Last night we went to see the amazing Robert Fripp, most famously known for being the guitarist for King Crimson. He was accompanied by flautist and saxophonist, Theo Travis, of The Soft Machine.

What made this a once in a lifetime experience was that it was in our local church, St Michael & All Angels, Bishop’s Cleeve!  Having said that, it is the second time that we have been graced with his music.

The was an audience, (congregation?), of about 100 people listened in total silence as Robert and Theo filled the church with a soundscape of weaving loops and swirls of sounds gently sweeping around the speakers distributed around.

I have found this clip on YouTube, but in honesty, it does not really tell the full story. 

The problem is, is that it WAS that once in a lifetime experience.  Unique.  The expression, “You had to be there”, does sum it up.

Remember this too when you listen to the clip, there are no other instruments except his guitar.

Where else could you sit 15 foot away from one of the greatest guitarists in the world, playing for just a small audience and for free?

Thanks to Pam and Richard Crook and of course the church for organising this truly spiritual experience.

This is my first attempt at a video.
The quality is a bit ropey at the moment, but I’ll persevere and try and get it a bit better.

What a totally exasperating weekend!

I have been trying to produce a couple of videos from the 60th birthday to publish to the Blog, but have hit brick walls all around.

Firstly, I started to load up Microsoft’s Movie Maker.  I’ve used it dozens of times in the past but yesterday it decided it was not going to play,  After a lot of searching, it looks like one of the million updates from Microsoft had installed some new codex files that are not compatible with Movie Maker.
You’d have thought that they would have checked first wouldn’t you.

Okay, plan ‘B’, use the office PC.  Loaded Movie Maker.  Guess what?  No Codex loaded.  I needed to download them.  Great, Downloaded, ran the program.  I bet you’re ahead of me! Yup, they are not compatible and Movie Maker Crashes.

Right, bite the bullet, Adobe Premiere v7 it is.  Downloaded a “Fully Functioning” 30 day trial.  Took a couple of hours to download and install.  But it ran!

Trouble was, it produces a line right through the middle of the production “Produced with a Trail Copy of Movie Maker”.  Bugger!

Fair enough, I suppose I have to shell out £75 for a copy.  But hang on, it’s only £65 in the US.
Okay, I’ll do it, but I hate being ripped of by Yanks!

After quite a while in the planning, at last we can look forwards to a new Folk Club in the Cheltenham area.

The venue is the Royal Oak pub in Bishops Cleeve.

The dates and times are yet to be confirmed but will be monthly on a Tuesday commencing around the end of June.

The host will be yours truly although I am currently looking for two other resident artists to share the presentation.
Any volunteers please contact me.

Watch this space for more details.

I had a nice surprise on my real birthday, (the 28th), Karan had booked a couple of tickets for Bob Dylan on the Wednesday.

It was a bit of an odd concert with Dylan playing a wide range of his stuff, on the organ! 

A couple of his older numbers, ‘Blowing in the Wind’ and ‘Desolation Row’ were almost unrecognisable with neither Dylan nor the band playing the same tune and neither playing the original tune.  Weird!

Nonetheless, it would not be Dylan without a bit of surrealism so 8/10.

No cameras allowed so this crap picture from my mobile.  Actually, it was a really good seat.  Honest!

At last I have managed to get a photography gallery working in WordPress the way that I want it.

It took a fair bit of messing around with code but eventually I got it.

Take a look at the ‘Photography’ page.

Try loading it ‘Full Screen’ using the little blue icon on the right of the Gallery top bar.

It was an incredible surprise and an honour at my party to have as one of my guests, the amazing Tony Portlock.

I had met Tony in Birmingham hospital where we were both holed up for a while, Tony for 3 months!.

Karan, my wife had contacted Tony and invited him to the party.  Incredibly, he brought his guitar along and entertained us all with four songs!

Thanks Tony.

Visit his website here

As promised, following a fantastic set at my 60th Party, here is the link to Krush’s Website.
Click Here

Also, you might like to visit “Furry Feet”.
At the time of writing, a Krush video is featured on the first page.
Click Here

Pic is of Joe at the party.