About Paul Carbuncle

“Excellent!”, “Immaculate!”, “Wonderful views!”, “We had to ask for more towels!”. These are just some of the comments made by lovers of folk music who have stayed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation in Paul Carbuncle’s native county of Kent.

Born behind a hop-pickers’ hut in Pluckley, Paul moved to Canterbury at the age of 6 and 359/365ths to be closer to Gideon Coe. An adolescence spent flitting between punk bands and folk clubs lapsed into an adulthood similarly squandered. Twenty-one years ago he found himself stranded in Nottingham when the head gasket went. He now claims, falsely, to be employed by the English Place-Name Society, whilst merrily gigging at pubs, festivals, and folk clubs on evenings which have been described enthusiastically as “Saturday” and “Wednesday” and sometimes “Friday”.

Since the Midlands magazine Folk Monthly labelled him “bourgeoning”, back in the days before spell-check (2015), Paul has spent much of his spare time sitting next to the telephone ready for stardom to call. When the call finally arrived at tea-time yesterday, it came as a great joy to learn that he may have been mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance.

In a recent interview with a lady who said she was from off of the telly, Paul deftly cleared up once and for all any mystery surrounding his chosen musical genre. “Some call it folk-punk,” he explained, “while others call it punk-folk. Either is fine, but over-blend it and you’ll end up with funk or polk, and I’m sure none of us wants that. It’s rather like mixing the grape and the grain… you’ve got to be careful not to wind up with muesli.”

[Alternative plot summary, ideal for cutting and pasting but perhaps not reading: “Born in an abbage, gutnourished on cabbage, Paul Carbuncle learnt to count at the age of aquarium. All was swimming swimmingly till the Administrative Horror of 1974, which saw the young Carbuncle cruelly with two ells (with two ells) reassigned to O Little Town Of Bethersden. Fast backwards half a celery and now look, I mean don’t look, for pity’s sake Penelope shield your CONTENT WARNING. Enticed by the worm glow of you have reached your destination, Paul is here and apparently singing.”]

Although the foregoing blurbs have been woundingly described as “unhelpful” and “unusable”, some people have nevertheless said the occasional nice thing about Carbuncular offerings. Doug Welch described the album A Cold Cup Of Tea And A Howl Of Despair as “very enjoyable” on his BBC Radio show Kent Folk, though he was chuckling a bit when he said it, and Bob Oram kindly gave the album a five-star review in the Morning Star. Jess Silk, as in Jess Silk, admitted to listening to Carbuncular Christmas “voluntarily”. The mighty Fungalpunk threw an extraordinary 1829 words at Monkfish Mix-Up At Farmers’ Market and is slowly recovering. Steve Oliver, host of The Random Sessions, described it as “a delightful album from start to finish and if you don’t agree after listening I will see you outside in the car park”. You can judge for yourselves here on Bandcamp (and buy a beautiful t-shirt at the same time). Oh, and Roger Williams acclaimed “the estimable Paul Carbuncle’s formidable right hand” on his radio show A World Of Difference at an hour when young people might conceivably have been listening.

We’ll allow the charming George Gadd (owner and chief executive of George Gadd) to speak for himself:

George Gadd speaks

Paul is one of the hosts of Carrington Triangle Folk Club, which meets every Wednesday (doors 7.45pm for 8.15pm start) upstairs at The Gladstone, 45 Loscoe Road, Nottingham, NG5 2AW. On a Sunday more or less monthly he runs The Sherwood Shessions at Bradey’s Micro Bar, 71 Haydn Road, Nottingham, NG5 2LA, raising funds for BlindEye Soup Run and other Notts charities. The next Shessions date is 5th May 2024 (5pm start), to be followed by 2nd June, 30th June, 4th August, 8th September, 29th September, 3rd November, 1st December, and an extra festive one on 15th December.

Since 2015 Paul has been one of the many organizers of gigs flying the We Shall Overcome banner, collecting donations for local foodbanks and homeless shelters.

According to Kate Rusby, Paul Carbuncle uses Jim Dunlop 1mm plectrums. The source of her information is unknown. Eavesdropping cannot be ruled out. According to Paul himself, he has one trophy and quite a lot of cardboard. The source of his information is in hiding.

My first trophy