Hay peeps and peepetes, I hope your all cool and for those of you that are Brits, I hope you survived the crazy storm!

We managed to escape the storm just in time as we headed to Swtizerland that day to play a festival called the AVO sessions.

It was fab! We supported Snow Patrol who were rockin. The festival this year has played host to so many big names and over the years its had everyone from Elton John and Grace Jones to James Morisson and Joss Stone so it was a great priviliege to play there.
We made a dvd of the performance because the lighting and venue was beautiful I had to save it for ya's to see!
Will be setting up snipits of the performance very soon.

The NBS gigs have been going really well so far, every crows we've played have been brill and everyones diggin the Blues Album!
Got a bit of a sore throat today though which is a bummer but inevitable in every tour!

The Swiss are major smokers and you can still smoke inside there so the gig was just crazy, full of smoke from every angle and being an ex smoker I really really struggled with it. I think us ex smokers are the worst! But my voice doesn't withstand breathing that in anymore so its really affected me which is a pain.

Off to Leeds tonight, Norwich lastnight was awesome so thanks to all you Norwich fans out there who were in the audience!

Plans for the new album are coming along ver nicely, recording is set for mid February next year as this tour and the Joe Bonamassa tour has taken up my time this year so recording's been put back to Feb. The Blues album is set for release at the end of the year though. I'm gonna be selling a limited edition of the full album on Joe's tour and soon it will be available on line so if your looking for the perfect xmas pressie!! He he!
Anyhoo, I've got to go start gettin my stuff together for tonight. Hope you all had a wicked weekend.

Schmoo schmoo

S xx

I'm sitting in the back of a car en route to Edinburgh. Tomorrow my new manager's and I will hold the first "listening session" of demo's towards my 3rd album. I'm really excited, I've listened through them all myself today and I'm happy with where its at so far. Bearing in mind were recording in december I feel I'm exactly where I should be right now with the songs.

I don't know if you guys are aware but I've also recorded an 8 track mini album called "shades of blue". Its my homage to the blues era with an eclectic mix of Blues numbers ranging from the typical 12 bar blues of BB King to the more Clapton sounding ones to the Delta blues that the likes of Robert Johnson would play to my own personal take on the blues with the second acapella song that I will have recorded, the first, off course we all know very well. Here is a sneak peak of what it looks like:

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/652...

We recorded the mini album in a special way. Very different to how we've recorded in the past as this time round everything was live. Takes longer to set up and get right but in the end the results are magnificent. You can really feel the dynamic in the songs where the band rise and fall as my vocals go from quiet and soft to loud and proud. As it is at the moment I'm going to make the mini album available on line and on the Beautiful South tour this November, I'll also be taking it to Switzerland with me to the Avo sessions, looking forward to meeting up with Snow Patrol, its been 4 years since I've played on the same stage as them, the last being in Nottingham. Also looking forward to playing with the Sugababes at the Royal Variety which isn't too far away now! Very excited about playing new songs and I'll be showcasing 3 of the tracks from my new album at the Royal Variety for the very first time!!!

The musical side of my life is going really well, I genuinely can't wait to play these new songs and hear the new album when its finished, really really proud of this one....not that I'm not proud of the others but I think this is the one that shows my true colours.

Off course most of you will know that I'm getting married next year!! Well at least the girls will! So guess what girlies I've already got my wedding dress, its by a designer called Jenny Packham and its totally gorgeous, it gets made now to measure me exactly and I get to see it in April! Don't think I can wait that long so I'm gonna keep going into the shop to try on the sample! He he! I got my veil too, its a one off so very unique which I'm chuffed about. Woo wee I'm getting RSI in my thumbs from all this tippy tapping on my crackberry so I'll offski for now. Speak soon y'all, big love xxx

I don’t watch hardly any new American TV shows these days.

For one thing, my life and its relentless work schedule don’t lend itself well to a religiously kept appointment with the tube on a weekday night just before the witching hour. Furthermore, there appears to be a serious lack of quality drama being served up these days from across the pond.

The few excellent shows that have caught my attention in recent years; e.g. Deadwood and Arrested Development have been cancelled it seems in favour of more vapid, nonsensical shows like Medium or Ghost Whisperer. I heard great things about ‘House’ but after watching it once, I just couldn’t ignore Hugh Laurie’s dreadful American accent.

So earlier this year when a new cop show named ‘The Beast’ hit one of the channel 5 digital offshoots, offering up nothing new conceptually with an almost flea bitten, hackneyed story centred around the old war horse veteran partnered with the hot headed rookie, ordinarily it would have been summarily dismissed were it not for the shows star, one Patrick Swayze.

Having been absent from the screen both silver and small in recent years, save for a wee supporting role in the cult classic phenom that was ‘Donnie Darko’, I decided to give it a go and was duly impressed. His robust features had diminished somewhat due to the terrible physical demands of his illness but he had certainly lost none of his stature on screen, his commanding presence had endured and his talent was still in good measure

And so I was deeply saddened to learn of Patrick’s untimely passing the other day.

What an absolute screen gem the man was.

How many of us girls out there know every line from Dirty Dancing, studied the risqué’ dance moves and sang all the songs from the film.

I drove my family mad as a wee lass belting out the Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes hit song from the film – ‘I’ve had the time of my life’. Another great and under rated tune from the films soundtrack is ‘she’s like the wind’, which Patrick co-wrote and released as a single. Easily two of the best cheesy love songs from the 80’s.

Few films in our lifetime make such an impact, few people affect us profoundly from all walks of life and few songs stand the test of time and remain as fresh and powerful decades later. I sincerely hope that at least a few people will be singing along to my tunes in a fit of nostalgia in the years to come.

On the very same day, I learned of the sad death of hell raising wunderchef Keith Floyd.
The timing of which was rather spooky I thought, as I, like millions of others no doubt had just watched a programme celebrating the life of the cantankerous gastronome the night before.
Poor old Keith, I have a real soft spot for hard drinking, chain smoking, straight talking men and women with tremendous talent who live their lives as they want to the extremes of infamous excess and to hell with the consequences. None of this PC, lets pat each other on the back for being so great rubbish.

He was shuffling round his Avignon pad half cut being interviewed by vindaloo Allen’s dad also known as Keith, who apparently is an actor, although only thing I remember seeing of him on the big screen was his shriveled tadger in Shallow Grave.

We’re all flawed and simple creatures at the end of the day, we all have our demons and crosses to bear and some of us shoulder the load more easily than others.
Rip Patrick and Keith!

What im listening to – my ears are dedicated to Patrick Swayze this week, it will be an aural feast of all the great songs appearing on his movie soundtracks, The Righteous Brothers, Bill and Jennifer and the fabulous Jeff Healey Band who appeared in Roadhouse.