On May 22 2014, Jayke Orvis & the Broken Band announced the start of their European Tour on their FB-page. The sad news was that this would also be the last tour for the Broken Band as we know it. You have to face the facts. "Nothing lasts forever. Even the longest, most glittering reign must come to an end someday." James Hunnicutt (guitar) will continue with his solo act. Jared McGovern (upright bass) and Liz Sloan (fiddle) will be moving forward with the Urban Pioneers. Jayke Orvis will almost certainly return with a new line-up of talented musicians. But will he ever be able to recreate a band that can match this line-up? In my opinion, it’s not possible. The line-up with James Hunnicutt, Jared McGovern and Liz Sloan is without any doubt the ultimate “dream-team”. Not only as individual musicians, but also in the way they interact musically on stage. Tonight, I had the privilege to see Jayke Orvis & the Broken Band play at Club Nuggets in Stockholm, Sweden (see picture right). On their FB-page they wrote: “we've hit it hard since day one, and we feel like the right thing to do is go out with a giant bang instead of a sad love tap.” And they didn’t go quietly into the night (however the sun sets 10.01 PM this time a year). On the contrary - as promised - they went with a giant bang. They played hard like there was no tomorrow. Jayke Orvis & the Broken Band are so talented, experienced, perfectly attuned and without any tendency to idle. They never lose their commitment. The songs that linger on from this evening are: Shady Grove, Feelings Like This, Dreadful Sinner, In The Pines, Raise The Moon and Lead Me Astray. After leaving the venue, I thought about how different band splits can be. Sometimes, it’s a very bitter end with infected disputes about the musical direction, ambition level or money (however, there’s not much money, if any, in this particular genre), harsh words that never can be taken back, things that should have been said, but never was or just getting very tired of each other. It’s therefore really encouraging to see Jayke Orvis & the Broken Band split up in such a friendly way (but still with a giant bang). 

As stated in my blog entry on May 18, 2014 "The Devil is in the details" I*) bought and installed a product (Extended DB Music) for making it easy to fill and update the sections Artists, Albums and Lists. However, there was a major software bug in the product. And the software bug hasn't yet been fixed by jVitals Digital Technologies Inc. That's bad and not very confidence inspiring, to say the least. I therefore turned my eyes to the "Rolls Royce" of data-base music products, namely Music Collection (see picture left) and read more about the product here. Music Collection is more than twice as expensive as Extended DB Music, but its content and functionality is vastly superior to Extended DB Music in all aspects. There are also 16 (!) add-on features to the product. And more important, it really works. Goodbye Extended DB Music and Hello Music Collection. Penny-wise, pound-foolish. My advice to you is: always go for tried, tested and already available products. The Devil is in the details, but you can sometimes buy yourself out of the problems you got into. After configuration has been made, I will begin filling the data-base with content in an industrial scale.

*) actually it was my friend Mikael (site architect and advisor) who helped me out with this (as with Music Collection). 

Transparency and traceability are frequently used concepts these days, at least in the working life. You can’t go to a simple office meeting without someone pointing out that “it must transparent how we come up with this decision” and “everyone should be able to evaluate the process and trace all steps”. I must admit, I have sometimes indulged myself in this litany. But, this “mumbo-jumbo” is the professional me, not the private me. Maybe that’s also why the decision making process of who, what and why someone or some are included in a section on the website is non-transparent and non-traceable. The only thing that really matters is the outcome (included or not included). All considerations that have been made on the way are not very interesting. However, there exists a decision making process, but a rather diffuse and impenetrable one. However, in my opinion the process works. And that’s all that matters, at least for me.

The first step in the construction of the website is now completed. It took two months (sigh). All articles from cdrunda.se have now been translated, revised and migrated (I have also written a completely new article about Elliott Brood). The next step is to fill the sections Artists, Albums and Lists with a content. However, it was time to make a choice here. It's possible to use simple tables and manually fill them with content, but it's hard work and very time-consuming. After consulting my friend Mikael (site architect and advisor) he found a product already designed for the task. It's called Extended DB Music (see picture left) from jVitals Digital Technologies Inc. Extended DB Music gives you the ability to add artists, albums, album covers, release date, record company, pictures, videos, description, tags etc. You can use Extended DB Music to create a default view or easily make custom views. The product would really meet my requirements. However, after installing the product there seems to be a software bug in the Extended DB Music. It's not possible to link albums to an artist (a very basic relation). I hope the problem will be fixed soon. As always, the Devil is in the details.

Wovenhand is releasing their seventh album "Refractory Obdurate" on April 25th 2014. On the three lastest albums "Ten Stones", "The Threshingfloor" and "The Laughing Stalk" Wovenhand have moved away from their introvert and enigmatic sound towards a much harder style. According to prior information on the Internet "Refractory Obdurate" is their hardest album (so far, that is). After pre-listening to the songs "The Refractory", "Field of Hedon" and "Hiss" I'm inclined to agree in the assessment. I prefer their introvert and enigmatic style, but it's still Wovenhand to me (and of course I will buy their album). The current lineup features David Eugene Edwards (vocals, guitar and banjo), Ordy Garrison (drums), Chuck French (guitar) and Neil Keener (bass). Wovenhand will follow up the release of the album with a month of touring between May 15th to June 13th 2014 in Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden). Actually, the tour ends in Stockholm at Debaser Medis.