Last Week:

I finally got a night free to play a solo open mic at The Hop in Leeds last week. I don't do much negative stuff on here now but to be blunt one staff member did two things wrong and I won't be going again with any of my line-ups. It's a pity because, as a recent blog will show, I was enjoying going there and it had probably pushed itself up to being my second favourite Leeds open mic night. However, as I'm only there for my own benefit giving my time and efforts for free, it's an easy decision to make to not bother with the place.

To put into some context, think how many open mic nights I've done since 2007 (if you're not familiar with it I must have done hundreds). And I can literally count less than 5 that have in any way pissed me off. That's 5 gigs not 5 venues!

Enough of that. On Friday night I was out with Atlanta Soul playing a wedding in a Cheshire hall, complete with gardens and estate. The problem these days is some of these venues are just not up to standard!

Stock cars in Skegness Saturday night, lunch in Port Sunlight on Sunday followed by watching the Bulls arsed by Warrington (I remember when we used to do that to them). I used to say to my friend about the annual arsing of Warrington, now it's very much by instead of 'of'.

This week:

Saturday with Atlanta Soul again (another wedding, will these people ever learn!). Then on Sunday afternoon it's the Trio back at Todstock. Our set is at 4:00pm so if you're near Todmorden come along to Centre Vale park and buy a CD, sorry, I mean watch us play.

Music:

Joss Stone's new album, imaginatively called 'LP1' is a stunner. It's all real instruments, classic rhythm and blues, hammond organ, crunchy guitars etc....and that voice, it's electric, I love the passion in her voice. To me she's a modern day Tina Turner, and I mean that in the best possible way, awesome record. Only 10 songs, short and simple, it's superb.