Video 3 showing my 38-key vintage Dutch Street Organ, built by Catri Opdam from Zwolle, Holland, the town having a famous tower De Toren after which this organ was named.

The organ came to England in the early 1970s, and I purchased it in 2001. After completing a full restoration on the organ during 2002/3 I built the new display trailer, and since then have been taking the organ out to enliven many public and private events across the English Midlands and Wales regions.

For more information please see my website www.fairgroundorgan.com (update coming soon)

Video filmed during a very cold day in January 2009.

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Video 2, showing period cardboard music being played on my 38-key vintage Dutch Street Organ, built by Catri Opdam from Zwolle, Holland, the town having a famous tower De Toren after which this organ was named.

The organ came to England in the early 1970s, and I purchased it in 2001. After completing a full restoration on the organ during 2002/3 I built the new display trailer, and since then have been taking the organ out to enliven many public and private events across the English Midlands and Wales regions.

For more information please see my website www.fairgroundorgan.com (update coming soon)

Video filmed during a very cold day in January 2009.

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Video 1 showing my 38-key vintage Dutch Street Organ, built by Catri Opdam from Zwolle, Holland, the town having a famous tower De Toren after which this organ was named.

The organ came to England in the early 1970s, and I purchased it in 2001. After completing a full restoration on the organ during 2002/3 I built the new display trailer, and since then have been taking the organ out to enliven many public and private events across the English Midlands and Wales regions.

For more information please see my website www.fairgroundorgan.com (update coming soon)

Video filmed during a very cold January 2009.

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Restoration nearling completion, this video shows my 1928 Morris Super Sports Tourer Vintage Motor Car.

I love driving the car so much that I've started using her as my everyday vehicle - even shopping at Tesco becomes an enjoyable experience when you turn up in this car!

I'm looking for opportunities to hire out the car for special events such as weddings or for period filming (action cars), so if you have a need for this immaculately restored 4-seater touring sports car around middle England or Wales, please get in touch by emailing hire[at]fairgroundorgan[dot]co m

Many thanks to Richards Bros of Cardiff for the superb job re-spoking my wire wheels! This family firm has been going since 1937, and are renowned worldwide for manufacturing and restoring veteran, vintage and classic wire wheels... www.richards-bros.com

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My current car restoration project...

From 1933 to 1936, Raleigh of Nottingham, the world-famous bicycle and motorcycle manufacturer, branched into car production. Named the Safety Seven, 3000 economical 3-wheel cars were produced using a 742cc air-cooled V-Twin engine and gearbox made by Sturmey Archer. After 1936 the design was taken over by Tom Williams and formed into the Reliant, which continued making 3-wheel cars and vans until the late 1990s.

Only a handful of these original Raleigh cars now survive, but my example is believed to be totally unique. It is a 4-wheeler put together in the period as a race/trials car. The chassis is a one-off constructed from angle iron, two pieces welded together for those lengths that needed to be of box section, and the steel body supported by a wooden frame wraps completely underneath for aero efficiency. Both engine and gearbox remain in standard form, but have slightly tuned for performance and sit much further forward than on the production car, hence the remote gearchange linkage. The standard diff has been locked and modified to act as just a 90 degree drive gearbox sited just behind the cockpit and uses a single sprocket chain-drive to the solid rear axle, this being mounted using quarter-elliptic springs to maintain constant chain tension.

The car had been laid up in a barn for many years in the Chepstow area. An enthusiast is known to have acquired it and commenced restoration work during the 1980s, but he passed away before finishing. The car was advertised in a local newspaper in the mid 1990s and bought by a vintage car and motorcycle collector in Abergavenny. He completed some further work, but not yet to the point of having it running, and the car was mothballed for the next ten years in the back of his garage. I purchased the car in early 2009, and after wiring and refurbishing the engine have brought it back to life to the point shown in this video. Im presently completing work on the clutch and drive train, so hopefully it should soon be drivable (watch this space). Some cosmetic work (paint, seats, dashboard etc) should then complete this little fun car.

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Restoration now complete, this video shows my 1928 Morris Super Sports Tourer Vintage Motor Car at its first official VSCC event in Oulton Park, Cheshire, on 16th May 2009.

