Gilbert mailed about his radio concert � it sounds like it went really well � not that I ever had any doubts. But the pressure of performing live improvised music solo on national radio � that�s about as hard as it gets believe me!

I went looking for some reviews of the broadcast but couldn�t find any. Indeed I ended up looking at the review that I wrote of Gilbert�s original CD on the ND files. I had quite forgotten about it and it�s a bit wordy. Anyway here it is:

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/isbin.html

I wrote back immediately to Gilbert explaining who I�d given copies of 10SS to in NYC and Detroit � I thought the list looked OK. Now that the kwase-kwaza.org site has announced 10SS and put up Gilbert�s explanation of how he came to originate the pieces I need to launch into a direct mail campaign to drum up some sales.

I also explained to Gilbert where I am on transferring his performance to a London venue � basically still in the business planning phase having written to Charlie Alexander at Jazzwise about it for advice. I need to follow that up this week.

Gilbert asked about the Lullabyes project � this now has one defined track plus the offer of some Michael Conley � flute player extraordinaire � from Seaview Music. I need to write to them about a contact I found for them in NYC at the Julliard School of Music Flute Centre. I have identified a couple of tracks from the Seaview CDs that I think might be suitable for Lullabyes.

I have fished out my copy of Patti Smiths complete notes and lyrics � looking for clues. She writes about Gloria endorsing Paul Williams� comment that it was a declaration of existence. She goes on �Gloria gave me the opportunity to acknowledge and disclaim our musical and spiritual heritage. It personifies for me within its adolescent conceit what I hold sacred as an artist. The right to create without apology from a stance beyond gender or social definition but not beyond the responsibility to create something of worth�. On the opposite page is a picture of her playing her Duosonic. Later she explains

� I went up to 48th St and got me an electric guitar. A 1957 Fender Duosonic � for $110. Legend has it that Jimi Hendrix had played it. Legend or not it was mine. The thick maple neck strung with God�s heaviest strings felt good. I wasn�t interested in learning chords. I was interested in expressing ideas however abstract within the realm of sound�.

By coincidence I had my Duosonic out yesterday � and I broke a string. Yvonne was out at a school quiz and I wanted to review my Fender stock having heard Jim�s White Tele, Askolds Black and White Strat and cherry red George�s Gibson semi all played through their respective little black amps. My little black beast is a Deluxe 112 Plus � transistor but US made, reliable and very loud for the weight. It also has Fender Reverb which Tinsley Ellis eulogised when I spoke to him last year.

I got the White Tele out and just played a few things through. The Tele should only be used on the clean channel but it is an astonishing subtle instrument within that constraint. Volume isn�t just volume on mine � its bass cut. So you can get an enormous range of Tele sounds by cutting the bass and the top on the two controls. Of course the guitar gets quieter but there is a good 90 watts of power in the De Luxe and I have never ever run it over 5 or 6. Luckily the history of country was on BBC2 and so I was able to join in with quite an authentic sound. This sound range is all on the bridge pick-up � I am still humming and ha-ing about how to replace the neck pick-up. I should drop in Regent Guitars and discuss the options.

My Duosonic cost 110 � pounds � and is made across the world from the one Ms Smith discusses � also it has very light strings on from the latest set up. It sounds good on both channels of the amp and has absurdly powerful pick-ups compared with the 1974 single coil which is on Tele � as I say with De Luxe you can trade power for tone. If anything the Duo is a bit too powerful to make the dirty channel easy to handle although that problem is mitigated by the fact that the volume control is not a tone control in disguise.

Both the Tele and the Duo have the same bridge configuration which is three mini bridges rather than six. They also have the same control configuration � volume, tone and a pick-up switch � anything more I find a bother. Well I suppose I can stretch to the U2 which has concentric tone and volume for each of the two pick-ups. I reckon with that with these three guitars I have a pretty comprehensive grasp of classic single coil guitar tone � for what its worth. Really my guitar playing is mostly oriented to melodic accompaniment � or at least that�s the heart of it. Over the years I have gradually come to see the validity of the Smith abstract sound generation idea. I suppose that was Fred�s great insight when he started reconfiguring guitars in the early 1970s.

I still kind of regret not pushing ahead and securing the 1974 Fender Champ that was on offer in Farncombe a year ago � I�ll not see another for under �100 for a long while I don�t think. But you cant buy every great bargain you come across especially if you spend as much time in music shops as I do. Otherwise I would have come home with that $900 1964 Epiphone that I saw on Bleeker St ten days ago. I dropped into a store on Denmark St on Friday to check out the price of a later single pick-up Epiphone that I had seen six months ago. It had gone but they remembered the guitar � the Bleeker St instrument was a snip and great fun to play. I decided not to plug it in otherwise I knew I wouldn�t escape with my credit card unscathed.

The Champ was in a shop in Farncombe and approximately 8 miles due East is Leith Hill Place which was built around 1600. It belonged at one time to Josiah Wedgwood and stayed in the family from which Margaret, Vaughan Williams� mother emerged. Although VW was born in Gloucestershire, after his father died he and his family moved back to the house so that he was educated at Charterhouse (about 2 miles from the Champ shop) � it is possible that he may even have been taught by Aldous Huxley�s father. He continued to live at Leith Hill until he finished his studies at the RCM � just as he left, his sister started the Leith Hill Festival.

Anyway Jake, Yvonne and I climbed Leith Hill this afternoon which is the highest point on the Lower Greensand Ridge. It was misty but you could see through the Mole gap towards Ashtead. In the other direction I tried to trace the line of Stane Street which starts at London Bridge goes down to cross the Wandle at Merton Abbey where Thomas a Becket was educated and then breaks the straight line to go through the Mole gap. After that it is pretty much straight across the Weald to Chichester. There�s quite a good picture of it at http://www.chichester.gov.uk/museum/tl3210.htm

Further in the distance you could see the outline of St Leonard�s Forest where there used to be a dragon.

Anway this set off a line of thought starting with the observation that the Forest of Arden is an untamed region bounded by Roman roads. A similar large bounded area exists in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire within a triangle of roads, the first of which I have just described. The second goes from the City of London along Oxford Street and then down to Stanes where it crosses the River Thames after which it goes just north of the A30 to Silchester � I was looking for the trace of it on Thursday in Dry Arch Road Sunningdale which I have never managed to locate. The final segment connects Silchester and Chichester and goes quite near to Alton .

This third element is much less well known than the other two � I certainly wasn�t aware of it until today but it deserves more exploration � in fact the whole of the line of the road running north from Chichester over the South Downs and then crossing the River Rother to the West of Midhurst is well worth a trawl. http://www.roman-britain.org/places/ngr/_ngr_tq.htm is a pretty useful site on all this stuff.

Within these three roads, there was a large woodland zone which became the hunting park for Windsor plus some relatively high street ridges which carried the older East-West routes. In fact you can see different styles of development in the triangle. The Normans for example colonised into this zone by moving up the tributary rivers from the Thames � hence the string of early Norman chapels on the River Wey. The Saxons may have colonised along the ridges � hence the Saxon war grave on the hill behind my house. There is also a line of villages along the dip slope of the North Downs where the spring line is � indeed it was in one of these that Yvonne and I lunched today.

I have downloaded some Rhythim is Rhythim from a Russian site.