This week has been mostly taken up with activates of a musical nature at SXSW. It’s the first SX I’ve been part of in 2 years. It was a little weird, but it felt really good to be playing shows again and seeing musician friends I haven’t been around in for-eva. Austin peeps will know how crazy the shire gets during SX. Musical people play an insane number of showcases, hopping from venue to venue with barely enough time to get from one stage to the other. It’s nuts, but a lot of fun. As mentioned in previous posts, the pandemic has taught me that less is most definitely more, so the fact that ..read more

I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m struggling to get back to ‘normal’. Everyone else seems to be slowly emerging from the pandemic hibernation and going back to normality with so much enthusiasm, but I’m not sure what that looks like for me anymore. I mean, define normal. normal – /ˈnôrməl/the usual, average, or typical state or condition. Well, yeah….but, like, Covid, and the pandemic, and stuff, and things. When lockdown happened it was as if we pressed the pause button on life itself, then years later we hit play, with the expectation of picking up where we left off. Yep, everything’s no ..read more

For the past 3 years I have been friends with a homeless lady who lives not far from us. She’s softly spoken, kind and unassuming. She has 2 dogs who are always happy as can be and far from skinny. We periodically meet up and I take supplies of food, propane and anything else she might need. If it’s chilly outside I let her sit in my car with the seat warmers on, and for typical Texas-level heat I’ll get the air-conditioning on the go. It’s hard for her to trust people and even harder for her to accept help, so it means the world to me that she feels safe in my presence and allows me to do wha ..read more

I get hit on by dudes, a lot. I do not make this statement to brag like I’m some super-hot chick. Quite the opposite. I don’t understand it at all, but outside of that, I find getting hit on by men uncomfortable and often very annoying. I remember sharing a ride with a musician friend a couple of years ago and me telling him the exact same thing. ‘Ooooo, there, there’ he responded in a patronising tone, patting me gently on the shoulder, ‘how awful for you!’. He them slumped back in his seat and said ‘it’s *always* fun getting hit on. Something must be wrong with you’. Is it fun though?  ..read more

I don’t know about you, but I’ve learnt so much about myself over the past 24-months. I feel as though the Universe (without my consent btw) thrust me into a 2-year-long voyage of self-discovery, on a level unlike anything else I have ever experienced. In that time, I’ve realised a great many things. But my main takeaway is this: Bloody hell, I am SO hard on myself. And I’m not just talking about pushing myself a bit too much. I constantly had a ridiculous workload and nothing I did was ever good enough. It was like having some beefy drill Sergeant living inside your head, yelling at you every ..read more

This beautiful lady is my grandmother, Margaret Joan Robinson. Brought up in north-east London, Margaret was a woman way ahead of her time. Forward-thinking, dynamic, driven and extremely business savvy. Even though she was only 5ft tall, she didn’t take any crap off of anyone. At 22, she was a sergeant in the WRAF (Women’s Royal Air Force) and after leaving the Air Force, she and my grandad ran many successful businesses in and around Devon. My grandmother was an unstoppable force of nature and was driven to succeed in everything she did. When I was 6 years old, my grandmother bought an old ..read more

A few years back I was on tour with Rebecca Loebe and my (now) chess friend Sweet Gary Newcomb. During a long travel day, he and I started chatted about the game and after our gig that night, we managed to find a board complete with chess pieces. The plan was to play one game before bed. 2 hours later I was having a whale of a time, and realised; Holy moly! Chess is bloomin’ brilliant! ‘But KM, isn’t chess for like intellectual sorts who have kind of a supercilious air about them?’. I used to think EXACTLY the same thing. I’m not allowed to play chess because I’m not a smart person and only s ..read more

Recently, my wife and I were going through Netflix trying to find some aimless crap to watch on tele. We came across a show called Coming Out Colton. It documents former NFL player Colton Underwood coming out to friends and family as well as the general public. It took me back to when I came out over 20 years ago. Even though my friends and family are super laid back and cool, I had a terrible time summoning up the courage to tell them. In my head I had made it into this BIG deal, when in reality it really wasn’t at all. Some of my friends even responded with ‘well yeah, we already knew that ..read more

‘Hi-ya! My name’s Katie and…well, yeah…I’m a musician and I play music. Well, instruments, errr you know, with other people….sometimes on my own though. It’s like reeeeaaally fun. I guess I’m good. Hahaha.    *Cue Awkward Silence*. Yeah. That’s me’. The above is a classic example of what happens when I am asked to introduce myself to a group of people who know nothing about me. Introducing oneself to others seems simple enough, right? Apparently, not for me. Every, single, time I have been asked to do this, I forgot everything. Literally. Like, my name, what I do, the English langu ..read more