NEWSLETTER 1

Thanks to all of you who have registered for the SelfTort newsletter. It is hoped that the newsletter will be published on at least a monthly basis. It will contain

• details of updates which have been made to the site
• details of recent recordings
• news of coming gigs
• responses to comments received from subscribers
• bits and pieces of news regarding music and other forms of entertainment
• odds and sods.

As you will have gathered from your visit to the site it is still under construction. There has been a bit more added in the last week or so. This particularly relates to the 'SIRRAH' and 'LYRICS' pages. There are now samples of Sirrah's recordings from the 1970s on the Sirrah page. Graham Doust has sent me some photographs of the band which, once they've been tidied up a bit will be uploaded onto the site.

Some of you may have received a rather cryptic email in response to your registration. The site has the facility to automatically generate a respone and by the time people started registering I had not edited the response so that it made any sense.

Also it's possible, although probably unlikely that some of you may have received an earlier newsletter. I had written one last week but had not worked out how to send it and thought I had lost it. However, I gather from returned mail in my email that something was attempted to be sent. If you did receive it could you let me know.

So far I've had only one complaint that the SelfTort sample's weren't working. They appear to be working for me but if you are having problems let me know. I am grateful for any response in relation to the site and welcome your comments.

UPCOMING GIGS

It is going to be a pretty hectic weekend. I am up at Orange and am booked to play the Parkview Hotel on Thursday 6 June, 2002. The next night I'm back at the Mortdale and on the Saturday night have a Midlife Crisis gig. Thank heavens its a long weekend.

By the way, if ever you are in Orange and looking for somewhere to stay, ignore the local motels and stay at the Parkview Hotel. John and Narelle Cochrane would have to be the best hotel proprietors in the state. They have renovated a pub which was derelict 12 months ago and turned it into a great place to have a beer and to stay. Forget your preconceptions about hotel accommodation - the rooms are fresh and well appointed.

Also, while you're in Orange or Bathurst remember to tune into 2MCE-FM, particularly on Thursday afternoons from 3.30-5.30 when my son Nick and his mate Mat run the 'Beat Cafe'. The frequency is 92.3 for Bathurst and 94.7 for Orange.

SITE UPDATES

The following have recently been added to the SelfTort website:

SIRRAH:

MP3 samples of Sirrah's recorded work have been included on the Sirrah page. Unfortunately when the text for the page was inserted I was led to believe that my uploading limit had been extended to enable whole songs to be included. Apologies because that was not in fact the case. I am hoping that will be available in the near future.

LYRICS

The 'Lyrics' section now contains the lyrics for all three recorded SelfTort originals together with the lyrics for the next few songs to be recorded.

I have also added the lyrics for three songs for kids that I wrote and forgot about years ago. I realise that the lyrics by themselves probably don't mean much without any idea of the tune, and will hopefully have the songs recorded in a month or two.

The present plan is to add some photographs and to work on the influences page.

I have also added a link to the Cuicoland Express website. The Cuicoland Express is the most recent band of Jack Bruce (best known as the singer/bassist/songwriter for legendary rock band 'Cream'). Marc Wickett with assistance from Dennis Lawrenson publishes a newsletter called the Cuicoland Express, dedicated to Jack's music, containing news, reviews and opinions. Because of the diversity of Jack's career the newsletter also deals with other related musicians. Dennis has, with the assistance of Mark Marriott set up a website which contains back issues of the 'Express' together with other bits of information. Thanks Dennis for the link and the plug. It's much appreciated. Jack Bruce will be one of the first 'influences' to be dealt with on this site. 

RECORDING SCHEDULE

I am back at SOUND DOG RECORDING STUDIOS for 2 sessions next week. The major plan is to record some of the more popular covers that I perform live with a view to seeing if any agencies are interested. Samples will be uploaded to the site once they have been converted to MP3.

If time permits its possible that another original may also be recorded but time does seem to get away in the studio.

That's it for this newsletter. Please check back to the site as often as you like to check on updates. If there is any opinion or information you would like to be included in future newsletters please let me know. I'm happy to make it a 'forum' type thing.

Best regards

Brian Ralston

aka

SelfTort