Minerva's Tower

Back at our favourite castle for some medieval awesomeness!

What's all this then? Dylan testing out our new home studio step-up!

It's shaping up to be a busy year already for Minerva's Tower! (By recent standards at least!) Here's where you can see us in 2017:
4 March - private function
21 March - Medieval Tavern Night, Bolton Castle
30 April - Beltane at Thornborough Henge
7-10 September - Medieval Music in the Dales, Bolton Castle
There are also distant rustlings of paper, plinkings of strings, whisperings of ...new songs?? Could new original material be in the works??
Will we see you at any gigs? What music would you like to hear us play? :)

Researching new repertoire for Medieval Music in the Dales!

Guess who's back!! :D
After a much-too-long break due to the demands of work and study (and I hear there was also the matter of a small thing that begins with w and ends in edding...) Minerva's Tower return once again to create loud music-like sounds for captive audiences!!
- Saturday 25 June at Brigantes Tribal Student Hafla in York
- 2-4 September, Medieval Music in the Dales at Bolton Castle (times tbc)
We also hope to subject the poor citizens of York to some busking soon and will let you know times and days when that is organised!!

Competition time!

10 internet points for the first person to guess what song Alana is playing!

Hint: It happens twice a year and has an epic hurdy riff ;)

BUSKING IN YORK
Anyone in York tomorrow (UK, not the one near Perth - sorry) should definitely have a wander around town looking for some strange buskers. They were out this afternoon, and they were getting some really strange looks...
Also some people who actually recognised the hurdy gurdy, and a lovely lady who bought us hot chocolates from the nearby $tarbucks - much appreciated out in the cold!

We'll be out around town from midday or thereabouts. Come say hi!

A delicate operation.
We're back! Although the climate here in England is necessitating some slightly extreme instrument maintenance. Here Dylan is correcting the fit of the hurdy gurdy keys to prevent them from sticking. Hopefully the fiddly work will be worth it and Minerva's Tower will be able to take to the packed Christmas-time streets of York for some festive busking once the university semester has finished.

Recorder and Early Music Society of WA Medieval Night
July 19th, 7:30pm to 11pm
Progress Hall, PCYC, Paget St HILTON
BYO Supper plate to share
Dress in keeping with the period

$10 REMSWA members & Conc., $20 Non-members
Bookings essential - 0422 946 346 or [email protected]

Minerva's Tower will be there playing a couple of our own tunes and helping out with the dance music (and almost certainly dancing), alongside Trio Grosso, Psallite, Duncan Gardiner, the Society for Creative Anachronism and others.

(Apologies for the late notice! We only just received confirmation of our spot in the schedule! - Dylan)

Perth Medieval Fayre 2014

Long Overdue Update

First of all, thank you to everyone who came to see us at the Perth Medieval Fayre, and extra thanks to all of you who bought Diluculum! We made Diluculum for a variety of reasons, chief among them being that we wanted to share our love of music with people who hadn’t seen us live. I dare say this was achieved, not by us, but by the lovely people who bought a copy for themselves and then came back for more to send to far-flung relatives and friends – that is how the fire spreads. Thank you! We have another 20 or so copies available if you can think of anyone who might like to hear us.

We’ve had a busy 2014 already, and it’s just about to get hectic. We started the year with a trip to New Zealand with our good friends Nancy and Adamo, who you may have seen dancing or playing accordion with us, respectively. We drove around the North Island for a few days seeing beautiful countryside, fantastic caves and maybe one or two Lord of The Rings locations… then the rental car broke down. We eventually made it to Canterbury Fair, a week-long medieval re-enactment event near Christchurch, where we played music, sung songs, made new friends, found old friends and had an all-round excellent time.

Alana’s attempts to break into British academia are going well. Only in the last few weeks have we decided that as of this September, Alana will be a student at York University studying a Masters of Medieval Studies. Among other things, this means we have an excuse to go to Castlefest again this year! We will be saying good bye to Australia and heading to a colder part of the world on July 28th.

This isn’t the last you’ll see of Minerva’s Tower! We will continue making music in England, and we’re hoping to do a lot of inspiration-sharing and collaboration with the (much larger...) European medieval alternative music scene. Make sure you keep an eye on Facebook and the blog for news and info about shows!

- Dylan

The Kalamunda Agricultural Show is on at the moment, and if you were there tonight you may have heard some rhythm coming from outside the entrance gate on your way out :P
I played for around 15-20 minutes before I got a surprisingly polite "move along" from the security guard - which apparently deserved a small round of applause from the people waiting around. Other reactions included a lot of smiles, several children staring and one guy asking if I was the guy from the Perth Medieval Fayre.
Good fun!

The Kalamunda Show closes on Saturday night, fireworks at 8:30pm.

- Dylan :)