Hello You!
Last Saturday I played at the BEM showcase. It was a lovely gig ful of lovely people. no-one threw anything at me, and I think I got away with having a rather cold-damaged voice. Here’s a video:
Also, I’m playing some more concerts over the next few months. Here’s a thing:
There are links over the on the right hand side this site’s homepage with more details.
I’ll be supporting Davy O’List of The Nice fame on Saturday 23rd at the borderline. You can get tickets here.
Here’s a flyer for the next gig:
Hope to see you there!
I have some live gigs booked
December 5th at the Art Cafe Winchester
Doors at 7:30pm. It’s free entry. Here’s a facebook event.
January 23rd 2016 at The Yellow Book in Brighton
This is a great steampunk venue. Doors at 7:30pm. It’s free entry. Here’s a facebook event.
February 13th 2016 at The Boston Music Rooms.
This is the ‘big gig’: an evening of BEM music including The Gift, Twice Bitten, JH and myself. It’s gonna be ace. Tickets are here. There is also a facebook event
I’m really looking forward to getting out of London for some of these gigs. I’m hoping to get to other parts of the country and keep up the pace of about one per calendar month (I know, that might not sound a lot, but it’s plenty when you’re balancing it around full time work!).
If you’re able to come along, please do, it would be great to have a nice turn out. If you can’t but you know people in London, Winchester or Brighton who might want to come, please let them know!
One of the things I don’t really have time to sort out is performing.
I can do day job, recording music, a bit of promo, and, well, life. But there isn’t the time to do all the work that would go into making gigs happen, not if I want to get the music recorded and released at a pace I’m happy with. So I am very happy that people ask me to play gigs. This is probably the best way to ensure you get to see me play – ask me to a thing you’re putting on. We need a room and some people, that’s all.
So coming up we have:
August 21st – Supporting JH at the Miller Pub, London Bridge 7pm. Facebook event.
August 22nd – The Surrey Steampunk Convivial New Malden, I think I’m playing around 9ish. Facebook event.
September 12th – House concert in London (dunno If that’s open to the general public yet)
July 16th 2016 – Eppyfest!
Plus hopefully some stuff in the pipeline for November will get sorted and I get to visit other parts of the country.
Recently I’ve also played in Durham, Weymouth, London thanks. All of these gigs have a. not cost me money b. had lovely audiences c. been great events that people have enjoyed.
Having spent quite a while playing shit gigs on the London circuit a few years back, I regard this current policy of playing stuff when nice people come to me with interesting ideas as a good one.
Here’s my set from the recent Surrey Steampunk Convivial.
On the 28th and 29th of September I played two gigs: the Summer’s End Prog rock festival and the inaugural Steampunk Convivial at the Crossness sewage works.
I’m very glad there is no obligation to choose a favourite because both were great gigs.
The weekend also got me thinking about the tension between being an artist and having to afford boring but necessary things like food and a home. I travelled to Summer’s End with amiable man-mountain and certified good-egg Matt Stevens. We talked about the difficulties of being a musician, chiefly the economic realities. I have never attempted to make a living from my music and don’t particularly see why any artist should expect to – this is culture not commerce- but it was interesting to consider as we travelled on far too many trains to Chepstow.
Summer’s End consisted of two sets: one ‘busking’ in the middle of Chepstow, the other on the ‘acoustic stage’ (actually a section of Chepstow school dinner hall) between the full band sets.
Here’s a vid:
And here’s a review.
I enjoyed playing, but more than that it was great to catch up with friends and meet in the flesh several people who I’d previously only known on facebook. There was a very genial atmosphere and lots of lovely people – much like at the Crossness Convivial.
Here I performed as part of almost a cabaret that included steampunk morris dancing, umbrella fencing and of course the ubiquitous tea-duelling.
There are differences between prog crowds and steampunks – the clothing being an obvious one: band t-shirts versus the full retro-futuristic, neo-victorian be-goggled glory of the steampunk. More than that, steampunk is a cultural wosame that clearly appeals to a wider demographic: there were far more young people and women in attendance at Crossness than Summer’s End.
However there are also real and joyful similarities. Both are sub-cultures that are fuelled by enthusiasts. Steampunk has its costumes, model makers, tesla coils and tea-duellers but prog is equally as vibrant. Instead of silly costumes, prog has podcasters, collectors and of course musicians (all right, and a few silly costumes).
In both there are products for sale – cds, records, tickets and endless things with cogs on but make no mistake there is no-one making money from any of this (in the sense of cold-hard capitalism. There are very various lovely little niche businesses). This is culture not commerce. And it’s bloody marvellous.