We’re nearly at the end of the longest year I’ve ever lived through. Yes, I know it had the normal number of days, but didn’t they stretch out? Didn’t they expand to make way for the anxiety, boredom and horror of the last twelve months. 

Not a good year in many ways, and I know I am lucky to have had a relatively easy time of it compared to others. But also, musically a relatively productive year. Let’s have a little recap, shall we?

January

2020 was the tenth year of me releasing music as a solo artist. Ten years! So naturally I released a digital ‘best of’ compilation that came with a pdf download of my gig diaries. The gig diaries are entirely true and factual. They covers such topics as:

• The rituals and chants Bad Elephant Music artists engaged in after the label’s first showcase gig
• The Demon that haunts a music pub in Watford
• Praying Mantis Dave, the seven foot tall insectoid biker with whom I have a blood-feud
• That time I turned into a bird and flew away after a gig. 

February

For eleven years I have been taking part in February Album Writing Month (FAWM). 2020 was the first time I completed the challenge and wrote and recorded 14 brand new songs in the month of February. 

Needless to say, I was very happy about this. 

Partly it was successful because I filmed every song. Why would that help? It meant I was forced to put up with a single take of the vocal and guitar parts, which stopped my procrastinating and trying to fix mistakes. 

Here’s one of my favourites:

March

Lockdown kicked in and we were all stuck indoors. I got a new studio mascot and tried to spend as much time as I could in the studio. Which definitely worked out well. 

April

April was all about studio work. I had written all those songs in February and decided on the mad idea that these would form the basis of that year’s Subscriber’s EP. 

May

May saw the release of that Subscribers Only EP and yearly ‘Indoctrination Guide’. Here’s a page of lies from said guide:

It also saw the release of the first new single from FAWM, Racing Gravity.

June

This was a very busy month. I did a livestream concert, I engaged in a bit of t-shirt related weirdness [see pic below] and I released Skeletons, the second lockdown single.

All in all, the first half of the year was quite productive despite the weird awfulness of the outside world.