Artists
Damien Barber has been a professional folk singer since leaving college in 1989. Having spent 11 years as a solo artist he formed The Demon Barber Roadshow in 2000 gaining major recognition for their original and imaginative approach to traditional music, song and dance.
"Damien Barber's sound, style and presence combine the best of Peter Bellamy and Nic Jones" Dirty Linen USA
The Demon Barbers
Best Live Act - BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2009
Youthful, enthralling, charismatic, and with bags of attitude, The Demon Barbers combine solid traditional acoustic instruments and songs with the added oomph of a superbly tight rhythm section, making a unique and captivating sound. Energetic fiddle and passionate, distinctive vocals 'with driven punchy tunes and songs, drum 'n' bass grooves, the odd touch of ska and an ever present feel that this lot know how to party' result in 'one of the most exciting acts around. check them out....' fRoots
Main thing it did for him was to reinforce his confidence in what he was doing. We are going through the same process and journey. He doesn’t feel so weird now!
Not sure what we were trying to do – it was unclear what we were exploring or what the purpose of the day was. The focus seems to be on education, which he does a lot of as part of the roadshow. Do after school clubs, week long projects, latch on to a folk festival and train kids and then they become part of the performance, runs a summer school. It’s a matter of what we want.
Didn’t necessarily give ideas for ways of working as they are already doing it. Was comfortable with what we did because doing it for the past year.
It reinforced that he wants to work outside the folk scene where there is more enthusiasm. Folk scene is dusty. It was great to see people excited about what he’s been doing and loved all his life. Good to meet people and for networking.
Most successful elements of the day was teaching Morris dancing and everyone jumping in. Day was good fun and enjoyed when we broke off in groups and teaching people practical things. People didn’t care even if they were not confident. Liked the collaborative element. Practical is a good way to bond, especially when you do something silly together.
Fascinated by way Lucy tagged on to MN archive material, but confused as to why she went to Thaxted because they are the proud flagbearers of male Morris dancing.
What didn’t work well was there wasn’t enough time to think about the archive in terms of formulating our ideas in relation to the material. There was the right amount of stuff, but time allocation was a little off. We should have had a brief at the start for when we broke off into groups. We were initially looking at things with no purpose.
