It’s been ten years since my first solo album!

It’s been ten years since I released my first solo album!

 

Ten years singing about tentacles. Ten year of monsters, demons, wizards, steam-powered robots, and countless ‘orrible murders. Ten years of acoustic arpeggios, twisty guitar solos I can only get right in the studio, mucking about with silly time signatures and writing songs that are definitely too long to be hits.

The first ever review of my first album called it an ‘experiment too far’, so that seems an apt name for this collection of ten of my best songs.

Gig diaries

The free download of An Experiment Too Far also includes a PDF of my gig diaries from 2016 to 2019, full of entirely true stories including the final fate of my nemesis Praying Mantis Dave, a 7 foot hells angel insect that I got into a feud with after a gig at a biker rally in Preston.

I also tell the story of the backstage happenings at the first Bad Elephant Music showcase gig, and tell of my altercations with demons from Watford, dowsers from Berwick and buskers in Brighton. I’ve got into a few bust-ups after gigs, almost all of which I survived through the use of supernatural means.

Every word in those gig diaries is true. Many of the sentences are not.

These songs were mostly chosen by the denizens of the Tom Slatter Immoral Support Group online, although I overrode them and added my favourite song from my first album Mechanism, and my favourite song from my second, Beast of The Air. I’ve kept it to ten because it’s a tenth anniversary, but of course I’ve released a couple of hundred tracks over the years, and could easily have got this best of album up to thirteen, maybe even fourteen tracks.

In addition we’ve got tracks here chosen by my fans/tormentors that cover the breadth of work. We’ve got proggy rock songs with overlong titles in ‘Some of the Creatures…’ and ‘Mother’s…’, short form rock songs in Happy People and Satellites, songs about weird stuff in Wizards of this Town and Demon, and plenty more besides.

It’s free to download, which I would recommend if you want to read the entirely sensible gig diaries.