Pathhead choir at Chriton church	Family Ceilidh at Pathhead village hall	PMC night out at the Stair Arms Hotel

Dec 30th 2006
The Pathhead Music Collective Christmas Extravaganza

"What a way to say hello!", was the general concensus at the local community center when the Pathhead Music Collective, (PMC), took over the venue on Saturday December the 30th 2006, to share their musical skills and entertain the locals.

The unsuspecting audience, who were lured in by the mere mention of free entry free mince pies and a decent cup of tea or coffee and may have thought they would be merely observing, suddenly found themselves tapping their feet, gripping hopefully onto their raffle tickets and dancing with wild abandon.

The carefully orchestrated, (no pun intended!), running order had an ecelectic menu begining with a brief celidh. The size of the muscial ensemble regularly mutated as several members of the PMC showed their versatility. Amy Geddes lead on fiddle and kept the punters right on their dance steps. She was accompanied by Sandy Wright on guitar, Tom Bancroft on drums, Dave Milligan on piano, with Inge Thomson and Martin Green providing accordian accompaniment. That got us all in the mood and managed to please everyone from the bairns to those that were still pickled from their hearty Christmas dinners.

Next up was a fast turnover of musicanship from PMC members. Althea Stentiford, played some mean chops on the piano and sang the blues. Inge and Martin returned for an accordian duet with beautiful melodies. Tom Bancroft performed with guitarist Kevin Mackenzie that left the audience stunned. Not just because Tom dismantled his drumkit as part of his performance!! but Kevin managed to make the strangest looking guitar make awesome music.

Sophie Bancroft and Double bass player Tom Lyne then performed two original pieces that had the room swaying to their lazy latin rhythms. They were quickly followed by the Dave Milligan trio who dressed the Twelve days of Christmas skillfully into a robust jazz blues that made you feel as though you were transported to 1950's New York. Can you dig it! The finale was skillfuly kicked into touch by the lovely Gina Rae who barely finished serving tea and whipping off her apron before running on stage to sing her soulful version of Walk on By. If that wasn't enough the PMC ended with an open folk session leaving satisified musicians and customers all round.

The event was a resounding sucess but had a dual purpose. The PMC had cleverly dressed the venue for the event, resourcefully including paper tablecloths that the audience were encouraged to write on and leave their ideas for future PMC events and workshops. There was also the opporunity to leave contact details to be added to the PMC mailing list.

Unbeliveably, not all the PMC were able to perform at the Christmas extravaganza so look out for further opportunities to catch the Pathhead Musicians Collective on the go!

A.S. 17.1.07