It just looked like a normal music shop selling an eclectic mix of musical instruments. It was across the road from the hotel on Pico Boulevard where we were staying for two nights on our road trip through California, Nevada and Arizona back in August of this year. We hardly noticed it. Except for the … Read more
This post was written before the results of the Presidential Election in the USA: I am sitting at the dining room table. It’s late afternoon. Thanks to the shifting seasons it is already becoming dark. Within a short while we will know the outcome of the Presidential election and whether the planet is safe for now. In … Read more
It would have been the summer of 1980. This is one of those moments I think we all have, when a piece of music becomes rooted in a specific time and place. The music was “Charm (Over Burundi Cloud) by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno. A whole side of an album made up of authentic … Read more
#WorkingOutLoud … a note taken from Evernote, which I produced recently. This is one of a series of ideas for developing new material over a 30 day period. This is the note without edit: Take 15 minutes each day, make it a repeating task in Remember the Milk for those 30 days (weekdays only? so … Read more
On Friday I publicised the release of an album through Bandcamp. It comprised 15 tracks, using spoken word and music. The words come from “Blue: experiments in sound” which is the fourth poetry sequence about a misanthropic, lone-wolf character called Blue. I will be releasing this as a book in the next few months. In … Read more
A really short blog post today just to answer the question. I hope I am not too old, as Wednesday was the day when I released my first full length album through bandcamp. It’s a part of the Blue project which I have written about here before. If you are interested to learn more, you … Read more
Can a year be a specific colour? Is this some sort of synaesthetic experiment? Well, not exactly. I have written several posts about BlueWater Books and also about the new creative project “Blue: experiments in sound”. So, the nearest I get to a resolution for the new year is to say that this is the … Read more
It’s been a long time since that first time when I heard the music of Brian Eno and was completely captivated – and there began a lifetime obsession. We are talking the mid 70s. Of course, I had heard Roxy Music before that – but it was his solo work that really began the journey. … Read more
I’m taking you back a bit here. More than a decade, I think. It was the opening of a Borders store near where I lived in the Wirral, North West England. Shortly after it opened I visited to see what all the fuss was about. The new store was in the middle of a large … Read more
If I said to you that a performance comprising a string quartet plus a folk band with two sisters singing and clog dancing brought the audience to its feet with a massive cheer at the end of a ten minute song just before the interval – you might not believe me. Read on. It’s always … Read more