Andy Warhol was more famous for saying that in the future everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes than he ever was for his art.

Just saying.

It's Peak Weekend at the Edinburgh Festival and the streets are awash with television producers and people of all descriptions vying for their attention.

Celebrity as currency - fame as a self-regulating nouveau class-system - has become generally accepted by the public, especially since the Great Turnoff that is reality TV.  I mean, does ANYBODY other than entertainment journalists and professional or wannabe slebratays actually watch Celebdaq?  No, I didn't think so.  Nevertheless there's a prevailing Berkeleyist attitude that a person's existence is worth less - or even worthless - without validation by corporate mass media.

Nowhere is that philosophy more keenly evident than at the Edinburgh Fringe at Peak Weekend (always the final weekend in August), when the Fringe, Book and Film Festivals are drawing to a close, the official Festival is in full swing and the TV Festival rides into town with cries of "We've arrived - the real festival can start now. Glad you could make it".

Sadly they have a point. The Edinburgh Festivals, vital to the city's economy, thrive on the legend that careers are launched from this strange mix of student drama, Off-Broadway, Glyndebourne, Glastonbury and Cannes that gets bigger each year. Companies set up their stalls in the hope of their production being bought by TV.  The exposure allows the winners to get corporate backing and bigger audiences. The job of the TV producer is to seek and find the Next Big Thing which will ensure healthy ratings; increasingly they wait to have the talent delivered, just as their audiences do. And so it goes on and the class divide between the seen and the seen-nots becomes ever more acute. 

Time will tell - probably fairly soon - what impact sites like this one, iTunes and YouTube will have on the shape of things to come in this dynamic. My guess is that it'll still be about money - the higher the budget the more likely it is that an act will be able to present themselves in the most auspicious light to gain maximum public attention and therefore earn more money from their creative efforts.

In the past week I've had a virtual taste of what it might be like to be a celebrity: last week a very beautiful and charming camera crew followed me around for a "day in the life" documentary which will be seen early next year on a new website.  I am sworn to secrecy about the details, but enjoying the irony that although web visibility is a lower grade of exposure, it's potentially longer lasting than the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of most mainstream radio and TV. Anyway, it was loads of fun and made me feel very important.  I'm hell to live with now.

Back in the world of the obscure, our show has been doing rather well. In the pattern of the Good Old Days of the Fringe When Everyone Knew Everyone Else And You Could Put On A New Play With A Wing And A Prayer In One Of Those Funny Little Backstreet Venues With So Many Stairs And Still Have Change Out Of Ten Guineas Not To Mention A Guarantee Of A Scotsman Review And If You Were Any Good You Might Even Get Spotted By Talent Scouts, and far away from any corrupting spotlight, word of mouth (and mouse) has given us a clutch of 5-star reviews and a steady increase in audience numbers. 

Venue owner and one-man cultural phenomenon Richard Demarco (who co-founded the Traverse Theatre, amongst many other exploits)  has been very vocal in his enthusiasm about One Night At The Caravan Club; he paid me the huge compliment of saying I reminded him of his aunts - who actually were 1920s Bohemian types of the kind I'm doing my best to portray.  He's also, justifiably, hailing our Andy (the playwright) as a bit of a genius and raving about the undisputedly exciting talent and flair of my co-star, the young actor Arron Wright.

We had a lovely day on Monday with a lunchtime visit to the Oran Mor Theatre in Glasgow as part of their Best Of The Fest In The West: A Play, A Pie And A Pint series. Glasgow audiences are as good as it gets.  They know what they like and aren't embarrassed to tell you.  They really "got" what Andy's saying with the play, and gave a great response to the tunes too.  Ever so nice to see Professor Ian Black, author of the definitive tome Edinbuggers v Weegies, who bought us a drink after the show and reminded me of so many misspent evenings gone by with those who have gone before. We all fell asleep in the minibus on the way back (except for Norman the driver, fortunately).

Tuesday was Andy's 21st birthday so we celebrated with a fair bit of wine and Arron and I danced to some quality disco music at C Venues (the main hall in Adam House)... in retrospect not the wisest activity with a sprained foot, but it was fun at the time.  Though the performance went well, Thursday was a bit of a downer as it always is at that point during the Fringe - everyone's tired; the parallel universe that is Edinburgh at Festival-time has taken hold and is on the verge of seeming routine and ordinary. Then we all wake up on Friday morning and think - thank God, the TV people are in town, it's a Bank Holiday weekend in England, we have permission to party and only three days till they turn off the lights, the world goes grey again and we have to deal with mundane things like bills and laundry.  And so we will party hard till Monday, stopping off after our final performance tomorrow to do a set at the Midnight Carousel cabaret club hosted by the utterly charming and engaging Mr Dusty Limits.

