Good evening ladies and gentlemen!

It’s been a while! As the sole writer for Solsbury Hill, I feel a bit guilty for letting it go this long without updating. After all, we had our 15th birthday last October and all.

I do have a bit of an excuse for the more recent portion however. I was involved in the Japan earthquake and am only now back states-side, trying to get things sorted and get back into the swing of things.

This won’t be a huge update, I just wanted to cover a few brief things!

First of all, as you should surely know if you’re keeping up with the official site, Peter is nearing completion on his next album, a collection of orchestrated incarnations of some of his best tracks, now titled, “New Blood”. Peter has upcoming dates across the US, as well.

Next, Peter recently performed a stripped down orchestral version of Biko for Desmond Tutu at the Skoll World Forum. You can check out a video of that performance either here or right here:

Also, whilst stumbling around YouTube, I found this excellent interview with Peter done by AlJezeera English.

Finally, two more bits of business not quite so Peter-centric.

First, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have been incredibly busy between work, school, and travel and haven’t had time to work on/update the site as I should. I’m trying my best to rectify the situation and sit down to do some important work on the site, but in the meantime, I’m looking for volunteer writers! Compared to two years ago, there is a pretty constant stream of PG news. We could be reporting on concert reviews, New Blood news, and putting up good videos, like the Biko performance and the AlJazeera interview. If you are interested in helping to update, please contact me via the site contact form. All you need is a partially snarky sense of humor, an ability to differentiate between “your” and you’re”, and a love for Peter Gabriel’s music!

Second, as I also mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was in Japan at the time of the first big earthquake and tsunamis and I have many friends and loved ones still there trying to get life sorted again. As Peter Gabriel fans, I’m sure many of you are already very aware and I’m sure many of you have already taken action and done your part, but if you’ve yet to, please consider donating through the Red Cross.

To help, simple go to RedCross.org and click the big red “DONATE FUNDS” button in the upper right corner. From there, choose “Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami”.

That’s all for now! I’m looking forward to hearing from you about PG’s upcoming shows and please don’t forget to let me know if you’re interested in writing to keep this front page a little less static

Peter has recently done a cover of “In the Neighborhood”, a wonderful and haunting track by Tom Waits. The cover was done as part of The Voice Project. You can head over to the Voice project’s site for more information.

Enjoy!

Peter Gabriel » Tom Waits from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Here’s a clip from a great new interview with PG. He talks about the Scratch My Back concept on Dave Marsh’s “Kick Out The Jams” program on SIRIUS XM Channel The Loft.

If you can’t be bothered to watch right away, the gem of the clip is when he describes Stephen Merrit’s version of Not One of Us as “sort of… unsual[.]”

Thanks to Brian Ives from Serius XM for letting us know about the interview!

Elbow’s reciprocal cover has finally surfaced and is perhaps the best we’ve seen yet!

While keeping the sincere and profound mood of the original, Guy and the band do a wonderful job of introducing new textures and beautiful moments with simple piano bits.

Head over to SoundCloud to have a listen! You can watch the official PG.com video on the making of the Mirrorball and Mercy Street covers, then go and discuss in the forums!

The site redesign is still in progress. Things have slowed down a bit due to a bit of flooding at Solsbury Hill HQ, but should be in full swing again very soon!