Americana Themed Hoe Down at The Crows Nest

Last night saw a mass Hoe Down at the Crow's Nest at Morfa Bay Adventure, Pendine raising money for Canolfan Plant Sir Gar/Carmarthenhsire Children's Centre, Glangwili Hospital

The Two Fat Cyclists accompanied by Uncle Lyndon (chief harmonizing warbler and lead maestro) and Seimon (The Tin Shed Experience, Laugharne) on drums. A hundred guests were entertained to an extravanganza of Americana and old time music

All served up with Kylie Jones' Hot-dogs, Chilli & Rice, homemade Southern States Cornbread and a stall selling high end cupcakes.

The day started fairly early with a 2pm warm-up called for by Uncle Lyndon to have a run through and to `tighten things up a bit`.

A downside to the early start was that it involved an early taste of the electric lemonade (Cider). Aunty Fran wanted to take it slowly and so eased herself into things by going down the Carling Black Label route.

First run through of the set showed that it still needed a bit of work and we were uncertain how some of the songs would work and without Seimon on hand till the actual start time of 6.30pm we would as Uncle

Lyndon `Jesse Duke`would say `have to wing it`

We took a break got a few more Stella Cidre's into us and awaited our guests arrival.

At 6.30pm Andy called for 3 crowd warm up songs which became 6 and things were underway. Seimon turned up half way through

about song number 4 and jumped on and we were off.

Food went down well with all and we cranked it up for the second set with a number of Kings of Leon hits and real old timey songs.

A round of party games including `Wacky Races` was held midway through the evening then the third set in which we repeated a number of songs for the ever changing crowd.

By Midnight a number of inebriated individuals were up and dancing before crashing and burning.

The band along with a number of its groupies sat down to cold chilli and rice after midnight and several of us retired to Sue and Andy's for Coffee and Cupcakes before bed at 1am.

Around £350 raised for the charity with the promise of some future fund raising events to come.

Thanks to all for supporting us and the Charity.

Phil `Olde Timey Pork Pie` Jenkins

Way Down South (Pencoed actually) With Uncle Lyndon aka The Cornelly Hillbilly and the Two Fat Cyclists

Yesterday started with a wet and windy training ride for the Two Fat Cyclists (TFC) to Llanstephan and back to Carmarthen and saw the chunky duo out for a second day on the trott with an earlier Friday night spin out in Pendine and Laugharne. It also marks a turning point in the training regime and a change in commitment with positive noises being made about the big man's plans for a Chicago to New York event next March to coincide with the Six Nations competition.
(Diet Commitment From Andy)
The idea at present is that we fly out to the windy city take in a Wales match at a Welsh bar, cycle to New York for the following weeks encounter against the French with a couple or three gigs along the way and taking in places with Welsh links etc.
With potential gigs enroute and with the upcoming Charity Americana event at the Tin Shed in Laugharne on July 9th we've called in the Big Gun, Spam Dagger chief warbler and Harmonizing Guru - Uncle Lyndon, who, after an initial practice last weekend is really up for it, being as he is absolutley steeped in old timey music.

After our cycle yesterday we jumped into the VW and headed up the M4 for deepest darkest Pencoed for another practice with our new band leader.

We found him in fine fettle as can be seen in the above photograph. we had a great practice of our new (cover) material and Andy has narrowed the set down to `just the 40 songs`.

Another practice this week hopefully and a couple of rides will see both Harmonies and cycle performances improve further before our first musical outing of the new line up in two weeks time.

Phil (formely a Pork Pie) Jenkins