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Dreams are made of this - read Dick's Toolbox for more

Mike's Pith & Wind - Manifesto
That I’m getting more forgetful these days there’s no doubt, but I’m not sure if my recent on-stage blemishes are a direct result of the onset of decrepitude or because I’m becoming a more ambitious story teller between songs and I haven’t yet mastered the switch back from being spontaneously creative to the notional musical score.
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what I find so satisfying about performing music in public both with and without the band. I’ve recently published a tiny Mike Rudd booklet as a kind of biographical history-cum-manifesto to be left on the tables at my solo gigs and idly scanned by bored or curious patrons and I’m now in the process of producing one for each of the various combos. This isn’t just because there are more and more people in the audience who weren’t around when Spectrum’s career was launched back in 1969, but because I’d like to point out to Spectrum novices that some aspects of our performance are absolutely unique to us, starting off with, but not restricted to the songs.
This need to explain and justify oneself is due to live music performance being a less valued art form than it was, not unlike music itself, and there is a generation out there that simply doesn’t sample live music on a regular basis like their parents did, if at all.
So, if the audience is so fickle and transient, the cultural nuances are bound to be eventually lost and then all we’re left with is the celebrity stadium.. read more

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Dick's Toolbox - The Sommelier
We actually ate well recently – in fact it qualified as one of life’s happy moments - dining with Michael, my wife Mary and daughter Elizabeth at The Carlton Wine Room, a restaurant where Michael had been before in one of those rare moments when he actually was floating fractionally above subsistence level. Or perhaps it was a wealthy friend who led him into the paths of fine dining, one can only speculate. The musician’s lot is rarely an affluent one, and Michael is rarely affluent; being retired I might be intermittently fluent and Elizabeth, being employed would be speaking in tongues.
Anyway the young lady in question gives a fine appearance of knowing about wine and so the large and daunting wine list was handed into her rather reluctant hands where it hovered for a moment, replete with exotica, strange varietals and vintages. Then there was a sigh of palpable relief.. read more