Associations
Beowulf
Take educated acoustic players who also happen to play electric instruments. Add a desire to play traditional music in a style relevant to today... Beowulf pushed the boundaries and put up backs like no other band. Too loud by half, or the next great thing... even history cannot judge because the same arguments go on still when anyone plugs an instrument into an amplifier within the folk context.
Much of the work Beowulf did remains in the acoustic repertoire of False Knight and will, one day, return.
Band Of No Hope
Essentially a collaboration, Band of No Hope is the corporate name of all the variants of Chielidh band fronted by John & Anne Butterworth. Musically, this is a group of friends catching up on gossip and learning the news. For all that, it is always solid and directed to give pleasure to the dancer. Band of No Hope it may be - but always a pleasant surprise.
Revolting Peasants
An occasional band - when Karim McLeod comes back from Germany. Similar philosophy, different tone colours.
Brownhill Folk Club
John & Anne set up the Brownhill to allow musicians to entertain musicians - with an audience present. The philosophy was simple, if you play or sing, come, you can play and sing with them. Essentially, this was the start of open mike. You will not be belittled, you will (hopefully) be appreciated by your peers, you can try out new or atypical music, oh, and if you don't sing, they will!
The Folk Club ran for seven years and provided a revolving door and reality check for many, many serious and professional musicians who turned up regularly purely for the pleasure of playing. Of course, music like this is ephemeral, there are few quality recordings, no history of the entire period. John & Anne are sure that something lives in the memory of our audience though.
This endeavour also ended with the arrival of their children!