Life is so unpredictable and keeps slinging pleasant surprises from all directions that are always a joy to deal with.
On Monday this week I recorded a vocal for Chris Wade from DODSON AND FOGG.
The studio then sent the vocal down the line to Chris in Yorkshire and within…..about 5 hours…it was released.
This has to be a world record surely ….WOW.
Chris sent me the track DRINKING FROM THE GUN about a month ago and asked if I would sing on it. I really like the cool groove and underlying tension in the song and with Chris’s permission added the third verse and outro. Luckily he LOVES my contribution. His enthusiasm for the finished track made my week.
You can buy the track digitally and see the accompanying visuals here.
My publishers IMAGEM heard the track and got in contact to say they love it too. This means the world to me. It’s funny, no matter how old you get, encouragement is always incredible invigorating!
After Glastonbury in June the writer Guy Chambers told Simon Darlow he really likes the new material we are writing…….coming from Guy Chambers (Robbie Williams Angels and many more) this was just the bee’s knees.
Why does the summer go so much quicker than the winter?
There is a fantasy harbouring in my skull that one day I will move around the world following the summer, the midnight sun even and never see winter nor the night time again.
It isn’t a fear of the dark that bothers me. It is a claustrophobia that comes with the colder weather and the lack of light, being a person who seriously does not enjoy wrapping up or reading under a light bulb.
For example I have just created “NAKED SUNDAY”, much to Roberts bemusement (he wont join in) where I refuse to dress, not even for lunch, and I stand in the garden and look up at the sky and say “hey Google Earth get a view of this” and I read my papers in the buff and follow Robert around the house suggesting he should do the same. I must admit the main aim of this practice is to make Fripp laugh. This is a man who loves the conventions of wearing a Three Piece Suit even in a heat wave. I love the convention of wearing nothing behind closed doors!
Fripp can be so earnest sometimes a birthday suit is the only way to lighten him up.
There has been a slight twinge of embarrassment so far. Our house and garden are rigged with a security system that films all movement….I forgot. Enough said.
I have just played at the WICKHAM FESTIVAL with THE SAS BAND.
I don’t think I have been so nervous about a show for years.
The reason….these guys are the best and they only work with the best and it is an honour for them to include me in their line up. That was reason enough.
But why soooooooo nervous? The main reason I was having to deal with my grief over Bowie.
I was to perform my first ever BOWIE song in public and to be truthful I still cant think of BOWIE passing without crying. I cannot control my emotions yet over this. The song SUFFRAGETTE CITY was chosen because it suits my natural style of singing and my energy. In rehearsals it sounded fantastic but could I hold the tears back on stage.
Luckily I did. I loved every minute and for me performing SUFFRAGETTE was a joy. Hopefully I can do it again! The festival had a fantastic atmosphere. It was one of my favourite of the whole season. It was full to bursting and the audience where totally up for it.
But unbelievably there was no chocolate on site. Back stage at these events there usually is an abundance of carbohydrate, which is very much needed when you are about to set your gears to high speed ahead. Searching the dressing room for the chocolate stash I found Jack Daniels, Champagne, Beer, Cider, Gin……..(I prefer not to drink…….I’d say I was teetotal but a port at the end of a weekend of singing is fab on the throat) a bunch of grapes and NO CHOCOLATE.
The thing is I wasn’t the only girl on the team. AND GIRLS NEED CHOCOLATE. It wasn’t as if it was required by me alone. The thing is, if it was there I most likely wouldn’t have touched it, but it’s absence turned me into a bloodhound trying to trace the illusive ingredients all over the back stage area.
Nothing, not even a jam roly-poly and custard in the catering tent to substitute the urge…….what is the world coming too.
So I sidled away from the catering tent and allowed the TREVOR HORN BAND to rev me up. They were fantastic and every song was a classic….brilliant.
Before this I had a really special weekend in HULL, BRIDLINGTON and MIDDLESBROUGH with the band.
In HULL I was doing a new shoot with photographer GARY CLUTTERBUCK. This was exciting. Lasers where installed in the studio, which took me right back to the days of touring SHEEP FARMING and BLUE MEANING when we had lasers on stage with lots of dry ice. Gary’s work is always futuristic or dramatic but he kindly took shots for a new acoustic poster at the same time.
Then on to Bridlington. This part of the East Coast is so popular, no evidence of Brits holidaying abroad here. The weather was fantastic and the whole world was on the beach making sand castles. It flooded my heart with memories of holidays in Cornwall.
The outstanding memory of this weekend is how special the British people are. Hearts of gold. Willing to help out, being open and fun and all quite brilliant in their individual ways.
For example the band and I couldn’t find anywhere to eat for Sunday before LongLands club and we ended up in Guisborough sitting outside PIE IN THE SKY, an excellent Pie n’ Mash café. When slowly it unfolded that the owner Sarah Cook is a huge Toyah fan.
So many excellent Pies and selfies later we said our goodbyes, but I saw Sarah in the audience at Longlands Club bopping away, so I asked the audience to all visit her shop and buy a pie so her new business will have a good year.
The next day this story was in the press…….I had so many phone calls from the BBC wanting to cover the story ……what next? The feature film…..PIES IN THEIR EYES!
Is it me or does anyone else find Jared Leto incredibly sexy in SUICIDE SQUAD? The cast are fantastic but Jared gives a performance that is mind blowing….makes me wish I was young again.
I am so looking forward to the remainder of shows in August. HENLEY REWIND, CLEETHORPES ROCKS, GRAZE, AND DERBY CATHEDRAL.
I hope you can come! After that I am on a movie……more to come later.
t the WICKHAM FESTIVAL with THE SAS BAND.
