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MuleFreedom

mulefreedom

About Me

Mule Freedom is the splendid empire of Gerry Ranson. Conceived as a club night at the late and very lamented Weavers Arms in Newington Green, North London, it has gone on to encompass journalism, DJing, live music promotion, folk song collection, artist management (Babycorn, Goldwing, Florida, Onions), album cover design, a website and a record label (Stovepony). He specialises in critique, advice, dogma, lecturing, ranting, fawning, droning, backslapping, gladhanding and derision in the field of folk, country, rock, folk rock, country rock, pub rock, psych rock, prog rock, Southern rock, blues rock, garage rock, arena rock, prog folk, psych folk, acid folk, arena folk, acid rock, garage folk, gypsy folk, gypsy punk, trad folk, trad rock, trad punk,and last but by no means least, NWOBHM. He has written for Country Music International, Troubadour, Artrocker, Bucketull of Brains and can currently be found holding forth in the pages of Rock'n'Reel magazine.

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

Fans of hares, Naxos and Doug Sahm. And Steve Zodiac from Vardis.

Music:

Agitation Free, Allmans, Atomic Rooster, Amon Duul 2, Albion Band, Axes Of Evil, Amazing Blondel, ABC, Airplane, Ash Ra Tempel, The Alan Bown, Ann Briggs, Black Widow, Budgie, Brinsleys, Broughtons, Butterfields, BOC, Can, Celibate Rifles, Count Bishops, Caravan, Carthy, Clover, Comus, Cluster, Shirley Collins, Cope, Centro-matic, Dr Feelgood, Sandy Denny, Dexateens, Dirty Sweet, Diamond Head, Ducks Deluxe, Died Pretty, Espers, Elevators, Freddie Fender, Fairport, Fotheringay, John Fahey, Fuchsia, Grateful Dead, Groundhogs, Gentle Giant, Giant Beans, Gourds, Guru Guru, Harmonia, Hawkwind, High Tide, Hoodoo Gurus, Francoise Hardy, The Human Beast, Hammersmith Gorillas, Haggard, Ides Of March, Incredible String Band, Imps Of The Perverse, Johnstons, Kaleidoscope, Kak, King Creosote, Kiss, Lightning Raiders, Lighthouse Keepers, Loop, Los Chicos, Man, Moby Grape, Mad River, Magna Carta, Mellow Candle, Mighty Baby, Mr Fox, Motors, New Riders, Laura Nyro, Old 97s, Onions, Poco, Pirates, Pictish Trail, Pink Floyd, Pentangle, Pink Fairies, QMS, Quintessence, Ali Roberts, Radio Birdman, Rush, Rose Tattoo, Sahm, Spirit, Saints, Saxon, Sabbath, Scientists, Skin Alley, Spirogyra, Starz, Slobberbone, Steeleye Span, Stained Glass, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Six Organs Of Admittance, Synanthesia, Traffic, Triffids, T2, Trees, Trad, Gras och Stenar, Trader Horne, Television, Underground Zero, Ultrasound, UFO, Vardis, VDGG, Van Halen, Watersons, Willie, Witchcraft, Wishbone Ash, Wizards Of Kansas, Wire, Wooden Shjips, X-Ray Spex, X Ray Z, James Yorkston, The Yuccas, ZZ Top.

Movies:

American Movie, Night Of The Hunter, Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, Whisky Galore, The Wicker Man, Il Postino, Camille Claudel, La Reine Margot, Das Boot, Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, Withnail & I, Festival Express, Southern Comfort, They Shoot Horses Don't They, The Filth & The Fury, Mad Max, La Belle Et La Bete, The Third Man, The Conqueror Worm, Macbeth, Duck Soup, The Harder They Come, The Long Goodbye, Trees Lounge, The Maltese Falcon, Two-Lane Blacktop, Easy Rider, Steelyard Blues,Crossing The Bridge, Spinal Tap, Diner, The Apostle, Hue & Cry, The Go-Between, Cisco Pike, Zabriskie Point, Lemming, Rita, Sue & Bob Too, Darkstar, Southern Comfort, The Hour Of The Pig, Topkapi, Swingers....

Television:

Northern Exposure, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Still Game, Dad's Army, Cheers, Frazier, Springwatch, Autumnwatch, Coast, Property Ladder, Masterchef

Books:

'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' Laurie Lee; 'The Bell' Iris Murdoch; 'Dazzling Stranger' Colin Harper; 'The Mouse & His Child' and 'Ridley Walker' Russell Hoban; 'Big Sur' Jack Kerouac; 'The Good Soldier' Ford Maddox Ford; 'Seven Pillars Of Wisdom' T E Lawrence; 'Homage To Catalonia' George Orwell; 'The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner' James Hogg; 'The Eyes Of the Panther' Ambrose Bierce; 'W B Yeats' A Norman Jeffares; 'The Godwins And The Shelleys' William St Clair; 'The Canterbury Tales' Geoffrey Chaucer; 'Our Band Could Be Your Life' Michael Azerad; 'Kidnapped' R L Stevenson; 'Waverley' Sir Walter Scott; 'Naked Pueblo' Mark Poirier; 'Summer Of Love' Joel Selvin; 'The Buildings Of England: London 4 - North' Cherry & Pevsner; 'Wind, Sand & Stars' Antoine de Saint-Exupery; 'The Ballad And The Plough' David Kerr Cameron; 'Moominvalley In November' Tove Jansson; 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' Dee Brown; 'The Golden Bough' J G Frazer; 'The Owl Service' Alan Garner; 'No Sleep Till Canvey Island' Will Birch....

Heroes:

Doug Sahm, The Celibate Rifles, Onions, Alan Tyler, Pictish T, Che, Tony Benn, Kerouac, Isabelle Adjani, Julian Cope, Jarvis Cocker, Brent Best, Mozzer

My Blog

Support your local festival

Dismayed to learn of the cancelleation of this year's Tapestry Goes West, without doubt the UK's best small festival.While it's easy enough for us to laugh at the slow sales affecting the self-importa...
Posted by MuleFreedom on Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:45:00 PST

Lethal Weapons

VARIOUS ARTISTS Lethal Weapons (Aztec)   Originally released back in 1978 as a kind of after-the-horse-has-bolted attempt to launch a new punk label, this compilation was inevitably a mixed bag....
Posted by MuleFreedom on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:25:00 PST

Found

FOUND This Mess We Keep Reshaping (Fence)   Those already familiar with Fife's Fence Collective will be well aware of their penchant for sweet, clever pop built as much upon the folk tradition a...
Posted by MuleFreedom on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:24:00 PST

Big City

BIG CITY Call An Ambulance (Naked Man)     As an indication of the breakdown of barriers and the common language of rock'n'roll, Naked Man is a label based in London, yet specialising in the...
Posted by MuleFreedom on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:21:00 PST

To Hell With Festivals

TO HELL WITH FESTIVALS/IN THE PINES Hay Fringe, Hay-on-Wye You can always tell a good festival by the quality of its fringe. And Hay's fringe is becoming an increasingly refreshing respite to its stu...
Posted by MuleFreedom on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:18:00 PST

Al Jones

AL JONES All My Friends Are Back Again  the anthology (Sanctuary) Born in Essex but a regular on the Bristol folk scene in the 60s, Al Jones was once rumoured to have been lined up for Pentangle (he...
Posted by MuleFreedom on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:12:00 PST