!
I don’t think so.
Aren’t sessions traditionally in lovely alcohol dispensing pubs?!!!
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Frequently I drive to sessions, which means I stay stone cold sober.
Ideally I like good bevvy at a session. Part of the craic. As is the occasional session where you get utterly rat arsed beyond the point of coherent playing.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Me thinks the yhaalhouse doth protest too much...
I know loads of recovering alcoholics who are great craic to be around, don't pass comments on drunken stupidity any more than any of the stupid drunks I play with, and certainly don't preach to anyone else about their personal decision not to imbibe, generally for the good of everyone around them as much as much as for themselves.
I think you should run along and have your morning fix... ;)
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I'm afraid the drink is an important part of my enjoyment. I probably drink quite a lot more than is ideal, but then I rarely participate in "formal" sessions where my Guinness fingers could mess things up for other people.
The contexts in which my mates and I play are relaxed and mostly wholly for the craic. Errors due to drink are forgiven, ignored or ridiculed as appropriate to the moment.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Brilliant idea to have a festival where drinking doesn't matter. I drink very little alcohol these days and have apple juice with mineral water at the session.
If the choice is between the brown stuff and lager I'd have neither. Looking forward to Sam's or Theakston's Bitter in Yorkshire this summer.
If you don't like an anti-drug environment just don't go. Chances are you won't be missed.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Part of the problem is that too many sessions happen in an alcohol-selling environment, which is uncomfortable for some people. I have been part of various groups that have decided not to offer alcohol at social occasions because, for one reason or another, there is a high percentage of recovering alcoholics. I am happy to be a non-drinker but I am neither religious nor an obsessive moralist.
"The problem is always the priest and the drink and one is always driving us to the other."
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@ apple juice and mineral water…
That’s what I really like about this music: so eclectic in the range of potential approaches to it and it’s reciprocal affects on the player or listener, ie, you can detect a whole range of reactions to it through the tried and tested manner of a good set of the black stuff, or on the other hand, a whole other realm through the bright eyed approach of a wholesome high-HCO3 sparkling mineral water and a good dollop of apple cider vinegar with mother.
It’s all down to water, I suppose, and how you flavour it…or not.
This guy could really get into the really esoteric levels of the music no doubt, although maybe a bit harsh for most session or festivaleers: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_520524.html
Now that's a hell of a wagon to be on!
Anyway, hopefully the lovinlife fest can have a few workshops on dreaded lurgie folk remedies for festival goers and all-night sessioneers.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Maybe an entrepreneurial opportunity awaits for anyone who can analyse your personality and/or any psychiatric disorders based on what kind of drink you like.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I try to avoid mixing them all in the same glass.
Last time I did that was a drunk student party where we played a drinking game which, among other things, entailed pouring a wee bit of everyone's drink into a pitcher in the middle of the table. We drew playing cards from a deck and if you were unlucky enough to get a specific one, you had to drink the stuff in the pitcher.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
English session in Bristol last Tuesday. 10 or 11 of us playing in the front of the pub by the windows. A party of middle-aged German tourists on the other side of the road, busy taking photos. One of them hears us, crosses over to investigate, waves to her friends to come over, and they all charge into the pub to listen and drink (probably lager). Plenty of whooping, cheering, clapping and dancing. Their presence attracted more punters in from the street (exemplifying the management's good business sense in placing us in such a prominent position). Very good time had by all, and we finished the evening by playing the only German song we could think of on the spur of the moment - "Wooden Heart" - which our friends sang unroariously in German (of course). Then, when they left a decent tip was left on our table (to go into next week's kitty).
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I don’t only drink Stella. I also enjoy Buckfast, Watney’s Red Barrel, cocktails (esp. Long Island Ice Tea), Titbread Wa nkard, Pims, Ram Rod & Special, the occasional sip of SyrupStik, Blue Nun and methylated spirits.
I don’t often drink Guinness. The Guinness in my local used to be considered the best around here but for some reason it has taken a dive in quality these last few months. A certain box player, who is a life long Guinness man and a regular in my local, drinks Carling these days as the stout is so scheit. I have it on good authority though that the Guinness at the Ramble Inn SW17 is pretty top hole.
It’s interesting that this thread has turned into one about drinks and drinking in the end.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Duij, usually it was an interesting mix of beer, cheap Irish whiskey, vodka, rum & coke, wine, and if you were really unfortunate, some champaign to top it off.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
To be fair, Buckfast comes from the South of England. I realise it is not as popular in England as it is in Scotland but nonetheless it is around.
In some housing estates in Scotland it is delivered instead of milk in the morning and you can get powdered buckfast to add as a milk suppliment to your baby's bottle.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
This thread is originally about the lovinlife festival folk "out to show that it is possible to have fun and enjoy festival activities without alcohol etc"; the thread title though questions whether one really needs the drink to enjoy a good session.
Two fairly different questions though really.
The problem really seems to me to be how to keep enjoying the virtually all day and all night sessions at days-long festivals while being rat-arsed the most of the time, and not coming down with festival flu at the end of the thing and being crook as rookwood for the next two weeks or more.
Major occupational hazard it seems.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I was looking at pubs in Boston for a trip this autumn (lookout) and came across one with a Beer Pong or Beirut night. A pub game all new to me where the rules state that the losers have to drink their opposing teams’ beer. That’s just free beer is nt it?
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
It's become an economic thing. At our session we get half price pints, so that helps. Another one down the highway, no luck, full price. I don't drink anything there. It's in a touristy trap area, so they charge both arms and the usual leg for a pint. I leave that for the tourists then.
Long story short, I can take it or leave it. I have noticed that my variations and ornaments become more radical in relation to amount of booze in my system, for whatever that's worth.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Wow, far too much discussion on this topic, but I'll throw in my two cents anyway. Who cares? If you drink, drink. If you take drugs, take drugs. If either helps you enjoy life or sessions or anything else, good for you. Just don't let it ruin my good time. I enjoy a drink or two on the occasions I make it to a session, but there are teetotallers there as well. So, to reitterate, who cares?
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Alcohol isn't the problem—it's the type of alcohol taken in. And far too many slurp that tarry, charred sludge with the nitrogen cream on top. Unbelievable, with an array of pretty whiskeys readily available.
Mark Twain: "Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him."
Sadly, Twain lived long before our golden era of Prozac and "medical marijuana" and so cannot provide us with any comparisons there.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Good man that Mr. Clemens.
