The CD story part 1

Here is a the story of the last year of my life...

In 2009 I looked to put a band together, for sometime the music in my life was a frustration not an enjoyment. I knew I needed some kind of outlet for it. I had some replies to some ads and met some people but nothing clicked. People were either just into "I want to gig endlessly" or "I don't want to gig" or "I'm not good enough"... etc. I just couldn't find people I clicked with.

Then in August 2009 I was taken ill and was off work for a while and simply not good at all. Everything took a back seat and the people I had made contact with drifted away - largely my fault I'll be honest as I didn't pursue anything at that time.

October arrived and I felt a bit better physically. That month erstwhile blogger, ex-MagicShip front man Colin Gillman introduced me to Rock-Til-You-Drop and he played at the October Sunday Acoustic afternoon at The Libertine. In a moment of madness I thought - I could do that, be a way to put my toe back in the water. So I emailed Toby Burton and tentatively offered myself for a Sunday slot. His answer as "how about next month". Hell!!! only a month to get ready. So I dusted off some old acoustic stuff of mine and thought about a few covers that I could play in a solo setting.

So November 15th arrived and I played my first ever totally solo gig (with me singing, I'd done some small classical ones as a kid!) I was really pleased with it, Four Dinners showed up, my brother and his wife came along, another friend turned up late, but Ken, Colin and Steve came along to support and so did my old pal Deejay.

The spark was set - especially as Toby had offered another possible set in a couple of months. So I thought - let's record some of this stuff. I'd had a Boss BR600 lying around doing nothing for a year or more at the time and I got out the mic and hit record. So on 17th Nov 2009 I used to know her made it's debut on this here very site. Quickly over the next few days I was writing some more material, Toby confirmed a gig for Valentines Day and Dinners God love him played my tune on his Drunk Punk show on Scooter Forums radio.

So now I was a solo singer/songwriter/guitarist. I worked on new material, got a bit more knowledgeable about the recorder. Learnt some other covers or dusted off old ones I'd not played in years. I was being pushed by Dinners to get more stuff available for him to use on his show.

In December some more material was written - including Within the title track of the CD and one that means a lot to me personally. (More about the tracks in a separate post later folks...) I found Reverbnation via the band Logan and created my own page and loaded up my material there. I also bought a new guitar to make live shows easy which I funded by letting Flat Eric add my Peter Cook bass to his impressive collection.

So we entered 2010 and the story will continue in post two due soon...