Who needs reality when you're a secret superstar???

From the Edinburgh Fringe production of "One Night At The Caravan Club"

Such a lot of people got in touch and said break a leg. 

The first night was - um - interesting.  Stressful, too: to paraphrase Robert Burns, our best laid plans were ganging agley far too aft for comfort.  Just as the big tune was about to kick in for my torch song - the first public performance of my new tune, Boys Will Be Boys, the backing CD stuck and nothing was going to bring it back to life.  So I carried on and sang it unaccompanied.  As I did so half of my costume disentangled itself from its moorings and slid to the floor.  In spite of this and other minor mishaps the feedback from the audience was genuinely positive, which was a relief.

So we all went down to the Pleasance for a drink and got there just before last orders were called.  As the venue closed I nipped upstairs to answer a call of nature and on the way back down I slipped on some drink that another person had spilled earlier, and slithered down the marble stairs.  Our crew were already outside; just the door staff were left hustling punters out of the building so they could lock up.  Not one of them came to help - presumably they thought I was just another drunk.  I thanked them for their concern as I left, and limped on to an extremely enjoyable jam session at the Royal Oak, which is still a terrific after-hours haunt for musicians of all persuasions.

After a good old sing-song and some lovely tunes from Neil, Euan and the usual assortment of regulars and visitors, I got chatting to John, who had been playing earlier with Eddi Reader & co at the Queen's Hall.  He gave me a lift back in a taxi as he lives near me.

In the morning I couldn't get any of my shoes on: my right foot had swollen to twice its normal size.  Fortunately I had one pair in a larger size that I'd been meaning to take back and exchange, and these just about fit around the new shape.  Couldn't put any weight on it, so I decided it might be worth getting it checked out.  I took my knitting and a bottle of water and headed down to the minor injuries clinic at the Western General Hospital.

Knitting has never been a forte - at school we were made to knit squares for "the poor" - I had doubts as to just how useful the poor might find them, but it was compulsory so that was that.  I was always last to finish and I never did work out how to cast off, leaving that task for my mother or one of my sisters to do for me.  A few years later I had a grand plan to knit a hippie scarf out of shredded rags, and I got a fair way along with that before my dad made me throw it away because it offended his aesthetic sensibilities. So I never got to cast that off either.  No more knitting after that until the other day I found some mad wool in a shop around the corner and thought why the heck not - maybe I could get around to learning how to do this properly. 

Which is how I come to be about five inches into a shaggy scarf that feels so lifelike I'm tempted to offer it a saucer of milk every time I get it out of the knitting bag.  The hospital waiting room was a great place to get stuck into this particular project - there's something a bit hypnotic about the process, and it definitely helped to pass the time.

Finally I hobbled very slowly and painfully into the examination room and Nurse Louise asked what seemed to be the trouble.  I managed to resist the temptation to say "It's my nose". Several X-rays later it was decided that nothing was broken.  Just a bad sprain that may take seven or eight weeks to go down.  And a foot that has developed a definite ego of its own after all the attention it received during its photo session.

All of which meant that the show has had to adjust to my limitations.  No more barefoot dancing or quick changes - I'm now sat on stage like a musical narrator/Greek chorus, commentating in song between chunks of drama from Arron.  Actually I think it works better like that, so there was a silver lining.  The show went well last night - the CD worked this time - and all the costumes stayed on!

There was a party at the venue after the show, and we got to meet some of the performers from the other shows - it seems like a friendly crowd.  Bizarrely the venue manager's surname, a very rare Hawaiian name, is the same as the middle name of an ex-boyfriend of mine from way, way back.  It was also nice to meet the comedian (and one of my Myspace friends) Wendy Ivers, about whom I've heard a great deal. She and I had both been booked for a comedy dating show but that idea's been scrapped, sadly.

Fortunately alternative adventures seem to be presenting themselves thick and fast in spite of this minor disappointment... keep watching this space.

Away from the Fringe, I've signed up for a very exciting new website called Sellaband.  It's an amazing idea whereby listeners and fans can invest in artists they believe in and help those artists to raise enough money to make first-rate recordings in high end studios.  The finances and A&R etc are all administered by Sellaband, and as the money gets raised, the artists offer free downloads.  Once the target is reached and the album made, "Believers" get free copies and other benefits in return for their investment.

All the people involved in the management and production side of the enterprise are at the top of their field in the industry, and this really does look like an opportunity for artists to benefit from the kind of services that are normally only provided by a record company, while maintaining a level of control of their own material that record companies are not usually prepared to give.

