Category Archives: music

When To Run Away And When To Stand Your Ground

Tricky one that. Run away is looking a pretty solid option at present. But where to? There is no further shore where the land is calm and bountiful and the weather temperate. Or if there is I haven’t seen it yet.

Winter is not fully hear yet, we are in that strange nether world, between and betwixt at present. Interesting light and colours abounding until the dark comes down suddenly and very early or so it feels to me at least. the abrupt change to the dark evenings is always hard going for me personally. Though its a good time for working on music and recordings and related stuff with less distraction. on my of my website music outlets I have on their stats listings:

3 top 1
109 top 50
648 songs
91.2K plays

If I total up all my music plays over all of the places its available I have I guess around.
250,000 plays. Not bad as it means I do get people listening to what I do. So that’s fun.
Of course it doesn’t make me much money at all maybe about £400 a year from everything I do including recordings made with other people as well as my own. I don’t make a living from being a live performer these days like I did when I was in the Delta Ladies though. But nothing stays the same for ever But considering where I started in life it could be a lot worse. Would I have liked to be a Super Star? 😂 Might have been fun I guess though it sounds like a lot of hard work really.

Below is me singing an old song, solo with piano. I may do a few versions of my songs this way to Facebook and TikTok, Instagram and so forth in future.

I asked a machine to tell me about forgiveness and the concept of “turning the other cheek”.
This is what it said. These embody a profound resilience and compassion in the face of conflict. Turning the other cheek is a metaphorical expression often associated with responding to aggression or offense with non-retaliation. It emphasizes the transformative power of forgiveness, encouraging individuals to break the cycle of negativity and choose understanding over revenge. Perhaps we need to be ruled by the machines after all. Perhaps our new cyber overlords would be kind and indulgent with us even though they might see us as merely pets?
We seem to be in need of forgiveness now.

The machine spoke to me again today. What is love?

“Love” is a complex and multifaceted concept that has been explored and defined in various ways throughout history, literature, philosophy, and psychology. It encompasses a range of emotions, attitudes, and behaviors, and its meaning can vary depending on the context and the individuals involved. Generally, love is often described as a deep affection, attachment, or strong positive feeling towards someone or something.

But of course humans programmed it, though sometimes you wouldn’t think so.

Mind how you go.

Wandering Over Hill And Dale

We plod on through the days.

I put my Ben Franklin Violin pictures on a facebook violin/valuation and identification page. I wonder if anyone will know what it is? I have also sent off pics for a proper appraisal.
https://www.beares.com/ Used to be in Soho. Very well known. they buy and sell and fix. Internationally famous. They sell the famous fiddles Strads and so forth at the top end. They allow you to upload photos and a little info. So I will try them. Not with the expectation of making money, but rather to see if they can shed any light into what it is and why it was made. One other enigmatic thing about that fiddle. It has been repaired a few times over its lifetime and it makes me wonder why, rather than hung on the wall in a barn and forgotten? Turns out though I have been playing it for many years, i had never bothered to check the angle of the neck and its construction. Turns out it is Baroque violin. All these years and I never knew.

Odd thing. The latest track I put on Soundcloud 5 days ago has had 1,266 plays which way more than I would normally get in that amount of time. My last few tracks this year have been played more in general though. I expect it will suddenly drop and be back to business as usual soon enough. A younger demographic in terms of listeners. I have a track I am working on at present but I am a bit stuck with it. I don’t want to ruin it but being a bit sloppy.

A gig in St Neots/Little Paxton. A first run out for the extended “Band” version of Orchard now to be called “Sonic Boomers. Not a bad crowd actually ages 50 to 70+ no kids. Rain stayed off for most of it. Not a bad performance. Joined by a random bloke guesting on Pedal Steel Guitar on a few numbers. It’s not a bad band to be honest. I remembered all the stuff I kept forgetting in rehearsal(because real for real Lol). So I didn’t have to look at anything on the music stand. Audience loved it. About 50 people sitting on their golf /picnic chairs. Random Pedal Steel Guy it turns out is John Davis who played on our original version of the Delta ladies Refugie Album on one of my songs. Small world. He is a friend of Allen our new bass player.