I don't know what happened to July, it just seemed to whizz right by. I'm sure there was something I should have told you about but here we are and it's nearly August. Wimbledon is done and dusted, evidently England won some sort of cricket match and everyone was really happy about it. Moving on!
Coming Up
This is a snapshot of my gigs for August. You can see the dynamic view view of it on my website so it's worth checking from time to time as gigs pop up, and indeed, pop down all the time.
Stand out gigs for me are this Friday at The Lychpit, Old Basing, an ancient and fantastic tithe barn that does music sessions once a month.
August 4th at The Star Inn, Guildford. This is brand new, Nashville style songwriters round co-hosted by me and the fabulous Rebecca Jayne at our recently rescued venue.
Just coming over the horizon is my return gig at The Three Lions, Farncombe on September 1st. I played a Sunday afternoon at The Three Lions (aka Scratchers - don't ask) every month for 2 years but a change of management last year stirred things up and that was that. I'm hoping this will be a bit of a homecoming so please put it in your diary and drop in if you're free. I notice from their Facebook page that I haven't actually made it onto their gig diary yet but keep the faith!
Pink Angora
I've been on the Pink Angora Sweater promo trail with composer Stuart Brayson. I performed at the launch party at The Prince of Wales in Chalk Farm, I met Sir Tim Rice (a friend and former collaborator of Stuart's) who was very charming. The single; Above the Clouds got played by Elaine Page on Radio 2 which was a nice surprise and I also appeared with him on Radio Marlow FM which was a 2 hour interview during which I played Above the Clouds and My Secret live on air and they dug up my Eurovision entry from 1988 and played that too. I think they were more interested in my haircut than the song but it was 1988. Mullets were all the rage.
Late for Lunch
As a direct result of this exposure to the world of musical theatre I've been invited to create a new musical myself. This means very little in the grand scheme of things, there's a very long road from here to any tangible result but it's nice to be asked. The brief was: "A musical comedy about death". I responded with the following synopsis:
Six children gather around the kitchen table to mourn the anniversary of Mama's passing. Sunday lunch was the centre of their family life and they assemble for this celebration meal unaware that Mama’s ghostly persona still occupies her place at the table. There’s a huge family row and Mama is so appalled by their behaviour that she decides to engineer their urgent demise so they can join her in the after life, regain their sibling harmony and enjoy her home cooking for eternity.
I've written a couple of songs already, I think it might work! See you soon luvvies...