30/10/2008 by Andrew Smith.

I’m taking a trip to Berlin next week for a conference. I had entertained the romantic (and eco-friendly) notion of taking a night train from London via Brussels to Berlin. My task for this morning was to tie up all the travel and accomodation for the trip, and I hit a snag. While the trip out was actually cheaper for the train than for flying plus a hotel, the flight back was so much more expensive, particularly including the journey home from the airport, that it didn’t make sense So, no night train and “no frills” flights all round… but at least I get to spend to two nights in Berlin, not far from the site of the wall, near the Sonnenallee checkpoint.

Hopefully it will be a great conference, and also give a little time for site-seeing

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26/10/2008 by Andrew Smith.

I’ve been neglecting this blog in recent months, since I moved my clinical research blogging over to http://crfocus.wordpress.com, so I thought I’d revive it with a post about two wonderful musical experiences I’ve had this week…

Firstly, on Thursday night I saw the wonderful Mike Keneally play his entire “UK Tour 2008″… a single gig at Riff’s Bar near Swindon, near the end of a few weeks’ vacation in the UK. The gig was set up by XTC guitarist and longtime Keneally friend Dave Gregory, who lent Mike his gear (including a beautiful Matchless amp, an SG and a Martin acoustic) and also joined in on a few numbers. There were probably only 100 or so people in the place, but the venue is so “intimate” that for much of the gig I couldn’t see very much through the throng of people. But the music… Mike played for around 2 and a half hours without a break, starting on acoustic, then some keyboard, and rounding off with a goodly chunk of electric. Plenty of the material was planned, but he also took requests, including a stunning cover of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” and the requisite encore of “Inca Roads”. Quite apart from his superb musicianship, what struck me was his ability to sing his emotive songs while playing complex rhythm parts and throwing in lead fills. He also threw out some intricate lines with uncanny precision, given the speed, abandon and evident with which he was playing. Memories of the setlist are being collated over on Usenet (link here) and a few videos are being uploaded to YouTube, including my very shaking clip of Rosemary Girl as the final encore (link here). A stunning night, which will keep me going until Mike’s European Tour of 2009, which hope will bring a full band to the UK…

All of which meant that the other guitar highlight of the week has paled into relative insignificance: an hour of Jeff Beck filmed at Ronnie Scott’s over the summer that was broadcast on BBC4 on Friday night!

From the ridiculous (ridiculously talented, I mean) to the sublime…

The other musical highlight of my week was the first rehearsal for a Christmas tableaux concert, organised by our friend Pippa Eden. We had the first rehearsal yesterday afternoon, with 12-voice choir (I think we were missing a few…) running through some beautiful sacred music (including Rutter, and some others that I really should have known!) at St Mary’s Church, White Waltham. Jess sang soprano (of course) and I sang bass (strangely, we had a full complement of tenors!) and the boys ran around, being looked after by the assorted helpers, coordinators, tableau performers and older children. Everyone had a marvellous time, and we made some beautiful music… that will be even more beautiful when some of us (ie, me!) get beyond sight-reading… More in a future post (now there’s a committment…)

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31/03/2008 by Andrew Smith.

That’s right, thanks to the success of my clinical research blogging for CRfocus, I’ve decided to move that to its own domain

Rest assured, though, that there will be plenty of neat stuff going on here… just not about work!

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22/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

Nearing the end of my run in Salad Days, I’m wondering how close I should be to my character, Lord Nigel Danvers. He’s a likeable upper-class twit, or maybe just a bit too enthusiastic and keen to please, and certainly anachronistic, probably even then, but definitely now!

But my best performances have always enabled me to magnify an aspect of my own character, and this is one of those; but I felt amazingly comfortable putting on a Harris tweed jacket, and loved buying fresh carnations for my buttonhole. I mean! I’m a child of the 70s, so how much of a post-Edwardian throwback can I reasonably be?

I suppose I just need to get some distance after the show, listen to some electronica and get with the times… that is, until my next trip back to the 50s for West Side Story!

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19/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

In just a few hours, I’ll be “treading the boards” in Maidenhead, in the opening performance of the Grimm Players’ production of Salad Days. Lord Nigel Danvers is somewhere between Boris Johnson, Arthur Dent and Giles Wemmbley-Hogg, but in an endearing way. I’m glad he ends up with someone for the finale

The process of “finding” the character has been a bit illuminating… from “saying the lines” to “moving as directed” was fine, but it’s only been in the past few days that I’ve been able to trace a line through the character and do things even when I’m a) not speaking and b) not really the focus of any attention. I hope that someone notices (even if it’s only the other people on the stage…)

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16/02/2008 by Andrew Smith.

Preparing for my next bit of conference blogging @ the DIA EuroMeeting next month, I’m trying some new software called Wavelog for my N95, which should be much easier and cheaper that using the Wordpress web interface. It all seems good so far, and only cost £5. The next step is to try it with my Nokia keyboard; if it works well I can go to Barcelona unencumbered by a laptop!

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