Some scissors and a comb, and quick.

Here are some pictures from friday night's gig, courtesy of Stoked Acoustic's myspace. My hair is beyond a joke (not to mention my shirt, but at least the place was a lot darker than it seems in the photos).
{Edit: I'm too sick to work out what's wrong with the html in that link...}





Outside today it was very funny, so many people valiantly brandishing totally pointless rags on sticks. Every umbrella was inside out and broken in the wind. Glad tidings for me and my very-ugly-umbrella (beyond repair). I wanted to draw some, but hadn't the energy to do the scene justice.
I made it to my meeting though, then home to spend the rest of the day in bed.

Blink

Small achievements from a day spent working from bed...

Some very bleary layout sketches. Some very minimal manuscript edits.

Have finally persuaded Amazon that I didn't illustrate John Hegley's My Dog is Carrot. I was meant to at one point, but he sensibly illustrated it himself in the end.

And I got some good news about Addis Berner Bear which I'll keep under wraps for now.

Droop.

Oh, and...

I made this too the other day, in the spirit of coming out from behind the vegetable patch...

Fiddlin'

Put pen to sketchbook today, hoping for something towards a meeting I have on tuesday, but discover now that I am getting sick so that might be why everything was so rubbish...

But Rowan and her friend Marit came by on a flying visit on the way to Sweden. Fortunately I wasn't too sick to cook things, and play.

Nameless.mp3 (What's it called Rowan?)
Rowan Rheingans: Fiddle
Marit Fält: Mandola
Me: Guitar

Estonian tune.mp3 (Again, what's it called Rowan?)
Rowan Reinghans: Violin
Marit Fält: Mandola
Me: Fretless Banjo

Enrico.mp3 (Thomas Hardy's favourite fiddle tune).
Rowan Reinghans: Fiddle
Marit Fält: Mandola
Me: Fiddle

Tripping up the Stairs.mp3
Rowan Reinghans: Violin
Marit Fält: Mandola
Me: Fiddle

Our Cat Has Kitted.mp3
Rowan Reinghans: Violin
Marit Fält: Mandola
Me: Fiddle

Also, Rowan is playing on some of Lisa O Piu's recordings here, which are quite something.

We're lost, aren't we?

(Gig was fun. Very, umm, different than the last one...)

The rose will fall for you again

Yo's set was just lovely. He chose to ignore the microphones, the room was just small enough and it was quite beautiful. And very nice to play the saw that way.
And you weren't there. I just know you weren't.
Don't make the same mistake tomorrow: 93 Feet East. I don't know if I'll add more than a couple of tracks worth of improvised background circus operatics again, but Yo is somebody to see, I attest, and that moment when he calls out three young fellows for a unison chorus; "It's all gone away with the Swallows," it nearly gives me the weepy feeling an amateur brass band gives, when they take breaths between bars (I seem to have inherited this particular sentiment from my father, I discovered at new year).

Also, take a look at Yo and Zoë's magazine: Rag & Bone.





{Edit: Forgive my drunken gushing. True though.}

If I draw a lot of monkeys.

And then a lot of typewriters..?

By the way, this evening might well see me playing the musical saw for Yo Zushi at The Red Lion in Stoke Newington. Come along if you're in the area. It's cheap!