Welcome to My(WasteOf)Space

Google ‘BorderLine Crossing’ and our MySpace page will appear high up in the listings. It should be a good point of reference for our band in cyberspace, at least until we have our own website up and running (for which we have just obtained the domain name by the way!)

The problem is that the MySpace page is giving out inaccurate information about us – and there seems to be nothing we can do about it!

In its slow and clunky way, it will accept updates to our gig list and allow us to share comments. But the profile information still describes our old line-up when we were a trio with a different lead guitarist.

For those few die-hards out there who still use MySpace, this is not because we are lazy or negligent in our social network marketing. It’s because we cannot get MySpace to accept the new text that we’ve provided for our profile. It’s all typed out in the ‘edit profile’ page but whenever we click on ‘save’ or ‘publish’, MySpace responds by completely ignoring the changes.

The only option left to us is to plaintively share a comment that the MySpace info is wrong and that surfers should go to Facebook to find out about our latest line-up and repertoire.

Here’s a link to our Facebook page, although you need to sign into Facebook to read the details. We won’t bother to include a link to our MySpace page until we can figure out how to get it changed. Any suggestions welcome!

The complicated art of social networking

It’s been a difficult summer! With the band’s guitarist and singer Pete Willow rushed into hospital and then convalescing after his operation,  BorderLine Crossing had to pull out of Warwick Folk Festival and rely on visiting musicians to help them through a couple of the Boat Inn nights.

So now it’s catch-up time and one job that has been screaming out for attention has been updating our online presence. Writing this blog is always a pleasure but battling with the recently imposed complexities of MySpace‘s events listing has been something of a headache. Or is it just us? We’re ignoring those cruel rumours that people no longer read MySpace these days and hope that the archive videos of our first public performance (Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre 2008) at least give some indication of how far we’ve moved on!

Our next challenge is to set up a Facebook site for the band. We’re getting there! Just as long as we can find time to play some music.

Meanwhile, to get you up to date – we did have an amazing time on stage at Coventry’s Godiva Festival last July. It was only a short set but the sound was great and we enjoyed the company of Jon Harrington, who used to play in Dave Cook‘s old band Little Mountain, looking resplendent in his hat and playing some pretty cool harmonica on Stoned Me and Heart And Soul.

The Boat sessions in Newbold have continued to go down well, with or without the full band line-up, and the venue has now been refurbished to look like a proper music room. Highlight for the summer was Kevin Dempsey and Rosie Carson who played there in August to a packed room. It was a good job that the eveninig was warm and dry as many audience members have to watch the entertainment from the outdoor patio.

Next Monday we have Wes Finch and Friends as our special guest act. Wes is probably one of Coventry’s most popular singer-songwriters who betrays the ‘rootsy’ influences of Delta Blues, The Byrds and Woodie Guthrie among others – another big stage act to appear in our intimate setting!

As for the BorderLines, we’ve finally been working on new material. Listen out for our arrangements of Buffalo Springfield’s’ For What It’s Worth and a raunchy blue number called Ton Of Lead, originally written by Pete Willow but now worked on so much by all members that it qualifies as a true BorderLine Crossing composition. And although we say it ourselves, this is turning into the best vehicle yet for Chele Willow‘s amazing vocals.

Enough for now – time to dip a toe into the Facebook waters. We’ll announce it when it’s done! We promise.