We’re very, very delighted to announce that lining-up with us at our 3rd “Indoor Festival of Folk” at Cecil Sharp House in London on Saturday the 8th of February are the collectively superb and award-winning Edgelarks, The Bookshop Band, Sam Carter AND “The Guv’nor” of all things British folk rock, Ashley Hutchings, who in his 80th birthday year will be BBC presenter and Folk On Foot podcaster Matthew Bannister’s special interview guest.

What a line-up already but it’s not quite finished yet as there’s one more excellent artist confirmed who we’ll announce very soon after they’ve played an upcoming London gig.

So “Come All Ye” again for a day in London of folk, food, facilities and a nice warm winter sit down all in the company of some of the country’s finest folk musicians.  

Tickets are on sale and are limited in number so find out further information about the day, about all the artists taking part and get yours now at the following link…

For the 3rd Indoor Festival of Folk Tickets – Click Here

TMA xx

Two years ago we were over the moon to put on our first Indoor Festival of Folk at Cecil Sharp House in London and it was an absolutely fantastic day with us, Maddy Prior, Peter Knight, John Spiers, Lizzie Hardingham, Bella Hardy, Blair Dunlop and Matthew Bannister interviewing Maddy and Peter.

Our second one was in February this year with another stellar cast of UK artists Jon Doran and Janice Burns, The Trials of Cato, the Rosie Hood Band, Tom Robinson and the legendary producers of Fairport, Nick Drake, Richard and Linda Thompson, John Martyn, the Incredible String Band and many others Joe Boyd and John Wood in conversation with Matthew Bannister.

So now we’re doing it again on the 8th of February 2025 and we already have in place another great line-up of outstanding UK folk artists (and us!) plus a special guest interviewee details of which will be announced and will go on sale next Friday the 20th of September.

We’ll remind you again next week but it’s shaping up to be another cracker so do save the date for a day of folk, food, facilities and a nice sit down all in the beautiful surroundings of Cecil Sharp House.

In the meantime here’s some wonderful photos from the first event….

TMA xx

Friday We’re In Love…….with T-Shirts and Prints!

That’s “Bandcamp Friday” to be precise where today the Bandcamp music site kindly waive all their sales revenue for artists who use the platform to sell on and so today is a very good day for us all if you buy.

We sell there, and so to celebrate the day we have our own custom The Magpie Arc t-shirts available to buy for the first time now.

These are quality, soft and comfortable gildan heavy cotton grey tee’s with our magpie logo on the chest and band name on the arm in a three colour screenprint.

The first tranche are in very limited numbers and are sold on a first come/first serve basis with shipping on the 9th of September but fear not if you miss out as all subsequent orders today will be on a pre-order and t-shirts will be shipped to you from the 5th of October if not before.

Click here for T-Shirts.

AND…

We also have a limited edition of 30 very special screenprints by artist Ellie Skinner of a beautiful Cinnibar moth with a handwritten line by Nancy Kerr from her song of the same name as featured on our EP2 and all prints are signed by Ellie and Nancy too.

Click here for Cinnabar print.

And finally, we have some copies left of our special, limited edition, sea-foam colour vinyl version of the Glamour In The Grey album complete with band photos and lyric insert plus our free/pay what you wish 22-song Anthology download compilation album which you can integrate into your streaming playlists or listen to on the dedicated Bandcamp app or even gift by email for the princely sum of 50p to a music loving friend who you think would like us.

Click here for Glamour In The Grey album on Special Edition Sea-Foam Coloured Vinyl.

Click here for 22- Song Anthology free/pay what you wish download album.

Thank you for your support on this day everyone, it is as ever hugely appreciated, and do check out some recently announced gigs in 2025 at the “Live” page on our website themagpiearc.com too.

We’ll see you out there on the road soon!

TMA xx

It’s a manic Monday and the weekend is in the rearview mirror but there’s reasons to be cheerful as we’ve Friday on our minds.

That’s Bandcamp Friday to be precise where for one day a month they kindly waive all their sales revenue for artists who use the platform to sell on.

And to celebrate we will have t-shirts for sale! So from 9am on Friday morning you will be able to grab a tee with our lovely magpie screen-printed on the front and the band name on the sleeve.

Summer may just be gone (in Scotland it was actually around three hours one day back in July) but you can still dress like you’re on your holidays, so note the date and time, grab your tee and fly your Magpie Arc’eteer flag high.

And don’t forget our Anthology download album is still available on a free/pay what you wish basis so grab a copy, download your Bandcamp player app and listen to us on the move. Or gift it to a music loving friend by email for the princely sum of 50p.

Get it here – themagpiearc.bandcamp.com/album/anthology

See you on Friday!

TMA xx 🖤🤍💜

Hi Folks,

We’re going to post this again and probably again and again, as there is a lot of “sponsored” ie. “paid for” noise on social media about how absolutely wonderful streaming services are for artists and what a great job they’re doing providing them with a platform for success!

And also the numpty (Scottish word for pillock) CEO of Spotify publicly said recently that music costs almost nothing to make these days and inferred that artists should be grateful for whatever meagre returns they give them.

So…

The Importance Of Downloads!

Welcome to all our new followers and mailing list subscribers who have joined us in the last few weeks through our free/pay what you want Anthology download album. Hope you’re enjoying our music and hopefully we’ll see you at a gig sometime too.