"...The idea that Twain was a devotee of a tonic consisting of pot and alcohol might surprise the public, however, he had a rich history with what we now would consider illicit drugs...."
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Part of the drinking problem in British bars is the extortionate price of soft drinks and their usually parsimonious or unhealthy nature. If really good fruit juice (crushed from fresh fruit in situ would be real perfection) were available in generous quantities for a reasonable price, I'd be drinking lots of it. Well, I know some miseryguts might say that fresh fruit juice is chock-full of sugar too, but a pint of it really ups my will to live!
As does a big cup of really good coffee late on, if that's on offer. New Labour's bid to turn Britain into a mellow 24-hour cafe culture was obviously going to prang big time, but this might have been because no-one actually provided the coffee. Some really good cafes open late at night doing proper coffee etc. might attract a lot of people keen to imbibe it and sober up. Of course there are some all-night cafes in the big cities, but not as a rule elsewhere.
Of course I realise that what is good for the punters and what is good for the drinks / hostelries industries need not be the same thing, and New Labour will have attached more importance to the latter group.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
SWFL—
Great column.
Clemens would probably not even have noticed any effects from huffing cocaine, already getting his massive daily nicotine jolt by smoking anywhere from 20 to 40 cigars. Churchill was a piker in comparison.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Re Beer Pong - It's always been a source of wonderment and confusion to me that there are people who play this sort of drinking game. It seems a strangely American passtime, another way to avoid all of the pleasant parts of drinking with your friends and get straight to the vomiting and the waking up hung over in some stranger's room. Strange.
There’s a RAB C NESBITT episode when Rab and Jamie go on a pilgrimage to Buckfast Abbey in Devon.
I’ve been there myself and they are somewhat po-faced & blind-eyed about the Belfast/ Glasgow style Buckie cult. They still promote it as if they are manufacturing it for little old ladies to have a wine glassful once a day as a tonic. And with the fruity taste of imported red wine, 15% C2H5OH, much sugar, vanilla and more caffeine than Red Bull no wonder a little old lady having a glass a day would feel enlivened!
They innocently sell it along their honey, fudge and local cider in a little shop run by very humourless churchy looking women.
They claim to make it on the Abbey site but there is no sign of a factory. I went with my son Alex (who Lives in Bangor, Co Down and introduced me to it in the first place!). We were expecting some quaint old monks to show us round the ‘brewery’ but no chance. They know who buys the vast bulk of it and where and they obviously like the profit but not the image of 14 year old kids sitting in the park knocking it back by the bottle. It says on the label that it’s bottled in Andover (100 miles from Buckfast). I suspect that’s where it’s made. The little old ladies were a bit stroppy when Alex held up two bottles of it and had me take a picture with the Abbey and them in the background.
By the way: Buckie tastes great mixed 1:1 with a soft Tamil Sri Lankan fizzy raspberry flavoured drink called Necto (also available from many Sarf Lunden shops!)
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Buckie's not half bad. I thought it would be really rank, but it's surprisingly drinkable. It's kind of like fruit juice. You can see why it's popular amongst 14 year olds.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Aye, yhaalhouse!
I find a good session slows down the process of getting rat arsed. You consume bevvy slower between bouts of tunes than you would do at a party where all you're doing is drinking. But you might get there in the end.
I do love how a thread about staying sober has turned into a thread about, well, not.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Q. Anyone ever taken part in a drinking contest called "The Boat Race"?
Eight drinkers per team. Each team sits on the floor in a straight line, each with full pint mug in hand.
Race starts by first member in each team drinking pint. Second member not allowed to drink until first member has finished his pint, and so on.
First team to drink the gallon, wins!
Anyone ever taken part in a three-legged beer race? Teams of two, with enkles tied in (three-legged race fashion). Usually thirteen pubs, with two pints to drink per team in each pub. First team of two to drink the 26 pints wins.
I once took part in such an event in Stornaway (Outer Hebredes, Scotland). with legs tied together with a piece of Harris tweed.
The prize for winning the race (which was won by two locals) was a bottle of whisky! The winning team (on top of their already-consumed 26 pints) finished the bottle of whisky in the last pub with no apparent ill effects!
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If drinking too much alcoholic beverages has a negative effect on your ability to play, then you probably shouldn't drink any while you are at a session. You might want to wait until you get home to drink something alcoholic. That way, you don't have to worry about being stopped by the police for drunk driving.
If you are one of these people who is unable to control yourself and make yourself stop after drinking a certain amount of alcoholic beverages, then you probably shouldn't drink anything alcoholic. Especially if you know your limits and you know how much you can drink and still function in a halfway normal fashion but you still insist on drinking too much.
However, if you have enough self-control to make yourself stop drinking at a certain point and not overdo it, then I think you should enjoy whatever your favorite alcoholic poison is.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
SS, at Tuesday's English session I described some posts back, we were so busy entertaining the German tourists that one musician remarked afterwards that he didn't have time to drink his usual quota.
I start a session with a pint of a local ale, but try to finish with a good cup of black coffee. All our session pubs here will provide it - or a cup of tea.
Btw, where I went on holiday, in the SE corner of Cyprus just 3 miles from the UN border zone, a pint of Guinness is €3. A refreshing local beer, Leon, is €2.50 a pint.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
It is possible to be an alcoholic without drinking anything. If you like the type of locomotive or railroad engines produced by the American Locomotive Company (otherwise known as ALCO), you could be an ALCOholic and not know it.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"If drinking too much alcoholic beverages has a negative effect on your ability to play, then you probably shouldn't drink any while you are at a session."
I can't agree with that. Apart from the silly notion of appearing to confuse "too much booze" with "not one single drop", it begs that old chestnut of the difference between a session and a gig. Sure, don't drink too much for a gig, you have the punters to think about. But a session? Nope, do what you like, you're not on show.
And don't be an eedgit and come back and say, yeah, but you are on show to the other musicians. If anyone comes and sits with us with the attitude that they are on show to us, they'll be asked to stop. (Or maybe told to take a drink and get over it.)
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"Btw, where I went on holiday, in the SE corner of Cyprus just 3 miles from the UN border zone, a pint of Guinness is €3. A refreshing local beer, Leon, is €2.50 a pint."
Good beer in Cyprus is an oxymoron. Bottled Leon is drinkable, but slightly more so is Efes, for which you have to cross to northern Cyprus. They seem to be letting people bring it back over these days at least.
