I relived a time from way in my past last night when I went to see The Wonderstuff at the Academy in Bristol. Although they have toured sporadically in the 20 or so years since they were at the peak of their fame this tour stood out as a celebration of their first album "The Eight Legged Groove Machine". They played this album from start to finish in the first part of the show and then came out to do a smattering from their later albums including Golden Green, Don't Let Me Down Gently and Size of a Cow. Lead singer Miles Hunt remarked that he would under no circumstances be playing their biggest hit "Dizzy" and as this collaboration with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer was little more than a novelty record in the vein of Joe Dolce's Shaddupayaface then no ones was complaining about that.

Despite the advancing years their live show had lost none of it's energy and raw enthusiasm. Sadly, band members have been more difficult to hang on to with Miles Hunt and guitarist Malc Treece being the only two original members. Original bassist Rob Jones and drummer Martin Gilks had both left the band during one of many band breakups/reformations/lineup changes  and have both tragically passed away. New members have been recruited with the most notable being violinist Erica Nockalls with whom Miles Hunt has also produced some acoustic material as a side project.

All this nostalgia for my makes me wonder what was the fate of their similar contempories; Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Jesus Jones.

There is a great deal of discussion going on in various blogs and forums at the moment regarding the subject of audience numbers and whether they are dropping.

When I have time off and go around SL enjoying the music that is available it certainly does appear to be the case that numbers are down. I seem to be lucky in that my own shows have stayed the same regarding numbers. I have normally drawn between 20 and 30 to my shows and that seems to still be the same. There is the occasional poorly attended one and the occasional packed sim but on the whole I have had the same numbers if not slightly more. I have never really done any metrics on this. I have the Mystitool which is packed full of gizmos and I expect one of them would give me an accurate number of unique avatars and how long they were around. I'be never really used it to it's full extent so I'll take a look sometime. Then again maybe I won't. The main thing is that enough people come and we have a good time. I never felt the need to discuss numbers while I listened to folks boasting of their sim splitting audiences and I don't see any need now. I had to laugh recently when I saw someone who always boasted that they play to packed sims every time recently say their audiences have gone up! I

So what is causing numbers to be depressed elsewhere? If you surf this subject you will find a huge number of musings spread all over the net. I think it does stand up to some discussion and one of the healthy things about the SL music scene is that it can be galvanised on occasions to achieve something. Personally I think we should just keep on doing what we are doing and the market will come to its own conclusion as to whether there is a future in this kind of online performance. My gut feeling is definitely yes and if there is any reduction in numbers its because during a world wide recession then leisure time gets squeezed. If you are having a tough time making ends meet then you are more likely to spend time ebaying stuff you found in the attic rather than messing about on SL. If you are in SL then you are more likely to be spending you SL time on business projects than leisure projects.

One awkward thing about the debate is that it has become fragmented across a whole load of individual blogs. Blogs are great for getting your own feelings across and perhaps entertaining a couple of comments but they are useless for hosting any worthwhile debate as they disperse the interest across multiple locations and result in people have to wade through alot of extraneous information in order to find the salient points. There is the perfect tool already available for this kind of discussion at the Second Life Music Community Forum ( http://slmc.myfastforum.org/  ) . It seems crazy to me that people don't see it that way, as the most obviously productive tool for topics such as this.     

OK so that's an uncharacteristically grand title for how I am feeling right now. I am away from home and in these moments alone I think about what my life would be like if everything were perfect for me.

Much of it is perfect. I have a wonderful family and I actually enjoy my day job but the inevitable conclusion I always reach is that I wish I had more time to do music and that I wish I could scrape enough of a living from it. I have spent so long doing a day job in the hope that one day I would be secure financially and that that would allow me to explore whatever I wanted to do with music. I now find that as I get older then responsibilities grow and the treadmill I am on always seems to keep edging a little faster and faster so that when the day comes that I am ready to jump off of it then I'll be worried that I might fall and break something essential I use often.....like a leg or a laptop.

Yet these vague but persistant dreams will never come to fruition unless I start planning to make them happen and to my mind that means setting small achievable goals. Whether I will plot all my goals on this blog is not a definite but I will put a few here in the spirit that by throwing them into the open (albeit seldom scrutinized) then I may be better motivated to make them happen.

So in a rough order I really ought to...

