Proud...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Souvenir XIII (proposed)
Eric Dolphy – Out There

Up and to the computer at 7:30 am and worked for several hours on the last four backing tracks...

By midday, with a short breakfast break, they were ready...

Early afternoon, I added acoustic guitar, and vocals and burned a CD. Around 3pm, drove into town to buy a card and a “surprise me” present for nephew Andy’s 21st tonight. The vocal was too high in the mix...

Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms” was the number one album on the day he was born, 25 February 1986...

He’s getting a wad of cash too of course – a £6 CD, no matter how (in)significant, would be a bit paltry...

I also bought a disc for myself – Eric Dolphy’s 1960 set, “Out There”. Late 50’s/early 60’s jazz astounds me in terms of its originality and pushing back of borders. I admire jazz more than any other music because I know I will never be able to play it. To me, as a musician, jazz is what all music must be to a non-musician....



In football, the mighty Queen of the South lost to Hibernian in the cup (we didn’t get tickets) 2-1 in front of a sell out crowd in Dumfries. By all accounts they can hold their heads high and might have forced a replay. Now to concentrate on staying in the 1st Division...


Continued with the CBQ recordings by adding backing vocals and remixing a new version for a CD for the car...

And so to Andy’s 21st Birthday party in Penicuik....


What struck me most was the unbridled enthusiasm and general joie de vivre of his young friends. They had a brilliant night – and I had a not bad night just watching them and getting a hit off of their fun and enjoyment...

His mum and dad, sister Sheila and her husband, seem genuinely popular with all Andy, and his younger brother Alastair’s friends – almost as if they are the hippest parents of all the parents – you’ll know what I mean when I say, when you’re young you always wish your own parents could be like those of a particular friend because they’re much more laid back, easy going and somehow “better” than your own...

I saw my sister and her husband in a different light tonight...

Especially when Andrew snr joined his son and around twenty of his friends on the stage, all topless, singing along and dancing to Chesney Hawkes’ “classic” one hit wonder “The One and Only”...

You had to be there and, all in all I was glad I was...

On the CBQ front, we listened to the proposed versions for the upcoming gig and the Executive Producer made a couple of excellent suggestions – so not quite there yet...

I wonder if there’s a place in the world for my music other than in my own headphones...

Highlight of the Day : Topless to “The One and Only” – not me though...