Back home at last after a great tour in England. I learned something too, I do better in out of the way places or in unusual venues. I’m not sure why but that’s the way it is. With that is mind I am looking for more of those kind of shows, particularly in England. So, house concerts? Churches? Museums? Whatever? If you know of any let me know at ray@raycooper.org To put on a house concert see the advice under the ‘Concerts’ tab. It’s not hard. It’s easier than you think to put on a gig too, take for example last Friday in Yattenden Village Hall with Rowan. Two friends/fans hired the hall for £50 and we were lent the PA for free. It took a lot of word of mouth, 20 small posters in village shops, an ad in ‘Shire Folk’, a local listings mag, some help from my end in the form of listing on the web and that’s it.  It’s legal too, thanks to recent legislation, shows with less than 200 people can run without a licence. It turned out  we didn’t even need the PA. There was a technical fault in the first half. I jumped off the stage and played the last two sets acoustic. The fault was easily fixed but so many people said that they liked the intimacy of the acoustic show that we played the whole of the second set from the floor with no mics. It was probably the best show of the tour, very low costs so there was no risk of losing money and everyone was happy, so much so they all wanted us back again next year. These are the kind of shows I would like to do more of. They don’t have to be acoustic but have done enough now to know that I am comfortable with no PA as long as the audience is close. In Germany I played a lot of churches and I’d like to do more in England too, they are often wonderful buildings. You just need to find one where they do the odd concert or persuade your local vicar that it’s a good idea. Public buildings should be used by the public. ray@raycooper.org

The moment we went acoustic