Thankyou Tump Folk

Well what a lovely time I had last night playing at The Tump Folk Club!
(organised by Karen) You can find the pictures on Facebook here…

It was quite a full night with me doing the headline but also Alkevan and Willow & Tool, the excellent Bill Bates and of course Keith Donnelly who played with me on a couple of my songs as well as doing a song of his own.

Here’s what I sang:

1st set
Zero Inches on accordion – currently recording at Bill Bates’ studio
Road on piano – newish song not recorded yet
Company Shirt on piano – currently recording
Reckless Blues on accordion and trumpet – recorded on my Live album
Live On Love on Joni-Mitchell-tuned tuned Stonebridge guitar – newish song
Bring Me back My Feathers on banjo featuring Noel Le Long on mandolin – currently recording

Then – more excitement I did ‘raffle’ music with Bill – singing the winning numbers and then Bill sang the parish notices – very fulfilling

Followed by my 2nd set
Paper Girl on keyboard – title track of last studio album
Everybody Loves You on piano – currently recording
Watching The Waves on keyboard – newish song unrecorded
Ready To Love on piano with Keith Donnelly on guitar – recorded on Paper Girl CD
Musicians on JM guitar – newish song on YouTube
Just Come Home on open G Takamine guitar – new song currently recording
Truly Divine on piano with Keith Donnelly doing stupid things – old song but unrecorded

So quite a short couple of sets in folk club terms but a very enjoyable evening and especially nice to see lots of people I knew and ones who’d seen me before at gigs a while back as well a new people to meet.

Everyone in the audience joined in with stuff and were very nice and friendly to me. The room is lovely too as it has great acoustics having a wooden floor and wooden stage to play on.

Thank you again to everyone who did stuff to make the evening work including Garry and Kev who did the PA, and Karen the organiser. I shall look forward to coming again!

Gig Tonight At The Tump

Tump Gig tomorrow

Radio CWR 2pm

Tuba Recording

A-harrrr! Today has been the day for Tuba Recording. Hugh Rashleigh came round with his tuba in the sun. It has dents and a bar-code. I expect he just got it from Sainsburys…

Very interesting hearing tuba doing stuff close-up and a lovely sound. It is made of cardboard with gold leaf spread over it with a pallet-knife and it has 5,341ft of tubing which can stretch all the way from Warwick to Banbury if you unrolled it…

So now we have done tuba recording on Zero Inches and that track is almost done it just needs some wubs on trumpets what I have missed out only on 4 bars. How exciting.

Warm Me Up Recording

This evening Bill came round to set-up for the tuba tomorrow for we are having a tuba played by Hugh Rashleigh who has invented a plastic trumpet. Hoorah.

Anyway – I have recorded the piano part for my new song ‘Warm Me Up’ which I wrote very recently. It has got trumpets on. And harmonies. This took just two takes I am pleased to say…

T-shirt for Dave Pegg

Look! Peggy (Fairport Convention bass player) done a T-shirt out of a cartoon I made for him cos he hurted his fingers badly and couldn’t play for a long time. I saw him with the Fairports on Monday at Nettlebed Folk Club and he was playing the bass uke which sounded really really amazing!! Anyway this is the T-shirt made out of my cartoon which he has got for sale although I can’t tell you where but you can ask him here maybe – this is a limited edition. It’s on Fairport’s website here…

This is the cartoon on the T-shirt:

No So Arghhh Now

Now I don’t need to communicate using a laptop or bits of paper.
I can go lar a bit.

Tomorrow I shall be going LAR.
And then on Sunday I shall go LAR.
And from then on who knows!

Arghhh

Lost my voice from having a cold and had to cancel stuff…
Can’t speak even so = communicating with people using laptop as I am quicker at typing than at writing. However I can see that this will give me time to practice Bach Prelude II on my banjo…

Eddi Reader at Huntingdon Hall

Me and my friend Deborah Rose – excellent singer went off down to Huntingdon Hall the other day to see Eddi Reader who I know from doing some performing with in the past. We were unexpectedly asked up to sing some backing vocals here…

If you get the chance to see Eddi and the band on tour it’s fantastic.

Fiddly Bits and Piano Mics

Today Bill is here again recording the piano and vocal. There are some drop-ins and fiddly bits but all is fab and doodly and nifty. However then technical things going on blah blah very boring anyway you can see Bill getting jittering…

I do not have the faintest idea why he is complaining when I have done such a lovely diagram explaininging EXACTLY where the mics should go for the piano…

Odd Orders Merchandise

Today Odd Werner Sorensen who is from Norway ordered two things from my shop.

I am just putting the things in a jiffy bag to send off tomorrow.

Isn’t he lovely! Look – this is him…It is actually in fact what he looks like.

A Song For My Piano

Done recording today with Bill recording my piano at my house! Exciting. I have been doing ‘Song For My Piano’, Fly Away Little Bird’, ‘Everybody Loves You’ and ‘Shine’. Also ‘Company Shirt’ We have got the piano right now and it sound = gorgeous and just like a Bluthner drawing-room grand which is what it is.

I think I might have 8 possible tracks on the go now…

The Old Fourpenny Shop Session

My Piano Hammer

Chris Teuten the brilliant piano tuner has had to take away one of my piano hammers in January sometime. In fact it is actually not all that bad because it is a note I don’t know about as it’s right at the very top and only sound like this = plink. It doesn’t even have a proper note I mean I don’t even know why it’s there for…I mean I’d rather have some more notes down the other end, I’m always using those and there always hardly ever seem to  be enough notes there.

Anyway – even though I don’t really need the hammer what makes the note go plink I rather miss it as I know it is missing. So I am wondering when he shall be bringing it back to me.

‘Bring me back my Bb, bring it back to me…’

Lar-lar-lar (plink)

New open mic starting

Hello here is a lovely new open mic starting.
It’s every 3rd Sunday of the month starting THIS SUNDAY FEBRUARY 16th.
It is EARLY start and finish 6.30pm until 9pm.

It’s at Priors Marston village which is not far. Apparently there is cheap beer as it’s at Priors Marston Sports Club at Byfield Road CV47 7RP.

I might not be able to get there for this Sunday but I shall be doing an extended spot on March 16th though – see events where you can also find a map…

Session Night

Crompton Street Warwick
You can all come please thankyou