Diana Stones Blog

Its not easy keeping it all together at times. If I get engaged or excited enough to care about something I know its going to end in disappointment. Curiously as I have started getting over the physical health problems I have had the mental ones start lurking around the corner. Its a familiar cycle but I can control some aspects of it, (moderate it rather than eliminate it) if I catch the signs early enough. My nature is such that I need to feel in control though I understand that this is an illusion at best, but a comforting one. Tuesday was intended to be a recording session, but that went wrong and in the evening went to our usual local in St Albans to hear some music and see some mates. Wednesday was very interesting filming Vicky Martin interviewing Phil May for liveblues.info (Lead singer of 60′s group the Pretty things who are still at it today, but don’t look too much like the picture on their website anymore) talking about the Album Bilbao Island which is a surprisingly energetic album for a bunch of fairly ancient rockers. Got the usual photo opportunity so I have attached a pic (how sad am I) BTW Yes I am tall and he is short… We have a couple of band gigs on Friday and Saturday and another one next Wednesday up in Northampton which should be a good one. The we have one gig-free weekend and it gets fairly busy again.

This week has been a more of the same kind of week. One Band gig in Hitchin at a pub that has a regular blues night and a duo gig in a little Village called Flamstead at a very nice village pub which has quite a good restaurant.

Both gigs were pretty well received and a very modest amount of Ale was consumed. It still amaze’s me that I can chat to almost anyone when not so many years ago I was hopeless I talking to new people. Others tell me that I am very much more open and sociable these days. Well I do feel much more at ease but perhaps not quite as comfortable as others might think.

Particularly when we do the duo gigs you have to create a fairly intimate vibe to get the more subtle stuff across and we try and work a little humor but nothing too contrived I hope. Its seems to work and means folks tend to come back to see us again. A typical duo gig goes from old school Piano Boogie stuff to Rock & Roll country and bluegrass and a bit of swing and Jazz and maybe the odd torch song with a few diversions along the way. “My old Mans a dustman” often go’s rather well with almost any audience.

The band is a bit different as its not such a close connection with audience, but we do spend a lot of time chatting to folks in the break between sets. If only they knew what a miserable git I actually am LOL

I am still feeling the strain physically at the moment, but on gigs the endorphins tend to kick in so its the days after that tend to be the problem. We have bookings as far ahead as Christmas 2012 already.

My favorite gigs are the more intimate ones, even though you do end up staring in to the whites of peoples eyes! My back is still not up to attempting much accordion playing yet though, so that will have to remain on hold although there is a little bit on the new Elephant Shelf album.

I have also recorded a couple of Solo Piano works which are a bit obscure and about as far from Blues & Swing as possible and licensed some of my stuff for use on TV & film which might be useful in the longer term.

This is a thing of beauty I think

Built by Simon Dale and his Family and Friends. It only lacks a recording studio, but I guess you could build one and fit it in somewhere. Check this out maybe you can build your own.

http://simondale.net/house/index.htm

Pre-final mix track from the new Elephant Shelf Album recorded at Saint FM studios produced by Pete Crisp who produced the recent Hokie Joint album – the song and the album demonstrates the band’s move to retro style and sound

I am still feeling quite rough at the moment, my body seems to be doing its best to repair itself, but I having some very rough days. Today seems to be one of them though and my mood is not good. The meds that I have to fix the problem also make me feel a bit ill on the days that I take them, but the good thing is that I now know what is wrong having had an array of symptoms including cronic pain and exaustion and that there is a fix for it, but it will take a while. The annoying thing is that I had written off a lot of my symptoms as depression or anxiety and then to find out there was a definate and very specific reason why I was waking up completly exausted everyday was a real shock as I thought it was just me being lazy and neurotic

Musically we are in a quiet period with the band excetera with only 5 gigs this month, but thats actually a help as its giving me a chance to build my strength up, but I would like to be busier and feel a bit more up for it.

I finally got my main violin fixed, so that at least is good health and a new stage piano which made its debute at the New Inn Witney on the first of October and seems to do the job OK, though I could have done without the expense. So at least the first gig of the month was a good one. Nothing this weekend though, but we have been in the studio a lot recently so thats not a bad thing at all, in my somewhat depleted state.

I managed to put together a 1000 words for Transliving mag about Elephant Shelf though I am not sure how interesting that will be to most readers of a transmag as its all very normal stuff. We are really just another struggling band and the TG aspect is a very small % of it. We compete on the same basis as everybody else re gigs and so forth. We do have a bit of a once seen never forgotten aspect though and we are a bit like Marmite in that people seem to either love us or hate us

There are a few annecdotes that I managed to dig up that may make it seem slightly more colourful, but apart from the bit where your are actually on stage its mostly hard work and so much driving as most of our gigs are well outside London.