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Street Entertaining with Piano Accordion in the beautiful Shropshire town of Church Stretton (England) as part of the Summerfest 2009 event, seen here alongside my vintage car, a 1928 Morris Garages 'Super Sports'.

Meanwhile lots of other events and attractions were dotted throughout the town, including two of my mechanical organs. We were all rather busy with entertaining to do much filming on the day, but my father did capture a few minutes of my accordion playing which I've compiled into this video.

The accordion I'm playing is an Italian Crucianelli 120-bass; as well the lovely traditional musette sound from the internal hand-made reeds, now has a brand new MIDI and Mic system fitted. Used here with an amplifer just to give me some extra volume for street playing, I can also use the MIDI output signal to give hundreds of different sounds synthesised in real time with an electronic expander, or even play real pipes and percussion on a full size mechanical concert organ - please see my other videos!


Pieces played here were as follows...

Reine de Musette
Under the Bridges of Paris
Down on Jollity Farm
Nellie the Elephant
Goodnight Sweetheart
Beer Barrel Polka
Daisy Daisy
The Miner's Dream of Home

Hope you enjoy listening as much as I do playing!

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Street Entertaining with Piano Accordion in the beautiful Cathedral City of Hereford (England) at a Victorian Christmas Street Market.

I'm quite used to busking with automatic street organs (mechanical organs being my main hobby), but playing the accordion in this situation is still quite new! Indeed it's only two and a bit years since I first picked up an accordion (bought an old one at a car boot sale!), or any keyboard instrument for that matter, and being completely self-taught practice I had to fit around a busy university study schedule.

Anyway, despite the bitterly cold temperatures all day, I gave it my best shot, and have edited together this video from footage taken by my father for you all to enjoy in the warm comfort of indoors!

I've not long had this particular accordion (a couple of weeks), which is a beautiful Crucianelli 120-bass Italian Piano Accordion, this being the first time out. As well the lovely traditional musette sound from the internal reeds in the usual way, the instrument now has a brand new MIDI system fitted, which through use of a Roland accordion expander enables hundreds of sounds to be synthesised in real time to add great variety to the music produced. One can also turn off the actual treble and/or bass reeds to have purely electronic sounds for melody, chords or bass, or naturally use as a traditional acoustic instrument with no electronics at all, so the possibilities are endless. (see my other videos for one giving a quick demo of the electronics on this accordion).

Note the mains electricity to power my accordion electronics, MIDI expander and amplifier was all coming from a quite remarkable 'Powerchest' unit, housed in the rugged aluminium flight case to the left me. These Powerchest devices, usually made in more domestic 'black box' enclosures, are made for the domestic market to ensure continuity of supply to all sorts of appliances around the home in the event of power cuts, faults or low voltage periods, though in this instance they are brilliant for using standard studio audio equipment for busking in the street in stand-alone form (the one unit lasted me all day!). For more info emails sales[at]powerchest[dot]com

The order of pieces I play on this video is as follows...

Gold & Silver Waltz (Franz Lehar) [Duet with Street Organ]

Gold & Silver [Accordion only] -- though this was more like 'Cold & Shivering Waltz'!!!

Serenade No. 13 (Carl Frei, you'd have to be a Dutch Street Organ fan to know this!)

The Birdie Song (aka 'The Chicken Dance' in the US)

How much is that Doggy in the Window

Under the Bridges of Paris

Oh Susanna

Santa Claus is Coming to Town (nice dance moves there by my stand-in assistant!)

Lara's Theme

Swannee River

Camptown Races

Memory (from 'Cats')

Hope you enjoy listening as much as I do playing!

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Filmed at the Twinwoods Mechanical organ Festival 2008, this video shows me playing two accordions at once with the aid of a midi link

The accordion I'm wearing and playing is a 120 bass Crucianelli which in addition to its beautifully handmade musette tuned reeds, also has a midi output. Connecting this output to Chris Does Magic Accordion, an amazing self-playing instrument made by organ builder Alan Pell, I'm thus able to play a duet with myself in real time - cool or what!

Here you'll hear a quick test rendition of Serenade No. 13 by Carl Frei - look at my other accordion videos and you can hear the same piece played on just one accordion, plus more videos featuring this midi accordion in action.

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A 50-keyless Fairground Organ (rebuilt by myself) playing 'The Can Can' at a local village show and car boot sale.

