• Music,  Solo

    Patchwork Scriabin

    The wonderful Composer Quest podcast is celebrating the life of composer Alexander Scriabin (who died 100 years ago this week) by producing a version of his Prelude in A minor, Op. 11 No. 2 that features 68 different forms of…

  • Sid Smith String Quartet viii
    Music,  Solo

    Sid Smith’s String Quartets

    The new year brings a new musical challenge, this time in the form of a string quartet inspired by a series of rainy windows. Music writer Sid Smith has been taking photographs of the patterns rain makes on his office…

  • Song Fu / SpinTunes

    Masters of Song Fu – Update #1

    Bad planning. Here we are, two days left to the Song Fu deadline, and I’m away all week with work. South of the border with half a song. Over the weekend I worked out the music and lyrics, ably assisted…

  • The Lunacy Board

    Winning the Smile

    I’ve just finished off the first of the three songs that have been worked on for the last week or so, ‘The Winning Smile’. I ended up taking out all the midi tracks and keeping everything analogue – vocals, guitar,…

  • The Lunacy Board

    Lick of Paint

    In preparation for finally getting this album out, I’ve given The Lunacy Board website a bit of a makeover. It’s not quite as haphazard as it once was, and should be a bit easier to find your way about. No…

  • The Lunacy Board

    Show and Tell

    Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, those of you too tight to buy tickets, those too distant to travel, those too drunk to care and everybody else can now see The Lunacy Board’s performance last week from the comfort…

  • The Lunacy Board

    Lunacy Live

    It was a night of mixed emotions, stress, compromises and arguments, but above all a night of music in various guises… It’s been a while since I last drove around Glasgow and numerous new one way streets (as well as…

  • The Lunacy Board,  The Deserters

    Going Live

    This gig forms the grande finale of the theremin shindig I mentioned a while ago. I’ll be part of the ‘UK League of Thereminists’ playing a few structured improvised pieces as part of a ‘theremin orchestra’. There are a number…

  • The Deserters

    Best Batch Yet

    Something I’ve never come across before for some reason is Captain Beefheart’s “10 Commandments for Guitarists”. I found this at the ever-informative Music Thing, though it appears on a few sites around the web. The annotations in italics are mine.…

  • The Deserters

    The New Yobstick

    At last, I finally got around to finishing the new yobstick. It’s quite a departure from previous efforts – lots of natural wood and more emphasis on playability instead of durability. I’ve only played it for a short time tonight,…