All posts by diana Stone

About diana Stone

Diana Stone is a performing composer and musician playing Piano Violin & Guitar. She currently plays with Orchard and The Sonic Boomers. Previously with Rock/Roots band Elephant Shelf and also the Delta Ladies who mixed roots acoustic music and electronica until the death of Vicky Martin who formed the band which was active for 17 years. Diana composes in a variety of styles from pop to rock to Jazz and and classical music. Diana is also expert in multi-media recording and music production.

Whats next?

Musings

We are al in a time of massive upheaval fuelled by those that should no better. Spineless individuals trying to normalise hate and division and it looks as if they are winning right now. We slowly push forward into the world of ‘Don’t ask and don’t tell’.

The last pre Christmas gig this year for the Sonic Boomers. Also the first time I have warn Antlers. Judging by its success I must do so more often. A good crowd in a very big pub. It looked a bit daunting from outside. Run by women and all women bar staff. It went on for miles and had a huge outdoor heated area. I think there were quite a few travellers/Irish judging from the women and what they were wearing as there are a lot in Luton and Dunstable have a fair few usually. A black haired young 18/20 year old women and disarming pretty who could not look more Irish was absolutely fascinated by the violin. Lots of dancing and stuff and all very happy. 3 hour gig so pretty hard work though at the end I still felt I could have kept going. I expect I will suffer for it by Monday though. A couple of my Facebook friends showed up too. I do have a bit of a cold/sore throat but it held off last night at least. That is England to me, it hasn’t gone away despite the everything. Its weird I read all the reform shit and protestations then you go to a pub and there are Asians, Irish, proper gypsys a few crusty ancient hippie types and its also boasts its an ‘LGBT’ friendly pub. Sports bar too of course so giant TVs everywhere plus snooker. I do have a slight cold at present annoyingly.

A recent solo piano excursion. A sort of away day so to speak.

My diary past the end of this week is very, very empty. That’s not at all encouraging to be honest. Christmas of course looms very large now too. I am feeding myself lots of garlic in the vain hope of shifting this cold and staggering through a music project but very slowly. Just doing a sort of orchestral interlude part. (Synths of course). As ever I am not entirely convinced but you the jury can decide when it’s finished. And I have run out of steam for today so no more fighting the cold.

I was bored waiting to go to the gig so I did a proper IQ test the other day. Timed with no cheating possible. Turns out I have lost a few brain cells since I was 8. Then it was about 136 and now it is but a mere 120. Alas poor grey matter I knew you well…









Just a thought that not much changes.

Musings

I just had a R-eform leaflet through my door this morning. I can’t honestly express how much I despise that bloke. I hope he and Putin don’t stand on any structurally unsound balcony’s together as it would be tragic… 

I wrote this in July 2018.

At the end of the day Would you rather be part of Europe or a Tax haven heritage park?
Please note this is a personal view. I do not claim to be able to substantiate this but it seems logical to extrapolate this from the events which have to lead us to this point.
My view is that it’s been fixed so it won’t matter what we vote for it will be some variation on out. There will not be any choice given. There is no proper political opposition now in the UK. So there must be massive collision.
There are small groups of mostly very wealthy individuals who have orchestrated this for their own advantage. Some are English but many have deep connections to the USA. Those individuals have the following agenda:
1) Forcing down wages
2) Attempting to remove workers’ rights.
3) Gaining almost total control of the mainstream news media
4) Attempting to remove the NHS and replace it with an insurance-based system
5) De-stabilizing the economy to asset strip and then take ownership whilst keep their own wealth safely offshore in other places
6) Facilitating all of this by inducing paranoia based on non-existent threats and fear of the other. This prompted by breeding a culture of xenophobia and casual racism.
7) Inviting foreign agitators Steve Bannon and similar supremacist nationalists to this country to spread an often hate-filled agenda.


Lessons from history are being ignored and it may well already be too late.
Their idea is to destroy the UK, pick over the bones and then rebuild it in their own image whilst the Jacob Rees Moggs and Ian Duncan Smiths make a fortune.
The sad thing is that will be so many brain dead people shouting we have taken back our sovereignty whilst everything that made the UK a decent place is stripped away and we become some sort of European tax haven and theme park.
Ye Olde England crossed with 1950s Britain. Don’t worry about financial collapse feel the sovereignty
Better get your flap caps and be ready to doff them…..
God bless you, governor, spare a tanner for a cup of tea.

 Hebrews 13:2 (“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it”). 

December begins

Musings

A wobbly start to the month. The overwhelming urge to hibernate is getting really strong at present. A few minor tech problems hit my music making, but I think I have got it licked now. Well almost so we will see. Cubase has decided to crash randomly and I think it is a driver error but who knows. That is why I tend to stick with hardware based recording systems most of the time now.

Well, was trying to gird up my folky loins for this evening with the Invisible-folk-club-band. Sadly the weather beat me into submission, due to storms and flash flooding everywhere so I decided to not be be stupid and turn back. Can’t win em all but it’s going to be raining on and off all night and I really don’t want to get stuck out anywhere in the middle of nowhere on my own. Hopefully the Christmas tree fest in Olney tomorrow will go a little better (it did though even that was problematical). I hate to miss a gig but that’s life I guess. I have only missed about 5 over 20 years plus or so I guess its Ok. “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em Know when to walk away and know when to run”…I do feel a bit less invulnerable recently, its age I guess.

I have been thinking I must transcribe a few of my less obscure songs and do few at the odd open mike next year maybe? I have a lot of stuff which I work on and record and then promptly forget. So thats my next trick I guess. Something to work on during Gloommass and the new year. Interesting that in rehearsals I was making the odd daft joke and I thought to myself if I get some material together maybe the occasional solo gig might be possible. I have done them before and they were far better received than they should have been frankly. That would be a tangible thing to aim for I think that might fill in the gaps. I can find my most played songs on the streaming services and transcribe those and that should give me a reasonable set list perhaps.

There is still a lot of bad news out there and right now I can’t deal with it.