Back at Food Lover's Market every Saturday in May

Pictured: MJ (Martin-John Abrahams), at St George's Cathedral, 16/04/10
Photo: William Rose

Have a first paragraph somewhere of an article reviewing the Haiti concert on 16 April, but have just had no time to sit and put my thoughts down properly for a blog posting.

Thought I had to put this down, though - our duo's been hired back for its 11th consecutive month of Saturday night gigs at Food Lover's Market Restaurant and Sushi Bar, in Claremont. I can't even begin to say how significant this is for me. The place itself has become a part of my life, the staff a part of my "people", and Wayne (Bosch) a bigger part of my musical journey than I could ever have envisaged. It's also become a place where people considering hiring us come and check us out, catching the live performance as opposed to listening to a couple of CD tracks, and where friends come and chill for the night.

I don't take this gig lightly at all, and constantly work at increasing my repertoire of songs as well as of instrumentals. If I look back at our set lists of when we started, I'm proud to see how we've grown and diversified.

The guest slot has also become quite a feature of the gig, and even though we don't have a guest every single week, when we do, it's always special.

Last week's gig was particularly special, because we had two guest artists, and played four sets instead of three. This in honour of a 60th birthday party being celebrated there on the night. We were hired for the extra hour by the family. Megan Francis sang a few songs, including "Along Came You", by Gloria Estefan, a special request by Billy Rule, whose birthday it was. She did such a great version of it, he asked her to sing it three times during the evening! I must say, each successive time she did it better!

We also had young "MJ", who sang four songs as well, in his folky-rock style. To my delight, he did his original song again, about his hometown, Ashton.

And that's it for now! I'll find time to do that full review of the Cathedral concert.

Right now, I'm off to a Mind Power lecture at The River Club! Ooops, I'm running late. That's why my surname has to remain Rushin!