If you like my songs and have the price of a couple of drinks to spare, it would be great if you would consider becoming one of my "Believers".  Click here to see my page there and find out more.

I've uploaded a brand new track to the site too, called The Truth Will Set You Free.  It's exclusive to my Sellaband site and free to download.  I wrote it after turning on the TV three times in two days to hear that phrase uttered first by Julia Roberts, then by an American-Chinese actor playing a policeman, then by someone in Neighbours, and thought the coincidence significant enough to commemorate in song.  The kick-drum sound was made by banging my microphone against my plastic dustbin, so no legs were broken during the making of the recording.

Hope you enjoy.

I'm living in a timewarp - as far as possible.  In a few days we open at the Edinburgh Fringe with One Night At The Caravan Club, which is set in the 1920s, and I've been living and breathing 1920s music almost exclusively for the past six weeks.  Bessie Smith, Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden and so many others - Gershwin, Porter, Hoagy Carmichael... 

To add to the fun I've set myself the task of writing a torch song for the musical, in the style of the period.  The other songs, though original, have a real 1920s flavour about them and I'm feeling quite upbeat about the melody I've come up with - I think it fits pretty well into the context.  We're supposed to be recording all the songs next week sometime, so watch this space for links.

If it's at all geographically possible, please come and see the show (check on my main profile page for all the details of where, when, how much etc.).  It's set in the Caravan Club, which was a real place in Endell Street in Covent Garden, one of London's few underground gay clubs of that era.  All very bohemian and highly illegal - and eventually it did get raided and closed down. 

The play looks at what it must have been like to be a gay man in 1929 and draws from contemporary accounts to make a fictitious story of "Gerry", a typical regular at the club.  It's written by Andy Robinson with Arron Wright, who plays Gerry.  A real couple of Bright Young Things - the whole project is part of Andy's degree course at Central School of Speech & Drama, and Arron at 19 is already a seasoned performer with a string of credits to his name. 

No jazz age nightclub is complete without a singer, and that's where I come in.  Following a hard fortnight's shopping, I shall of course be wearing full sequins and diamante and flappering as hard as I can.

More soon; till then - Toodle-pip!

 There is a bulletin circulating which I think is pointing people to this page and I'd hate to disappoint.  It came as a bit of a surprise to be invited to check out what people would say to George Bush Jr if he had a myspace profile, only to click on the link and find my own blog. If it's a nifty bit of code that points everyone to their own blog, then I'm already ahead, as I'm not disappointed.  Confused, yes, but not disappointed.

The bulletin is inviting people to share what they would say to President Bush if he had a myspace page.

The picture below wasn't designed with anyone specific in mind but it does seem to fit the bill.

It's not just Bush I would say this to, but it'd be a heck of a start.

I can't find the existing page that the bulletin referred to, but as much as I expect there will be some angry views expressed I would love to think it might also contain words of encouragement and hope for a man with such a unique set of challenges to deal with so publicly and with such global repercussions resulting from his decisions.  Wouldn't it be great to think that might help?

Give peace a chance - that's another thing I might say, if I thought it might make a difference.

And I might invite him to check out a couple of international musical collaborations I've recorded in the past few months: How Many More (by All Night Long - featuring Rick Lewis on guitar), and Sweet FA, re-recorded for the Sound Aid project and remixed by Patric Bakkenist. The lyrics of both pretty much sum up how I feel.

But in all probability, if President Bush did have a myspace page (and for all we know maybe he does have one) I probably wouldn't even bother to look at it at all unless he had some cool tunes on it that he'd made himself.  Or some good jokes, or both. Call me a cynic, but while I'm all for collective positivism (and I mean that in an utterly positive way), I rather suspect by the time you get to be President of the United States the views of a bunch of musicians, peace campaigners, opportunists, surf potatoes and pornographers aren't going to be at the top of your "must read" list.  Or even on your "must act on immediately ...or actually ever" list.

Then again, the fact we are able to express such views with a modicum of freedom will no doubt provide handy political capital for those needing to justify policies that might not stand up too comfortably under close scrutiny in an alternative moral framework.

I miss David Sutch.  I can't help believing that the world might have become a jollier place for a larger number of people if he'd been put in charge.

This weekend I have mostly been podcasted.

Emotional At Airports picked up two podplays over the weekend. JD's Musical Alchemy included it in a delightful selection of tracks by unsigned artists and the very entertaining Hyper Nonsense show not only played it but gave the song a thoroughly decent puff as part of a wider discussion on the music scene. Honoured to be picked considering they only have one tune per show.

