It's been a few weeks since the last update and now apparently it's 2011. Where did the time go ( Read more... )

Had an email from Dad this morning.

Dad retired from the Uni some years ago, although he continued to put in time at the chaplaincy centre. And he basically saw retirement as an opportunity to expand his role in the local ministry, so he's kept himself pretty busy.

I just didn't realise how busy.

On Saturday I will be playing a gig. The band have two gigs booked, as Mario has a large enough pool of musicians now that he can send out two entirely different lineups on the same day. So I don't yet know where I'm going, what I'll be playing, or what time I need to be ready to leave ( Read more... )

Tonight was the ceilidh band party mentioned in my last entry. To keep it varied there were a few other bits besides the barn dance stuff; some of the band members did a couple of tracks from a Shadows tribute they also play in, and and Carl and I did our three-song set. Solsbury Hill was the challenge; it's such a catchy and memorable song that ( Read more... )

Just had an interesting evening with my brother. We've been going over the songs we're going to sing next month. We have a list of three; Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello, my choice), Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel, Carl's choice), and Wall Of Death (Richard Thompson, although we're doing it like the R.E.M. cover version, and chosen by Carl's father-in- ( Read more... )

Played another gig with the ceilidh band last night. I think about half the band didn't know the other half; we had a recorder player I'd not met before, the bassist was a dep who none of them had ever played with, and the caller was new to them as well. Made for an interesting mix. The bassist had it worst; he'd get told the key we were starting ( Read more... )

This year's Eurovision is starting to look interesting, with Germany fielding a country & western act and Finland a death metal band.

edit: Hmm, listened to the Finnish entry now; disappointing. They sound like a bog-standard euro-rock band with laryngitis; crunchier guitars perhaps, but no real bottom end, and with twee plinky keyboards that ( Read more... )

As of 06:41 this morning, I am an uncle!

We did a gig with a dep guitarist on wednesday; Mario introduced me to him with the words, "This is Adrian. He defies logic ( Read more... )