Kinky Boots.......

Just when we thought the French system had locked our CDS application in a cabinet at the local prefecture office in Angouleme, we received an unexpected missive asking us to attend a meeting with them towards the end of the month. A genuine surprise as we understood applications to have been frozen till they knew what was happening with the Brexshit nonsense.

The CDS is a Carte de Sejour, a card/approval confirming a right/entitlement to remain/reside in the country. Brits have been forced to consider applying for these solely cause of the threat imposed on them by Brexshit. As EU members, the CDS is not required but if UK drops out of EU it becomes a near-essential, for stability if nought else. Understandably to a fair extent we could see why applications were being frozen due to the sheer expense involved in dealing with the troublesome CDS process. The French are famously bureaucratic and the sheer volume of paperwork required - a whole folder of supporting documents for each of us  - is a prize pain. So, if UK in the end remains within the EU, there will again be no need for a CDS at all. All most troublesome.

Ironically, I'm off to Sweden tomorrow. We've bought a used car up there - where, surprisingly, used cars are relatively inexpensive and generally always represent good value - and I must pick it up and drive back down here. My initial plan was to spend a month or so up there but now I must curtail it and return doe the CDS meeting with the French machine. So, fingers crossed on that front. Another irony is that at present we both have our Swedish ID numbers and also have Spanish NIE/ID numbers but no French number...........yet!

I must be back for the meeting and then we are due in London early - mid November for meetings with a bunch of touring musicians, including the elderly UK bluesman, John Mayall, the guy who started the careers of Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor and countless other huge names. He's a cool guy and I spoke to him earlier this year and we got on really well. He is notoriously difficult with press, but was great, so he has given me a couple of Guesties - All Access Passes - for his London gig, where he usually refuses press access and restricts Guesties to his personal friends and family, all of whom want to see him when he visits London from his US, Laurel Canyon, LA home.

We meet and see Mayall on the Friday evening, followed by similar passes for a Norwegian blues festival weekend at the RAH (Norway has a busy, thriving blues music scene!), then on the Tuesday we have a similar Guestie pass for a visiting US musician, Kenny Wayne Shepherd. KWS's manager is a good, personal friend of us both and is on the road with the the KWS band in Europe. So, gonna be a busy weekend, also with a meeting with a lovely friend, a Canadian musician now resident in London, whose music I love and who is a truly lovely lady. Now in her late seventies, she worked with John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot and everyone of note in 1960s New York. Back then TIME magazine said there were three great US female musicians - Joan Baez, Judy Collins and her, Bonnie Dobson.  These days she lives around the corner from ex-Led Zep frontman, Robert Plant., whom she also works with from time to time nowadays. I usually pop round to Plant's place when in London, he's a lovely guy with no front of any kind and a near-obsession with Welsh mysticism!!  Last time I called round to her and his place, I literally bumped into a guy oozing affluence and style, a face from the sixties, Kinky Ray Davies!

I leave you with Bonnie in full flow signing her own song - the first song she ever wrote as a teenager and one that became the signature tune of US band, Grateful Dead, back in the day - alongside her neighbour, Rob:

On The Road Again.......

Well, ain't life a surprise at times!  We've been here in SW France around seven years, now based in a pleasant small village with no services but generally friendly residents. However, a Brit couple have recently arrived and they're mad Tories - 'Give Boris a chance....' and the likes. I suspect they're also Brexiteers though they keep stum on that one.
Anyway, with Brexshit around the corner, possibly, we reckon it's time to head off and return to Sweden where we already have ID numbers etc. and have always kept links so we remained within the system. The French have been a pain over the issue. I've now been waiting over 18 months just to swap my driving licence from UK to French and the bods responsible for this cannot be contacted. In addition, we applied for French ID numbers etc., around same time, over 18 months ago, and again have heard nothing. A neighbour who works with the local prefecture tells us that all applications have been frozen, all files locked in storage and will only be considered once Brexshit has been finally sorted. Such impossible indecision is far from helpful, so we reached a decision that maybe it was time to head off back to the Nordics, where we can drop back into the system easily. All of our friends up there tell us to do this and say we're basically Swedish and won't have any issues. So, who knows? Firstly, however, we must sell our house here.
I'm in process of buying another car in Sweden and will be heading up there asap to collect, tax & insure it and swap my licence for a Swedish one - a simple process that will take a few weeks and requires my personal presence.
In truth, I'm looking forward to returning. I miss the damn place. It gets under the skin and we've many good friends there - many of them musicians. It will be good to get back and dip into the music world there in a more significant way.
So that's it for now. A brief update. I expect when I get back up and running in Sweden again, I might start reposting more frequently. Again, who knows?!