JD - alias Jim Davies, the musical alchemist from Newberg, Oregon - plays a really varied and enjoyable mix of stuff, all of it really fresh and different. I concur with him completely about Ben Goodwin's song, Hungry Ghost - what a find!! Funnily enough there used to be a band in Edinburgh called the Hungry Ghosts, featuring the Real Norman Lamont and various friends.

Jim also says some lovely things about Airports - it's ever so nice when people "get" what I'm trying to do.

Another podcast I found myself rather more involved with than I'd originally  intended is Garageband's special birthday tribute to Sir Paul McCartney.  I decided to record a sort of cover of "When I'm 64", called "Now You're 64".  Same tune, different words.  It's not often one's allowed to upload other people's tunes, especially not Beatles, and especially not Beatles who might actually hear them, so it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. 

Well... that was where the fun started.  With an upper time limit of sixty seconds I had to pack an awful lot of syllables in at one heck of a lick. All well and good, till I listened back and found that the playback volume levels were far too low.  I'd forgotten that I wasn't the last person using my editing software on this computer. 

Got the volume sorted, and that should have been that. Except that when the file played back from the podcast it seemed to have stretched in transit.  I recorded the track in C and it was playing back around Bb and about five seconds longer than my original recording, making me sound extremely butch and fruity.

A volley of emails and alternative versions followed between me and an extremely patient Ali Partovi at Garageband, during which time I realised that the cause of the problem was almost certainly that the bitrate was wrong.  My fault once again for not checking the settings after my friend borrowed the computer - I'm so used to things being exactly the way I left them.  

As I write the song's still playing slow, and it does sound like me, just maybe after a hard day's night and 40 untipped Woodbines.  Which ain't so far from the truth, except for the Woodbines.  So I do rather hope it can be fixed before Sir Paul gets wind of it all. He might still think it's crap, but at least it would be crap in the right key.*

Anyhow while all this was going on I had the privelege of editing an exciting young singing star's acapella version of Hey Jude, which has now been posted on the podcast.  2 years old and full of attitude. It's never too early to start. 

I wonder what Derek Taylor would make of it all.  It was thirty-nine years and 17 days ago today.

*update - it's still running slow but it's nowhere near as bad as it was before.

Peter Kearns says there's no such thing as time. So does Eckhart Tolle.  And so does Sean Lennon. I'm not certain. I was in the kitchen just now and I realised that I didn't know if the clock with the broken pendulum ticked or not. I could hear a ticking but with all the noise out in the street and in my head I couldn't tell if it was real or just the memory of the ticking of the spaceship clock in the studio.

A couple of weeks ago I was in London for an old school reunion. Ten years since the last one and most people still look much the same, though perhaps there was a little longer spent on that moment when you see someone in the present day before automatically clicking your brain into seeing the face of the person you used to know. 

I met my (non-biological) twin, Jayne, who has a very different life from mine, though there have always been strange parallels. She really is a very nice person.  Whenever big things are happening in my life I always wonder if her life is equally eventful.  I expect it probably is. 

After the reunion I went back for scrambled eggs to my friend Annie's house. She kindly drove us past the house where I grew up - it seemed so ordinary from the outside, I didn't recognise it at first - it didn't even look like our house any more. Because of course it isn't.  It belongs to Frank who used to live at No. 20 after Don Black moved out. But just like with the friends, after a moment my eyes adjusted and I saw my home. I guess that's a kind of time travelling.

Later still I got caught in a freak monsoon in Crouch End - the rain came on just as we went into Marks & Spencer's to get supplies and it was hurling down so fiercely that there was no chance of getting to the bus-stop ten yards away until it had abated a bit.  Nature's response to the Home Counties' hosepipe ban, I guess.

With a few hours to kill until I was due to meet my friend Marc, I headed for the West End and found myself watching a not-very-funny comedy show. It was something to do, and the atmosphere was good even if sophisticated humour was a little thin on the ground.

Caught up with Marc in Camden Town, where he had been promoting a band night at the Carnaervon Castle.  From very modest beginnings a decade ago he's become an extremely effective and successful live music promoter. Marc and I met in 1994 at a songwriting workshop with Ray Davies. Back in the present day - well, a fortnight ago, anyway - we spent a happy couple of hours catching up with news of the other songwriters we'd shared that intense experience with.  A few of us have stayed in touch and it feels like an extended family in a way.

