Cosmic Trifle!
|
a.k.a. TBFKATBFKAJPF!
The Band Formerly Known as
The Band Formerly Known as
Just Plain Folk!
Which explains why the www.JustPlainFolk.com etc. domains
point here!
You can use www.CosmicTrifle.com
now!
|
Cosmic
Trifle have been invited to be Guests of Honour |
News Flash ...
News Flash ... News Flash ... News Flash ...
Then there was "Just Plain Folk"! A great name for a great band, but we didn't play "just" folk music and certainly not "plain" music, so a name change was required...
... but while we were going through hundreds (or possibly more!) names on a list, we performed under the name "TBFKAJPF" (The Band Formerly Known As Just Plain Folk!) with perhaps just a sly nod towards a certain diminutive American performer who has gone through more name changes than we have!
And now, after a long time, we have finally settled on a band name "Cosmic Trifle"!
We liked the name because the "Cosmic" hints at the science, science fiction and fantasy inputs to our music, and "Trifle" is both a fun and inconsequential thing, and is also a delicious dessert made of many layers, which sums up many of the aspects of the band!
In 1999 a group of friends got together with the goal of producing a
band that would be quite hard to define! Part traditional folk music, part
science fiction parodies, part folk-rock, part something else entirely ... they
succeeded!
A four-piece band with more instruments than you can shake a stick at (though admittedly including some instruments you actually play by shaking sticks at!) their first performance was only a matter of hours after their first rehearsal ... ("quick, find three songs that we each know or can learn in two hours, we're the warm up act tonight!")
The four members of Cosmic Trifle are (in no particular order) Jonathan "Zander Nyrond" Waite, Chris "The Magician" O'Shea, Rachel "The Fiddler" Shurmer and Valerie "No Nickname" Housden.
Rachel has decided that she wants to spend more time on her solo projects and so for the moment Cosmic Trifle is a three-piece though we hope that she'll be able to come along and "guest" with us from time to time!
Before Rachel leaves, we're putting the finishing touches on our first album, which will be available in February 2004.
Instruments played include:
And between the four of us, we have four guitarists, four banjo players, four recorder/whistle players and if we don't already play an instrument we'll learn it! And of course we all sing ... :-)
If you are curious, a black and white photo of the band can be found here. From left to right you can see Rachel (in a pair of dungarees that she promises not to wear on stage ever again <grin!>), Zander on vocals (wearing some sort of strange Indian suit!), Valerie on 12-string (wearing what looks like a t-shirt and some sort of trousers/leggings/jeans), and Chris on something unidentifiable (it looks a bit like banjo, but since he wasn't playing banjo at that gig, it must be the bouzouki or a six string!)
The standard line-up will have Rachel on fiddle, Valerie and Chris on guitars (six or twelve string, nylon or steel) and Zander on bass, or Valerie on banjo and Zander on bodhran, or Rachel on guitar, Chris on bouzouki, Valerie on recorder and Zander on tenterhooks <grin>. Actually it isn't fair on Zander, he writes a lot of the songs, he sings harmonies, he's learning all sorts of new instruments but his speciality is keyboards, synths and arrangements and as a mostly acoustic band we don't usually have a keyboard player ... maybe the accordion will change this! (in the meantime he's become a demon bass player!) And it isn't fair on Rachel since she's such a good fiddler we don't let her play many of the other instruments (but since she's now the owner of her own banjo we may be in big trouble!), but usually Valerie and Chris get all the fun playing every other instrument that comes to hand...
This page will be substantially enhanced when we have five minutes and a digital camera, and then sometime in 2003 we might even put up some tracks from our first album (subject to actually recording one!)
We can be contacted care of theband@cosmictrifle.com.
In the meantime, to find other bands in our strange corner of the musical
universe, start at www.filk.co.uk
Also check out Zander's Pages,
NMC the folk choir that Valerie tries
to keep under control, and one
of Chris' sites