Staying alive......

Lawdy, doesn't time just fly!?  Some years since I been here but maybe because I now spend so much time writing inerviews, features and music reviews I just seldom find the time to update these days. That's my excuse anyway.
We moved house about 18 months ago, a few hundred kilometers south, into a part of France we know well and have long loved. Now based in a small village in the Charente region we are about 10 kms from the Dordogne and in an area surrounded by lakes - not as many as Sweden - and rolling countryside. All very 1960s Herefordshire in look and feel.
I've taken overe a editor with the UK's leading blues magazine, a full-colour print thingy that takes up much of my time and provides bags of music, passes, opportunities and little income, sadly! However, this past summer, we spent most of the time out in the USA, travelling around meeting musicians, attending festivals and generally having a grand time from Atlanta - known as Hotlanta, for good reason - Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Oregon. All very pleasant but also a tad tiring given the travel demands and the vast distances covered.
New Orleans was a dissappointment, though we were based in a plush hotel right in the centre of the music action.The whole place is just way too busy, tourist over-run and dirty and noisy. Good music was hard to find and, in truth, we were glad to escape and return north to Tuscaloosa, Alabama,where we stayed a month or so with good musician firends.

Returning home to France, we were glad to be back to sanity and loads of cheap wine and decent food. However, after barely a week, we had to head to a music festival in the south of France, where we met many old friends and had a great time. T one point, to my astonishment, I was thrust a Mic and had to address the crowd in my basic French! Memorable but hopefully not to be repeated.

I had interview time with the legendary Carlos Santana who was touring Europe, and he has invited me over to USA, for the 50th anniversary Woodstock festival in summer 2019. He played the first, original and famous event and is again booked for the 50th bash; he wants me to join in and come on stage with him and his band. An offer that might prove hard to resist. Gotta be a blast!
I also spoke to my own personal gutar hero recently, Ry Cooder, a guy who has made a name for himself as the world's number one acoustic and slide guitarist, played with the Stones, and everybody else of note, and introduced the world to Cuban music with the Beauna Vista Social Club a decade ago.

Another surprisingly nice, laid-back guy I hooked-up with recently was the wild-looking ZZ Top frontman, Billy F Gibbons, while he was passing through London. Why do all these guys, generally rebelluous types, stay at the Savoy, one of London's most expensive joints, when in town? Could it be they now love luxury and food? 

Led Zeppelin frontman, Robert Plant, was also a delight, a genuinely easy-going, interesting guy with absolutely no front. We shared loads of things in common having lived as near-neighbours in the Herefordshire/Monmouthshire border country for many years. So we had mutual friends, favourite local ales and ciders, and bags of other surprising links. He's invited me along to his London home, given me his address and seemed genuinely open and friendly. I must make an effort to keep in touch.

Another great time was had with Mr American Pie, Don MacLean, again he was touring Europe and was a delight to chat with. And so it goes.

Although we're now sort of settled here in SW France, I still hanker after and miss the wild beauty of Sweden, despite its startling low winter temps and the snow.....it just gets under your ski, I guess. We still visit at least once every year, now spending time mostly in Stockholm with musician friends, and going on a Press jolly, a Blues at Sea cruise affair where we are given first-class cabins, bags of good food and unlimited plonk! So, can't be bad. In addition, one of our musician friends, Brian Kramer, from Brooklyn, has lived in Sweden over 20 years and is married to a Swede, so we invariably hook-up and stay with them for a bit.

This year, 2019, we plan to spent the summer in Sweden and Scandiland doing the music thing and catching up with old friends and former neighbours etc. I'm already looking forward to that though I expect it will fuel my longing to return to the crazy place.

With bleeding crazy Brexashit looming, we are furious about it all. We could have easily had Swedish citizenship when living ther but now no longer instantly qualify as we've been out of the country for too long. This despite retianing strong links and addresses etc., in the country. However, on the plus side, Sweden has confitrmed it will give Brits who are either resident on Mrch 29th or with any implementation periad dates, the same rights as are currently available. The only snag with this may be the loss of Freedom of Movement, though in effect we have European registered cars - one French, the other Swedish - so can readily travel around freely in Europe as Shengen means no border checks for the most part. Only time will tell how that works out.

Well, that's about it for now. Odd to be here, blogging again but maybe I'll try to become a bit more active again. Who knows!

To close, try this one. He was a delight to talk to about this very song:

https://youtu.be/x4KmbUCwkyE

Or this one, a personal long-time favourite with a history I now know, straight from the writer/horses mouth: