Rochester Sweeps Festival 2009

This years Sweeps saw a massive Wolf's Head and Vixen side take to the streets for what is our local big Folk Festival.

Friday 1 May:
After the gathering of the clans, sunrise over Blue Bell Hill revealed it was going to be a beautiful sunny start to this years Sweeps.

The Jack-in-the-Green ceremony kicked off by Motley at 5.32 and during the following turns, Wolf's Head and Vixen (with their new recruits and Sweeps virgins) turned in three sets of dances. All to the beat of the new band line up, which now features a trio of Big Drums, Guitar and Hurdy Gurdy among our regular array of noisy neighbours from hell.

As per tradition we got back to the Good Intent pub at about 6.45am for the annual grand breakfast, which it has to be said Karen and Dal do us proud with every year.
Everyone needs some good grub after being up since 3.30ish and its always fun to be in the pub with pint in hand before 7am. The May breakfast is a magic time in the side calendar and is where it turns into us and them as far as the real world goes.

After the feeding frenzy died down we stepped outside into a bright sunny John Street to hold up various postmen and Argos lorries, by dancing in the narrow street. Which was nice of us.

By 8.30 while everyone was mellowed out and lured into a false sense of security, John ye Bagman brought out his first time attempt at home grown Chilli Vodka for a tasting session. Made with his own home grown chillis and not, as he pointed out, his own home grown vodka. Some interesting reactions from the victims... overall, Vixen showed themselves to be the most fireproof, although the pub table will need a new coat of varnish.

After this, the conversation went downhill with a surreal discussion of Corinnas Magic dancing pants was also captured on video for posterity (posteriority?) and can be found on the Youtube playlist link below. However, the video of Monkeyboy playing with the naughty promo beer mats has been deemed not for family consumption!!!

All in all, a fine start to the Festival.

Saturday 2 May:
The side assembled on another sunny day to greet probably the biggest crowds Sweeps has seen fo several years with its new Luggage in tow. Those with a long memory and a Terry Pratchett fixation will recall our original Luggage which used to accompany us at Sweeps. This new style Luggage given to us by local artist of renown, Porlie, proved a more difficult beast to tame and ended up being carried coffin style up the High Street after it refused to walk. It still proved to be a head turner. Repeatedly asked who was inside we claimed it to be the Bishop of Rochester. Of course that was totally untrue and we actually have no idea who it might have been...

Dance venues included our reclaimed spot at the Star Hill end of the High St which went down well, especially the dance off into the red phone box... We'd have got everyone inside, but it was already full of students... Big Chris somehow got evangelised by born agains while we were here, they gave him a leaflet and in return they got one of our new shiney colour photo ones. Which will prove more powerful? We'll have to wait and see...

We also took in Expectations the War Memorial and a traditional Dance of the Fire Irons at the Man of Kent in John Street, unfortunately Rob and Heather missed that one as they were crashed out upstairs!

The end of the day saw us at the Good Intent for food, beer and some dances on the boards in the garden. There was also some first aid for bad backs being dished out by Lisa sitting on various members of Wolf's Head. The subsequent noises they made ranged from cracking and groaning to standing on a set of dead bagpipes. All very strange indeed...


Sunday 3 May:
Because Sweeps represents how our local council tax is being spent, the side take the opportunity to have a day off and see how the other half lives, those of us not doing stints with other sides that is. Masochists!

Monday 4 May

the Saturday of Sweeps, traditionally for us is the day for things to go awry while going on to dance a blinder on the Monday. The fact that we did so very well led to suspicians of witchcraft in our midst... was this to be a reversal of circumstance? No frankly, we did ourselves even prouder. The band played well, Wolf's Head performed more than a few 8 man sets PLUS we managed to get the NEW Wolf's Head dance out. Yes, thats right, we do invent some now and then. 'Crafty's Dance' is the exceptionally fast 3 man dance of which we do have video footage.


Contrary to what many may think, we don't have that many incidents of crushed fingers, but this years was a doozy. Monkeyboy sought relief by sticking his mangled fingers into his pint of lager, much to the amusement of the attending St John Ambulance team. Especially as the pint rapidly turned into something resembling what might be found in the path lab at Medway Hospital... "Shall I drink it?" qouth the Monkey. "He can if wants, its all his own" said the unfazed St John's man!

