A mini rant about musical matters

About 2 weeks ago I put an add on a music message board to try and expand the possibilities’ of getting out and playing more primarily but in the local area not miles away. It had 235 views and not one single response. I wonder if that’s a record? Wow.

Yes I am in a Band/trio and also a folk band but they are not exactly busy and whilst I am quite comfortable performing I am not primarily a solo performer and attending open mics where I don’t really know people is quite difficult for me. I have met some lovely people but not anybody that seems to be up for a proper ongoing collaboration and working up numbers to take anything forward. These thing take a bit of time. I am not looking for sympathy
just wondering what I am doing wrong? At times I wonder if this is simply because of my age? (69) I have recorded a lot of stuff over the years that’s available online. Over the last 10 years over 6 or 7 online platforms material I written and recorded has clocked up about 300,000 streams so I can’t be that bad, can I?

I play Piano, (also keys and synths) Violin Guitar and dabble in one or two other things.
I sing but I would not call myself a vocalist.

Sitting in a pub for maybe two hours on your own waiting to play a couple of numbers however good the other performers are is not the greatest thing for me as I am not good at small talk and never have been. I tend to get anxious doing social stuff on my own. Its a problem because I worked with the same person for 17 years and played about 4000 gigs approx until they passed and then lockdown hit and after that end of story pretty much it seems. Now for various reasons I am not able to travel (finance being one of them) miles to meet up with people. If I had a more outgoing personality maybe I could bang on a few more doors, but I don’t.
Anyway here is a song I recorded last week..

February 2026, Thoughts On Getting Older

Well, a funny old day. I couldn’t settle to anything at all. Slight gloom ensued. I am sleeping OK but still waking up tired at present. What I notice is if I am out and doing stuff I feel OK but at home although I am nowhere near as anxious as I have been for a long time I do feel very tired. Again though if I am beavering away making a recording or writing music or learning something new I am fine. So how much is depression and how much is actually physiology in all this? I can get energy to do stuff, but once I have run through my to do list, its like my strings have been cut and I collapse in a heap.


BTW I had a funny dream and at the end of it I was on a wooden boat with Donald Trump and others in NY harbour near the statue of liberty and it was sunk, and the Donald was saying don’t launch the missiles they will destroy us all as we are at the target. We were all bobbing around in life jackets at that point, then I woke up… It was so real.

I should have gone out again today as being in a lot seems to put me out of sorts a bit. I had a quick walk around the block but even with several layers the cold got to me. Even being out for 20 minutes makes a difference though I find. Sometimes when I am feeling a bit low I sort of lock up and stop doing anything. Usually at that point the mournful thoughts creep up. Having been very busy with various music and related projects and having finished those, I did not want to plough straight in to the next thing and sort of thought about going out but didn’t.

I have been working on some music, I feel half dead but that’s OK. A song that’s developing nicely so far. It’s the case that creatively I do better if I have switch off and refresh. yesterday was a bit like that and half today I was also mentally off line.

Music 🎶

Those were the days 😉

The Devil is In The Detail

Lovely evening at Radbourne Folk Club last night again with the Invisible Folk Club Band Jonathan Bickley Phil Beavis Milo Richard Downs. yea fun. We played 5 songs at Redbourn folk club as a 4 piece. It was good fun… But on the drive back 25 minute delay due to road works on the M1. Didn’t have my google maps on so I didn’t see the jam until it was too late…



I have repaired my car mirror now which fell of earlier in the week. All fitted including electric demist bits. Go me. Only £15 for bits as opposed to £150 replacement unit. Mild Hurrah.

News of the weirds

Almost everybody I have known that were in favour of Brexit are saying they are voting Reform. Weirdly I have had to block a lot of trans people who have turned out to be some of the worst offenders ranting about ‘illegal’s’ a phrase imported from the US. I come from working class roots (until 10 years old a family of 5 living in 2 rooms with no bathroom In Brixton) and have no formal education and over my life time have mostly scraped by. Until I was 61 I lived in London. Locally I knew nobody that voted for Brexit.

On the night of the referendum I was playing a gig in a small bar in the south of France with a mixed audience of local French and a few exe pats. The reaction from the French as results came in was that England was in the grip of some form of mass insanity. At a gig two days later in Pub in London we greeted with drunks braying about how they had ‘Won’. A very depressing evening and they could not explain to me what they had won? Having played music in pubs around the UK that’s my personal experience.I should point out that Brexit decimated the music industry as small acts like myself could no longer easily tour in Europe. Even the farmers shot themselves in the foot. Everybody in the UK got a pamphlet which outlined what leaving would mean in terms of the economy and much more. They chose to ignore it. Many were people who never voted in elections. Also the referendum was advisory, so frankly parliament should not have enacted it as it was and has been contrary to the greater good.

Yes, a lot of younger people are finding that moneys too tight to mention and it is mostly about housing. Also a lot of jobs have gone forever and more will be very soon. The next job cull is in admin and customer service all of which can be done about 90% with AI…

Here’s a track from a few years back that I recorded that I rather like.