We stayed approximately where you were by the sound of it, in a village called Vrysoulles, near the base at Aya Nic. If you have a mate on the base you're better off getting them to buy you bottles of English stuff there, I hate to say.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I gave up drinking 18 years ago and started playing trad about 16 years ago, so I have no experience of playing whilst under the influence. Going on my blurred memories of pre-trad-infatuation teenage drunkenness, I rather suspect it would have adversely affected my co-ordination, my ability to remember tunes (and what tune I had just played) and my social graces. Whilst I don't profess to be a great asset to the traditional music world, I think I probably detract from it less than I would if I still partook of "the drink".
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
What he told the teetotaler:
Take a good long look at a photo of your parents taken around the time of your conception. Is it a stretch to think that one or both of them may have required an induced mental fog before the necessary mood could be created?
So the next bottle you see, at least kiss it and thank it for the time you’ve been given here.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Urban foxes in the UK have taken to drinking brake fluid, biting and draining the cables to get at it. Or so I've read.
I cannot do this because I am too old and fat.It did not occur to me to try it in my youth when I was more nimble.
Nor have I tried Buckfast, though in this case I might well have a go. It is not prominent in NE England's drinking habits, possibly because even when they're four sheets to the wind, Geordies et cetera are deeply afraid it might turn them into incomprehensible Glaswegian aliens and they'll never be able to change back into Geordies et cetera again. Their mams probably spell this out to them in the supermarket bottle aisles when they are 2.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
When asking patients how much they drink, apparently its convention for the medical folk to always double the figure given. So I double the number of units they recommend, aha.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
In case anybody (yhaalhouse) is considering biting through their neighbour's brake pipes to drink the brake fluid, you might like to be aware that the effects include hyporeflexia, seizures, meningismus, coma associated with hypotonia, cerebral damage, CNS depression, nystagmus, ataxia, opthalmoplegias and myoclonic jerks.
Stage 2 takes place between 12 and 24 hours following ingestion and involves tachycardia and severe metabolic acidosis with compensatory hyperventilation accompanied by multiple organ failure. Most deaths occur in this stage.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Steve, I'm not sure where Vrysoulles is. We stayed at the Pernera Beach Hotel, which is 3 miles along the coast SE from the UNBZ, and just over a mile NW of Protaras.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
At Irish music sessions (and other types of music sessions), I have seen too many other musicians disrupt the session and make it unpleasant and unenjoyable for the other people at the session because their inebriated behavior (and their playing) deteriorated from drinking too much beer or whiskey or wine or some other alcoholic beverage.
(drunken bodhran players, anyone?)
If there is a chance that you could ruin or wreck a session by drinking too much of something alcoholic, then you probably should just drink something non-alcoholic at the session.
However, if you can "hold your liquor" and still play no matter how much you have drunk, then by all means, you should drink as much as you want to.
I know how much beer I can drink and still be able to play. I stick to my limit so I won't disrupt or ruin the session for anyone else who is there.
I think it is nice to be able to take an occasional sip of beer between tunes.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I learned who my real friends were when I quit drinking. C-eL2aiyBxIM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsquirrel%2Bdrinking%2Bguinness%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B3WZPB_enUS336US336%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=P-4RTOHbH8KJnQf4mZiRAw">http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/117751.JPG&imgrefurl=http://harwoodmedialit.pbworks.com/Guinness&usg=__fnN5yzwOLHkeegH-1jl2WoxLARc=&h=600&w=800&sz=48&hl=en&start=3&sig2=2coJcVwEkc6BB4s5QoYzgg&itbs=1&tbnidC-eL2aiyBxIM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsquirrel%2Bdrinking%2Bguinness%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B3WZPB_enUS336US336%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=P-4RTOHbH8KJnQf4mZiRAw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
A gig with a paying audience is different and you (probably) shouldn't drink (too much).
Still, I find the more the audience drinks the better we sound...........!
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If drinking has a negative effect on your ability to not be an arsehole, then you should be careful about how much you drink. I've known a few musos who liked to get into bar fights when they were pished. They're playing at that stage wasn't particularly brilliant, either, but that was of less concern than potential chairs flying across the room.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@ss: "If drinking has a negative effect on your ability to not be an arsehole..."
lol. that appears to be a priceless premise - the natural state is to be an arsehole, an ability not to be is something that is acquired - and vulnerable to dissolution by the demon drink.
That could be a very safe way of looking at the world.
Very funny.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
[caveat] I haven't read it all ...
That festival sounds nice ...
Llig's point about drink/affect on playing skills/not performing does just lead me to make one observation: Yes, it doesn't matter 'cos it's not a performance. But, I still think it's a matter of respect for one's fellow sessioners not to drink so much that it affects your playing enough to put other people off, or to spoil their enjoyment of the evening. And, depending on who you are, that amount of alcohol may be less than you might think.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I like the session myth about turning up with anything remotely like a pending lurgie and get the recommendation to down a couple of hot whiskeys with sugar as a cure, so you can soldier on and enjoy the session.
Nothing more guaranteed to make you feel like absolute crap, in my experience.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Duij - I found myself drawn to that UTube link in a peculiar sort of way. More from the artistic point of view you understand. I found myself visualizing Sadie performing her dance to The Teetotallers Reel .....must be an age thing?
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
You want a seXY acCENT?
You want a reason not to drink the black stuff at sessions?
(You just scroll down and click on the utube with the tuba). http://www.errolgray.com.au/
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If it is a gig with a paying audience, I don't drink anything alcoholic until the gig is over. However, I hope the audience is enjoying the music so much that they buy plenty of drinks.
Thank you Ethical Blend. I agree with what you said about being respectful of the other people at a session.
Speaking of musicians getting drunk and mad enough to get into fights and flying chairs reminds me of a man who was a cook on the Navy ship I was stationed on for two years. When this man was sober and on duty cooking food, he was a nice guy who would fix our omelets to order.
However, when he got drunk, he became violent and liked to start fights both off and on the ship. He got in trouble for this so many times that when his term of enlistment was up, the Navy gave him a less-than-honorable discharge and told him not to come back. He wanted to re-enlist and was so mad about being told not to come back that he got drunk and got into a fight. The last I heard of this man, he was in the city jail in Norfolk, Virginia.
Since I am outnumbered by the flute players at our local session and some of them are women, I probably shouldn't respond to SilverSpear's comparison of flutes and loose women.
