Springtime happenings

Right then, it's been a while since my last posting, and all sorts of lovely things have been happening in my world. A couple of weeks back, Jackie, Mike and I did some filming for Ade in Britain - Ade Edmondson's cooking programme, in which he tours around to different regions of Britain cooking regional specialities for invited guests, who in turn, provide the entertainment! Well, Jackie, Mike and I were the guests for this particular episode which was shot in Beer in South Devon - a beautiful little fishing village with spectacular sea views. The weather was a bit on-and-off, but the film crew, with their inventive methods of keeping equipment dry managed to get everyone safely through the experience! Here's a photo of us with Ade after we'd wrapped up for the day:

In other news, I was recently reunited with my old pal, Gordon Giltrap for whom I opened a show at Farncombe Music Club. I had a go on his Vintage GG signature acoustic guitar and I liked it so much that I ordered two of my own! A six- and a twelve-string.

I'll sign off for now with a video clip from the gig of my rendition of Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper. Hope you like it :-)

Austria

Hi folks,

I'm currently away on tour in Austria with Jackie Oates and Mike Cosgrave, and we're onto day four, having played three shows in three very different towns and venues.

So far, we’ve played in a beautiful old theatre in Bad Ischal, a Musikschule in the mountain village of St. Georgan and last night in a very smoky folk club (I miss only the smoking ban of home!) in Waidhofen. Last night’s gig had a St. Patrick’s Day theme, except that it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day, and we aren’t Irish. The other band – led by the very, very brilliant fiddler and concertina player, Niamh ni Charra – are Irish, however, so a suitably raucous set of reels and polkas did the trick.

We’re en route to gig four now, in Mistelbach, which has a winery, so we’re all looking forward to that (hic!)…

Austria Tour

Hi folks!

I'm off tour Austria for 17 gigs with Jackie Oates and Mike Cosgrave on Wednesday 29th Feb - see the live dates for full details. I'll post updates as and when I can :-)

See you down the road somewhere xx

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Here's my arrangement of this lovely Christmas song. Enjoy!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Merry Christmas, everyone! Click the link to here my little rendition of Winter Wonderland...

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Autumn tour

I've been on tour for a couple of weeks with the Jackie Oates band, which has been enormous fun. Jackie has a new album out, called Saturnine on ECC Records, and the current set contains the album in its entirety. I even get to play childrens' toy hand bells on stage, and bassist, James Budden has found new skills as a glockenspiel player!

We've played so far in Ivybridge, Bristol at the Colston Hall, Nottingham Glee Club, The Sage in Gateshead among other places, and we're off to Germany and the Isle of Man this weekend and next, respectively.

During a day off, we stayed at the incredible Brancepeth Castle in Durham, and took the opportunity to shoot a low budget music video for the album track, Young Johnson. We don't expect an Oscar, but it was a lot of fun making none the less. Here's the video:

Cheltenham Guitar Festival

I've just returned home from an exhausting but brilliant week teaching my acoustic guitar class at the annual Cheltenham Guitar Festival. I had 15 wonderful people in the group and we worked on various songs by The Beatles, Jack Johnson, Neil Young and the like, and then participated in the end-of-week 'Night of 1000 Guitars' concert, which was nerve wracking but brilliant fun. The picture shows my guys in full flow!

Week two (rock week) is just starting, so good luck and have fun to all those involved, but for me, I'm going to catch up with some sleep!