tomrussell.com
reat show from songwriter Tom Russell at Birmingham’s Ceol Castle tonight. A really nice, intimate, friendly venue, admittedly located in one of Birmingham’s less attractive areas.

Great show anyway, with fantastic accompaniment on the mandolin by Mikael Martin. Hes back over in the UK later in the year, check his website for dates.

Shame about the booking incompetence of the Wolverhampton Civic Box Office who, despite charging what must be the most expensive booking fee I’ve yet to pay [£7 for a £10 ticket] failed to contact the venue with the booking. Nice venue though, next time I’ll try to book direct.

fasterthansound.com
ad a really interesting evening at Fasterthansound, which formed a part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Was a fantastic locale, Bentwaters Airbase - also the setting for the supposed Russian segments of the channel four reality flop, Space Cadets. It must be said as the sun was setting behind the tall trees, not sure what they’re called, if you can identify them from the photos by all means do email me, it did seem you were far from the UK.

Anyway the line up was great, enjoyed the finale of Mr. Hopkinson’s Computer allot, maybe cause it was the only time there was an audience of any size. In fact the day was only let down slightly by the low attendance, disastrous organisation of the coach from London [’Catch the Coach at Victoria Coach Station…er, well, actually its in front of a hotel about a half miles away, not sure where it is though. Good luck.’] It could have been a longer evening, or weekend too. Hopefully they’ll have ironed these minor problems out for next years event.

Speaking of problems, its seems I’ve been loosing emails sent via the site or to my post@ address for the last two or three weeks. So if you emailed me during this time, apologies though the technical problems were else where. I’ve redirected the mail for now so please, drop me a line.