3 gigs and other stuff

An extremely busy week again with the 3 live shows, plus 2 further with the function bands and a whole host of other stuff. In no particular order:

GIGS:
First up was visit number 4 (only counting the recent upsurge!) to Dr Wu's. There were no loonies this week, other than the regular harmless ones(!) and I took the opportunity again to play some new material. The set was 'It Will Pass', 'The Prisoner', 'Gods and Angels' and 'Cold Cold Day'. The first 3 songs are all fairly downbeat-as is most singer-songwriter material-and that's something I'm watching out for. I don't want to depress an audience too much! Anyway, all went well there, which moves us on to Wednesday:

The Grove Open Mic night is much more communal than Wu's. It has an intimacy and character and this it has to be said leads to better results for me. Even if the piano needs to go to the elephant's graveyard! I did 2 of Cath's songs this time, 'I Don't Need' and 'Life'. The former is something of a forgotten track which I'm aiming to release some time in the future. I still love that one, it perhaps does my voice the most justice of any song. I did a quick plug for the late Tim Rose in the latter song, as it was in Leeds where I saw him perform just 6 months before his death in 2002.

On Saturday afternoon I performed something of a more structured gig, with a 30 mins support slot at Dr Wu's supporting Gary Stewart (just him and not his band as advertised!!). Gary sounded superb to me, a little like Cat Stevens, very strong songs.
I learnt a few things from my set: Firstly, I discovered my phone has bluetooth (thanks for the video Vicky!), and secondly that I need to learn the words a bit better! However the sound was superb and it was great to be performing original material for a longer set, long may it continue. The setlist was: 'These Eyes Of Mine', 'Even', 'Whiskey Coloured World', 'The Prisoner', 'Gods And Angels', 'I'm Coming Out', 'Cold Cold Day' and of course the obligatory cover of 'Rocket Man'.

This week will be slightly quieter, I'm missing Wu's this week but doing a new venue on Thursday: The Primrose, again in Leeds. Tune in next week to see how it all went.


2ND ALBUM: In between all this excitement, I met up with Jon Strong on Thursday 23rd to do some more work on the 2nd album. Things are starting to move forward on that front more rapidly now, so it hopefully won't be long before the results are realised. It sounds great.

WEB HITS UP AND CDBABY: My web 'hits' are well up this month, certainly the best month I've had so far since I lurked into cyberspace in late March. I seem to be getting hit upon from the search engines more often, which must be good. Even if they were searching for something entirely different in the first place! Just in case they fall off a bit: SEX PORN MP3 EBAY

My album is available at CD Baby of course, so please feel free to have a look there. It's worth it almost for the customer care alone. British companies take note...

And finally, I also went to see Shawn Colvin on Sunday night in Manchester. A great night's music, and also interesting to hear another acoustic cover of 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkeley. Perhaps I should have a go!