Andrew Nicholson

I just read a sad report that singer/songwriter Gregg Fulkerson, the composer of the beautiful song “A Date With Destiny” passed away on Tuesday (April 14th). Gregg was only 44.

More information about Gregg and his music can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Fulkerson
http://www.myspace.com/wwwmyspacecomgreggfulkerson

“A Date With Destiny” was in fact rumoured to be a contender song to be on “Bat out of Hell II:Back into Hell” (by Steinman/Meat Loaf), it has remained unrecorded by any big named artists up until now. A gorgeous song in my opinion which has a very “Thunder Road”/Bruce Springsteen feel to it.

I recorded my own version of the song in 2006.

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Rest in Peace Gregg….

Another song for the second Springsteen tribute album.
This is a very simple version of a Woody Guthrie song which Bruce Springsteen performed a few times in the past during some of his tours and he has also included it during some shows in his current 2009 tour as well.

Interestingly to make the song more current I’ve read that Bruce Springsteen changed the lyric “The Gamblin’ man is rich while the working man is poor.” into “The Banking man is rich while the working man is poor.”, so here it is with that lyric change as well.

I chose for a simple arrangement with just a warm synthesizer pad as backing and the vocal. It will probably be the only track on the album with an apparent electronic backing as I am going to keep the rest more acoustic sounding (guitars and piano). I think it is a slighly eerie/empty sounding version but hopefully interesting because of that and will probably stand out as a bit different in amongst the rest of the songs on the final album.

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I’m not long back from a short trip to The Netherlands. I went to the AutoRAI car show in Amsterdam on Monday and took some photos. You can see them in the photo galleries section of the site or click the image below.

The car show was pretty good. I would say it was probably even bigger than the Motorshow at the Excel Centre in August 2008. There was probably less to do outside of the venue as at the Excel centre they had a small fun fair and of course the concerts every evening. However the show in Amsterdam seemed to include a more comprehensive selection of cars eventhough some manufacturers such as Nissan and Subaru were absent.

As there is no Excel Motor show next year (it has been cancelled) and the AutoRAI is not returning to Amsterdam until 2011 it will be a while before I visit one of these exhibitions again.
More information about the AutoRAI 2009 can be found here.