This afternoon, my friend Steve Cook came over to cut my hair. Steve is a hairdresser by trade but, as fans of my music may know, also a one time member of 'The Gentleman Rocketeers' and 'The Lost Satellites' bands that I put together for some shows in the UK a few years ago, (Steve being one of the two keyboard players.)
Always nice to spend a couple of hours chatting to Steve. Thanks to his expertise I'm now shorn of whatever untidy locks I had, (which, I'm afraid, these days are few and far between,) and feel sharper and more refreshed in the follicle department.
Haven't managed much progress again with regard to event preparations, though I did do some domestic duties such as replacing dead bulbs in the bathroom lighting.
Just one more guitar to assign to the live set list now...it's for the number 'Gloria Mundae' which requires a guitar that responds well to my e-bow.
I'm trying to assign one of my Eastwood guitars to this duty as they feature slightly less in this year's performance than last year's, (which was heavily weighted towards the Eastwood guitars that I own.) I want to show a broader church of instruments this year so have included my D'Angelico, Hallmark, Musicvox, Gibson, Fret King and Tokai guitars as well.
Having said that, there's still a formidable presence from Eastwood with the Astroluxe Custom, two Backlund models, and another possible Eastwood for 'Gloria Mundae.' I'm fortunate enough to own many fine guitars and I'd need a set lasting three hours or more to be able to bring them all into the spotlight.
One good thing today was the announcement made on my website (and Facebook,) of the live streaming of the 'Plectronica' event. It's now possible to pre-book to stream the concert live into your own home as it happens, in real time. I hope this will help those fans who missed out on a ticket. What I'm not hoping for is that I make disastrous mistakes when playing the numbers. With the live stream, there's no going back and editing the clunkers out later!
If anyone reading this journal entry is thinking of signing up for the live stream, I just want to say that this won't be a retrospective performance of old Be Bop Deluxe material. The concert part of the event is dedicated to far more recent material, all instrumental, kind of introspective and semi-ambient music with a couple of more up-tempo intervals, but certainly no vocals, no rock band histrionics and, indeed, no band at all, other than three numbers that will feature from my 'Orchestra Futura' improvising trio.
So, if you're up to speed with my current output, you'll be in fairly familiar territory, but anyone out of the loop for several years will find it a little more challenging.
Right...now that's been made clear, I'm off to decide on my finial guitar choice.
A fun flyer for a forthcoming Sonoluxe release...
The Clothworker's Hall, the venue in which the 'Plectronica' event will be held...