Friday, 29th January, the weekend and three Skype concerts tomorrow, Saturday – one for Robert in Kyoto, Japan and two in the USA, one for Grant in Huntsville, Alabama, and one for Daylin in Sequim, Washington. So we’ve been wondering whether we should make this something for the future. We plan to make it $300 and you can suggest as many songs as you like and we will learn them if we can and if we can’t we will not have tried. It will be a loose hour (my hours are always very loose). We are just 12-string guitar and violin, no microphones, no amplification, in our front room. You can have friends and family around for the show, I suggest a bigger screen and decent speakers but anything works and so far it’s been going well. If you’re interested email Olivia at olivia@martywillson-piper.com for the details.

Next week is the official release of the next track from the new MOAT album Poison Stream – Helpless You. You can see the ‘cut out’ video on our YouTube channel from Wednesday, Feb 3rd but if you go there now and subscribe we will be happy to have you and we hope to get more content up as time goes by. On the subject of the MOAT album, we are having an issue with getting the album covers to us here in Porto to be autographed for those of you that supported the campaign and requested a signature. They are stuck in customs and we are just waiting for them to arrive so we can sign them and send them back to Schoolkids Records in North Carolina to be mailed out to you. The official album release date is February 12th. Another issue is that for those of you that ordered Handwritten Lyrics and or Mystery Boxes towards the end of the campaign, it coincided with us moving to Portugal, Christmas, new year, and the pandemic and we haven’t been able to purchase any mailing tubes or the right size boxes as the shops are all closed.

Also a reminder for the MOAT listening party on Saturday, February 20th at 6 PM Portuguese time (it’s the same as the UK). There is a platform that allows streaming of the record to you and you can ask us questions as part of the event. My partner in the project, Niko, will also be there. More details soon.

A strange day in Porto today for lots of different reasons, first of all, because I found myself wielding a mop. I haven’t done such a thing since I worked at the Canberra Cafe downstairs from my flat in Fallowfield in Manchester in the seventies. Our flat has wooden floors, not a carpet in sight, so not a hoover but a brush, and every now and again it needs a serious mopping! I also opened the windows and let in huge amounts of newly harvested fresh air, there’s nothing like oxygen to make you feel alive. Talking of staying alive we found out today that as of now Portugal has the worst per capita Coronavirus problem in the world. With that in mind, we went out today quickly, into the city to see if we could get our broken heater replaced. The reason we could get into the centre when we have lockdown, bad virus vibes, and only essential shopping, is because we live pretty much in the centre at one end of the main street, so it is in fact our hood. When we came out of the shop and headed right up the hill to our place to the left there were three police cars, one imagines strategically parked in the centre to stop people coming out of their area and into the city. Today was the last day of the two-week lockdown but they just extended it for another two weeks. It’s bad.

Music today comes from Jazz trumpeter Ian Carr who sadly died in 2009 aged 75. Whilst he was alive he made a lot of great Jazz-Rock albums with the band Nucleus and as part of a Jazz-Rock fraternity that included Allan Holdsworth, Chris Spedding (who knew), Karl Jenkins, Roy Babbington – and way too many to mention. Belladonna was the first solo album after three Nucleus albums that set the scene for the rest of his career and although only one band member remained from the Nucleus lineup, saxophonist Brian Smith, this album became a fan favourite. I was only able to find three tracks from the studio album online although it is available on Spotify. There is a live version of the album on YouTube. Carr was a clever fellow, he wrote two biographies, one on Keith Jarrett and another on Miles Davis. He was associate professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Music Of The Daze

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Belladonna (13:42)
2. Summer Rain (6:13)
3. Remadione (3:48)
4. Mayday (5:41)
5. Suspension (6:15)
6. Hector’s House (4:33)

Total Time: 40:12

Lineup / Musicians

Ian Carr: trumpet, flugelhorn

With:
– Brian Smith: tenor & soprano saxophones, alto & bamboo flutes
– Allan Holdsworth: guitar
– Dave MacRae: Fender electric piano
– Gordon Beck: Hohner electric piano (1,4-6)
– Roy Babbington: bass
– Clive Thacker: drums, percussion
– Trevor Tomkins: percussion (1,3,4)

Artwork: Denise Valentine

LP Vertigo – 6360 076 (1972, UK)

CD Linam Records – LMCD 9.00744 O (1990, Germany)
2xCD BGO Records – BGOCD566 (2002, UK)
Bundled edition with “Solar Plexus” album