temporary webpage
And "events, dear girl, events..." have really rather rewritten the word 'assistance', meaning not a hope in hell hahh hahhh.
links below not for sharing yet please - we are simply asking a few maybe collaborators in to have a listen in now..
Update 20 July 2020: Well as someone used to say "well how's about that then". Just as I was about to launch a little - perhaps begin some local singer songwriter slots at local pubs and restaurants - hone up my live side, maybe even a little busking in Hay-on-Wye, a little old Apocalypse comes along. Talk about timing. I even qualified for a grant from the Musicians Benevolent Fund my neighbour was applying February this year, and we were waiting for the scheduled interview visit Mid March - which couldn't happen lockdown literally coming in the week it would have taken place. We're on our own now as the whole of live music has been decimated. But then in the 70's when it was truly tough - never any money and shuttling around in old vans between gigs kept on the road with ladies tights having to do as spares for broken fan-belts, perhaps our creativity was enhanced....
We know one thing: Donald [prostrate], the musical.... may have legs.
Update 15 Feb 2020:
i have lodged on a google 'drive' page the full back catalogue of material i was drummer and sometime vocals and co-writer of late 70s and on. Just so my pedigree is available to anyone interested in a maybe new musical future. It is temporarily downloadable here - two albums and two other live performances including our Peel sessions:
click on this LINK to access google drive storage all old material
I moved away from the area my bandmantes live, Nottingham, ten years ago, and rather moulded away in West Herefordshire in the wilds - absolute middle of nowhere. But very beautiful and atmospheric. In mid 2010s i decided, for fun really, to learn the guitar - i had no previous guitar knowledge. I persevered for a few years then last year, 2019, decided to write some songs.
In my new material I am vocalist, play the drums and guitar and Wayne Evans one of the original Gaffa members still active travels down every few months to where I am Nr Presteigne and puts some bass on my recordings for me.
In early 2019 we started to build a small makeshift recording studio in an old garage. I have zero savings/income but we were very proud with what we knocked up with reclaimed wood, carpet and a pile of eggboxes.
One day March 2019 my neighbour who had done the building work that winter and had known me several years quite well said when i played him my first ever recorded track "flip in all the years i have known you that's the first time i have ever seen a big smile on your face". The statement was I suppose true.
And then literally 2 days later out of the blue - not an inkling i had any problems, just a routine doctor appointment, i had an aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis. The prognosis was immediate surgery - asap, or likely die.
Naturally myself and those around me went into panic meltdown. There is a fair bit of this and that to do just to prepare for surgery i was waiting for several fraught months. I had had a minor operation 7 or so years ago and under anaesthetic then there had been quite dangerous problems - complications in how i was when out. So another operation was particularly ominous - high risk for me. The cloud descended.
We tried to laugh - we called that cancerous lump needing removal "Donald". And a lot of time facing potential extinction on walks around my spot.
The neighbour had started to casually film us building the studio earlier, then using my old analogue recording equipment - mainly the Tascam 414 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVwMJXEHx6M which i have spent the last few years trying to master (i am NOT tech minded to say the least and have no local expert help at all!!!! ). We tried to film a workshop for other analogue minded musicians - how to get a jolly good demo quality track with that old equipment. And very limited budget. Just keep a slapshot audio/video diary of some of it. Maybe useful to others if we share it one day.
The filming then turned to my journey the last 6 mths through the potential death sentence.... eye on the wall. There is a lot of real life audio/video of me going through the whole damn thing.
I have spent the majority of my life around professional musicians such as Gaffa as it carried on several decades and understand personality and performance. I have been often told that i have a character that is interesting on camera - raw, down to earth, rather moody at times. Deeply poetic in some ways. And i cannot do confected versions that aren't the roughish rugged me.
That said i have never even had an internet connection and never used a computer. I just sit in my lounge actually creating. And still learning so much. In fact I have never been as creative. Donald may have helped.... focus. Deepen. Enrich.
Miraculously not only did i survive the surgery but have had a pretty swift recovery - albeit not quite fully back to normal after parts being removed. Apparently it can take years for the body to internally reconfigure.
Suddenly, at the beginning of February this year, the new wind comes. Survived all that, time to really polish my work so far made if possible. So we have struggled to get the new material rerecorded onto the Tascam and then digitise via Audacity so i can then share it online. We have absolutely zero understanding of ANY of the buttons knobs or sliders. All i really wished was just to be able to send out on this to me new fangled email whatsit some of my new material to old mates for them to hear. (my neighbour is doing this i have never even used the internet in person).
