Back in the saddle.

Had my first students for the year yesterday and have more this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon. The first thing I do with any new student is get them playing a proper beat as soon as possible.....engage them as it were. Get them interested, confident and excited that they can play the damn thing. Then a few weeks or maybe months down the track we get into the more technical aspects of the theory of it.
Work has definitely picked up on the book front and after discussions with Pirie yesterday we have a time frame of one month to get it knocked over and ready for publication. Louise picked up a typo which I had not spotted in one story and Fiona from Blue Valentine and Agnes both picked up on "Boy and his birds" appearing unfinished. I had a quick read yesterday and sure enough a new twist, to the story of the autistic boy who spoke to birds, started to appear....am writing it at the moment
Found the final woodcuts for the remaining stories which are going on the title page of each one and we are now happy with font. I am generally keeping all mornings free to write for 3-4 hours, then all the other projects can happen around that.
Cletis has updated all the pages and new mixes of Blue Valentine Sunpower sessions are up as is the Diary of the making of "Stone Fruit" Also reviews of Lime Spiders Annandale shows and the new mixes of live album which Jason Blackwell is doing at the Opera House.

Blue Valentine had rehearsal last night with Andi and Drew. Our first show with them in this Friday at the Wine Bar in Mudgee and we have evolved a mini-set with them which goes off on a hillbilly'swing/country blues angle and I must admit a lot of that stuff was really rockin'.....Four till late/Robert Johnson...Move it on over & Hey godd lookin/ Hank Williams plus my 3 new originals and some other folk and Irish stuff and new life has been breathed into the Gillian Welch songs....should be interesting. Fairly loose at present but as Andi said "as long as we finish on the same note!!"
Looks like I have finally nailed down Ged to come up during the first week of March to lay down extra guitar/mandolin.