Simon Nicol & Ric Sanders live 2003 CD

[PaulT]

I hope there's some left on Saturday... maybe I should just order online

[Andy]

I did. They arrived very promptly.

[koho (Koen)]

Ric just emailed me to say:

Hi Koen - thanks for getting this all together. I love the CD with me & Si. I think the best live CDs are when you don’t know you’re being recorded! I’ve given it a big plug in the Crop prog. Please send me your phone number so I can say thanks in real time! Love, Ric x

We aim to have available at Cropredy (via Talking Elephant):
200x Simon/Ric
150x Iain/Ad
200x Little Johnny England

Should Talking Elephant sell out by the end of Cropredy, I will definetely still have left here in NL. So no immediate worry there!

[PJayBe]

They're well worth buying.

[PaulT]

I've just ordered the Simon & Ric album

[koho (Koen)]

Tracks popped up on the US WBRS Radio - and presenter/compiler Andy Nagy wrote about it:

Founding member Simon Nicol, singer and guitarist, had had an acoustic duo off and on with original fiddler Dave Swarbrick, and there are several superb recorded testaments to that partnership. Much less known, at least for me it was a revelation, was the duo of Simon with Ric Sanders, who has played with Fairport since Swarb left, and previously had been with The Albion Band and The Soft Machine. Their set makes up the first album of the trilogy. The next is a duo with early Fairport singer Iain Matthews and Dutch singer and guitarist Ad Vanderveen (aka The Iain AdVenture!). And the final act that night was the blistering electric folk rock act Little Johnny England, who also have some direct connections with the band sometimes referred to as The Fairport Confusion! This final album is actually a double cd, covering the entirety of their two set closing performance.
All three cds are absolute treasures, recorded from the soundboard and released with full permission of the artists, who indeed wrote the liner notes for each. If you needed more than just my say-so, we fully demonstrate that, by hearing a pair of songs from each of them, finishing with an extended improvisation on the Gershwin classic “Summertime” preceded by Ralph McTell’s gorgeous ballad “The Hiring Fair.” Simon and Ric in top form, as indeed all involved are.

Just sayin'. As said, available at Cropredy (Talking Elephant) - a 2nd box is sent there this week. But also of course directly available via info@radzrecords.com … it's starting to pop up online here and there, too. I hear it eventually will be at the UK Amazon, too, but, erm, everyone earns least in that case … so rather buy direct be it from Radz Records or (and in the UK this absolutely makes more sense) Talking Elephant.

[koho (Koen)]

There's a fourth Greetings From Grolloo album following the three from last year by Simon Nicol & Ric Sanders, Iain Matthews & Ad Vanderveen and Little Johnny England live in Grolloo, The Netherlands 1 March 2003 - all three albums are highlighted here: https://spiralearth.co.uk/greetings-from-grolloo-simon-nicol-ric-sanders-iain-matthews-ad-vanderveen-little-johnny-england/

Number FOUR is a limited edition (numbered to 100) double CD by Ad Vanderveen & The O'Neils, recorded 18 December 2004, which continues the Grolloo series - but has no Fairport link this time.
Now, folk it ain't. In an ideal world, this should be a classic rock album - but it isn't an ideal world, and it will only appear as this limited edition.
The double album, housed in a fold-out digisleeve in similar artwork (continuing the series idea) to the previous three (Fairport related!) Greetings From Grolloo albums, was released at yesterday's Ad Vanderveen Trio gig at Roots aan de Zaan yesterday (my concert series). The Grolloo concerts (2003-2005) were a kind of embryonic Roots aan de Zaan (2013-and ongoing).

From Ad Vanderveen's sleevenote:
“Although I still live and feel like the best is yet to come, I’m well over the hill in terms of what is considered the typical arc of a lifetime. Reflecting on this I wondered, so where and when did the top happen? Maybe it’s just a long stretch of peaks and valleys that I travel on. But the top? Well, in terms of youthful energy crossing with a certain maturity this may have been at or around the time of this recording that was recently unearthed: Greetings From Grolloo 2004, a Christmas show I played with my long-time garage band The O’Neils.
(…) this captured us in great spirit, acoustic songs were fresh and adapted to a band-setting using a resonator guitar, the electric ones feature some wild improvisation that went beyond anything else we’ve ever done. Partly also due to a fever there was a reckless abandon, and unaware of any recording we let it all out in a unique selection of songs, ranging from intimate and folky to full blast rock’n'roll”.

Unlike the previous Grolloo albums, this 2CD is ONLY available via Radz Records and nowhere else (except a few at forthcoming Ad concerts, for as long as he has some limited stock) because of its very limited run. After the launch yesterday, about 1/3rd of the 100 copies are still available - at 22 Euro apiece plus (no matter how many are bought) 11 Euro postage (within the Netherlands, postage is 4.25).
Due to sometimes bumpy Radz Records (Yahoo-)email, the safer address is rootsaandezaan@gmail.com.
If interested, let me know a PayPal address there.

And the sound quality is fabulous.
As is the music: stellar, bordering on the astounding (I know I am biased, but, damn, were they on fire).
I don't know what they were on just before Christmas 2004, but I was there and I know Ad Vanderveen had a fever.
It made him and his band perform next level, oddly enough. To think he almost cancelled due to being sick. Thank heavens he did not. Ad Vanderveen at his electric best.

But only 35 copies remain as of today …

PS the other three are more generally available: in the UK via Talking Elephant, but also through me at Radz Records. All four Grolloo albums together (2 single CDs, 2 double CDs) cost 70 Euro plus 11 Euro postage (or 4.25 postage within NL).

