I’m on a desperately slow Internet connection in Kent at the Hop Farm festival. Played earlier today and Staying to see Dylan later on. I do this with some trepidation: the last two times I’ve seen him, he’s been genuinely shocking. I want to get close enough to observe him at the office from a …

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Following on from yesterday’s post, here’s a new version of this demo. The guitars are in tune: I replaced the backwards distorted guitar (this time with less distortion too, as the compression from the overdrive reduced the swell effect as the reversed guitar “grows” in volume towards the plectrum hit which is now at the …

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I love the reversed guitar stuff Lanois does. If you’re not familiar with his stuff, try the “Oh Mercy” Bob Dylan album, or “Wrecking Ball” with Emmy-Lou Harris (though I hate what he did to her voice on this one) or “Yellow Moon” by the Nevill Brothers. Of course, he’s probably best known to the …

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As reported here I got into a conversation with Dave Marks, Steve Lawson and others about finding new music and whether or not it can be as exciting as music was in previous times. There are so many issues here, and the simplest to deal with is the first question: how do we find new …

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Wonderful day of music: Rehearsed all afternoon with a new band started by the legendary Al Stewart of Al Stewart’s Salsa Pirates fame (remind me to tell the story sometime.) In true Al style, he himself was absent from his own band’s inaugural rehearsal, but we got on with it. I kept getting given songs …

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Got into a fascinating FB exchange with Dave Marks, Steve Lawson and others about finding new music the other day. The discussion was about (amongst other things) how we find new music now that the radio no longer performs the filtering function it used to (and indeed people don’t listen to “real-time” radio any more …

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Excuse typos: done on my iPhone while waiting for the game to start… Despite rain that became torrential by 11pm, we had a fantastic night for our daughters’ joint 18th and 21st party. The minstrels set up on the decking outside my studio (thanks to the kindness of a friend of ours with two large …

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