A lot of people have asked why we have made our collection available for free/pay what you want so….

As everyone knows the folk world is a wonderful community of people committed to music and we are constantly amazed by the number of emails we get or comments on social media we see about how much they love to support artists by actually buying their music on CD’s and vinyl.

However one area that we find many people think is redundant now are downloads.

Artists often hear that fans who only have physical copies of their music and no means to get it onto their mobile devices feel that the only way to listen to it on the move is to stream it via Spotify/Apple etc. and also fans who no longer have CD players or record decks feel that they have no other listening choice at all.

Well the purpose of this post is to say that this isn’t the case and that downloads still have a very important part to play for music lovers who want to support their favourite artists.

Firstly, a wee calculation of what a £10 download album means to artists financially compared to streaming…..

* 291 listens to a ten song album from start to finish on Spotify using their standard streaming royalty rate will earn an artist £10.

* If you listen to the whole album once a day starting on the 1st of January then it would take until the 17th of October for the artist to earn that £10.

* If you listen to the album once a week starting on the 1st of January 2025 then it would take until the 1st of June 2030 for the artist to earn that £10.

* If you buy a download then they get the £10 right now.

Secondly, and this is the one that not everyone knows about, but once you have music downloaded onto one of your devices you can integrate it into all your Spotify/Apple etc. playlists and can listen to it as you normally do on those platforms. Just search how to integrate downloads into Spotify/Apple etc. online and you’ll find out.

And finally for those of you new to downloads the game-changing resource for all artists who use it is the wonderful site Bandcamp.

If you’re a music lover and you’re not aware of it then check it out as it’s a treasure trove of downloadable music from thousands of established and new artists many of whom will offer content exclusive to the site.

Bandcamp has it’s own excellent free app player for phones/iPads where if you don’t want to integrate your music to streaming playlists or you just plain hate Spotify etc. then you can organise and listen to all your downloads in your car or wherever you go via that.

Bandcamp also offer playback quality far above Spotify and Apple so you’re also getting a much better listening experience.

So there you go, there’s the importance of downloads.

Finally, many of you have paid for our music already so we’ve offered the chance for you to get it on download to listen on the move without paying for it again. Or if you’re just discovering us but wary of spending any money then you can listen to it before you buy and then pay something or nothing if you want to and hopefully become a fan.

You can hear and get our Anthology download album at the link below and do check out our Martin, Nancy and Findlay’s pages there too plus all the other amazing artists.

The Magpie Arc – 22 Song Free/Pay What You Wish Anthology Download Compilation Album

Thanks for reading (again)!

TMA xx

Gig week is next week and we’re playing a hometown show in Sheffield on the 14th of August then at the legendary rock venue The Robin in Bilston, near Wolverhampton on the 15th and we would love to see you there.

Tickets are selling fast and you can get further information from our live page here….

themagpiearc.com/live/

And our 22-song Anthology download album is also still available on a free/pay what you want basis so get it or share it or e-gift it to a music loving friend who you think should hear about us from the link here and spread The Magpie Arc word…

themagpiearc.bandcamp.com/album/anthology

One post, one tweet or one recommendation can make all the difference for an artist and lead to a great opportunity or a sale so never underestimate what you can do!

See you out there soon.

TMA xx

As many people will know The Magpie Arc extended family are some of the finest folk artists in the UK and as a summer treat and for a limited time only our “Let Me Introduce You To The Family” download compilation album featuring ten superb folk tracks from us and our “nearests and dearests” is available to download for free or “pay what you want” from Bandcamp now, so fill your folk boots everyone and get it, share it or e-gift it around your folk loving friends/family from the link here….

The Magpie Arc – Let Me Introduce You To The Family

And our 22-song Anthology download album is also still available on a free/pay what you want basis so get it/share it/e-gift it from the link here…

The Magpie Arc – 22-Song Anthology Album

Finally, our summer gigs are coming up so if you fancy our hometown gig in Sheffield on the 14th of August or our gig at the legendary rock venue The Robin in Wolverhampton on the 15th be quick as tickets are selling fast. You can get the links with further information from here….

The Magpie Arc – Live Gigs

Hope you’re having a lovely summer of music everyone and do spread our band word. One post, one tweet or one recommendation can make all the difference for an artist and lead to a great opportunity or a sale so never underestimate them!

TMA xx

Thanks to everyone for the incredibly generous response to our Martin Simpson’s wonderful wife Kit Bailey’s “100 Skips a Day” Cancer UK fundraiser in June which raised £360 for Cancer Research from purchases of our Ae Fond Kiss download single.

We know you can’t support every cause that comes your way but we’re going to keep it going for Cancer Research so if anyone would still like to join in or if you’ve already bought it but would like to to share it around music loving pals then here’s the link…

Ae Fond Kiss single for Cancer Research

You or your friends can also grab a copy of our 22-song Anthology compilation download album on a “free/pay what you want basis” so share that about too or send it as an email gift to anyone for as little as 50p.

Here’s the link for that too…

Anthology 22-song download album

And just to say, it may look like it but Paypal is not the only buying option, all you have to do is click on the Visa or Mastercard option and you can pay by card.

Thanks again everyone!

TMA xx 🖤🤍💜