The three of us have been playing together since 1989 and our first booking was at Sampford Peverell PTA Cheese & Wine in that year. Since that time we have played for a wide variety of events including concerts, dances, fetes, weddings and parties.
The band's original name was Flapjack because of our propensity for eating flapjack during weekly practices in Greta's kitchen, but when we started getting called THE Flapjacks we quickly changed to Fiddlesticks, then switched the words around and became Stick The Fiddle.
We love finding and learning new pieces and our repertoire now includes classical, Playford, English, Irish, Scottish, Norwegian and American as well as a lot of folk dance standards. Our research into playing styles has included the band camping in the rain at Didmartin Bluegrass festival, Sue & Greta attending Sore Fingers Bluegrass Week and Strings at Witney, while Bruce ran a folk club!
Towards the end of 2006, when Bruce started dancing, we decided to expand our folk dance repertoire and play for more dances. In 2007 the band played nine gigs including Gittisham and Honiton folk dance clubs in Devon, and Wiveliscombe and Halsway folk dance clubs in Somerset. In 2008 we played for 38 gigs including 12 dances and workshops at Sidmouth Festival. 2009 saw the band running a Playford workshop at the Bideford Folk Festival, and playing a total of 45 dances, weddings & concert gigs. In 2010 we played 52 gigs, including specialist Scottish, Irish, English Playford and American dance workshops at the Eastbourne International Dance Festival. Halfway through this year (2011) we have 44 (+5 for 2012) gigs booked, including a repeat of the Eastbourne Festival, and an increase in the number of wedding bookings. 2012 will see the band playing at the nationally-renowned Alcester Contra Club dance in April.