The Streets of Paris by andyroberts<

Let me introduce a community for songwriters I helped set up just a couple of months ago.

The Songwriters Circle aims to provide a space for collaboration and support amongst songwriters onine, and for aspiring songwriers to learn as well. Most of the interactions are taking place in a Facebook group at present, because that's where the group emerged from, and its a space that seems to be able to grow quite quickly. But there's a muti-blogging space as well, based on a primitive installation of the same drupal software as Stormcock.

Throughout January we had a series of daily songwriting challenges, or tasks which helped to keep up the momentum, and provided a rich learning opportunity one way or the other. I's still no idea how many people may eventually have completed the month's worth of stuff, but there have been some very positive comments along the way. 

Anyway, I thought I'd mention it here because there are so many guitar players and performers, including some great songwriters who may be interested in comparing notes about the song writing process and so on, one or two who already found their way via Facebook - ( that terrible place which we only go to  because everybody else is there....) 

There may even be some good value in taking an outsiders' view as to where such a community might go next.

I announced a new series of podcasts back in the summer and I've published 18 episodes so far.  The original idea was just to provide another distribution method for the live house concert that I broadcast weekly for the past year or so. So it's just me and my guitar, not much chat or conversation, and I try to feature my own compositions as a matter of course, with the covers creeping in as and when I feel like it.

After nearly a year of doing a live streaming Andy Roberts music show on ustream I decided to turn it into a podcast as well, which means it gets recorded and made available as an audio file that can be played or subscribed to in iTunes. My version of podcasting is quite different to many others these days, it's raw and unedited, just a few original songs and introductions, no studio tracks usually, or interviews.

I've just had confirmation of a gig on Saturday 24th July at Romford with Adrian Nation, the rapidly emerging acoustic guitar virtuoso from Essex. I'm excited by this because I've been a big fan of Adrian Nation since seeing him play a few songs live recently, and because I'll be getting the opportunity to be the support act on the night, so it's the next Andy Roberts gig too.

On Sunday last I went along to my first Bandstand Busking event, since I'd signed up to be kept informed a while ago.

One More Cup of Coffee ( Valley Below ) Bob Dylan cover by Andy Roberts on Youtube

I've always liked Bob Dylan's Desire album And once knew all the words to Hurricane...Isis too, but that was a long time ago.

Then I learned a way of playing Mozambique on the guitar and passed it on.

The Rowan Tree

The Rowan Tree is a new folk song written recently and first performed at one of the regular Tuesday Evening Andy Roberts Webcasts at 7.00pm weekly.

Live Internet Broadcasting - Andy Roberts, Tuesdays, 7.00pm

Starting a few weeks ago, I finally launched my Andy Roberts Tuesday Night Show with live guitar playing, synchronous feedback and chatroom. Wahay. What?