I’m definitely taking 6 months off from playing guitar. It has got a point where I just can’t guarantee being consistent and I’m having to be incredibly wary of which jobs I choose to take. It has also got to the point that, with all the pain I’m getting from playing the guitar, it’s just not a lot of fun any more. It has become a real chore, even more so because I’m very aware that I cannot play now as well as I used to. So 6 months to take stock of my situation and see where life takes me.
I’ve regrettably had to pull out of the Brendan Cole tour in January 2011. At the moment I have an as yet undiagnosed problem with my hands. I have no idea when I’m going to be fit to play again but I can’t currently commit to any work.
I’m incredibly disappointed to have to pull out of the tour but I’m sure whoever replaces me will be fantastic.
The live DVD of Brendan Cole’s Live and Unjudged show will be released on November 8th. It’s available for pre-order on all good DVD sites. I’ve only seen the clip on the Amazon website at the moment and it looks great. Well worth £12 for a stocking filler.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brendan-Cole-Live-Unjudged-DVD/dp/B003VVKHBC
I’m playing with Broadway Star Shoshana Bean on her UK début on Tuesday night at the Ambassadors Theatre. We’re doing two shows with slightly different sets. Rehearsals went well today and I’ve been learning some stuff about how Americans approach this sort of work. Might be a blog post in it later.
It looks like it’s official news judging by it being all over Twitter. Brendan Cole will be recording his Live and Unjudged show on September 14th at the The Grove theatre in Dunstable. I should have all me gear repaired from the last tour by then. Tickets are available from The Grove’s website.
I have discontinued all my Google Desktop Gadgets. I’ve stopped using Google Desktop and so won’t maintain them any more. Thanks for looking though.
I went to see James Pusey playing at the Spice of Life in town the other week and forget to mention how great the gig was. He’s been putting in a lot of gigs recently to promote his new album “First Chapter“. Definitely check him out if you get the chance. You’ll be able to see him on the next series of John Barrowman’s BBC show “Tonight’s the Night”.
In the aftermath of a cancelled session last week I got a phone call the same day to work on Trinity College’s end of year shows for the musical theatre course. It’s a great chance for me to wield my banjo again after a year and bash out some Oklahoma!.
Coming off tour is a great time to check that all your gear is in great working order. In fact, the first thing I would normally do is open all the flightcases and check everything is good to go out again. This time I didn’t get a chance. After a mad dash 5 hour round trip up the M4 to pick up my gear I had to take it straight out again on another gig. This almost turned out disastrously as I had:
I turned up to soundcheck and had to hastily rewire all my pedalboard to avoid the GSC-2. It’s quite lucky that I have a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 bolted to the bottom of my pedalboard otherwise I would have been in trouble. Luckily I didn’t need my Wah but wheeling the flightcase was fun as was screwing all the amp back together. It’s amazing how 4 weeks in the back of a truck can loosen any screw.
The tour with Brendan Cole is over. The shows were getting more and more outrageous and I’m not sure how much longer we could have kept that up anyway. It’s too early to say if or when anything else will happen with Brendan but he’s going to be doing BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in the Winter and who knows what will follow that.
