Its now coming up two years since Vicky martin died after a Delta Ladies gig at the Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell London. Its seems vividly like yesterday in some respects and also in a whole other life time ago since so much has changed since then. I did carry the Delta ladies on for about 6 months and was thinking I might just about make a go off it until everything shut down in February 2020 due to covid. Vicky was a huge part of my life in many ways, as way back in 2004 I joined the band Elephant Shelf playing keyboards. I had very little live gig experience in those days and learnt a lot very quickly and the rest is history. In 2008 for various reasons music became my day job and we did a lot of gigs over a period of nearly 17 years. So as I type this this having played live 3 times last year when previously I would have done between 100 to 130 gigs my life is pretty much turned upside down. Also the loss of another close friend at the end of 2020 (Vicky’s Partner Ralph ) totally knocked the stuffing out of me.
I have no idea when or if it will be possible to get a regularly gigging act up and running again. I need a regular guitar player (with a reasonable voice) and frankly I dont really know if I can actually get any gigs starting from scratch again. I have never been good at sales, but its worth a try I guess. I might get one or two but I doubt if it will be enough to make it work as a business again the way it used to. To be honest any hopes and dreams for me are are pretty much based on a more blessed 2022. But of course no one can see the future, or at least not anyone that I am in touch with.
Before starting to write this I got desperately low, so I took myself out for a 30 minute drive to remind myself that there is a world out there still. I have not sorted out as much as I would like too in the way of disposing of whats no longer needed or duplicated and I really should. Some possessions are a joy , but some are just taking up space now. It will be easier to sort out in a couple of months in May when hopefully restrictions should have eased.