The following night Marc was promoting a gig at the Hope & Anchor. First time I've seen the place since it's been done up - it's a definite improvement on the way it used to be, without losing any of the vibe that makes it such a great venue.  Beneva was first on - I'd heard their music through UKBands.net and also here, and was keen to hear the live set.  It didn't disappoint.  These guys really do have something special going on in my opinion. Check 'em out, and catch them live if you can.

I didn't stay for the other acts as my friend Perry was playing an acoustic set down the road in a place called the Off Side on City Road.  A very jolly evening organised by Breda who sometimes works with the Pogues. 

There was a duo on who were very good but I've forgotten their name and I can't find the piece of paper I wrote it on so I can't link to them just now, and I was blown away by a singer called Stephanie Kirkham.  She really was amazing - a stunning voice, wonderful insights and delicate thoughts all wrapped up in a very professional package.  Her guitarist was pretty tasty too.  Not a note out of place, and they worked together seamlessly.

Perry did a fun set too - part covers, part originals - all highly entertaining.

It looks as though I might be playing there myself soon, so watch this space for details.  Well, not actually this space, but the usual one where gig details appear and disappear.

Back in Edinburgh life goes on with all its thrills, spills, bills, ills and trills.

The Edinburgh Cow Parade is in full swing - and I'm not talking about the rowdy nightclub heifers who are currently in full voice outside my window... these ones are just down the road and mercifully quieter.

In the midst of this surreality the illusion of time-travel has been further strengthened this week with a visit by a bunch of wandering minstrels from the 1960s to the Jam House in Queen Street - a building which not that long ago was the BBC - and my old workplace.

I still can't quite get used to the full-on bar-and-bouncer deal that's replaced Stan, Scottie and Malcolm and the others at reception. The old Studio One is no stranger to live music and entertainment, but bar arrangements back then were rather more ad hoc and rudimentary. 

Strangely the performance and audience space still feels much the same, except that the stage is now finally getting used on a regular basis, which must please all the ghosts from when the building was the headquarters of the Scottish Psychical Research Society. I believe Charles Dickens lectured in that room once, not to mention all the media mandarins who thrashed out the future of broadcasting at TV Festivals gone by.

Listening to live music from the Animals, Dave Berry, Zoot Money and the Troggs it was quite easy to slip into the Tardis afforded by my large glass of red wine and step safely out into 1966. Though of course a good song is a good song regardless of when it was first written or first heard.  And this was a night packed with good songs performed by musicians who can still take every number the extra mile after forty years on the road.

Of course talking to Reg always involves deep and esoteric discussions on the matter of the space/time continuum. It really was great to catch up with him and the other Troggs. Experimenting with the camera on my phone, most of my snaps from the night were rubbish, but I was pleased with this picture I took of Pete Lucas - and also with the one he took of me and my old friend Mr Presley.

In the bar after the show all the talk was of MySpace, with the result that Zoot now has his own page  - here - and a distinguished list of friends after only a couple of days. Please do visit it and add yourself if you feel so inclined. 

And now it's my birthday, which I share not only with my twin Jayne, but with Annette Bening, Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go's and the singer from Roxette, not to mention John F Kennedy, Bob Hope, Francis Rossi from Status Quo, Gary Brooker, Noel Gallagher, Scary Spice, Nanette Newman and the film music composers Alfred Korngold and Danny Elfman. Myspace has me down as being born on January 1, so I've put my own corrective sticker on for the day, as I feel like celebrating in a virtual way. I like to think I'm getting a little younger and less grown-up with the passing of each non-existent year.

Later on I'll be going out for a meal with some friends and celebrating in real time and space and looking forward to the future, whenever that is.

I just checked the kitchen clock again, now that things have quietened down a bit outside.  I don't think it does tick.

A drop in the ocean by some people's reckoning, perhaps, but hitting the 2000 landmark on my friends list has got me in a reflective mood.

Though I joined in 2004 it was well over a year before I got round to becoming an active participant here.  This was a combination of fear of the unknown and the perception that MySpace was only for people in their teens and early twenties or for individuals wishing to hook up for dubious liaisons.

I'm sure it is all of those things, but I've found it to be a lot more besides. 

Absolutely, it's a great marketing tool - as good as whatever you're selling and your ability or inclination to sell it.

Mainly, though, since hard selling isn't my forte, to me being on MySpace is a bit like being at a big party - you can sit in the corner and talk to one person all night or you can work the room - and maybe even exchange business cards.  So far, it's quite a shindig.  I've met some fascinating and extremely nice people.  One or two tossers as well, but you can't win 'em all.