The instrument is still a working progress in so much as the façade I've been making isn't yet fitted and the refurbished display lorry is needing a respray, plus there are a few tweaks to the pipework once the façade is fitted. So no silly comments please about the lack of façade or tuning until (a) I've finished the project and (b) you've heard it in person! The sound quality on YouTube simply can't give full justice to the wide dynamic range of a large mechanical organ.

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Interested in mechanical organs? Take a look at the iMOD Forum for photos, events, news and views:

http://www.fairgroundorgan.com /forum
****************************** ******

This organ uses the standard 48 Gavioli scale, i.e. 22/12/8, with a couple of extra registers I've been able to fit in and add the existing old music library accordingly. The 210 pipes are spread as follows...

Melody (22 notes): 2x Stopped Flute, 2x Violin*, 1x Trumpet**, also 20-note Glockenspiel***

Accompaniment (12 notes): Stopped Flute, Open Flute, Doppelflute*, Cello*, Trumpet**

Bass (8 notes): Stopped Flute, Octave Doppelflute Helpers, 2x Stopped Flute (celeste and octave apart to imitate cello)*, Bass Trombone**

* = String Register
** = Forte Register

The registers also perform percussion note changeovers to broaden the musical range of the organ.

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A 50-keyless Fairground Organ (rebuilt by myself) playing a Rhumba called "A Honolulu" on traditional perforated cardboard also made by me. This pneumatically controls 210 pipes and various percussion instruments to mechanically and fully automatically play.

The instrument is still a working progress in so much as I'm presently constructing a façade and am yet to paint the refurbished display lorry, plus there are a few tweaks to the pipework once the façade is fitted. So no silly comments please about the lack of façade or tuning until (a) I've finished the project and (b) you've heard it in person! The sound quality on YouTube simply can't give full justice to the wide dynamic range of a large mechanical organ.

****************************** ******
Interested in mechanical organs? Take a look at the iMOD Forum for photos, events, news and views:

http://www.fairgroundorgan.com /forum
****************************** ******

This organ uses the standard 48 Gavioli scale, i.e. 22/12/8, with a couple of extra registers I've been able to fit in and add the existing old music library accordingly. The 210 pipes are spread as follows...

Melody (22 notes): 2x Stopped Flute, 2x Violin*, 1x Trumpet**, also 20-note Glockenspiel***

Accompaniment (12 notes): Stopped Flute, Open Flute, Doppelflute*, Cello*, Trumpet**

Bass (8 notes): Stopped Flute, Octave Doppelflute Helpers, 2x Stopped Flute (celeste and octave apart to imitate cello)*, Bass Trombone**

* = String Register
** = Forte Register

The registers also perform percussion note changeovers to broaden the musical range of the organ.

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A 50-keyless Fairground Organ (rebuilt by myself) playing from traditional perforated cardboard music which pneumatically controls 210 pipes and various percussion instruments to mechanically and fully automatically play. The music performed in this video is a selection from "The Count of Luxemburg" which was an operetta composed by Franz Léhar in the early 20th century.

The instrument is still a working progress in so much as I'm presently constructing a façade and am yet to paint the refurbished display lorry, plus there are a few tweaks to the pipework once the façade is fitted. So no silly comments please about the lack of façade or tuning until (a) I've finished the project and (b) you've heard it in person! The sound quality on YouTube simply can't give full justice to the wide dynamic range of a large mechanical organ.

Interested in mechanical organs? Take a look at the iMOD Forum for photos, events, news and views:

http://www.fairgroundorgan.com /forum

This organ uses the standard 48 Gavioli scale, i.e. 22/12/8, with a couple of extra registers I've been able to fit in and add the existing old music library accordingly. The 210 pipes are spread as follows...

Melody (22 notes): 2x Stopped Flute, 2x Violin*, 1x Trumpet**, also 20-note Glockenspiel***

Accompaniment (12 notes): Stopped Flute, Open Flute, Doppelflute*, Cello*, Trumpet**

Bass (8 notes): Stopped Flute, Octave Doppelflute Helpers, 2x Stopped Flute (celeste and octave apart to imitate cello)*, Bass Trombone**

* = String Register
** = Forte Register

The registers also perform percussion note changeovers to broaden the musical range of the organ.

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