
We haven't traveled together since last summer's journey to Germany, and we've got the time. So my father and I are on the road again, just an hour or two ahead of an old-fashioned New England blizzard, off to Memphis, Tennessee, for the short gap between Christmas and New Years. So far, we've penciled in The Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the National Civil Rights museum, Sun Studios, and a chance to see the Gibson luthiers in action; the Smithsonian Rock 'N Soul Museum is actually in our hotel, so we'll be sure [...]

This was a low key and extremely welcome return for my favourite Edinburgh venue, after a hiatus enforced by the Festival cider whores. There's just something nice about the Bowery, probably because it's such an unlikely space. It doesn't actually feel like a bar or a venue in the way that you might have such places in your head, it's a little more accidental than that. Ruth and Jane who run the place have an enduring fascination with all things New York, and their ongoing mission to bring everyone from that city who has ever so much as [...]

You could drink yourself into a coma going to every interesting gig in Edinburgh this week. I think I might need a few orange juice gigs, if just to vaguely preserve both liver and waistline. Although it may be too late for both, I have to admit. I think I am going to start driving to gigs (tonight is by necessity, but we'll see how it goes) just as a way of forcing myself to stick to fizzy water or some such beverage. Maybe Skinny Water , perhaps (thank you Cogstar), a drink so monumentally stupid that [...]