While I'm at an utter loss to comprehend the psychology behind people who are impressed by those "Get 2000 friends by Friday" bulletins (- er, for what???)  I 'm thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to listen to random tunes and tell the musicians how much I like them, or to look up old and new friends and contacts and say hi, or to tap complete strangers on the shoulder and say hey, you look interesting, nice day, innit. Even when it's obviously a fake, joke, management or tribute profile all you're doing is saying "yeah, I like Jack Kerouac/your sense of humour/that picture you chose/whatever/Tom Waits too- hi!".

So if I've requested to be your friend, that's why. I'm not a bot or a serial spammer, I don't carry any annoying computer viruses and I don't come and plonk gargantuan media files or shameless "I don't care who you are, now back to the important topic of ME and what I have to sell" self-promotion on your carefully designed page. I'm frankly too busy and well-adjusted to stalk you and except in a handful of cases I don't know, or probably care, where you live.

All of my "friends" have either found me or are people, organisations or bands I've chosen to invite. Obviously I'm not expecting all 2000  to show up on my doorstep, to throw me a surprise party on my next birthday (which incidentally is May 29 and not, as it says here, Jan 1), to bail me out of trouble, to make me a star - or even to listen to my music.  But it's nice to nod the head, to say hello in a virtual way, and now and again, if it's appropriate, to develop something more from that - just like real life networking, which it sometimes becomes. 

Now, if you are an individual wishing to hook up for a dubious liaison, I'll be considering propositions based on merit. Heck - we might even turn out to be friends.

Just finished a short run of gigs in London. 

The first was my friend Perry's birthday bash at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington a couple of weeks ago. This was a tremendously fun affair, awash with all sorts of jolly people who are all much more famous than I am.  The show was a mixed programme featuring music, comedy, poetry and cabaret... everyone there was a friend of Perry's so although it was a public do it was also a proper birthday party with his mum, dad, sister Kim and Auntie Christine in attendance.

One of the biggest thrills of the night was being part of the same bill as Fran Landesmann, whom I've admired from afar for many years.  She performed a couple of numbers accompanied by her son Miles on guitar. Miles is a lovely bloke - very friendly and down to earth, and his easygoing enthusiasm really helped the party go with a swing, as did Shari's skilful sound engineering.

I borrowed a piano from one of the other musicians, Clifford Slapper, who is a Proper Pianist (I can get the thing to work well enough with a bit of practice but I'm a bit limited when it comes to the fast twiddly bits, whereas Clifford can play just about anything, just like that).  Clifford did some great jazz stuff with his partner Alice on the flute - very cool.  I sang a couple of jazz classics - Lover Man and Georgia On My Mind - and people seemed to like that, which was nice. 

Other performers included a rather good Lou Reed tribute band, a tall bloke doing Sinatra stuff and a singer/guitarist called Zoe who has a great voice.  She's been working with the Alabama Three. Not forgetting of course the house band, which was made up of Perry and various cohorts from the acting world, attacking rock standards and some original comedy material with equal gusto.

After the show we all went back in Shari's van to Richard's gaff in Shoreditch and had a jam session in his studio where Zoe treated us to a whole lot more songs from her wide repertoire, aided and abetted by Clifford. We also got a chance to hear Shari sing, which was a real treat - she has a truly soulful voice and the musicality to use it properly.  No idea why she's not out gigging with a talent like that. 

I stayed over at Richard's and the next day popped round for a cuppa with Xavior, who lives nearby.  This developed into an unexpected photo session - and here are some of the results:

photographs by Xavior Roide (he took my current profile pic too).

Back in Edinburgh for a couple of weeks I was too busy to update the diary, which is why I'm only writing it up now.

Last week I had a private voice lesson and attended a workshop with the American jazz singer Jay Clayton, who was over to perform with Edinburgh's piano legend Brian Kellock.  The whole experience was truly inspiring, and a huge help in preparing for the forthcoming gigs.

Then it was back to the cool and trendy East End for some more...

Monday I played a full set at "A Little Bit Of  Sunshine", a weekly night run at the Vibe Bar in Brick Lane by the affable and extremely talented Cameron Dundee, whom I first met at Garageband.com. A couple of acoustic numbers with the guitar, a couple with a borrowed keyboard (which proved less than ideal for the material), and the rest of the songs I performed with backing tracks.  The acoustic stuff didn't offend anyone, but the Hoxton hipsters in the audience definitely woke up when I stepped away from the instruments and sang to the tracks I'd prepared earlier with a little help from my friends (OK quite a lot actually). I really enjoyed myself. A nice bonus to get some support from home in the room too -  two of Edinburgh's finest vocalists turned up: my friend Freddie King with his daughter Niki and their friends, one of whom bought a CD.