And, last but not least, I have rarely been so drunk at a music session that I couldn't play music. I don't ever remember anyone telling me to Get Off The Stage at the local blues jam or being told to leave the local Irish sessions because I was too drunk to play.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Most sessions around my corner of the world involve musicians getting their pint and nursing it most of the night. We take our music somewhat seriously so playing stupid is just frustrating.
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"In case anybody (yhaalhouse) is considering biting through their neighbour's brake pipes to drink the brake fluid, you might like to be aware that the effects include hyporeflexia, seizures, meningismus, coma associated with hypotonia, cerebral damage, CNS depression, nystagmus, ataxia, opthalmoplegias and myoclonic jerks.
Stage 2 takes place between 12 and 24 hours following ingestion and involves tachycardia and severe metabolic acidosis with compensatory hyperventilation accompanied by multiple organ failure. Most deaths occur in this stage.
In stage 3 the kidneys fail"
Yeah but, no but, yeah but - would it have an adverse affect on my piping?
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Steamwilkes, wouldn't you in fact just get run over before any of the other effects kicked in?
PS it was thanks to a very large amount of Guinness that I first discovered I could simultaneously play while holding a conversation (easier on the harp than on a wind instrument, of course!)
Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Check this out ... a new festival up in Sligo:
The 1st ever: 'Lovin' Life Festival'!
..... Sligo July 1st - 4th!
http://www.lovinlife.ie/
"The first ever Lovin' Life Festival sets out to show that it is possible to have fun and enjoy festival activities without alcohol or drugs, though it is not an anti-drink festival. It is for anybody looking for a different way of socialising, including those in recovery from or struggling with addiction or dealing with somebody in their lives who is addicted, or anybody who wants to experience a festival without the necessary inclusion of alcohol."
So, can you imagine playing without a belly full of drink?
How many folks here don't drink anyway?
As for me, I gave up ye olde Beer in the early 80s & have found that I've been enjoying my sessions just as much, without it!
My potion is now what I call, 'Red Diesel' .... Blackcurrant & Water! It's great & doesn't have me runnin' to the loo every half hour & missing good tunes!
I get my 'high' from the music!
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
No.
I often drive up town if I have kids to look after in the morning, and it's great. But I like to get rat arsed too and mess up tunes by forgetting where I was etc.
Do you really need to be sober before you can "love life"?
(Dick Miles would entertain us on this thread ... with his childish inability to discern the difference between "want" and "need".)
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by ...
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I both want and need a pint in front of me when I play tunes.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by leoj
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Ha yeah. And that temperance shower would say there are three phases to go through before you can love life:
Want, but don't need.
Want and need.
Need but don't want.
And the final cure, don't need and don't want.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by ...
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I've recently been at a session where 'tea and cake' was the order of the day. Trouble is, you have to break for 'tea and cake' whereas you can sip away at your pint between tunes Of course most musicians have to drive to a session venue nowadays, so that sort of knocks the pint on the head.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Free Reed
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
The drink needs me, and I feel sorry for it.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Yeaaaaahhhh
Drink, drugs and gurlz!!!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Dawros Frog
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
'twouldn't be the same for me with-out the whiskey and some I've played with inquire if I have any of the "encouragement" with me when we play somewhere other then a pub.
All the best!
Peace,
Ed
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by ejsant
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
When I play, I usually don't drink, because even a small amount of alcohol negatively influences my playing, skill, the hearing of which worsens my mood, so I drink more to forget about it, and the playing gets worse, so I drink even more etc. until I pass out.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Janek
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
When you are Ill is it tea you want ?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"So, can you imagine playing without a belly full of drink?"
I can imagine starting playing without a bellyful of drink but I can't imagine it without my belly gradually filling as the night wears on. In any case, we all know that we sound a damn sight better with six pints inside. It's more relaxing, for example we all only need to be in tune on average.
Seriously, if it's my turn to drive I feel bloody miserable about the prospect beforehand but always enjoy it just as much in the end. It's just that you can get so p*ssed off with the puerile behaviour of everyone else...
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I usually only drink when I play music, but I try to play almost every day.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Kheelch
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
... Well Ptarmi, ever heard this one? ....
The horse and mule live thirty years,
And never know of wines and beers;
The goat and sheep at twenty die,
Without a taste of scotch or rye.
The cow drinks water by the ton,
At eighteen years is mostly done;
The dog at fifteen cashes in,
Without the aid of rum or gin.
The modest, sober, bone-dry hen,
Lays eggs for nogs and dies at ten;
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men,
Survive for three-score years and ten -
And some of us - though mighty few,
Stay pickled 'til we're ninety-two!
... or this one?
If all be true that I do think,
There's four reasons why folks do drink ...
Good friends, good ale, or being dry,
Or any other reason why!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Nothing wrong with a drink at a session, 'till ya mess your rolls and for the good of others you stop playing.... unfortunately for me this doesn't always take too much to happen...have ta spread it out
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by premier
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
There is nothing worse than a self righteous ‘recovering’ addict preaching to the world how fabulous life is without their hook. I drink and ‘take drugs’ because I ENJOY it- so what if I’m addicted? I understand the potential health risks (mental & physical). I’d sooner have an honest and pleasurable short life than live ‘forever’ in a self inflicted delusion, exclaiming continually and insistently how happy clappy my secretly dull life is now without it.
We don’t drink & smoke fags and herb because we necessarily have to; we do it because it enhances the life experience. These things are very enjoyable! If you get into trouble because of them, that’s your look out and no-one else’s. It’s your guilt, not mine thank you!
A session in a cake shop?!
Or at a Salvation Army meeting?!
Or a smug Do-Gooders Festival?!
I don’t think so.
Aren’t sessions traditionally in lovely alcohol dispensing pubs?!!!
Mine's a pint of Stella...Cheers!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Frequently I drive to sessions, which means I stay stone cold sober.
Ideally I like good bevvy at a session. Part of the craic. As is the occasional session where you get utterly rat arsed beyond the point of coherent playing.
Mmmmm....real ale......
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Me thinks the yhaalhouse doth protest too much...
I know loads of recovering alcoholics who are great craic to be around, don't pass comments on drunken stupidity any more than any of the stupid drunks I play with, and certainly don't preach to anyone else about their personal decision not to imbibe, generally for the good of everyone around them as much as much as for themselves.
I think you should run along and have your morning fix... ;)
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Dragut Reis
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I'm afraid the drink is an important part of my enjoyment. I probably drink quite a lot more than is ideal, but then I rarely participate in "formal" sessions where my Guinness fingers could mess things up for other people.
