United States

Greetings HowlinJ,
Thanks for giving your thoughts on the nun song! Sister Stella said she loved it, but then she spends her whole life being kind to people and would have said that whatever she really thought.

I would like to do it again but with a few more beats per minute to keep it flowing along... I recorded that the day after I wrote it so I had to go very slow to get the chords right.
Voice is always a big problem for me Howlin; I have the thinnest weediest voice in Christendom, but who is going to sing your new song except you yourself?
And until you get to fabulous instrumentation of a song, it either works or doesn't work by virtue of the vocal, and for me that means I will always struggle.
That is why often on my recordings I double the voice to try to make it less thin; which lures me into trying to be clever with harmonies when I don't have the ear for it.

Now my demon daughter has woken up and arrived downstairs so my peace is over!
Enjoy New Year HowlinJ and keep at the music.
Mark across the little wet bit.................

Hi Mark.
Not at the moment my friend. There is a lot I need to get and finances are non existent at the moment. I don't think there is any harm in recording things that you think my not be heard by the masses. I think a lot of high profile names do solo projects not expecting them to reach the heavens but I do think its a release of personal ambition which is a very healthy thing, better than dropping bombs or wearing that's for certain.

From what I hear from people back home things do change in City areas though as regards roads and such right? Hardly a thing changes here, its just to vast to contemplate a hundred mile new road really although I suspect that goes on....

I think your last line summed it all up Mark.
Happy New Year to you.

Hello Chippy,
Do you perform live with your songs? I am just playing for fun now except for very small local stuff now and then... meaning once in a blue moon!
Playing in bands meant everything once; but Christ, just how many years ago was that.
But you never quite escape it, and how lonely it is to write and record songs that no one but you and your mum are going to hear... and mine has been dead for five years now.

As for the UK changing Chippy: well I am 53 and it has all seemed much the same through my lifetime; but maybe you need to be away ten years and then return, to see how much it has changed?

Thinking again about recording: I love the idea of making my own song come alive... but more often than not there is more frustration than Joy resulting from it; sometimes I wish I could be be rid of it!
Mark....................

Hello Chippy,
It looks like you have been frying your fingers instead of Frankfurters lately!

I am just back from a new years eve party at... hmm... 09:30pm, and that really is a sign of getting old.

I got home thinking I could chat with my fiancee in Romania on furthest mainland Europe two hours east of the UK, but found she had gone to bed early as well!

I could light a log fire and plug my guitar in; but in truth I feel more like bed now... so yet another year starts not by me dancing in the street... but creeping off early up the apples.
Mark....................