Tuesday was a very different kettle of fish - the monthly Hanky Panky Cabaret which Xavior hosts at Bistrotheque in Bethnal Green.  After an extremely tasty grilled bream from the restaurant upstairs, I did two sets - one wedged between the sound desk and the acoustic piano and the other from the stage with backing tracks.  The piano stuff went down pretty well, but the numbers with backing tracks got a much bigger response from this fashion-conscious crowd.  It was really enjoyable, too - doing a bit of dancing to Sweet FA and chucking rose petals around in Shivers Down My Spine.

The rest of the show was heaps of fun and lots of silliness, - my personal high spot was the improvised comedy performed by Tallulah and Lawrence; I also really enjoyed the sets from Nick Marsh & Katharine Blake and of course from Xavior himself, who is bursting out all over with talent.

Wednesday afternoon was spent walking around Brick Lane and its environs in search of interesting things to wear, and there were plenty.  Lucky I'd packed a spare bag to bring them all home.  I'm especially pleased with my new boots from the Laden Showroom and my crimplene turban and diamante from Rokit. Not to mention my wholesale socks from Whitechapel Road.

In the evening it was back to the Bistrotheque to watch X in a press showcase.  Lovely to get another chance to see the beautiful Ryan Styles' funny and moving balloon sketch, which I'd got to know so well during the show we were both in at the last Edinburgh Fringe (along with Xavior and Richard and Perry and many, many more...)  And also highly entertaining to hear a terrific performance from the stylish and veratile Bishi plus the polished close harmonies of the Puppini Sisters giving the Ovaltinies/Andrews Sisters treatment to some very unlikely tunes.

Glorious fun and lots of belly-laughs with drag queens, performance artistes and comedians all vying for attention with the fashionistas in the audience, the whole thing helped along by bucketloads of champagne, some delicious fish pie and to-die-for chocolate mousse. 

It was a real pleasure to meet Mike Azzopardi from Sound Aid, who turned up to the Tuesday gig with his girlfriend Lisa (just as well I plugged the website onstage!!) and hear how well the project is doing.  It's still in its infancy, but I reckon this is a very clever way to raise charity money at the same time as promoting unsigned artists. 

Two songs from my Sound Aid CD, Sweet FA and Sleepwalking, are featured on podcasts this week.  Sleepwalking is on the Home Made Hit Show, while the title track, Sweet FA, has made it on to the  playlist for the most recent edition of the Netherlands-based ambient, trance and electronica show Electron-X.

It's been a funny old fortnight.

Some really nice things have happened - Radio Six International have playlisted Sleepwalking, which is on my new mini-album Sweet FA.

As I mentioned in the previous entry, proceeds of the album are going via Sound Aid to the Heifer Project, which provides livestock to help communities become self-sufficient and combat hunger.  It's not just cows - they also do pigs, goats, ducks and bees.  I rather like the idea that my music is enabling the purchase of a useful bee.

Another nice surprise was finding out that my song Happening, which is on another benefit CD: Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies, has been nominated for a Golden Kayak Award at IACMusic.com.   I don't think it's got much chance of actually winning against the others in the Easy Listening/Soft Rock category, but it's ever so nice to have been nominated by my peers.  I resisted the temptation to vote for myself by the way.

And I have been enjoying listening to the wonderful new album by my supremely talented friend Richard Kapp - it's called A Tie For Free. Do yourself a favour and get hold of a copy if you like great melodies and sardonic, surreal humour.  The CD includes guest appearances by Peter Kearns, Spenny from Back Bone Shiver and myself.

Last week I was in Glasgow to hear the British Blues Quintet play the Ferry.  This is a spanking new vintage blues outfit bringing together Maggie Bell, Zoot Money, Miller Anderson, Colin Hodgkinson and Colin Allen for some of the baddest, most rockin' good-time blues I've heard in a long, long time.  And to hear Maggie belting it out with the River Clyde lapping against the windows outside was one of the most pure Glasgow experiences you could hope to have. I got goosebumps.

Needless to say the Ferry was packed to the gunnels with the very best audience the city could provide, including my old friend Frankie Miller and his wife Annette.  In days gone by Frankie played his own gig on the Ferry - famously crashed by an exceedingly drunk John Martyn.  I wish I could recall the incident in more detail but it was all such a long time ago. I do remember it was very funny and a bit scary, which just about summed up the way John used to be back in the day.  Since his illness Frankie can't say very much now (though boy, he can still communicate), but he and I had a good laugh about it all. 

