Tonight there will be music

This evening is the Philippa Hanna album launch. I'm really looking forward to it...though slightly apprehensive. My brother Andy Baker has a support slot and I'm singing some of it with him. I managed to totally forget about one practice, almost had a nervous breakdown in the other I made it to as I had to drag my children out to it and they both had tantrums and screamed and clung on to my legs all the way through and so I got loads of things wrong. Managed a quick run through last night after some pasta but there's a few tricky harmonies to remember. I don't normally get nervous but singing with my brother is different...I'm not unfamiliar with being shouted at whilst on stage if I make a mistake - I don't get that from Claire and Rachel - we laugh at each other...which I can handle!
I am so pleased for Philippa though...she is such an inspirational talent and as an inspirational character to go with that which is a rare and beautiful thing. It's so good that she has such a brilliant album to document some of what she' achieved recently. I really hope tonight is a good one for her. Having chatted with Claire and Rach loads about how difficult it is to get good support to events and to create a consistent following..which I thought was a problem only we had, through talking with my brother who manages Philippa and is involved with lots of artists, it seems that even people who really deserve and amazing following just don't get it. Why does making music have to be so hard. Artists need people to come to their events and support them...it is that support that generates new support.. and that sort of momentum is so hard to create...even if you are good at what you do! I now that I have been guilty of not turning up to gentlemen gigs and philippas gigs even though both are good friends... and because I KNOW how BRILLIANT they are I assume they won't need me to be there for them - but if that is what everyone does then maybe they regularly see the same sea of blank faces that we regularly see too!

Of Course I needent have worried...obviously...and beauty

...and I love knowing that things will be fine because God has it in his agenda...even though logically and practically it will never work. Anyway how exciting to have embarked on the second course and what a lively group we have this time! I was worried that they would all hate each other and refuse to talk - lack of talkingis NOT going to be a feature of this course. This week we were looking at beauty...how the media makes us feel - being faced constantly with airbrushed and rich celebrities. Why oh why do we look at images like this and end up feeling boring and worthless...we all 'know' it in our heads that these images are not reality but the reality is that they can have enormous affect on how beautiful we think that we are. It made me sad recently at the checkout at Sainsburys...my normal magazine buying activity occurs in the supermarket as somehow a magazine cost might get disguised as some brocoli or something we really need and I don't 'feel' I am spending good money on rubbish at least...but as the checkout lady was scanning my copy of happy with a pretty girl on the front with amazingly bright blonde bouncy curls positioned so perfectly like a big sphere around her head the checkout lady sighed with such genuine defeat and expressed that her hair didn't seem to go like that. Well the thing is that NO ones hair happens to go like that without a team of about 20 professional stylists, great photographers, makeup artists, lighting crew and graphics artists ready to make this image look amazing. I am sure that getting up to get to Sainsburys for her morning shift this lady didn't have all that available to her...and neither does this same model everyday of her life either... we ALL look great sometimes and rough as at other times...lets be honest and any single one of us could look stunning if Vogue had us lined up for their front cover...they would make sure of that. So why do we waste SO MUCH time being disatisfied with the way we look but wishing we were like someone else... who is also wishing that they looked like someone else too. Stupid crazy world.

Picture btw is totally unrelated...though it is us performing our Doll Factory song for the first ever time...which i really loved doing! And happens to be about the ridiculousness of media pressure as well.

In worried anticipation...

...this will be brief but I want to document the butterflies that are worrying a bit in my tummy as the next girls course draws very close. I know there is less to do...and I know we have run it before so there is little stress involved this time round but I fear we have the most bizarre mixture of girls and I do not think that the group dynamic will be sucessful. I am hoping that this will be proved rubbish. Joel told me to worry - we've got girls, we've got a room, a great course and we're being paid - then Holly butted in to remind him 'and they've got Jesus' so yes all of those things are right. I just want it to be GREAT. 3 days to go! 4 possibilities for the last 2 spaces... yikes!