We should be in Lichfield, near the corner with Quonians Lane, this Sunday morning, 15 June, between 10.30 and noon.

We might even try out a new tune or two.

It would be lovely to see you…

… and it’s not on the street; it’s at a jazz festival!

We’ve been asked to entertain the jazz fans in between the proper jazz acts at the Kings Bromley Jazz Festival which takes place on Saturday 17 May at Kings Bromley Village Hall.

Of course, we’ll be dusting off our jazziest tunes, but let’s face it, our main purpose will be to demonstrate what music sounds like when you haven’t even heard of, let alone mastered, all the weird modes and altered scales and re-voiced chords that real improvising musicians don’t even need to think about.

Those real jazz musicians at Kings Bromley will be the Tim Amann Xtet and the Lydia Rae Ensemble. Also performing on the day will be the Lichfield-based community band ASpire and the Kings Bromley Harmony Choir.

I think the Wayside Serenaders will be playing between 5pm and 8pm, or thereabouts.

Booking is here

Seven-strong on the first day of British Summer Time 2025 which was coincidentally that Hallmark event known as Mother’s Day. We couldn’t help bucking the trend with our paean to mean mothers everywhere, Mama Don’t Allow, and it was the first public outing of our version of Loudon Wainwright III’s Swimming Song.

No pic or video, sorry. We were too busy making some roughshod music.

Some of us will be in Dam St from about 11am till 12.30pm today.

A large thank you to the more than 50 people who filled the upstairs room at the Kings Head in Lichfield for our very first indoor soirée last night.

Thanks to the generosity of our audience, who also acquitted themselves heroically with sound effects, droning, singing and kazoo playing, we raised £625 for the Crisis charity which helps the homeless. Lovely to find a very helpful and supportive pub, too.

More pics and maybe some videos soon.

The Yuletide Serenaders wish you all a Very Merry Kazooing Christmas

…and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and In The Bleak Midwinter, and O Come Emmanuel, not forgetting the listical Must Be Santa, of course, and our new song, Rain And Snow, out for just its second airing.

Yes, The Yuletide Serenaders played and sang all their Christmas hits on Saturday, and, in just over an hour, managed to collect £67 for the Crisis charity, which helps those without homes to find some shelter and food in what has been a fairly cold December.

Many thanks to Jill and Gerbo for being the Yuletide Serenaders Massed Choir.

If the weather plays ball, we’ll be back for a last pre-Xmas outing sometime next weekend.

A small but merry band of Serenaders will be singing a few Christmas songs in the streets of Lichfield. Do come and join us (songbooks provided) between 10.30 and 11.45 on Saturday. Look out for us either in Market Street or Dam Street.

Kazoos to the lips, some Christmas songs in the playbook and rain that passed just in time – what more could we ask for as we launched our festive campaign for 2024.

The atmospheric picture above was taken by a young girl passing by with her parents. It looked like a toy but was clearly a polaroid-type camera which gave an instant print-out. Who needs fancy phone cameras, eh? Surely a future Annie Leibovitz who will go on to photograph the next generation of the rich and famous! Many thanks to her and I’m sorry we didn’t get her name.

Meagre pickings due to having to play next to Minster Pool – there were ominously loud noises coming from a giant TV screen set up in Market Square which prompted us to move from our usual Dam Street spot – but every little helps, as some supermarket will have it.

The Rev J. Olly Glum ventured into the centre of Lichfield this morning to buy bread and drugs, and was assailed on at least two occasions by unnecessarily amplified buskers.

One was outside the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, a middle aged man playing tunes like The Sounds Of Silence on the violin which would have been quite pleasant were it not for the pick-up attached to the violin and the slightly distorted and far from silent accompaniment emanating from the amplified speaker at his feet. Another was a child outside McDonald’s, playing the trumpet, and playing it very nicely except that he was accompanied by a man (his father?) playing a keyboard or accordion (The Rev averted his eyes at this point) again loudly amplified.

Behind the Black Country Fish & Chips van beside Boots The Chemist there was a man playing steel pans. These may or may not have been amplified or accompanied by a backing track… the Rev had by this time lost the will to pay any attention at all to his surroundings, and was intent upon reaching his drugs dealer (otherwise known as the Touchwood Pharmacy) further unassailed.

Which all acts as a preamble for the announcement that, should the gods of weather smile upon us, our merry band of totally acoustic and shamelessly incompetent musicians will be playing in Dam Street tomorrow (Sunday) from 10.30am to 12 noon. The band will feature not only a new player – James Saddened (vocals, kazoo and guitar) – but also a new piece of equipment – a loudhailer (though never as loud as bloody electric amplification!).

As it’s December tomorrow the band will be appearing under their alias The Yuletide Serenaders. Do pop along to smile with us, drop a quid or two into the hat box (all proceeds go to the homeless charity Crisis) and perhaps do a little hop, skip and jump of joy.