[Ian Ross]

Regarding "The Hiring Fair/Summertime", the first time I heard this was when Simon and Ric played it at my wedding on 20th June1997. I know I heard them do this particular combination again just once at a later date, but can't remember when or where.
I do have a video recording  of the wedding performance. However it was early days of digital handheld video recorders , so video and audio quality is definitely "rough" . Might be interested in Youtubing it if anyone else is interested - provided the wife agrees!

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Regarding "The Hiring Fair/Summertime", the first time I heard this was when Simon and Ric played it at my wedding on 20th June1997. I know I heard them do this particular combination again just once at a later date, but can't remember when or where.
I do have a video recording  of the wedding performance. However it was early days of digital handheld video recorders , so video and audio quality is definitely "rough" . Might be interested in Youtubing it if anyone else is interested - provided the wife agrees!

They played at your wedding!!!!  

[koho (Koen)]

I understand that Ric Sanders wrote something about his and Simon's Greetings From Grolloo album, in this year's Cropredy programme booklet.
If so (it would kinda surprise me - as he did so last year, too - but Malcolm from Talking Elephant said it was mentioned there) - can anyone do me a screenshot?

I am reducing the cost, otherwise I am still stuck with these CDs when I am 80 (I grossly overestimated interest when I did a run of 700, which should have been half of that, tops). Sorry to those who bought them at full price, but they're nice as Christmas presents, too. Only the fourth and last Grolloo CD (the numbered/limited to 100 2CD) Ad Vanderveen & The O'Neils remains at full price, but of these there are only a few left.

Renewed details of all four Greetings From Grolloo albums (and a few others) are at https://rootsaandezaan.nl/nieuws/

[koho (Koen)]

Yesterday, I terminated Radz Records as a (ahem) ‘commercial entity’, by removing its Chamber of Commerce listing (as per 31 December 2025) and ending its bank account (in the last months, just about the only thing happening there were monthly bank costs).
I don’t regret making the four Greetings From Grolloo albums which materialized: I am still happy they are out there and the reviews were outstanding.
It’s just, I grossly overestimated CD appeal and thus have way (way) too much stock; generally I sold about 1/3rd of the total run of every album thus far, with the exception of the last one which was a limited run of 100 numbered copies (of these, about 20 are still available). There’s still a whole load to earn back, so if anyone wants any shiny beermats which happen to play music too, be my guest.

That’s exaggerating things a bit: these albums are so worth it, but it’s just, nobody buys CD’s anymore. They have popped up all over the world, which is nice. I simply started a CD label way past CD’s expiry date. In a perfect world where CD’s still mattered (and they do at my Don Quichote-ish end!) I would have delved in it deep, there were many plans for future releases.
Chiefly, it’s sad I don’t get to release the other Grolloo 2003-2004-2005 recordings (there could have been three further potential Greetings From Grolloo albums, by Show Of Hands and Fairport Convention), but also there were plans to do something with recordings by The Dylan Project, Swarb’s Lazarus, Whippersnapper (though a phone call with the Bulmer estate – bastards – was disheartening), plus rereleasing never-before-on-CD albums by Blowzabella, John Kirkpatrick & Sue Harris as well as pondering about an actual box set by Dutch folkrockers Fungus, and I was in touch with those I’d have to get the license from.
Also, a possible goldmine of Dutch radio broadcasts was looked into (kind of lifted the lid of), until I figured out it would cost way, way too much in the niche world that is folk. You just can’t, not these days anyway. Maybe it would have worked up until ten or so years ago.

So there we are, the complete works of Radz Records remain these four albums, all called Greetings From Grolloo:
-1CD Simon Nicol & Ric Sanders (live 1 March 2003)
-1CD Iain Matthews & Ad Vanderveen (live 1 March 2003)
-2CD Little Johnny England (live 1 March 2003)
-2CD Ad Vanderveen & The O’Neils (live 18 December 2004, 100 numbered copies)
Time therefore to dump, too, the four together cost €60 including postage worldwide.

So why not buy two of each? Joking, but musically, they are worth it: no regrets there. By the way, the Nicol & Sanders and Little Johnny England albums are also on streaming platforms for that majority out there who sadly only stream (and therefore kill music as far as I am concerned).

However the Matthews & Vanderveen album isn’t available that way, and (because of the limited/numbered/etc nature to begin with) neither is the Vanderveen O’Neils one.

In total almost 7 hours of music on 6 discs. Bargain!

Interested? rootsaandezaan@gmail.com

[Will S]

Sorry to hear that Koen.  That is sad.  And many of those other projcts you mention sound so interesting too.  I have enjoyed the 3 first Greetings from Grolloo albums which I jumped right on (I too am one of the few who still buy CDs).

Is there any mileage in putting out some of the other recordings via a platform like Bandcamp, as downloads only to save on manufacturing costs, but still making them available to those like me who'd like to hear them?  Just a thought.

[koho (Koen)]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion but I'll leave that stuff up to others. To sort out that hassle takes energy en determination - and my record mogul (ha!) aspirations have just totally deflated into oblivion. And my knowledge and especially interest into streaming is basically zero. If anyone would like to do stuff like this (legally) ... yes, I do sit on a few recordings. But me, I tried, and merely sit back and hope to maybe recoop some of the loss of releasing (beautiful!!) albums.

[Will S]

Understood. I know you had some contact with Talking Elephant Records as UK distributors.  Would they be interested in doing something like that?  Again just a thought, and maybe you've been too badly burned to even want to think about that.

[koho (Koen)]

We\ve been in touch about that (an a while ago I have chatted to Peggy on the phone about the gorgeous Vlissingen NL 1998 recording, but it remains to be seen how viable it is for TE to tackle this stuff … sure he's got a bigger chance than me (locked away in The Netherlands) but still we're talking niche stuff in a world where most seem to prefer the easy option of streaming.