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One of the pillars of the 90s alternative comedy scene and a fine actor has left us. This is how I will best remember him:

Dear All, I am saddened to tell you that at such short notice, 10.40am today, I received the following email from the charity organising firewalk event. I had telephoned yesterday morning and was advised all good to go! Yesterday evening after the public announcement regarding the passing of Queen Elizabeth they emailed to say it was still going ahead but then the bombshell came this morning:- (( 'Further to my email last night regarding the Firewalk, in light of recent events and upon reflection, we have taken the decision to postpone this evening’s Fire Walk. Our thoughts are with The Royal Family and all those in our local community who have been bereaved. If you have experienced a bereavement and are in need of support please reach out to Lewis-Manning, by visiting lewis-manning.org.ukor calling 01202 708470 and ask to speak to the Bereavement Team. We will make contact with you as soon as possible to inform you of a rescheduled date in the future. Thank you for your understanding.' )) I have spoken with the organisers and a new date is being scheduled with U.k Firewalk Association which is the organisation legally permitted to prepare the coals. As soon as there is a new date I will update. Please accept my apology for delay. Thank you so very much to Dad and Emi for posting about my endeavour with you all! Sending my sincere and most humble thanks to all the generous and truly wonderful people that have donated to support the children. Every penny goes to make their tough world a happier place. Your kindness is forever in their hearts and mine. You're an amazing community! Thank you very much for your kind attention, Julia

Dave Smith was an American engineer and the founder of synthesizer company Sequential Circuits, known for releasing the Prophet-5 synthesizer. He is also considered the "Father of MIDI", having an important role in the creation of MIDI. Smith's interest in music technology started in the early 70s when he got an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science degree. He already had an interest in music so he bought a Minimoog, but wanted to do more with it, and later built a sequencer that would work with Moogs and ARP synthesizers. This would become Sequential Circuits' first product in 1974. His day job involved working with microprocessors, so Smith had the idea of combining microprocessor technology and synthesizers to make a programmable, polyphonic synthesizer. He assumed Moog or ARP would inevitably release a synth like this, but when no such synth appeared, Smith decided to design one. This would be the Prophet-5, released in 1978. It was such a hit that the waiting list for one went on for years. Later Dave Smith would go on to take part in the creation of MIDI (with Roland, Yamaha, Korg and Kawai) and a key role in the development of the Korg Wavestation. In the mid 90s, he created the first professional software synth, Reality. He went back to hardware synthesizers with Dave Smith Instruments' Evolver, and continued to release numerous synthesizers throughout the 2000s and 2010s. In 2013, Dave Smith and Ikutaro Kakehashi of Roland fame were awarded Technical Grammy awards for their work in creating MIDI. Yamaha gave the Sequential brand back to Dave Smith as a goodwill gesture in 2015, and so Dave Smith Instruments changed its name to Sequqnaitl. 2020 saw the re-release of the Prophet-5, now at its fourth revision. Sequential announced on social media on June 1st that Dave Smith had passed away.

I’ve mentioned before here how much I like the Crimsworth album. I had an overnight transatlantic flight this week, and I listened to it through twice during the journey. On a decent pair of noise cancelling headphones, in that weird disorientation state of a half-asleep, night-time long-haul flight it was a truly hypnotic and soothing experience. It’s a minimalist but engaging and deep atmospheric recording and an approach which I’ve often thought I‘d like Bill to revisit one day.

why not make a box set of albums from the last five years that have not yet seen the light of day. I think it will be great

BobK and I finally finished our most recent album, "What's It All About?", which leans in the direction of our punkier/ power poppier tendencies. It's now up on Bandcamp and Spotify, and Amazon https://electricangels.bandcamp.com/album/whats-it-all-about(https://electricangels.bandcamp.com/album/whats-it-all-about) https://open.spotify.com/album/4LfpsNYwoF6xxxpUiHVoHi?si=By9riqF-TIioEcOUshLl6Q(https://open.spotify.com/album/4LfpsNYwoF6xxxpUiHVoHi?si=By9riqF-TIioEcOUshLl6Q)