Next Gig - the 1st in San Diego and last of 2015 - The Field, San Diego

December 30th 2015 : 9pm to midnight

Quick Update

After a great time in Scotland, we headed to the Netherlands for some time with friends and family ... and also a gig in my favourite Dutch pub - the Cafe Back in Town.

The owners of the Back in Town, Toon & Gon, beacame good friends when we lived in Ugchelen - Gon visited us in Portland a few years ago - and even roadied for me at the Portland Highland games. Back in Town nights were always a great laugh - I played there often in Keltic Fire days with my pal Feargal.

The 4th December was a great night reminding us of those old times. Lots of people came along and we all had a ball. I got to sing my two Dutch songs, play my Dutch guitar and use my old Bose pro PA system - great!

After the Netherlands we headed back to the USA, picked up our 5th wheel and truck in San Francisco and set off on the road again.

We took a week to drive to San Diego stopping off here and there on the way down. It was nice to get into T-shirt and shorts again after a cold 5 weeks in Europe.

We've been a week in lovely San Diego, a few miles from the Mexican border, and Michelle (my tour manager) has lined up a gig in a great Irish pub in the San Diego Gaslamp area - the Field. We went there yesterday to check it out , meet my contact and hand in posters. Very nice place, great atmosphere and really Irish. I'm looking forward to playing there.

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What's new?

I mentioned last time that I planned to write songs over the Winter - well since we've been in San Diego I already have a few songs written (hooray!!!) . Written means - words written, discarded, re-written, edited, scrapped, done over, music written (same process as the words) , rough recording done AND - most importantly - with Dorothy seal of approval! It's going quite well although the time just whizzes by. I'm using the ideas I had in Scotland and amazingly, they are flowing out without much problem, the problem is trying to make them not be crap.

There was one, I'd written the words and I had this tune in my head that went really well with it - so I sang it to Dorothy - she laughed "that's Spancil Hill!" ooops! I hadn't even recognised it . I left it there for the rest of the day and just before bedtime - a new tune just showed up in my head, I played it and recorded it right away! It's a new experience for me. I'm really enjoying it.

My first Hawaii date was confirmed a couple of days ago - I'll be playing in Kelley O'Neils in Honolulu on Wednesday January 26th 5pm to 8pm. We arrive in Honolulu the day before (Jan 25th - Burns night) and we're attending the Caledonian Society of Hawaii's Burns Supper on the Saturday with friends we met at the Galway Bay Irish festival at Ocean Shores - that'll be good!

If you know someone who would like to book me contact my Tour Manager extraordinaire - Michelle by clicking here

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