Scrumpy

Our latest gig was in Farum Kulturhus where we hosted a session on St. Patrick's Day 2023. We also played a concert there on 8 October 2016. A person in the audience uploaded an air, Though I Go to Bed, Little Does Sleep Come to Me. For some reason airs seem to do do it for some, so here's another one from the same gig, Casadh an tSugain. Here are the lads during a break, left to right Steen, Kim, Lars, Allan, Jørgen and Torben (Henrik couldn't make it, he was organizing a concertina workshop at a festival in Finland).

Here Allan sings (most of) the song Scrumpy by Trevor Crozier in the Beer Club in Hólar, Northern Iceland, August 2010.

The group played with enormous success in front of a large, wonderful audience at the 2003 Copenhagen Irish Festival.

Scrumpy plays mostly acoustic Irish and Scottish music and was founded around 1975 in Copenhagen (at Grønjordskollegiet, kitchen 23A) by Lars Kofoed, Allan Aasbjerg Nielsen, Torben Kure Nielsen, and Kim Christiansen, all happy, innocent students then. We played our first gig in August 1976 (we think). Later Jørgen Krogh Hanskov, Steen Aasbjerg Nielsen and Henrik Müller joined.

Here they are (Kim - horizontal, left to right: Torben, Jørgen, Steen, Lars, Henrik and Allan) ...

... the jolly Danes (sometime around 1980).

When we were more active as a group than we are now we played over most of Denmark and Sweden, at all the right places on the Copenhagen scene as well as most of the big summer festivals in Denmark. We also did live and recorded national radio and TV.

Here are some of the lads (Lars, Allan, Torben, Henrik and Jørgen) playing live in a packed "Vognhjulet" (persons in the audience are sitting on the stage) sometime in the mid 1980s ...

Five tracks, a hornpipe followed by two reels, an air, a song, a set of jigs, and yet an air, recorded live in Henrik's basement on 20 March (May?) 1981 are available in MP3-format. Live here means no audience but recording directly onto two stereo-tracks on Henrik's Revox via our own semi-professional/half-amateur equipment, no posh studio gear. Aficionados will hopefully appreciate the grunge/garage-style sound.

The five tracks are

The Home Rule/The Harvest Home/The Dairy Maid
Henrik plays the concertina, Lars the piano accordion, Jørgen the viola and the violin (called the fiddle in this tradition), Torben the cittern, Allan the guitar, and Kim the spoons and the bodhran.

Haughton House
Henrik plays the concertina, Lars the accordion, Jørgen the fiddle, Torben the cittern, and Allan the tenor guitar.

My Last Farewell to Stirling
Torben plays the guitar and sings the lead, Steen plays the recorder, Allan the cittern and sings the chorus, Lars plays the tin whistle and sings the chorus, Henrik plays the concertina, and Jørgen the fiddle.

Old Hag You've Killed Me/The Hag at the Kiln/Morrison's Jig
Kim plays the bodhran, Henrik the concertina, Lars the accordion, Torben the cittern, Allan the tenor banjo, and Jørgen the fiddle.

Casadh an tSugain (The Twisting of the Rope)
Steen plays the recorder, Allan the guitar, Jørgen the fiddle, Lars the flute, Henrik the concertina, Kim the bodhran, and Torben the cittern.

Technician: Nille Juul-Sørensen (he and Joakim Friis-Holm from Harp'n'Drum, another Copenhagen-based group playing acoustic Irish and Scottish music, used to do our sound, Lars and Allan used to do Harp'n'Drum's sound).

Jigs: Lad O'Beirne's/Tobin's Favourite
Barn Dances
My Last Farewell to Stirling
Air: Umeå
Tango?: Dit hjerte er i fare, Andresen (Your Heart's in Danger, Andresen)
Reels: Andy McGann's/The Dawn
Polkas (and fade enthuastic crowd ...)

As we play along the heavily reverbed sound seems to become more bearable. Play loud and enjoy.

"SCRUMPY. Dansk gruppe dann. 1976 i Kbh. af Lars Kofoed (g, acc, wh, vo), Allan Aasbjerg Nielsen (g, mand, bj, vo), Torben Kure Nielsen (g, mand, cittern, vo) og Kim Christiansen (skeer, bodh). S. var inspireret af ældre danske grupper som Paddy Doyles og McEwan's Export, og selvom gr. var aku. af eng. folk-rockgr. som Fairport Convention og Steeleye Span. Navnet lånte gr. fra en potent eng. cider. Mellem 78 og 80 udv. S. først med Jørgen Krogh Pedersen (v) og Steen Aasbjerg Nielsen (wh) og senere Henrik Müller (conc, 5 str. bj), og samtidig ændredes stil og rep. i retning af irsk/skotsk musik. I første halvdel af 80erne arr. S. de årlige irsk-skotske festivaler i Vognhjulet i København, og kom via dem i kontakt med ligesindede musikere i Sverige. S. deltog bl.a. i festivaler og koncerter i Göteborg, Lund og Umeå. Christiansen var i 79 med til at dann. Harp'n'Drum, og senere forlod også Müller S. I 84 sad Peter Gorm Sørensen (v) (Ash Plant m.m.) ind for Krogh Pedersen. S. spillede i foråret 87 sin sidste koncert i forb. med en direkte udgave af radioens Folk Nyt."

Gruppen har siden udgivelsen af Politikens Folkemusik Leksikon spillet spredte jobs, specielt i The Shamrock Inn i Scala og på Bartof Café. Gruppen har udover de i Politikens Folkemusik Leksikon nævnte steder også spillet på alle store musiksteder i København (Montmartre, Saltlageret, Musikcaféen, Vognporten, Vognhjulet etc). Gruppen har også spillet koncerter rundt om i Danmark (specielt en del på Bornholm), i Stockholm og Uppsala, spillet som led i Københavns Kommunes Sommerunderholdning, på Roskilde Festival, Skagen Festival, Tønder Festival samt lavet båndet og direkte radio og TV. Gruppen spillede også på Copenhagen Irish Festival i 2003 og i Farum Kulturhus i 2016 og 2023.