another 'in concert' shot courtesy of Ian Gilchrist

Well, first of all I must apologise for the time it has taken for me to get round to adding a new blog. Also being new to this blogging game I hadn't checked back to see if anyone had added comments to previous blogs. So apologies to Duncan Saunders who, back in August, kindly informed us that the site was down. Luckily we had realised ourselves that it was down and it was up again quickly. But thank you Duncan.

Having been a while since I last checked the blog I now notice we have two more followers - so welcome to Frenchy48 and Bob Goolsby - Hello to you both! My New Year's resolution is to try and update the blog every week or two as we start into 2010.

One reason for the lack of attention to the blog is that we are having some buiding work done here at Salomonjay Studios and although it started in March it still isn't finished. Hopefully, it will be early in 2010 and we will then have more space - an additional area with hard surfaces that will give us different options when we are next recording. My intention is to start on the new CD as soon as the builders have gone and that it will be ready in the Autumn of 2010.

I mentioned back in July about writing a song about Helen of Troy. The intention was to write quite a serious song about the futility of war. In the end it morphed into a comic retelling of the legend but in modern times and set to a jazzy nightclub backing. As I've said before you start writing one song and then it takes over and goes its own way. You just have to hang on. I've also finished a piece about a Siren - based on the legend of Lorelei. For some reason it has ended up in 5/4 and 6/4 timing which has got Derek all excited - or is that annoyed?

We've had a couple of rehearsals in the last couple of months to try out the new songs. Luckily, Dave and Bruce have both got over long term hand injuries that stopped them playing and Ed is slowly recovering from a broken ankle from skiing earlier in the year, so we should be entering the New Year fully fit and raring to go.

It just leaves me to wish you all best wishes for Christmas and a happy and musical New Year.

Regards - John