- get the album finished so it can be sold in a virtual environment. It shouldn't be difficult to do and it's mad that I have had periods of apathy on something that is this important. I have a willing pal in Toby who has helped me enormously and it is very close to being done

- get a better microphone

- finish some of the 2 dozen half finished songs I have knocking around

- write more songs, I have been in a period of not writing much for about 4 months and I am now experiencing lots of ideas for new material and I must get this written and recorded

- learn more about studio work (this one actually stands a little more explanation. I have been around music, writing, recording and performing for large portions of my life but I have always been a more creative prescence who needed a grounded do-er alongside me to make the technical things happen. I sometimes scare myself when I really think about how little I pick up and retain about the technical side of studio work. I know why it is. It is because my brain works in a funny way in that it does not retain the things its not interested in. In fact my memory is pretty bad all round come to think about it but it's borderline nuts that I have stayed clear of gaining a better understanding of what would be so useful to me. I am building a studio after all and while I know the basics it will soon not be enough to skate along just on that)

- look at other ways of getting music out there digitally. It appears that a well chosen cover version on youtube gets a crazy amount of views and that could open up a better route to my own songs

- go to bed...move this one to the top of the list...goodnight!

Toby and I have been working on the recording of a song called Cotton Tree lately. I wrote it after reading the sad story of the death of human rights activist FannyAnn Eddy in 2004 after she had stood up for the rights of lesbians and gays in her home country of Sierra Leone. The Cotton Tree is a symbol and landmark of the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown.

By coincidence I recently learnt of a competition within SL to find a song for Amnesty International. I thought I'd put Cotton Tree forward and although there's sure to be many great songs on the shortlist if they decide they'd like to use it they are very welcome. 

The song will also be on my album and I have been playing it live in my shows.

I've had the P85 for just over a week now and it is super. I am really pleased with the feel and action of the keyboard and the tone of the piano sound is spot on. I have one little niggle that when I plug my headphones in then the tone is a little tinny. This was a worry as the same headphone socket would be providing the out for my desk and I thought the same tinnyness would be heard through the desk but after testing it I found it was fine. Maybe some new headphones are in order!

P.S...and why was I delayed in receiving the piano? Well it was delivered on time but I thought I would appreciate it more if I waiting and had it for my birthday. The anticipation was worth it...sort of!

I am eagerly looking out of my study window waiting for the arrival of a new toy that ought to be delivered today.

Up until now I have used a keyboard to do my shows (a Roland E-09) but it is not a weighted keyboard and in alot of ways is more difficult to play expressively than a proper weighted piano keyboard.

Even though I don't have many gigs ( although I have a few booking in my calendar now..got fed up with being poorly and wanted to give it a try again) I decided to splash out on a proper piece of kit so I can take my performance up a notch. So it is a Yamaha P85 that I hope will turn up today. I have ordered one in black (they come in silver too but that a bit glitzy lol) which I understand is in short supply. Most online vendors don't it in stock. I ordered one from Digital Village and they took the money only for them to tell me it was out of stock a weeks later. That's a pretty good ploy for holding my funds for a week on something they can identify instantly is not available. I tried the usual supplier I use online which is Dolphin but they didn't have one. Eventually I found they had one at my local music shop in Bath; Duck, Son & Pinker. It should arrive today and I cannot wait!

So here I am to explain this cryptic reason why I have not been playing so much. This is no big deal actually and certainly no surprise to those who have been to one of my few shows since Christmas. I have had a bout of undertheweatherness that I just cannot seem to shake off. I had a throat and ear infection just into the new year and a month later I am still suffering the after affects. My throat isn't sore but there is certainly some discomfort remaining between my throat and ear in what must be some kind of internal canal between the two. Some days are better than others but I am finding at best I can only get through 45 mins of singing before my throat starts to close up and I lose my usual range.

This has scared me a little at times but I don't want to get too dramatic about it. Essentially I know what my problem is. I have spent too long burning the candle at both ends and the middle as well. I have a hectic personal and working life and the time (often late nights) I have spent playing shows in SL has caught up with me. I need to rest myself in order to have a chance to get back to 100%.

The result is alot less shows for now. I only did two in January and I expect to continue like that for the forseeable future until I know I am well again.

I am definitely not going anywhere though and I remain dedicated to playing in SL for as the long term. One good thing is that this reining in of the horses should allow me to complete my much neglected album.

You will still see me in world listening to other folks so be sure to say hi as that will probably cheer me up until I am able to get up there myself!