The New Inn at Barwick-in-Elmet was my latest gig on Sunday night. I've played there on Sunday nights now for 3 years and it's been a very good, consistant venue. I get to play to a small but appreciative audience and can therefore escape the rigours of playing covers to order and can play a)more of my own songs and b)covers I want to play, some of them a little more obscure!

So Sunday was as good as normal and one of my quests in the near future is to find more venues of this kind. Small, intimate solo gigs where there is at least a modicum of interest in listening to singer-songwriters. I don't know if there are lots more or whether this is indeed a rare gem. If anyone can recommend more venues with appreciative audiences please do let me know!

I've spent most of this year and indeed 2008 pushing my band which has meant sometimes having to play venues not best suited to what I'm doing. We end up playing more covers, which is fine if they're appreciated, but when they're done just to stop the audience from switching off altogether, then it can become hard work.

The two recent Hebden Bridge gigs, plus Sunday, have inspired me to start look more closely at what other local singer-songwriters are doing. From their myspace sites, most seem to be doing some gigs, and I wonder how many of their gigs are where I need to be, rather than on the crusty old covers circuit I've done for the past 10 years. Either way, for my 'art' to grow and survive, I need to be playing at places where the public want to listen-it's a slow road to progress down but we shall see.

I think this will be the final blog of 09, so just let me say a big thank you to all who have continued to support what I'm doing. We've managed to keep the recession at bay and continue to progress. It's been a busy year but a fairly fruitful one.


*This week's Song Of The Week: 'Life'

Tales from Hebden Bridge (Part 2)!

On Sunday night (Dec 6th) I finished off my 2 week tour of Hebden Bridge, well- I've played there the last 2 Sundays anyway. This one was the Hole Note Acoustic Club upstairs in The Hole In T'Wall pub, and I was doing the main booked 'guest' slot.

I love the ambience of the room, complete with a range of comfy sofas and with the lights down low. People listen to the artists (most of them anyway!) and I felt I held people's attention during my set. This featured the debut of my Marc Cohn cover 'Dance Back From The Grave', complete with Hole Note host Craig on muted trumpet, it sounded superb! I played several of my own songs too including 'You Never Understood' off the new album. All in all another night I will go back to soon, the rest of the performers were all very interesting and the standard, for what is essentially an open mic night, was excedingly high.

There should be some photos to follow soon too!

Speaking of photos, check out the ones from last Sunday at B@R Place. I'm also using one of them as my default pic on myspace. BAR Place photos


HOW TO HEAR ALL MY SONGS PLUS MY 'SONG OF THE WEEK'

Introducing my new player which enables you to play any song from my back catalogue. That's 45 (!) songs, in full, to stream for free. Here it is!!

SONG OF THE WEEK

With such a big back catalogue, people often ask me which songs I would recommend they play. It's impossible for me to narrow it down to a favourite so what I've decided to do is focus on one song per week, and for the first week the song is:

COLD COLD DAY (CATT MIX)

Each week I'll do a bit of promo and blurb about one song. Starting with the above one. The first one I'm choosing is down near the bottom of the list: number 43. It was recorded in 2006 and is Ian Catt's remix of 'Cold Cold Day'. Ian Catt is a well-known producer, perhaps most noted for his work with St.Etienne, whom he also plays bass for. In addition to myself, Paul F and Sally Rivers, Ian plays bass and additional guitars on this version.




This Sunday (13th) I have another gig at the New Inn, Barwick-in-Elmet, which is near Cross Gates, off the A64, heading out of Leeds. It's a beautiful village with a huge maypole! It is also of course one of my most regular solo venues and I'll be playing the full night, starting approx 9pm.

Tales from Hebden Bridge and How To Join My Mailing List

Sunday night at Hebden Bridge was an uplifitng experience for me, despite the lousy weather! As I mentioned last week, I was playing for LiveSpace's showcase at Bar Place. My 25 minute set was brought forward so I was all done by 9pm. I enjoyed playing particularly Broken Dreams for the first time, as well as other new album songs 'Nobody Said' and 'Free Freedom'.

It's amazing how, if the set is only short, the 'added value' of the gig goes up. I can safely say this was the first gig where I've ever been given a free lead, a mic cable! