So it seems I'm on a once-yearly blog-writing regime at the moment and that really isn't enough. Will try harder. I promise.
It's better than my website which currently has four years between two news items. Actually that's not true. I know. It doesn't really make any sense that one post is four years after the last and that's because it's not. It was with a heavy heart that, after having paid three years of hosting subs (all at once - it was a good idea at the time) to my server, some nasty person who I could call a very rude name decided to send a nasty boom in the direction of my hosting server and my website disappeared. Because I had recently moved everything online to Wordpress (which, in all other matters, is a wonderful thing to be working on), I lost all my website updates back to sometime around the beginning of 2011. Doh !!!
It's better than my website which currently has four years between two news items. Actually that's not true. I know. It doesn't really make any sense that one post is four years after the last and that's because it's not. It was with a heavy heart that, after having paid three years of hosting subs (all at once - it was a good idea at the time) to my server, some nasty person who I could call a very rude name decided to send a nasty boom in the direction of my hosting server and my website disappeared. Because I had recently moved everything online to Wordpress (which, in all other matters, is a wonderful thing to be working on), I lost all my website updates back to sometime around the beginning of 2011. Doh !!!
Here I was anyway, kind of starting again. It was, however, interesting to note a few developments since 2011 which I took the opportunity to
I am now the resident pianist at the Cáca Milis Cabaret. A wonderful Wexford institution run by the marvellously scatty Helena Mulkerns who aims to bring together the best she can find in the worlds of dance, music, comedy, film (shorts), spoken word and sometimes a mix of more than one. She called me when she had decided to start a Dublin version of the same thing and we have a lot of fun putting new songs together and singing and playing them for the audience in the gaps. I also like to travel down to Wexford and perform at the original of the species whilst getting a chance to have a Pad Thai at The Vine. It's still lovely. I digress. Sometimes I accompany some of the other singers or musicians. Sometimes, when I think nobody is listening, I sing a song myself. You're never quite sure what you're going to get but mostly, it's a good evening at least.
Through the Cáca Milis, I was reaquainted with Miss Truly DiVine who I had met previously as Lou Van Laake with David MacKenzie in a tiny cafe on Clare Street on Dublin 2 back in 2004. We were playing as a duo and she was the first person to ever applaud a solo - this made her stand out from the crowd for me so it was nice to meet her again when both Hedda Kaphengst who I have worked with on and off for the last 12 years and Helena Mulkerns independently of each other allowed me cross her orbit. Over the last year, we have been putting shows together in Arthur's Pub on Thomas Street and sometimes in other places too. We tend to criss cross two shows. One is called Burning Love, a fun mix of songs sketching the darker side of love - what I like to call love noir. The other has been an evolving show featuring the songs made famous by Marlene Dietrich - Dietrich's Angels. Truly Louly is a marvellous singer and a very very positive person to be around. It is a lot of fun to work with her. I do hope you can make it to one of the shows soon. Actually, we're putting the Dietrich show on ice temporarily as we decided we needed something more summery given the beautiful weather we've been having so we're going to pay musical tribute to Doris Day instead. Being the person she is, Truly Louly can't resist finding the dark side of her but the evening will be great. That's on August 22nd, again in Arthur's on Thomas Street in the city centre of Dublin.
And that's not all - other singers have come and gone and returned and disappeared again. They're just the ones that spring to mind at the moment.
I didn't have a house at the beginning of 2011 which, although it wouldn't have meant very much to my average website reader, certainly pushed me up a few rungs of the growing up ladder. I enjoy entertaining visitors if you can catch me in. Do call first.
Not doing a huge amount of my own stuff at the moment - no change there from 2011 - but I quite fancy changing that a little next year. I still haven't managed to venture very far internationally but you never know, that could all change soon, particularly as I'm about to turn forty. Aaaaggghhhh.
Time marches on - Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself . . . . . . .
