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First official performance with Ghost Community

We couldn’t have chosen a better occasion for my first performance with Ghost Community as a full member of the band.

The previous day was spent in Cardiff, first relaxing at “GCHQ” (which will always be wherever Matt Cohen lives) and enjoying a superb massive Full English Breakfast (enough for lunch as well) at the local cafe, and then, fully stoked up and unable to move, a few hours of discussion about the merits of various Guitars, Basses, Keyboards, and Drums, and how they could be utilised on the new Ghost Community album and live gigs.

The evening was a six hour marathon rehearsal. We were remarkably tight, considering we hadn’t played some of the material for three months!

Gig Day…

A very early start, with an awesome Croissant breakfast, was the best way to get going on our way along the M4… a tedious drive that I make dozens of times a year… to arrive in Cambridge in time for setting up and sound-checking.

Once we got on stage, and our sound-check was complete, our planned return to the dressing room for a change of clothes just evaporated… so we aplyed as we were. Very rock and roll.

The set was the full Cycle of Life album, and the crowd swelled continuously as we played. Very well received, I’d say. A thoroughly enjoyable performance as a first-time official member, and although I had to disappear quickly at the end (getting home in haste to check out the results of a plumber’s work!) I did enjoy the day very much. As festivals go, the organisation was superb – no stress, no rush, everything planned and the whole site full of helpful smiling staff/crew who could not have been more helpful.

Piece of gear lost this time : One rubber grommet from in in-ear monitors. Not bad. Cheapest loss ever!
Take-away memory : Matt and Jake praising my solos. Surely undeserved, but thanks guys.

On 21st Aprl 2017, it was finally time for the first performance with Money For Nothing – proudly billed as the UK’s Number One Dire Straits Tribute.

Well, that’s something tough to live up to as a new member of the band.

The 190 mile journey from Kent to Retford was hell. The legendary M11 lived up to its reputation as a car park, the A1 was full of trucks racing side by side for mile after mile, and a bit of rain came along to make it all jolly. Welcome to long distance gigging, it’s all so romantic!

First gigs are always a bit nerve-wracking for everyone, but after a good soundcheck run-through of some critical moments in the show, it’s time to settle down and just play the notes to entertain the audience.

It was rewarding to be able to hear an enthusiastic audience response in all the right places! The music is exciting for a keyboard player too – loads of great piano work to enjoy, some awe inspiring textures and atmospheric sounds to re-create, and terrific songs.

Full schedule of performances is here complete with ticket links. The band website is here for full info.

It’s a great privilege to be stepping in to perform a few gigs with Ghost Community in their May schedule.

 The album Cycle of Life has been massively successful, whether regarded as Rock in the Prog style – or Prog in the Rock style, whichever you prefer!

I’m very much looking forward to this series of gigs, and to meeting some good friends once again.

Click for Tour Info and Tickets

Back into full touring mode now, with upcoming stacks of gigs from Devon to Kings Lynn, and from Tyneside to Hastings. I’m very pleased to be working with the Money for Nothing tribute to Dire Straits, a great bunch of people with a growing reputation for sellout performances all over the UK and Europe.

All being well, first performance for me will be on 23rd March at The Palace Theatre, Southend.

I’ve a few musical surprises up my sleeve. Having most firmly left my last efforts behind, my diary has become much busier and could well become full if things work out as intended. Dozens of gigs. Fingers crossed, eh?

The support of my friends and colleagues in this business is something I value beyond measure. Whilst I’ve always worked very hard at using every skill I have to ensure the success of whichever project I’m involved with (and some friends say I should do less, which may be right so that’s the future) it seems clear that certain efforts were never going to bear fruit.

We can’t avoid the inevitable, we can’t be sure of anything unless everyone involved is on the same page, and they weren’t. Not even in the same room. I wanted to build a professional show with regular gigs. They wanted an occasional “knees-up” . Enough said.

As one wise friend has made clear both personally and professionally, “We’re all in this together” or we’re not in it at all.

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be learning an extensive new repertoire of about 25 songs, building back up to a full performing schedule, and I’ll be doing some unexpected stuff.

I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends again after a long time, as I whizz around performing busily again in theatres and venues I haven’t seen for half a decade. Can’t wait.

Someone told me recently that I hide my light under a bushel. It’s a bit biblical, but I suppose I don’t talk about what I do very much, apart from performing.

My professional training in multitrack production gets left out a lot. I don’t talk about it because, well, everyone can do multitrack these days. It’s not unique as a skill – most musicians record their own stuff and mix it.

The thing is, I’m told I can take a sow’s ear and turn it into a silk purse, make the ordinary sound great, and the great sound terrific. That, I suppose is where having proper training makes the difference. I’m not just doing it as best I can, I’m skilled at listening, editing, enhancing, perfecting, and very creative with it because I have so many techniques in my head that I can apply to a new project.

Anyway, here is a selection of demo recordings, where under usually less than ideal circumstances I’ve had to take multitracks that were sometimes recorded not too well, some with glitches, some with errors, some from less than ideal live situations – and make them into finished recordings that the performers could be proud of. And they are, which makes me proud.

I’m doing increasing amounts of this kind of work, because it’s very rewarding to give an artist or band something they can use to promote themselves, and to see how well it’s received by the public. Please don’t be shy – get in touch if you need a well produced demo.

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So the secret is finally revealed.

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On 30th November 2014, a message dropped into my inbox that led to where we are today. The conversation with Vic King was all about wonderful music that needed sensitive and complex keyboard playing, and difficult songs that would require a top quality female vocalist. Never once was the name Kate Bush mentioned. Not until I said OK, I’ll do it, and joined the re-formed KT Bush Band.

The secret has been carefully kept. It isn’t an easy thing, re-creating a band that would raise eyebrows throughout such a huge fanbase. Making waves too soon could capsize the whole thing, so the launch had to be done carefully and sensitively at exactly the right time.

We hope we’ve got it right. The band has already been through the experience of warming up live, to an invited audience who thought we were someone else. Good fun, it was. Great reaction from the small and select audience who now know what they were really witnessing.

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The KT Bush Band has a reputation to live up to, and having given the first performances of classic Kate Bush tracks like “James and The Cold Gun”, and “Them Heavy People”, it’s a tough job to bring them back with a new vocalist. Jodie Seymour has the toughest job of all, but she rises to the challenge with ease, giving the songs her own flavour in some cases – as is intended, doing it the KT Bush Band way.

Brian Bath and Vic King have steadily recalled and brought back all the ways songs were arranged and performed in the early gigs. It’s fascinating to be adding in some of Brian’s songs that were first sung by Kate Bush back in 1978… all well received but not heard live since 1979.

I hope to see you at a gig soon, somewhere in your locality. Our early performances are planned to be around our own neck of the woods – London, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Essex. Later, we’ll be spreading the music further afield. If you want to see us locally, give us a shout and tell us where.

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My scratchpad studio – it fits in a briefcase, goes with me nearly everywhere, and I don’t know how I’d live without it now.

With all the current shenanigens that’s going in in secret, I might be looking a wee bit unproductive at the moment. I hate that, so whilst I don’t often spill beans, it’s hard to resist opening the door a little on two teensy scratchpad clips that inspired new solo tracks that are coming together.

These are two early scratchpad clips, little more than backings from which each track started to take shape. They even still have synthesised guitar parts. I’ve got loads of these little half-formed ideas cluttering up my hard drive, most of which will never get any further, but sometimes I get inspired to pick one up and work it into a finished tune.

I never throw anything away, but some of it is difficult to access – disk types and formats change, software and hardware stops working, and things can become unplayable. If only I could find a working mincdisc player… I’ve had three. The large one died and got binned, and both the pocket sized ones are now dead as well. I don’t even like to think about Jaz disks. I lost three years of work that way.

It’s been a bit hectic recently for The Reasoning.

First, there was rehearsal and a support slot at The Robin in Bilston, with Lifesigns. It was an excellent warm-up for the new line-up in advance of  Trinity Live at the Leamington Assembly on 18th May 2014.

The Trinity event featured a virtual who’s who of current UK Progressive Rock, and it has to be said that the event ran smoothly from end to end, even with Heather Findlay’s performance being re-scheduled at the last minute. Enormous amounts of money were raised for the three Cancer-related charities, that being the point of the whole event.

So that’s it for live performances for a while, until The Reasoning’s tour kicks off in October. Now it’s into the studio for album writing and recording. It’s going to be an exciting summer.