I'm a bit knackered after a late night/early start/long day sequence, but here goes with another exciting post for my loyal reader.

Last night I returned to Darbuka for another gig by bassist Steve Lawson and singer Lobelia accompanied by drummer Ray Dodds. Support was again from ukulele strumming social media man Lloyd Davis playing some great old songs.

This time Lobelia and Steve each did some solo songs. Lo used some very night (bare) footwork to loop her guitar and voice. One song was pure voice and wonderful to hear. Steve gig a great cover of She Sells Sanctuary (on the seashore). Ray joined in with some great drumming and percussion on assorted hardware. Finally they all played together, which lent a new flavour to songs I feel I already know well. I chatted to them all as well as another bassist, Simon Little, who I met via Twitter and sat with during the gig. He's played with some well known acts and is doing his own solo work that I just obtained from his free podcast and am enjoying now.

I bought Lobelia's solo CD from a few years back. It features some songs I've heard live, but in much more conventional arrangements. I have to say I prefer them as performed now. I look forward to some more new material.

I had some cool musical experiences on the internet over the last week. Firstly I watched Steve, Lobelia and others perform at another gig via a live video stream on Ustream.tv. This included a chat forum where I could exchange messages with other viewers and people at the gig. That was fun. A recording of the gig is up now. This was followed on Sunday by them performing some songs at home and uploading them to Phreadz where others (with beta access) could post video replies. That was enjoyable too, despite some technical issues.

At work the other day a friend lent me a CD by Martin Simpson. Nice bit of folk with nifty guitar playing. I used QCD on my Windows PC and it did its usual thing of posting the tracks to Last.fm. I subscribe to an RSS feed there of gigs within a reasonable distance. Within an hour it included some of his. Sites like Amazon recommend music etc based on what you buy, but this was based on what I was listening to and with less commercialisation. I doubt I will go, but others would find that information useful. I've been alerts to gigs I have attended via this service. Each gig has a page where people can post comments and link to pictures etc. I've been on Last.fm for over four years and just clocked up 20,000 tracks. That's what I have listened to on the computers, but I do most of my listening like that. I often use their music streaming services to find new stuff. I was on one based around what people who listen to ELO like when I passed 20k.

My last cool musical link of the week is King Crimson Live. You can buy downloads of various concerts, but they also give away the odd track via a podcast called Hot Tickle. Cool or not I love a good bit of Prog.