Category Archives: Delta Ladies

Can we ever say more than we did our best?

Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, music, Musings, whatever

Can we ever say more than we did our best?  I am not sure we can really. I am mired in gloom today and not really sure why. The sun was out on a crisp winters day.  I took a brief trip to the shop to collect from the amazon locker.  Came home and tried to work on some project stuff but I couldn’t get motivated at all, though I did start a lyric and a couple of ideas for a tune or possibly two.  Its the first week of my extended exercise routine and I think its helpful.  I need to keep fairly mobile now if I can. Otherwise if I ever play a gig again I will  keel over from exhaustion before I even get started. Its a very clear, very cold night heer in Bedfordshire and you can recognise a couple of the major constellations.  the universe continues perfectly well without my interference of course 🙂  Everything feels so strange as we come close to the first anniversary of   restrictions brought in for Covid-19 in the UK where at the time of writing we are on our third lockdown which will be in place until at least spring judging by the way things are currently going.  Some days go well enough but today  has been hard for me. I would like to talk to one or two absent friend but they have passed beyond the orbit of this world now. Its hard going.  I dreamt I was playing a gig with the full line-up of the Delta Ladies with Vicky martin at the helm  in some big edwardian pub or other. Its seems like another world now to be honest. So on waking ity was disappointing to know that that’s pretty much all gone now.  Vicky was a pretty much irreplaceable force of nature and whilst I did attempt to carry on it  we could not quite make escape velocity in the end.  Plus lockdown finished everything  pretty much in March of  2020.   2021 has started and I feel exhausted mentally and  I feel I am beyond the point  where I can try and pick up the pieces again to be honest.  I do not expect there to be anyone riding out of the shadows to pick up the baton now. I am not even sure if I can actually cut it live now frankly.  It’s now nearly one year since the last Delta Ladies gig in a small pub in reading called “The Retreat”. Remaining members of the band have also had fairly serious ill health  to contend with too.  Its possible there may be a grand finale at some point. But there needs to be a  new road or else there is no road to travel now.

It’s  a pretty low ebb for me now. I really need be mixing with people but the current situation makes it impossible of course.  My fairly paranoid internal dialogue is increasingly difficult to block as well.  I am creating music and trying to keep going.  One day at a time is as good as it gets though.  From here onward is obscured to me assuming there is a going forward from this point as nothing is guaranteed in this life.

I send out my musical messages in a bottle  into the either and wonder…

So can we ever say more than we did our best?

 

More October 2020

Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, Musings

Its turning into a long month.  Covids on the rise according to the latest stats.  Its  a Saturday and I am watching “The Big Bang Theory” on the box. I do enjoy the show but Its really not my ideal Saturday night to be honest. I hope at least a few of you have better things to do with your time. I think the weekends are more difficult in some respects for me personally as there is no differentiation between those and any other days of the week. So I am typing this as a sort of therapy I guess. Also as a break from various musical doings that are filling most of my time now as I feel as if I am stuck in a perpetual groundhog day loop now.  I know a few people are lucky enough to be out getting the odd gig or two, and that’s great.  However Covid or no Covid my attempt to keep the “Delta ladies” going wasn’t really working and in a sense recent events have made it obvious that its really not going to.  So that’s a chapter thats over now. But I gave it my best shot under the circumstances. It was though 14 years of my life and around 130 gigs a year on average. And that ended pretty much with Vicky Martins passing in April 2019. I  played a few gigs afterwards but then Covid-19 finished things for good pretty much. Anything I do in future has to be different, but its like starting from scratch and I dont think I have it in me as you need a particular sort of personality to front a show, and it seems that is not really me right now at least. Of course it may be there isn’t actually much of a future any and that’s that?

I will try to keep making music of course as there is not much else I could do really.

In other news.
I woke up last night with a pain like something had snapped, I had to lie on my side. Fortunately it went away. I think the culprit maybe the new upper back exercises I am doing. So more caution is advised.
All my exercises are basically to make sure I stay as mobile as possible. The upper back is lightly to cause some discomfort as specific muscles will be stretching out of there usually postions. Its hitting the point where there is resistance but not strain that is the difficult bit. It seems to benefit my ability to sit and type more easily and also sit in a much bette posture with out leaning forward. that could be a big deal if I can keep it up as it would allow me to do more useful computer based stuff and might even allow me to get a bit of an extra income from IT again. If I can just sit down for 2 hours a day in front of a compute there is work that I could potentially do that would benefit me. Also the upper back and violin playing are inextricably linked and the better the shoulders and upper back are in terms of freedom of movement the easier it is and the better it sounds.

 

its along road…..

 
 

 

 

 

What next? Here’s a bit of a catch up blog post for August 2020

Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, disabilty and health news, glass cage, music, Musings, other, Piano

Here’s a bit of a catch up blog post for August 2020

 

  • Delta Ladies,

    It’s proved very difficult to try and keep the act going. So much of it was created by the personalities of those involved as much as anything else. Whilst I had tried to keep the band going there has not really been anyone that so far was the right fit. Not for peoples lack of trying I hasten to add. Often simply because of we had always been a “let’s see what happens on the night” sort of band with a lot of freedom in what we played. Often Vicky would chuck in a number we had not played for months at random and not always in the same key that we had played it in before.  On another occasion Vicky came up with a tune on the dulcimer that was sort of Scottish sounding slow air and we played it at a gig having not heard it before that evening. Sadly we did not even have a demo recording of it so its lost to the world That’s not in everybody’s comfort zone which is quite understandable. Its not just about playing or performing ability, it’s about practical issues. Being in the right place and having the time to be involved without it clashing too much with other commitments. I had hoped to restart this year when of course Covid -19 and lockdown hit.  That was a real blow as I had just got myself back up off the floor after Vicky’s death and was beginning to feel a little more confidence again.

    I am still plowing on with the other music I make and record in various forms as much as possible, but that’s a rather solitary pursuit in the main at present. I am lucky that I have what I need to create. It’s useful to be able to play the range of instruments that I do. I released two albums of some of my most recent material which you can find here.

  • 2020 Vision
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/2020-Vision-Diana-Stone/dp/B084FSKQ9C
    and
    Not So Sure
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Sure-Explicit-Diana-Stone/dp/B08DXLFYZX
    Released on August 7
    These are also available on Itunes and the other usual suspectsI am doing some remote collaborations from time to time to as fortunately current technology allows this fairly easily. Very different from the old days of posting cassettes to each other for collaborations.
Trying to keep cool in the studio
  • Health and other stuff.

    I have had a lot of bother with my back and related conditions which I am working on improving but it’s been a bit up hill. I have also got quite depressed primarily because of lack of face to face contact with people I know are quite a distance away from where I live so I don’t tend to be able to meet people casually.

    I don’t regret moving from London as the countryside here is wonderful and only a mere 5 minute stroll from my front door. Our next door neighbor even has ducks in his back garden. I haven’t really got properly integrated locally for all sorts of reasons and Covid-19 has not helped much either with that.
    Being a somewhat introvert depressive makes life a bit uphill too.