After the gig Maggie and I went back to the hotel and set the world to rights, and the next day I walked increasingly slowly around the streets of Glasgow in unsuitable shoes thinking about Annie and Danny and Jim and John and Ian and Steve and Eric and all the others (yeah, them too) and wondering if those Weegie ghosts ever take a goddamn break.  I love that city but it churns me up every time.

At home I've been wrestling technology.  They do say it comes in threes. 

First someone sent a virus that killed my mobile phone after going berserk and attempting to call the police every time I tried to calm it down, so I had to go and buy a new phone and I lost a large portion of my address book, a couple of tune sketches and some nice photos in the process.  So if I don't call you, that's why.  Call me.  We could do lunch.

Then my computer decided that after six years it had had enough, and I had to go and get a new one of those too, and start again.  Fortunately I had been saving up for this eventuality, though I was hoping to have raised a bit more and got a shinier one with more whistles and bells.

As it is I've ended up with a build-yer-own assortment of parts which I am still struggling to assemble.  The next job is to see if I can rescue the data from my old hard drive, which still boots up in safe mode and lets me use my diary but not much else.  It's very inconvenient to have to close down and unplug/replug the monitor, mouse and keyboard every time I want to check anything, and right now my studio room looks like the back workshop of a computer repair store.  Hopefully I'll have everything transferred to one machine in due course, but in the meantime it's less than ideal.

The third thing was a small electrical fire in the kitchen while I was making a cup of herbal tea for one of my voice students.  I thought the smell was just pungent teabags to start with until I saw smoke rising behind the steam of the kettle. Fortunately the only thing that was damaged was the kettle plug and the four-way it was plugged into, but it was quite unsettling all the same.

In between all these dramas there have been four nice dinners and a funeral, lots of interesting people, some old friendships revived and new ones forged amid what I believe are the final scenes of a long phase of my life.  The new phase has already started but the old one's left some debris which will need a bit of clearing up.  Which is, I expect, why I'm feeling melancholy today.  I've been on such a high since the summer that I'd forgotten how sad felt. This is the kind of mood when I cry at the soppy bits in TV commercials and identify far too closely with everyone's song lyrics.  Bloody hard to sustain though.

I'll probably get a song of my own out of it, so it won't go to waste.  No doubt it will be as useful as rain, but I'm still looking forward to the sun coming out soon.  Preferably tomorrow (I love ya, tomorrow... etc...)...  This sort of internal weather rarely lasts long.

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Update March 28.... OK it's tomorrow and as I suspected, 8 hours sleep, a hot bath, a nice cup of tea and a currant bun can make almost anything seem manageable. The black cloud's off to rain on someone else today.

I have a new CD out. It's a 7 track mini album called Sweet FA.

"Sweet F.A."
	1. Sweet FA (a capella)
	2. Sleepwalking
	3. Right Thing
	4. Blind Leading The Blind
	5. Happening
	6. Leap Of Faith
	7. Sweet FA (Patric Bakkenist remix)

The title track is a song I wrote way, way back, during an A-list rock and roll adventure in St Andrews. The sort that if you made a movie about it no-one would believe it because it would be too full of improbable cliches. The whole thing became a bit of an urban legend. Except it really happened, and more. Those who were there and are still alive will know exactly what I'm talking about. The lyric isn't about that at all, except in passing.

The original version of Sweet FA got played on Radio 1 and the BBC World Service quite a bit in the early 90s. This is a re-recording, which appears in two versions on the CD - nude a capella and a slightly rockish, slightly ambient dance version that was produced by the Dutch electronic artist and podcaster Patric Bakkenist.

Sleepwalking and Right Thing are from the Work CD I recorded in London with John Peacock.  Right Thing is the original version but Sleepwalking is a remix with a new vocal on it. They are the two most Beatley songs on the album.

Blind Leading the Blind and Happening are culled from my debut album, Road Movie, produced by Zoot Money. It's the first appearance on a compilation for Blind - just felt like it would fit here. Happening was completely remixed for last year's Independent Artist Aid - Hope Never Dies (still available).

Leap of Faith is a solo offering from last autumn's home-recording bonanza. It was playlisted for 10 weeks over the winter on Radio Six International, who are great supporters of my music. It's an uptempo-ish Latin-flavoured song about unconditional love - taking that leap into the unknown even if it means you end up prat-falling and looking like a twat as a result. Which can and does happen sometimes.

The CD is only available via download, and it's part of the Sound Aid project that's being co-ordinated by Londoner Mike Azzopardi in his bid to do something about world hunger. 

Please buy a copy if you can - it's only 3 or $5 and you can purchase it via Paypal from the Sound Aid site.

Listen to a promo trail (podcasters - please plunder!)

 check out Sound Aid on MySpace