The contexts in which my mates and I play are relaxed and mostly wholly for the craic. Errors due to drink are forgiven, ignored or ridiculed as appropriate to the moment.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by buddhuu
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Brilliant idea to have a festival where drinking doesn't matter. I drink very little alcohol these days and have apple juice with mineral water at the session.
If the choice is between the brown stuff and lager I'd have neither. Looking forward to Sam's or Theakston's Bitter in Yorkshire this summer.
If you don't like an anti-drug environment just don't go. Chances are you won't be missed.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by kuec
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Part of the problem is that too many sessions happen in an alcohol-selling environment, which is uncomfortable for some people. I have been part of various groups that have decided not to offer alcohol at social occasions because, for one reason or another, there is a high percentage of recovering alcoholics. I am happy to be a non-drinker but I am neither religious nor an obsessive moralist.
"The problem is always the priest and the drink and one is always driving us to the other."
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by nfldbox
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Stella? Bloody Nora. ;-(
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Wrong, Steve! Actually:
- if Stella lager was the only alcoholic drink available at my local session pub, I'd be joining Ptarmigan and going "on the wagon "
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@ apple juice and mineral water…
That’s what I really like about this music: so eclectic in the range of potential approaches to it and it’s reciprocal affects on the player or listener, ie, you can detect a whole range of reactions to it through the tried and tested manner of a good set of the black stuff, or on the other hand, a whole other realm through the bright eyed approach of a wholesome high-HCO3 sparkling mineral water and a good dollop of apple cider vinegar with mother.
It’s all down to water, I suppose, and how you flavour it…or not.
This guy could really get into the really esoteric levels of the music no doubt, although maybe a bit harsh for most session or festivaleers:
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_520524.html
Now that's a hell of a wagon to be on!
Anyway, hopefully the lovinlife fest can have a few workshops on dreaded lurgie folk remedies for festival goers and all-night sessioneers.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If Stella was the only pint in my pub I'd have to settle for room-temp Chardonnay.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Don't forget that you don't really "buy" a drink in a pub - you only rent it.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If Stella was the only pint in my pub I would be on the whisky all night. Now that would not end well!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
some tunes, and keys, are acid and some are alkaline...if you match your disposition with appropriate tipple, all should end well.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Q. Are there any German oom-pah sessions where the musicians all drink lager?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I like single malt whisky, real ale, and Belgian beer. What does that make my disposition?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Maybe an entrepreneurial opportunity awaits for anyone who can analyse your personality and/or any psychiatric disorders based on what kind of drink you like.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Not all mixed in the same glass, I hope, Silver Spear!
... and I'm glad that you didn't mention the "L" word!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I try to avoid mixing them all in the same glass.
Last time I did that was a drunk student party where we played a drinking game which, among other things, entailed pouring a wee bit of everyone's drink into a pitcher in the middle of the table. We drew playing cards from a deck and if you were unlucky enough to get a specific one, you had to drink the stuff in the pitcher.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
It makes you an alcoholic!
I am 31 years and 8 months sober and loving it!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
English session in Bristol last Tuesday. 10 or 11 of us playing in the front of the pub by the windows. A party of middle-aged German tourists on the other side of the road, busy taking photos. One of them hears us, crosses over to investigate, waves to her friends to come over, and they all charge into the pub to listen and drink (probably lager). Plenty of whooping, cheering, clapping and dancing. Their presence attracted more punters in from the street (exemplifying the management's good business sense in placing us in such a prominent position). Very good time had by all, and we finished the evening by playing the only German song we could think of on the spur of the moment - "Wooden Heart" - which our friends sang unroariously in German (of course). Then, when they left a decent tip was left on our table (to go into next week's kitty).
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
ss - was everyone drinking the same stuff or different. Things could always be worse, I guess.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I don’t only drink Stella. I also enjoy Buckfast, Watney’s Red Barrel, cocktails (esp. Long Island Ice Tea), Titbread Wa nkard, Pims, Ram Rod & Special, the occasional sip of SyrupStik, Blue Nun and methylated spirits.
I don’t often drink Guinness. The Guinness in my local used to be considered the best around here but for some reason it has taken a dive in quality these last few months. A certain box player, who is a life long Guinness man and a regular in my local, drinks Carling these days as the stout is so scheit. I have it on good authority though that the Guinness at the Ramble Inn SW17 is pretty top hole.
It’s interesting that this thread has turned into one about drinks and drinking in the end.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Wait, you can get Buckie down in London?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Duij, usually it was an interesting mix of beer, cheap Irish whiskey, vodka, rum & coke, wine, and if you were really unfortunate, some champaign to top it off.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
good to be alive, eh, ss.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
'oom-pah' and 'session' are a contradiction in terms. Brass bands need a leader
. Except for La Brass Banda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_tmSc0ZrhA&feature=related
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by kuec
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Whatever happened to those mad days? *sigh*
Though if growing up means never to have to drink a concoction of whiskey/beer/wine/rum/coke/orange juice again, then it has some upsides after all.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Yes!
One can any commodity (common or exotic like Buckie!) in the whole world right here in Sarf Lunden!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
The world must be alright then.
Can you get maple syrup as well?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
To be fair, Buckfast comes from the South of England. I realise it is not as popular in England as it is in Scotland but nonetheless it is around.
In some housing estates in Scotland it is delivered instead of milk in the morning and you can get powdered buckfast to add as a milk suppliment to your baby's bottle.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I struggle enough without the help of alcohol.
I learned in my piano playing days that if I drank I got fearless. Then I heard some recordings and realized that the booze and playing does not mix.
At a family party, I was asked to play a bit....after a couple too many. Was it awful.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by zippydw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
This thread is originally about the lovinlife festival folk "out to show that it is possible to have fun and enjoy festival activities without alcohol etc"; the thread title though questions whether one really needs the drink to enjoy a good session.
Two fairly different questions though really.
The problem really seems to me to be how to keep enjoying the virtually all day and all night sessions at days-long festivals while being rat-arsed the most of the time, and not coming down with festival flu at the end of the thing and being crook as rookwood for the next two weeks or more.
Major occupational hazard it seems.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
definately, its crap when u don't drink and everyone around u is
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by James Morgan
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
here is buckfast city:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSQvIvfeQ3A
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I was looking at pubs in Boston for a trip this autumn (lookout) and came across one with a Beer Pong or Beirut night. A pub game all new to me where the rules state that the losers have to drink their opposing teams’ beer. That’s just free beer is nt it?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Eòsaph
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
It's become an economic thing. At our session we get half price pints, so that helps. Another one down the highway, no luck, full price. I don't drink anything there. It's in a touristy trap area, so they charge both arms and the usual leg for a pint. I leave that for the tourists then.
