Issue 2 – Monday 31 July
The Big Hand: Ska the Woodcraft way
Naomi Koppel
Ska stars The Big Hand, who are playing at Global Village tonight and tomorrow night, have a long tradition with Ealing Woodcraft Folk – or at least some of them do.
Lead singer and lead guitarist Tim Lomas joined the Folk when he was 6, and he's now 27 and still hanging around. His sister Lauren is an Ealing leader; the band's manager, Ingi Bjarnason, is also a leader in Ealing, as is the band's webmaster, Ralph Sleigh.
But for the other members of the band, their first encounter with the Woodies was at last year's Venturer Camp. And they weren't at all sure about camping.
"To be honest, they weren't sure what to make of it. But they got there and they just had the best time," says Luke. "Everyone gets made to feel so welcome and everyone is up to have a good time."
The Big Hand was formed in Edinburgh by Tim and some of the members of a 14-piece soul band he'd set up when he was at university. They played there for many years until a year ago when they decided to take things more seriously and moved down to London, at the same time that bassist Luke Martin – an old friend of Tim's – joined the band, which also comprises drummer and singer Paul Skelding and trumpeter Phil Ramsay.
"In Edinburgh just about everybody in the city knew of us, but no one outside of Edinburgh," Luke says. "We knew we had what it takes to make a real go of it, and we knew we could never do it just based in Edinburgh.
"It has been quite a hard year just in terms of playing to as many people as we can. But it's really starting to pay off. We try to go where people will have us."
The band's name came from one of their early songs.
"It was about a guy with one big hand and one small hand, and the idea was that everyone has got something that makes them a bit strange and could be a reason to feel like an outsider. So if everyone is quite strange that that unites people."
Dance to The Big Hand in the Cornwallis building at 8:30 p.m. tonight, and hear them in an acoustic set at the Fairytrade Cafe at 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday.