sharon's blog

I am in a state of total shock. My dear friend and long-time musical partner, Jon Stoppard, has died. He was the most brilliant pianist - he could make the piano sing and cry and we spent many happy hours in his smoke-filled room playing and recording. Please check out the music we made - it's a fitting tribute to his brilliance as a musician, recorded often first take and filled with the soul that made him special.

http://www.myspace.com/omriva/music

 Hi all - long time since I blogged but I am going to get back into it! I recently had a really great interview with an excellent chap called Matt Kacar from Bethlehem in Pennyslyvania who runs a very good artist podcast site called Artist Connection. Check it out on www.artistconnectionpodcast.com

He is genuinely a lover of music of many kinds and his site is testimony to that. Have a listen....

The Fenton in Leeds was brilliant! Don't know why it's taken me so long to write anything about it. Cool club, fantastic audience, the sound engineer was really positive and supportive and the whole atmosphere was sticky, real, like music used to feel before it became too manicured and manufactured for its own good. I know, this is becoming a theme and I am boring myself! It reminded me of venues we played in the US - a great vibe.

Following on from Steve's theme, it's great playing regularly again. I didn't realise how much I had missed getting out there until we started in earnest and it's brilliant playing with Kim. I find myself wanting to dance - and that has to be a good thing because then the audience feel it too!

Hi all - I woke up feeling wistful this morning after our first proper gig with Kim our new drummer at the Victoria Club in Chesterfield last night - a great venue, fantastic stage, big room, good acoustics and staff who really seem to care about music and want to keep rock music playing there. I am not sure if I dreamt/remembered or imagined a night of people dancing, loving live music and engaging with the band. Didn't it used to be like that?

Another blog from me! I really must get my act together and put my thoughts down more often.

 But I was so pleased with our most recent practice that I wanted to share it! It felt for me like coming home musically, like we were all excited by what we were playing and sounded fantastic together. My voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else - if you know what I mean - as if it was bypassing my brain! That is a great feeling......a kind of altered state...

Long time no blog....thought I had better break my silence and mention our recent gig in the wilds of Derbyshire (the best county in the UK, of course!) in Castleton or thereabouts. It brought back memories for me as I remember going on a train to Hope station as a child with my parents and my brother to experience camping and walking and other healthy outdoor pursuits. I can almost feel the bracing air in my lungs....

Hi Y'all - I have wanted to draw up a diary of my part of our collective experience all week but have been dogged with technology nightmares so I'm just going to describe my highlights in brief, before I forget all the detail!

Hello - not written anything for a long time as life has intervened in varous ways, mainly in the form of my MA essay! I will start spouting Foucault soon and that would be very sad.....!

Helloooo! Just wanted to say that I enjoyed last night. I'm never sure how I feel about going on last, headlining or not, but it was good getting postive feedback from the people who had not gone for a bus/smoke!! Weird trying to balance on those 'stage boxes' though - I was definitely in danger of either decapitation from the damoclean chandelier or of legging myself up in the gaps between the boxes. Oh the joys of live performance!!