Long story short, I can take it or leave it. I have noticed that my variations and ornaments become more radical in relation to amount of booze in my system, for whatever that's worth.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Wow, far too much discussion on this topic, but I'll throw in my two cents anyway. Who cares? If you drink, drink. If you take drugs, take drugs. If either helps you enjoy life or sessions or anything else, good for you. Just don't let it ruin my good time. I enjoy a drink or two on the occasions I make it to a session, but there are teetotallers there as well. So, to reitterate, who cares?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Alcohol isn't the problem—it's the type of alcohol taken in. And far too many slurp that tarry, charred sludge with the nitrogen cream on top. Unbelievable, with an array of pretty whiskeys readily available.
Mark Twain: "Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him."
Sadly, Twain lived long before our golden era of Prozac and "medical marijuana" and so cannot provide us with any comparisons there.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@Mix O'Lydian:
I think you left a line out of that ditty. It ends -
"Good wine, or friends, or being dry,
Or lest we should be, by-and-by,
Or any other reason why."
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Good man that Mr. Clemens.
"...The idea that Twain was a devotee of a tonic consisting of pot and alcohol might surprise the public, however, he had a rich history with what we now would consider illicit drugs...."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-skandera-trombley/what-would-twain-make-of_b_518328.html
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Part of the drinking problem in British bars is the extortionate price of soft drinks and their usually parsimonious or unhealthy nature. If really good fruit juice (crushed from fresh fruit in situ would be real perfection) were available in generous quantities for a reasonable price, I'd be drinking lots of it. Well, I know some miseryguts might say that fresh fruit juice is chock-full of sugar too, but a pint of it really ups my will to live!
As does a big cup of really good coffee late on, if that's on offer. New Labour's bid to turn Britain into a mellow 24-hour cafe culture was obviously going to prang big time, but this might have been because no-one actually provided the coffee. Some really good cafes open late at night doing proper coffee etc. might attract a lot of people keen to imbibe it and sober up. Of course there are some all-night cafes in the big cities, but not as a rule elsewhere.
Of course I realise that what is good for the punters and what is good for the drinks / hostelries industries need not be the same thing, and New Labour will have attached more importance to the latter group.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
SWFL—
Great column.
Clemens would probably not even have noticed any effects from huffing cocaine, already getting his massive daily nicotine jolt by smoking anywhere from 20 to 40 cigars. Churchill was a piker in comparison.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Re Beer Pong - It's always been a source of wonderment and confusion to me that there are people who play this sort of drinking game. It seems a strangely American passtime, another way to avoid all of the pleasant parts of drinking with your friends and get straight to the vomiting and the waking up hung over in some stranger's room. Strange.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
BUCKFAST TONIC WINE!
There’s a RAB C NESBITT episode when Rab and Jamie go on a pilgrimage to Buckfast Abbey in Devon.
I’ve been there myself and they are somewhat po-faced & blind-eyed about the Belfast/ Glasgow style Buckie cult. They still promote it as if they are manufacturing it for little old ladies to have a wine glassful once a day as a tonic. And with the fruity taste of imported red wine, 15% C2H5OH, much sugar, vanilla and more caffeine than Red Bull no wonder a little old lady having a glass a day would feel enlivened!
They innocently sell it along their honey, fudge and local cider in a little shop run by very humourless churchy looking women.
They claim to make it on the Abbey site but there is no sign of a factory. I went with my son Alex (who Lives in Bangor, Co Down and introduced me to it in the first place!). We were expecting some quaint old monks to show us round the ‘brewery’ but no chance. They know who buys the vast bulk of it and where and they obviously like the profit but not the image of 14 year old kids sitting in the park knocking it back by the bottle. It says on the label that it’s bottled in Andover (100 miles from Buckfast). I suspect that’s where it’s made. The little old ladies were a bit stroppy when Alex held up two bottles of it and had me take a picture with the Abbey and them in the background.
By the way: Buckie tastes great mixed 1:1 with a soft Tamil Sri Lankan fizzy raspberry flavoured drink called Necto (also available from many Sarf Lunden shops!)
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Americans are amazing at inventing all sorts of ingenious methods for doing just that, Jon.
Ever heard of a beer bong?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Looking at this thread, maybe the OP should have put the question the other way round:
Do you really need a good session, to enjoy the drink?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Buckie's not half bad. I thought it would be really rank, but it's surprisingly drinkable. It's kind of like fruit juice. You can see why it's popular amongst 14 year olds.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Aye, yhaalhouse!
I find a good session slows down the process of getting rat arsed. You consume bevvy slower between bouts of tunes than you would do at a party where all you're doing is drinking. But you might get there in the end.
I do love how a thread about staying sober has turned into a thread about, well, not.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@nicholas - apologies - memory not quite what it was ....
,,, but that of course would make it five reasons - not four, wouldn't it .... ?
... and I guess that many of us (Ptarmigan excepted!) might add a sixth reason - playing at a session!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Q. Anyone ever taken part in a drinking contest called "The Boat Race"?
Eight drinkers per team. Each team sits on the floor in a straight line, each with full pint mug in hand.
Race starts by first member in each team drinking pint. Second member not allowed to drink until first member has finished his pint, and so on.
First team to drink the gallon, wins!
Anyone ever taken part in a three-legged beer race? Teams of two, with enkles tied in (three-legged race fashion). Usually thirteen pubs, with two pints to drink per team in each pub. First team of two to drink the 26 pints wins.
I once took part in such an event in Stornaway (Outer Hebredes, Scotland). with legs tied together with a piece of Harris tweed.
The prize for winning the race (which was won by two locals) was a bottle of whisky! The winning team (on top of their already-consumed 26 pints) finished the bottle of whisky in the last pub with no apparent ill effects!
Rab C Nesbitt - eat your heart out!
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If drinking too much alcoholic beverages has a negative effect on your ability to play, then you probably shouldn't drink any while you are at a session. You might want to wait until you get home to drink something alcoholic. That way, you don't have to worry about being stopped by the police for drunk driving.
If you are one of these people who is unable to control yourself and make yourself stop after drinking a certain amount of alcoholic beverages, then you probably shouldn't drink anything alcoholic. Especially if you know your limits and you know how much you can drink and still function in a halfway normal fashion but you still insist on drinking too much.
