Diana Stones Blog

Yep finally an old fashioned CD on sale on line. It’s a compilation.

http://www.cafepress.co.uk/glasscage1

Diana Stones Glass Cage

I have been very busy for the past couple of weeks, so I have not bothered to update anything on the blog, so I think now is the time.

I have just finished doing the live sessions for the Glen Patrik Elephant Shelf albums. We had 4 very intense days recording tracks. Some are complete songs and just require mixing, and a couple of over dubs whilst others are essentially rhythm tracks. Glen is providing a couple of lead vocals on tunes too.  In the 2 weeks that Glen has been with us we also managed do play two gigs with him so it was pretty hectic. During this time and on the way to our first gig with Glenn the clutch cable snapped on my car but I did manage to make it with assistance from Vicky & Glenn and some burly police types who helped get the car to a safe place a sit had broken down on the approach to traffic lights facing up hill at very busy junction not far from the north circular road in north London. it was also of course raining to add spice the event. When we got to the gig  at the the Blues Room in St Albans the gods of feedback had taken up residence, but fortunately Glenn had a cunning plan and saved the day by notching out the midrange on the system.  Due to a series of annoying incidents I was not I think on my best form and I don’t think the band were either, but the audience enjoyed it,  Glenn is a very charismatic performer and had soon charmed a fair number of the crowd.
Next day I got the AA out to tow me to the garage.  Saturday we had another gig at the Mermaid in St Albans and Glenn also played on with us, for the whole set and it was even better received than the previous gig. Monday was our first proper recording day and got off to a good start.  Tuesday  marked Robbie’s first serious recording session with double bass which really added something to the sound. Wednesday and Thursday were also pretty solidly dealt with. Some of the recording sessions were videoed too. On Thursday Evening we went to the Blues Room again and Glen sat in with Eric Ranzoni a very entertaining Blues & New Orleans style pianist.  It was a fun evening but due to the rain there were not many people in attendance. Eric will be doing a residency there with Terry & Robbie from Elephant Shelf as a Thursday night regular.

Friday I was checking the tracks we had recorded and making copy’s to go on to the PC. On Saturday we played a Delta ladies gig at Oliver’s Jazz Bar in Greenwich which despite the ever present rain was quite well attended. We had Robbie along on double bass again to beef up the sound too.

Delta Ladies 3, originally uploaded by Helena Love.

Turning green for some reason. there may be a bit of video soon too.
Another fine picture from Helena Love

Delta Ladies 1, originally uploaded by Helena Love.

Thats us at Round Midnight in Islington on a Sunday Night.
Photo by Helena Love who made the trip out to see us.
A Musical First for Vicky as she plays the ironing board on this gig.
Read more  about >>  Helena Love.

Well here I am again.  I have had a strange day…

Ok well bright idea’s then:

Time machine

Anyone built a time machine yet. No though not but you have to admit it coud be pretty useful. Zooming back to correct all the past mistakes you made.
Brilliant. Niping back to buy the winning euro-millions ticket. All that sort of stuff. Not voting for Boris Johnson for Mare of London. Not missing the dot.com boom
even if you were around at the time. So come on wheres my time machine then. Apparently its not a violation of the laws of physics anymore either so come on
you scientists, isy wisy lets get busy.

Well we got to the gig despite the snow and everything else. We arrived on the Friday nighty just in time to get food as it was thrown in with the accomodation, but it was only availble between 5pm & 7pm so waving our Butlins ration cards we dived in. Then as we were not plying we watched some of the bands, we caught some of Paul Jones with The Blues Band and also Ben Waters who is a very good Boogie Pianist. Then we went back to one of the smaller stages to watch The  Mick Rutherford Band who were very entertaining and  Micks legware was also quite exotic.

We had a couple of drinks and watched the Bare Bones Boogie Band who may well be playing at the Blues Room in St Albans in the not too distant future. We wandered around a bit and looked at the Blues Matters stand and had a cup of tea and went to bed.  We got up on Staurday too late for the Breakfast and determined that we would go in to Skegy and get something there. It was still very cold but not quite as bad as the night before so I nipped out and took a couple of pictures of the snow then we got in the van to drive in to town. Of course the van would not start and needed a call to the AA, the guy came out did some checks and as expected it turned out to be the battery which had gone from being aged and frail to expiring in the embrace of the North Sea chill.
So he got the van started and I followed him into town to get another battery which he fitted and then I went back to the camp.

Skegness Rock & Blues

Our name in Print

We had been asked to take part in a Jam session to promote the bands show that evening but circumstances were against us. The rest of the band turned up in good spirits having had a reasonable journey.   We had a sound check at about05:30 which was done very well by the on site sound guys who were real pros and got us a very good sound onstage mix as well as off.  We had decided as it was a new audience that we would open with a couple of full on tunes Snakebite followed by Morning Letter and keep the pace up up as it was a straight through 90 minute set.

After the sound check the Robbie(bass) Rosie (vocals)and Terry(Dums) went off to eat and we went for an interview with a Welsh Blues radio station as a couple of the guys had called us a little earlier as Vicky had been in contact with them earlier in the year. We had a very good talk and tried to share some of the insanity that is Elephant Shelf , what makes us tick and all about the songs as Elephant Shelf is a very distinctive band on the circuit particularly as it features Violin/fiddle and keyboards as a lot of the other bands tend to be Guitar and blues harp. Also we only play a couple of covers in our set at most and they are often quite different in approach thn the way they are normally performed. There was just time to grab a quick bit before we got on stage at 8.30 and as the newbies we had the opening slot.  We did a very high impact set and it was great to have room to move around on stage too unusually I did not have a drink on stage but as the beer was  a bit crap perhaps that was not so important,  at least I could not trip over it. we got the audience on our side fairly quickly and I did my Vocal number Just another Someone to a pretty good reaction too. I wondered how it would go as its  a mile down the road from blues and features a Violin solo, but it  came across OK and the duet with Rosie was really powerful too.
Also on it’s first gig with the band the Pink Hippo who sat on top of the monitor watching the set..
We also managed to get some of Gary Boners Roadhouse to watch the set and enjoyed it, and as they have played Colne and various other festivals quite a few times that was good to know. Alan from Blues Matters also made it to the show and was very impressed which was also very encouraging.  The set was really tight and there were none of the little disasters that plagued us at the Boogallo weekend last weekend. We also met a guy from France who was a radio  DJ and was also not very

far from Mazamet where we will be staying for as we have 3 gigs with the Delta Ladies Duo which we are using to also help sell the  Band in France.  So all in all not too bad a day.  We watched the Mustangs who were on after us, had a couple more drinks and chatted to one of the Girls who sings with Roadhouse then tea and bed.

Sunday morning was fairly uneventful as was the trip home, though I was a bit knackered by the time we got back .

Vicky by the Blues Matters Stand

Chilly

Cool Ducks

The Excerise Yard

Northern Skys