Derek

[Steve Ashton]

Cilted Traveler & Minstrel



Derek has been a member of the forum since February 18, 2004.
He is one of the first 100 members

Derek and Elaine Morgan live in Wales. From their Cardiff home in the grounds of an 11th Cent. church, they venture forth on frequent journeys into the surrounding Welsh countryside – and even further afield -- in search of superb views, fine friends and exceptional pubs. Derek records their adventures and his pictorial travelogues are always posted to X Marks for our simple, pure pleasure.



Just a few of Dereks' travelogue threads.

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...venture-79802/
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...r-local-79599/
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...ry-bath-79566/
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...ountain-79470/
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...he-barn-74625/
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...lte-2-a-61793/
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...tryside-30204/


Derek is renowned for two other enduring contributions to X Marks. The first is known as "The Cardboard Derek". It is his signature pose.



And the second is an idea to send a Welsh Rugby Scarf on a circumnavigation of the globe hosted by X Marks members.



You can find just a sample of the pictures of members with the traveling scarf here.

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=70792


Derek is a folk musician and X Marks members are often welcomed to the Rumney Folk Club and elsewhere for his performances.

In November 2013 he had the brilliant idea of assembling X Marks musicians from around the globe to join him and Elaine in a performance.

In his words:
“On my way to town yesterday I had this random thought about a recent song that Elaine and myself have written. What if we could record it with an xmts band ... If there are any musicians or singers that would like to take part it could be real good fun to do. The main prob might be access to a computer recording system .. (cubase/pro tools or whatever). The main thing is to be able to rec and create a wav file. Quite simply, I would put the basic guitar/vox track into dropbox for others to collect it... then after they have recorded their track, just put their individual wav track back into dropbox (which will be a shared folder) and I will collect it and put it back into the main mix. Its a real simple principle once you got the hang of it. So ... do you think this could be a go-er ... would be fun ... would need a name for the band too ... Here is our little set up at home and I'm quite happy to co ord it all .... As I said, just a random thought ...”



The process for putting that all together is found here: http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...singers-81731/

He named the band “The Rabble” after all of us.

"The Rabble's" first production featured
Elaine Morgan - lead vocals.
With X Marks members:
OCRichard - pipes & whistle,
BeDaVeva - backing vocal,
The Official Bren and Jon - drums,
David Thorpe - base,
Xen - fiddle,
and Derek - keyboards and back-up vocal.

A copy of "The Rabble's" production can be found here:

http://soundcloud.com/els-projects/t...ockles-mussels



Derek was inducted to the Honor Roll on the 14th of December 2013.