It was never the plan, but having sweated blood to get this far the last 18 months, perhaps the gods say that there should be some kind of 'public' future. It is a worthwhile story. And that interesting new creativity that gets born out of the real horrors of life may energise me more than ever before. We shall see.
Here are my newer songs - written in 2019 and literally this week (mid feb 2020) remixed as i have at last learned a bit more recording technique. and the vocals redone this week.
this is where i got to feb 13 2020 temporary link to downloadable raw unmodified (we dont know how to modify or knobtwiddle hahh hahh) wav files
NEW MATERIAL LINK TO DRIVE FOLDER:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10WVkvmhy_7ZnbX7DTkZOWsOesy7p6Mgn?usp=sharing
NB now updated in that material is on youtube channel. Youtube channel - go to 2019 material page for links
But, now i am really up against it. Meaning we just don't have the skills to tweak this further or even know how to record without a little buzz just discovered audible on better quality audio equipment. even my home stereo is so cheap and old its laughable. Blood nearly flowed last week as the recordings from last year (on the analogue) when they were digitised sounded all weird. Days were spent pulling hair out. And then at last just about to give up - literally chuck away all that has kept me vaguely interested in surviving Donald this last year, discovered as there was some random pulling out cables, that the main audio out (to computer line in) cable had all along been in the wrong hole.. and it all sounded great at last.
My ambition for now is simple - to get into a professional studio for a few days so as to make a better quality recording of these few new songs and others I am writing. It may yet be my (one and only) bucket list item in that in a few months back for the next test to see if Donald had dribbled any of his nasty cancerous phlegm elsewhere within me. Usually the first drastic surgery is very successful and gets it all. I hope so....
Or - but so unlikely, if we could find someone local who has time to spare and can help set us up better to record into slightly better equipment. In a foolproof way. Even if such a person exists around our very rural region they will need some wages. it all takes a lot of time.
Expenses on travel to studio and even perhaps a bit of professional help working on my home studio - figuring the Tascam and Audacity setup (we are at our limit) etc etc...and a few grand for a few days in the studio is what i may try and aim for soon.
That said one advantage i do have over the younger generation is that i simply cannot tolerate all this tech. I don't want to know about digital anything. I keep my whole focus on the creativity with instruments and voice. Every time we try and do anything with the analogue master material - even make a true copy onto Audacity...hahh hahh it turns into a brutal ten hour fight even worse than the fight with Donald... but we have no one with any real expertise to help. And living far from civilisation will not find anyone. The neighbour did try....
Having gone through months of near depression - inevitable mulling over serious surgery and possible cancer spreading, i think that depression has just cleared and new energy is welling up in me, I aint givvin up now....
As stated an expert at modern new media (online) says i have a great character and the screen will perhaps be useful in this.... but at present our local broadband speeds are so slow - 1 mbps .... we are stuck. Just money.... (even to go and stay in b+b in some city so as to upload with decent speeds..).
Whilst i dont yet have quite the panache with the guitar i have been told i have "soul" in the way i perform and stage presence not far off this fabulous old bugger - Terry Reid Bloody Sunday Sessions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pTFykWIUnM
Anyone offering help we can of course offer a cut of any future revenues..... if i am good enough to warrant any. Which only the public can judge.
As an afterword, only..because it is real music, real creativity only which is my life, and i do not make a habit of moaning because many years i was a regular working man - factories, chip shops, catering, so i could support myself while part time professional musician, i just don't understand how someone sick as i have been is expected to live even on credits etc.. Costs go up when we are back and forth hospitals and need extra medications. Unless actually crawling or confined to a wheelchair there seems to be no real extra financial help. (we tried..) ... hence if i ever do a crowdfund begging bowl - as we are considering, it will be the real deal..... this is actually to just keep Stuart (pictured) in dogfood... never mind me in extra bedding and laundry costs due the obvious side effects of choppin around downstairs.
which i will soon write a song about....
Anyway we were just revving up and working towards an end product that is evident in a superb example of what can be done with live music even on non-Coldplay budgets, if recorded and filmed brilliantly by true genius experts:
Jukes She walked for miles written by soul goddess Tammy Payne
And now have to give up.
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