However, if you have enough self-control to make yourself stop drinking at a certain point and not overdo it, then I think you should enjoy whatever your favorite alcoholic poison is.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
SS, at Tuesday's English session I described some posts back, we were so busy entertaining the German tourists that one musician remarked afterwards that he didn't have time to drink his usual quota.
I start a session with a pint of a local ale, but try to finish with a good cup of black coffee. All our session pubs here will provide it - or a cup of tea.
Btw, where I went on holiday, in the SE corner of Cyprus just 3 miles from the UN border zone, a pint of Guinness is €3. A refreshing local beer, Leon, is €2.50 a pint.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
It is possible to be an alcoholic without drinking anything. If you like the type of locomotive or railroad engines produced by the American Locomotive Company (otherwise known as ALCO), you could be an ALCOholic and not know it.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"If drinking too much alcoholic beverages has a negative effect on your ability to play, then you probably shouldn't drink any while you are at a session."
I can't agree with that. Apart from the silly notion of appearing to confuse "too much booze" with "not one single drop", it begs that old chestnut of the difference between a session and a gig. Sure, don't drink too much for a gig, you have the punters to think about. But a session? Nope, do what you like, you're not on show.
And don't be an eedgit and come back and say, yeah, but you are on show to the other musicians. If anyone comes and sits with us with the attitude that they are on show to us, they'll be asked to stop. (Or maybe told to take a drink and get over it.)
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by ...
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"Don't forget that you don't really "buy" a drink in a pub - you only rent it."
Blimey, Trevor! I'm not having a drink in any of the pubs you frequent.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
...Do you get a discount on it second time round?
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"Btw, where I went on holiday, in the SE corner of Cyprus just 3 miles from the UN border zone, a pint of Guinness is €3. A refreshing local beer, Leon, is €2.50 a pint."
Good beer in Cyprus is an oxymoron. Bottled Leon is drinkable, but slightly more so is Efes, for which you have to cross to northern Cyprus. They seem to be letting people bring it back over these days at least.
We stayed approximately where you were by the sound of it, in a village called Vrysoulles, near the base at Aya Nic. If you have a mate on the base you're better off getting them to buy you bottles of English stuff there, I hate to say.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I gave up drinking 18 years ago and started playing trad about 16 years ago, so I have no experience of playing whilst under the influence. Going on my blurred memories of pre-trad-infatuation teenage drunkenness, I rather suspect it would have adversely affected my co-ordination, my ability to remember tunes (and what tune I had just played) and my social graces. Whilst I don't profess to be a great asset to the traditional music world, I think I probably detract from it less than I would if I still partook of "the drink".
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
...But that doesn't answer the original the original question; the answer to that, of course, is "No".
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
What he told the teetotaler:
Take a good long look at a photo of your parents taken around the time of your conception. Is it a stretch to think that one or both of them may have required an induced mental fog before the necessary mood could be created?
So the next bottle you see, at least kiss it and thank it for the time you’ve been given here.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Urban foxes in the UK have taken to drinking brake fluid, biting and draining the cables to get at it. Or so I've read.
I cannot do this because I am too old and fat.It did not occur to me to try it in my youth when I was more nimble.
Nor have I tried Buckfast, though in this case I might well have a go. It is not prominent in NE England's drinking habits, possibly because even when they're four sheets to the wind, Geordies et cetera are deeply afraid it might turn them into incomprehensible Glaswegian aliens and they'll never be able to change back into Geordies et cetera again. Their mams probably spell this out to them in the supermarket bottle aisles when they are 2.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
When asking patients how much they drink, apparently its convention for the medical folk to always double the figure given. So I double the number of units they recommend, aha.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Eòsaph
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I hoped the Buckie would turn me into an incomprehensible Glaswegian because just about any accent is sexier than the one I've got. Didn't work. Arse.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
In case anybody (yhaalhouse) is considering biting through their neighbour's brake pipes to drink the brake fluid, you might like to be aware that the effects include hyporeflexia, seizures, meningismus, coma associated with hypotonia, cerebral damage, CNS depression, nystagmus, ataxia, opthalmoplegias and myoclonic jerks.
Stage 2 takes place between 12 and 24 hours following ingestion and involves tachycardia and severe metabolic acidosis with compensatory hyperventilation accompanied by multiple organ failure. Most deaths occur in this stage.
In stage 3 the kidneys fail.
# Posted on June 10th 2010 by Bernie 29
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@ CreadurMawnOrganig
I always try to make sure I get all the 'goodness' out of the drink before passing the residue for recycling...
I'm told this indicates that one is 'properly hydrated' Maybe Bernie could enlighten me if I have this wrong?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by john knoss
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Stage 4 - a nervous brake down? .....
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
What? You lot don't do pong? criminy.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Pádraig
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"Stage 4 - a nervous brake down"
*Snort*
Drinking brake fluid? Buckfast (okay, learned something new there......)? Geesh.
It's bad enough that beer makes me fat.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Michele Sims
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Steve, I'm not sure where Vrysoulles is. We stayed at the Pernera Beach Hotel, which is 3 miles along the coast SE from the UNBZ, and just over a mile NW of Protaras.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Buckfast + Milk + Ice + Blender = Falls Champange and is a cure in the same league as bloody Marys..
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
and Blended Margaritas.. mmm
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I also feel the need to mention Chocolate angel delight and Baileys.. im so gay
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
well, I'm thirteen, so can I go now?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by scordion
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
At Irish music sessions (and other types of music sessions), I have seen too many other musicians disrupt the session and make it unpleasant and unenjoyable for the other people at the session because their inebriated behavior (and their playing) deteriorated from drinking too much beer or whiskey or wine or some other alcoholic beverage.
(drunken bodhran players, anyone?)
If there is a chance that you could ruin or wreck a session by drinking too much of something alcoholic, then you probably should just drink something non-alcoholic at the session.
However, if you can "hold your liquor" and still play no matter how much you have drunk, then by all means, you should drink as much as you want to.
I know how much beer I can drink and still be able to play. I stick to my limit so I won't disrupt or ruin the session for anyone else who is there.
I think it is nice to be able to take an occasional sip of beer between tunes.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I learned who my real friends were when I quit drinking.
