the Unlit blog

 ...the latest from the tour
 

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meeting with my maker

It’s almost that time again.

It’s Friday morning and tonight we will be in Norwich where I’ve heard there are an unfeasibly large amount of bands and people turning up to rock Ian and Rosie’s house - check the Norwich Unlit episode out here.

My friend Josh Weller – Norwich’s favourite son – will be there with his hair and twinkly toes, eyes a-sparkle and guitar jangling... and our new road-mate for the next few days, Sharon Lewis...

... formerly of the band Pooka, Sharon possesses one of the sweetest souls and voices I’ve ever come across. She will be adding her female touch to the previously all male environment on Maya (the name we’ve given our tour bus).

There are several local bands and Ian and Rosie have a beautiful home. To say we are excited is an understatement. Next day we will be driving seven hours or so to get to Abergavenny for the second of this week’s official Unlits, which will see a local banjo and fiddle duo, and other local musicians play alongside my guests The Wireless and the singer and bassist from the band Semaphore. They are both traveling up from London for the experience.

The films of these nights will be up next week; the film of our first Unlit in Penzance is now finished and will be up later today, or so we’re told, on Myspace TV. You can view it on the Orange Unlit MySpace page.

Meanwhile last night, seeing that we’d dropped in to Brighton to pick her up, Sharon had organised a beautiful night of music in an elegant seafront first floor flat in Hove. Not only was it a great space for music, it was also a legendary house concert venue having seen hundreds of them take place over the years thanks to its owner Mark, and to the house concert visionary and extraordinary improvisational singer/songwriter Paul Chi who has been putting on house concerts since 1993.

I had heard about Paul for a while, so it was a real privilege to meet him last night – both to see him play (he really just sits there, and every time he plays he just makes it up from scratch, completely believing in the purity and truth of being in the moment) and to talk to him on the balcony afterwards about his life organising house concerts. Sharon had organised a bunch of interesting musicians and amazingly for us our visit coincided with Natasha, her ex-bandmate from Pooka, making a rare visit to Brighton from her hometown of Manchester.

Their little reunion set at the end of the evening was one of several musical highlights in the night. And finally I was able to thrash my guitar a bit more, seeing that I had me new nails on!

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Brighton unlit
Brighton unlit

So, we’re packing up and are out of here... got many miles to do to get to Norwich in time. May the vibes be with us. We hope you’re enjoying your tour so far. Bear with us as we try to upload the many magical moments and songs to the site and troubleshoot to make sure it’s working as well as possible... and be sure to check out the first episode of our show “The Road We’re On” which will be up today or tomorrow. Grab the widget if you do that sort of thing, so more people can see about the tour and write to us and tell us if you want to play a song on the bus, or you have some adventure or other we could go on together... we’ll try to get back to you as soon as we feasibly can, but the boys don’t like me checking my emails while I’m driving! See ya! xjont

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