Still if it all keeps together, we should be back to France and hopefull on to Spain, Italy and Holland for 2012 in various incarnations of the Shelf and Delta Ladies. Driving is often a lot more pleasant though outside the UK IMHO.

Earlier in this year (2011) I recorded this. Its a sort of contemporary Classical Style Piano work.
I have a few works like this and I would like to do a proper performance to video if I can arrange it.

Its nearly September and the year has flown by. My Ancient chariot needs to get an MOT (15 years old but only done just over 100k) and I think so do I as I have had a lot of aches and pains post gig recently. A trip to the docs is indicated me thinks. So far so good as we had a really good gig at the Cambridge Rock festival recently that should have upped our cred a bit. We also have a local london festival appearence tommorow at Abbey Fest at the Colour House Theatre on Bank Holiday Monday. We were up in Nottingham at the Trent Navigation as our duo which went well to a mixed crowd of the local blues club folks and rugby supporters so we will be back there in the not too distant future we hope. We also had recent gigs in Lincoln and a few other places. We have one more festival gig in September which is the Plumpton Beer and Blues Festival near Lewes in Sussex which could be good for us apart from the normal ongoing stuff. We are still waiting on the the rough mixes of the new Elephant Shelf Album to come through,as we we will be down in the studio again to do a bit of over dubbing as soon. We have also started recording a Delta Ladies Album and have a couple of rough tracks down for that which sound promising. I have also still got a rather iritating cough which has now eased of enough for me to get my full voice back on gigs but which nearly left me mute for the Cambridge Rock festival but I got me mojo working sufficiently for that thank goodness.

About the Old Bell Enfield

Got to love this

I have been clearing out loads of old papers, you know the sort of thing. Electricity bills from 6 years ago, or credit card staments and that sort of stuff. I shred most of it and it goes in to our rather efficent recycling system that we have in Battersea for the last few years. On thing which I kept was a notice of the first domain name that I registered and that was way back in 1997. I first built a one page website in 1996 which came as a shock as I had not realised how long I have been using this internet thingy.
Almost makes you feel nostaligic for the days of 33k modems(unless your out in the countryside using dial-up as one or two poor souls still are). I also just hooved the inside of my number 1 PC as they are very efficient dust magnets and it makes the fans work very hard, this one has 3 pumping away and it must be about 6 years old now. I have still got my first decent spec pc which is about 10 years old and on a new power supply, runing linux dual boot with windows 98 me.
I have lots of notebooks with old song lyrics and bits of tunes, some of which got recorded and some which never actualy got to see the light of day as well, just so much stuff. No wonder the flat is feeling a little crowded. I used to write songs with people all over the place getting them to send me lyrics by snail mail and then eventually sending a cassette back. The pace of life seemd a lot slower then, so was it more fun or less? the fact that everything is instant or nearly so to me seems to have taken soem of the colour out of life, as we seem to need more and more stimulation.
On with the tidy-up operation now before its either the end of the world or time to watch Dr Who.

I have felt a bit odd recently and have been visted with a few panic attacks after not having them for a few years. As some of you may know they tend to manifest when you are realy relaxed rather than under stress. Usually what sets them off is hyper-ventilation so ther eare ways to try and control that of course, but its really quite frustrating as I thoght that they were athing of the past. When I was younger I used to wake in the middle of the night with them and very unpleasant it was too. I am just hoping I can get these under control again rather than have to go and get some meds for it.

Its been not a bad month apart from that with a few fun gigs and also the news that Elephant Shelf will be playing on stage 2 at the Cambridge Rock Festival this August and we also have some other festival dates for this year, so thats got to be good.

It’s been an interesting week for both the Shelf & the Deltas.

Elephant Shelf was supporting Chris Farlowe & the Norman Beaker Band, on Sunday the 5th. the evening also featured a short set by Jack Shay & Midnight 36 at the Music Palace 159a Tottenham Lane Crouch End London N8 9BT.

On the Friday we did a Delta Ladies guest appearance at Brooks Blues Bar with the Spike Drivers plus a cast of 1000′s of acoustic roots & blues people. Its the last night of the Brooks Blues at its present venue as its moving house to a new in Fulham for 2012.

A robot for £15, you couldn’t make it up.Welll not for that price these days

ROBOT

Try being over 50 and having mental health issues. Then try and get a job with a mental health charity as you have exactly the skill set required then wait for them to not even bother to contact you although they say they run a guaranteed interview scheme...

Legislation does no good even those supposedly in the business of helping people with mental health issues discriminate against the very people they are supposed to be helping.

I suspect a lot of these Charity’s are run by 30 somethings who have never had any issues in their life. I think I may have to expose some of these people.

Any one from Mind Sane or any of the other lot care to contradict me…