Dogwatch are folk duo John (that's me) & Joy Rennie. We only found
out about folk music relatively late in our lives but loved it
so much we quickly took early retirement so we could do more of
it.
I play English concertina, Joy plays Melodeons, recorders and
digital piano (affectionately known as "The Beast" - the piano,
not Joy!!). As the logo suggests, we play tunes and sing songs
about subjects both at sea and on dry land. Some of these are
traditional, some are made up of wonderful poetry set to music
by Joy and some are all our own.
Joy and I were first introduced to the folk world in the mid nineties
(the nineteen nineties, not our nineties), when we were taken
to Ron Angel's club at The Sun in Stockton. After a period of
being first silent audience and then chorus-singing audience,
we began doing floor spots individually - I'd never sung since
I was a kid but I was bullied into it by Ken Wilson when we started
going to the Wilsons' club at The Welly in Wolviston. Eventually,
we started performing together (if you'll pardon the expression)
at the start of the new millennium and since then, we've appeared
at various festivals, including Appingedam in Holland in 2007,
and have done guest spots at lots of folk clubs.
Joy's just got a new C/F melodeon
to go with her original D/G model. It's better for singing to
so we've been doing little else since she got it but working up
new song arrangements. We absolutely love it and it was definitely
worth waiting the nine months it took to get it from Italy.
Joy also sings with a popular five
part female group called "The Raffleites" who sing some lovely
songs with very pleasing multi part harmonies. Until the end of
2007, I also sang with "The Endeavour Shanty Men", who've appeared
at various festivals in this country as well as in Portugal, Holland,
Norway and Germany. I've now retired from the Endeavours so I'll
have more time for other things. We're both members of recently
formed "The Otterby Band" (say it quickly to get the true meaning
of the name) who've had a number of folk club bookings and performed
at Saltburn Festival for the first time in 2006. As well as all
that, we both play for a border morris dancing side called "Locos
in Motion", who're also in great demand.