While we were still dancing at Expectations, the new Wolf's Head and Vixen Big Band kept noticing a rogue wailing noise in the mix, this turned out not to be a ghost chorus, or even Jon's Hurdy Gurdy, but the posse of fire engines on their way to the burning Casino Rooms.

The procession was a small affair this year sidewise, which was a bit of a shame for the crowds. This years effort was notable for Corinna forthrightly giving a suprised looking Mayor on his podium her views on the closure of St Peter Infants school in Rochester as we marched past. This local campaign enjoys the support of many within the side and had been actively making its presence felt all weekend.

and so we all ended up back at the Good Intent to muse on the weekends doings, drink beer, de-black, say our goodbyes and watch the sun go down, after which Dal lit the bonfire and burnt his Christmas tree along with several onlookers in the process!

A brilliant Sweeps? No, it was far better than that and arguably the best we have ever done and this blog will probably end up being edited as new tales come into the newsdesk. Thankfully we have bags of photo and video evidence to back up what a weekend it was, and which we have now collated from various online sources;

The full Youtube Sweeps 2009 playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AE9F34A6CF32CABC

our Flickr Group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/704931@N25/

There is even a Wolf's Head and Vixen Morris Group on Facebook with even more photos.

Our thanks go to all the contributers, and we always welcome more.


Our usual thanks go to Karen and Dal of the Good Intent, John Street Rochester for making us so welcome, not just at Sweeps, but at least two days a week throughout the year.

Ghouls on Film part 2

Yep, here is the film...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV6kXCbgtaM

Well, what a pleasant suprise!

Came across a Wolf's Head and Vixen Morris namecheck by fantasy author Tanith Lee in the 2005 anthology 'Emerald Magic: Great Tales of Irish Fantasy'

Read a snatch of the story, Magic, Mystery, Foxes, Music, Human-Animal Metamorphosis, it has it all...

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QnvIUmYXQGsC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=Wolf

Ghouls on Film!

The vanity police have been alerted, after we allowed a film crew into a practice last night.

A group of students from Ravensbourne College making a 20 minute film as part of their course, spent the evening filming us dancing and conducting a few interviews. It was a good evenings work, and we were slightly less chaotic than usual, but we still pity the poor soul who is going to have to edit the stuff!

The students had been hoping to catch us in full kit, but due to short notice not many of us knew they were coming!

Just in on the WHandV newsdesk...

New Tour dates imminent. We have a few irons in the fire for 2009 and are almost ready to confirm a London Tour, Village Fete, a Wedding and Whitstable Oyster Festival. More dates to come.A quick google has turned up some new old pictures of the Side dancing at the Sarum Morris 2002 Ale (plus one of Vixen at St Pauls Cathedral) in the Sarum Morris gallery (2002-3 album); http://picasaweb.google.com/sarum.morris

and finally...Wolf's Head Chris, a longtime Medway resident, has just discovered why no-one leaves their parked cars unattended for long periods in Canal Road Strood: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3201/3287427933_88508c3718.jpg?v=0 Not in early spring anyway... The words "up to the wingmirrors" were mentioned!

Morris at the Movies

A Morris Movie has been made, a mockumentary called 'Morris: A Life with Bells On' and featuring Derek Jacobi no less, and is due for release this year; subject to getting a distribution deal; http://www.morrismovie.com/

Definitely a right send up of the arcane world of Morris politics and to our mind a complete giggle. We hope it will become to the Morris scene what the 'Bad News Tour' or 'Spinal Tap' is to Rock musicians.
Who knows in its wake, maybe more Morris will start to feature on the big screen. For ourselves, we'll be holding out for offers from Ken Loach, obscure art house luminaries or failing that, any tea boy who directs straight to video Italian Zombie Movies...

Some musings for those cold January nights...

No Plough Monday or Apple Wassailing duties to report on in this usually slack month, so a quick rummage through the WHandV archives seemed in order. Various 'new' old pictures turned up, notably some snaps of the Luggage which used to accompany Wolf's Head and Vixen on tour in the early days.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=53568743&albumID=2771543&imageID=45645458

The Luggage was almost as well known as the Side at the time, and worthy of its own picture album. We still get asked of its whereabouts, and can reveal that it now lives happily in Whitby with its owner, Russ.

More new pictures can be found at our Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/wolfsheadandvixen