Been a while so here's the latest in a very infrequent series.
May and June were very quiet and there was me thinking I'd retired from the live music business, so I signed up for a 100k bike ride on a Saturday when I had nothing in the evening except the opportunity to put my feet up and rest, with an equally lazy Sunday to follow. Blow me down with a custom kazoo, no sooner had I paid my money than my cajon bashing buddy called me and said we had a gig come in for the Saturday evening. Thinks I, we both sit down in the duo so I should be okay, despite the long bike ride. Then a day later he calls back this time with a gig for the rock'n'roll band on the Sunday afternoon. Standing up and rocking for three hours...
As it happened, it all went really well. The bike ride was a joy, both gigs were awesome with some very good feedback - excellent feedback actually - and even when I broke the chair half way through our acoustic version of Hey Joe I still didn't actually fall down.
On the back of that more gigs started to roll in. Got a couple at the Gloucester blues festival at the end of this month, and a half dozen for August - two different duos, a trio, and a couple with the band.
Not being much of a radio listener the question often comes up, usually when I'm talking to myself, how do you get to hear new music? Well here's a feller I stumbled across when perusing non-music stuff on You Tube. Luckily I wasn't the only one moved by the music in the video and a quick scan of the comments revealed numerous people asking "Who's the singer?" Well, it turned out to be Willy Tea Taylor. And to say he's right up my street would be akin to saying I'm sat here right now with a wee cup of tea (spookily), feet up, typing on this here computer. In other words, it's the gospel truth, bothers and sisters.
So here we have the greatest new artist I've discovered this year:
http://willyteataylor.com/music/Hey ho. Back to work.
Derek