'My Sunrise' John Gillies

Good grief! Two blogs almost at once!

This is to tell you about this fabulous love song, released by John on the 30th June.

John is the guitarist and writer for The Conspirators and this is his debut solo single

you can hear a bit of 'My Sunrise' here

and it can be found at HMV as a download

Oh and it's a really lovely song .....

P.S. It got to 25 in the HMV download charts and 5 in the HMV indie chart. Brilliant! well done JG.

Jack and I reunited in a little way

Friday afternoon and I was on a train to London. Feeling a bit nervous because I was going to meet a bit of my life that I hadn't seen for over 20 years and hadn't sung with for nearly 40. (Dear me, statements like that look so dreadful when written down...)

Jon the Manager met me at Marylebone and we walked briskly to Baker St, well , JtM walked briskly, I trotted breathlessly.. When did I forget how to cross roads in London? Nearly got run over at least once... So Baker St. stairs down, that's all right, I can do that. Find the right platform, JtM did that. Get away from the very loud station announcer... impossible. Get on train. Squish squash, I'd forgotten about the rush hour....squish even more, all the way to Hammersmith. Via Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park, all the stamping grounds of my youth seen out of the carriage windows.
Hammersmith at last, another hugely busy road with a million traffic controls and screaming sirens in all directions. Closed my eyes and followed JtM (not easy!)
And there was the Irish Centre with posters saying 'Tonight! Jackie McAuley'

Jack hadn't got there yet so off to have a coffee in one of those coffee places that aren't very good when you say 'a cup of white coffee with some sugar please'. Got to say what kind, big little small etc. and then wait 15 minutes while the huge machine does it's thing.

Back to the centre and there was Jack in the middle of a soundcheck. Hug hug. He's still enormously tall, introductions to Jon and then to sit for a while to listen to the soundcheck. Jack's brother Brendan, was playing with him, whistles, uilleann pipes, flutes, bodrhan. They called me up to do a soundcheck, Jack played and I sang 'Down & Out Blues'. It was amazing. Instantly transported back to my youth, then we tried a song that Jack had sent me, 'Radio Waves' . Never sung it before with him, but a harmony appeared from nowhere and it sounded lovely.

We all went off to find something to eat and returned to find Jack's mum and another brother, had arrived. I listened to a few of the very good floor spots and then slipped out to talk to Jack in the foyer and catch up with a tiny part of the years.

Then it was Jack's turn, he sang several songs then called me up to sing.
No nerves at all, Jack was brilliant and it all sounded beautiful.

We stayed to watch nearly all of Jack's set, but then we had to go so that last trains home could be caught..
Oh that was such fun!

A bit breathless (not used to hills)

Lynton & Lynmouth are miles from everywhere and surrounded by hairpin bends and hilly hills.
Very beautiful though... and the weather was wonderful for their music festival last weekend, warm with a breeze. I sang with the lovely Conspirators, on stage at about 2.30pm on Saturday.

The first one that I sang with them was a harmony with Genevieve on John Gillies beautiful song 'You Are My Sunrise' which is released as a single at the end of June -you can hear a part of it here.
Then came one of my songs, 'Rivers Flow',only the second time I have sung it live (the first time was the night before at the warm up gig that we did at the Village Inn in Exwick -lovely people there). It made me wonder why I'd written so many words? It would have been easier to remember them if I'd written fewer!. Then came 'One Sure Thing', our joint 'hit' single, and then a Conspirators song 'The Trap' for which I sang a backing vocal. After that I left the stage and the Conspirators rocked into the rest of their set.

I was privileged to meet John Hurford there. He is a massively talented artist that was around the London scene at the same time that I was, in fact he spent a lot of time in the record shop (Simon's Stable) that my soon to be husband ran at the time. We used one of his designs for the cover art for the single and I am hoping to use more of his artwork on my future albums. it was such a pleasure to meet him

The Conspirators camped overnight, being young and bendy, my travelling companion and I, being slightly older and unbendy were able to stay with two lovely people, Dave and Pat, who lived nearby. They took us out to supper at a lovely pub/restaurant and were totally wonderful hosts, and drove us the next day to Barnstaple where we caught a million trains back to Oxford. Thankyou Dave and Pat xxx
So that was a real adventure...

Now what. Oh yes I remember. Jack McAuley is coming over from Ireland to play at the Irish Centre in Hammersmith this Friday (20th). I am going to listen to him and hopefully sing a song with him. A Trader Horne mini-reunion. That'll be fun! We haven't met for over 20 years....

I was idly thinking......

When I read reviews of concerts, albums, shows, art exhibitions, in fact anything that has come from the creativity of an artist, I wonder how much the reviewers think about the actual person whose work they are reviewing.

I have seen it written that if an artist puts forward a piece of their work into the public domain then they shouldn't be upset if that work is criticised. Is this supposed to assume that the artist or creator should have such a thick skin that any criticism should just be taken note of and then shrugged off?

But then how is that artist or person supposed to create? Surely there has to be a sensitivity to the world that surrounds them to allow them to create a piece of art or music or a poem? Or are the artists supposed to have an extra layer that they can just add to themselves when faced with reviews that are very critical of whichever creation they are offering.....

Heavens that's all a bit of deep rubbish isn't it?

On a lighter note...the honeysuckle is in full flower and I am simultaneously drowning in the scent of it and sneezing.......