Out on 3 gigs, two with the Elephant Shelf and one with Deltas. All pub gigs but good fun especially when you have a good audience to play off. Its nice to get back into it all again. Its also nice not having to travel too far as well. On sunday we met a new at our gig friend who is a magician with a mad sense of humour rather like ours and had just been doing a show and brought his dad along as well. I don’t think he is a real magician though as the last lottery numbers he gave me didnt win

Yesterday my sister came down to visit from Colne and we spent most of the time chating which was pleasant enough. She is not in the best of health having developed diabetes and high blood pressure. I was recently checked for this and am OK at the moment fingers crossed.

I also was working on learning some Ray Charles and Dr John tunes as I have found some quite good transcriptions. Its frustrating when your hands don’t go to quite the right place though. after about 4 years of titanic struggle

I am finally getting to be able to sight read more complex music a bit. The trouble is having played by ear for the past 30 years its a difficult thing to do as you tend to play what you think you hear rather than what is written. Of course the music has an improvised content as well, but actualy getting down a tasty Ray Charles move or two is another thing altogether. Jazz and blues.boogie stuff written down is often very inaccurate or shorthand at best so for my befuddled brain its a bit of a workout.

Also last night I watched a recorded documentary about Prince. Hes got a lot of talent, but his songs don’t really do it for me.
Personal taste I suppose.

Work up in the middle of the night aching quite a bit and to get relief requires me to lay on my back, so a bit over tired and irritable today. I will go off for a rehersal later this afternoon which will get me in a better mood hopefully. I must remeber to do my streching excerises too as they do help a lot and not to spend too much time at the computer as that tends to make things worse.

Its interesting listening the rants about over paid over pensioned public service workers, which always come from the same sources and unfairness or otherwise.
The interesting thing is of course that two of said ranters of my aquantance are ex-coppers and so will have some sort of gov pension at some point?

I worked in the private sector for 17 years and as a civil servant for 13 years. Yes its very different and was in my case possibly a life saver making the move. I also saw a lot of how the other half lived.

Our society such as it is becoming more divided and many more doors are shut for both young and old and there is no more room at the inn.

Its been a slightly different start to the month.

On Monday we recorded a Jazz album (9 tracks) and this is specifically for getting work, but a little different for me as everything was live including the vocals, though my voice held out OK, so its down to mixing it now. I am quite pleased with the rough mixes.

I am still feeling pretty rough at times as the bones are creaking and aching a lot, but I am assured that this is all part of the repair process and that apart from excercise and pain killers its just a matter of working through the process, though real ale is very effective in taking the edge off it(it is a muscle relaxant after all ). Its been depressing at times though, without a doubt.

One unexpected side effect that I have started excercises which should help with my posture. I have a life long spine problem,(basically a small hump) and the workout seems to to be helping with some of the postural issues I have. One of the worst things is that I can’t lift anything too heavy, but I have got a trolley for moving gear around which I should have got a while back but the old one broke and I didn’t replace it which was a bad move. I need a bit more advice as I may need a back brace of some sort, but I have been waiting for my ribs to fix first.

We did a support slot on Saturday night in Reading for Larry Miller at Reading Arts Center, quite a contrast from just the two of us in our extremely roots incarnation of the Deltas, but it went OK  phew. Larry is great, but very, very LOUD!

We are back in Reading in a couple of weeks at a little place called the Retreat which strangely enough has a very good selection of real ales. At this point you may be detecting a theme. Actually I am not a huge drinker, usually 2 pints max on an evening out. Rarely I will have a pint at home but mostly not. Next week we should be back in the studio to do more work on the band (elephant Shelf) album, which is nearly cooked now, and we have a couple of localish gigs at the end of the week which should be fun.