C-eL2aiyBxIM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsquirrel%2Bdrinking%2Bguinness%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B3WZPB_enUS336US336%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=P-4RTOHbH8KJnQf4mZiRAw
C-eL2aiyBxIM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsquirrel%2Bdrinking%2Bguinness%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B3WZPB_enUS336US336%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=P-4RTOHbH8KJnQf4mZiRAw">http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/117751.JPG&imgrefurl=http://harwoodmedialit.pbworks.com/Guinness&usg=__fnN5yzwOLHkeegH-1jl2WoxLARc=&h=600&w=800&sz=48&hl=en&start=3&sig2=2coJcVwEkc6BB4s5QoYzgg&itbs=1&tbnid
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Sorry, bad link
http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2009/4/29/633766172454000845-Drinking.jpg
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
A gig with a paying audience is different and you (probably) shouldn't drink (too much).
Still, I find the more the audience drinks the better we sound...........!
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by SteelPlayer
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If drinking has a negative effect on your ability to not be an arsehole, then you should be careful about how much you drink. I've known a few musos who liked to get into bar fights when they were pished. They're playing at that stage wasn't particularly brilliant, either, but that was of less concern than potential chairs flying across the room.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
*their.... for f*ck's sake....
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I've been to a gig where a flute player was so stoned he could not make out which hole to blow in.
Needless to say, I don't recall it as the best gig ever.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Janek
Which hole do I blow in?
Yep!
I had the same trouble as your flute player but with a girl in Exmouth!
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@ss: "If drinking has a negative effect on your ability to not be an arsehole..."
lol. that appears to be a priceless premise - the natural state is to be an arsehole, an ability not to be is something that is acquired - and vulnerable to dissolution by the demon drink.
That could be a very safe way of looking at the world.
Very funny.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Remove the double negative and it reads:
"If drinking has a positive effect on your ability to be an arsehole..."
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
lol. yes, I noticed; I was trying to put a charitable spin on it.
silver, have you been drinking?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
if not, start.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
[caveat] I haven't read it all ...
That festival sounds nice ...
Llig's point about drink/affect on playing skills/not performing does just lead me to make one observation: Yes, it doesn't matter 'cos it's not a performance. But, I still think it's a matter of respect for one's fellow sessioners not to drink so much that it affects your playing enough to put other people off, or to spoil their enjoyment of the evening. And, depending on who you are, that amount of alcohol may be less than you might think.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
IOW, what fauxcelt said ...
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I like the session myth about turning up with anything remotely like a pending lurgie and get the recommendation to down a couple of hot whiskeys with sugar as a cure, so you can soldier on and enjoy the session.
Nothing more guaranteed to make you feel like absolute crap, in my experience.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"silver, have you been drinking?"
Only coffee but it's only half twelve.....
Aye, I quite like the premise of my statement.
Whisky cures almost everything. Except a hangover. But we have Irn Bru for that.
Yhaalhouse, there's not a huge difference between flutes and loose women. Really.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
so you're working up to it silver?
the drink I mean.
mmmyeah, I thought the premise was fairly purposefully constructed, all under the guise of a double negative.
Well done.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
@ OP: "So, can you imagine playing without a belly full of drink?"
Not really:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YamDoDK71Ds&feature=related
how do they get their bellies to make those noises? Is it the Guinness?
guess we're caught between a rock and a hard place with this thread.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Duij - I found myself drawn to that UTube link in a peculiar sort of way. More from the artistic point of view you understand. I found myself visualizing Sadie performing her dance to The Teetotallers Reel .....must be an age thing?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Free Reed
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Not a lot of differance between a flute and a loose woman ?
For health and saftey reasons I am not going to comment on that ?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
that woman had really big hands, did you notice that?
Good Guinness pint grip there.
Very fit.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
SS Glasgow accent Sexy ?
Not a patch on the French . try wine maybe ?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
You want a seXY acCENT?
You want a reason not to drink the black stuff at sessions?
(You just scroll down and click on the utube with the tuba).
http://www.errolgray.com.au/
Feel better now?
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
If it is a gig with a paying audience, I don't drink anything alcoholic until the gig is over. However, I hope the audience is enjoying the music so much that they buy plenty of drinks.
Thank you Ethical Blend. I agree with what you said about being respectful of the other people at a session.
Speaking of musicians getting drunk and mad enough to get into fights and flying chairs reminds me of a man who was a cook on the Navy ship I was stationed on for two years. When this man was sober and on duty cooking food, he was a nice guy who would fix our omelets to order.
However, when he got drunk, he became violent and liked to start fights both off and on the ship. He got in trouble for this so many times that when his term of enlistment was up, the Navy gave him a less-than-honorable discharge and told him not to come back. He wanted to re-enlist and was so mad about being told not to come back that he got drunk and got into a fight. The last I heard of this man, he was in the city jail in Norfolk, Virginia.
Since I am outnumbered by the flute players at our local session and some of them are women, I probably shouldn't respond to SilverSpear's comparison of flutes and loose women.
And, last but not least, I have rarely been so drunk at a music session that I couldn't play music. I don't ever remember anyone telling me to Get Off The Stage at the local blues jam or being told to leave the local Irish sessions because I was too drunk to play.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Good for you.
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by Eòsaph
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
I'm going to start making a list of all the things I can't remember
# Posted on June 11th 2010 by leoj
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Most sessions around my corner of the world involve musicians getting their pint and nursing it most of the night. We take our music somewhat seriously so playing stupid is just frustrating.
# Posted on June 13th 2010 by jrathbun
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
"In case anybody (yhaalhouse) is considering biting through their neighbour's brake pipes to drink the brake fluid, you might like to be aware that the effects include hyporeflexia, seizures, meningismus, coma associated with hypotonia, cerebral damage, CNS depression, nystagmus, ataxia, opthalmoplegias and myoclonic jerks.
Stage 2 takes place between 12 and 24 hours following ingestion and involves tachycardia and severe metabolic acidosis with compensatory hyperventilation accompanied by multiple organ failure. Most deaths occur in this stage.
In stage 3 the kidneys fail"
Yeah but, no but, yeah but - would it have an adverse affect on my piping?
# Posted on June 14th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
How could you tell?
# Posted on June 14th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Do you really need 'The Drink', to enjoy a good Session?
Steamwilkes, wouldn't you in fact just get run over before any of the other effects kicked in?
PS it was thanks to a very large amount of Guinness that I first discovered I could simultaneously play while holding a conversation (easier on the harp than on a wind instrument, of course!)
# Posted on June 15th 2010 by Mark Harmer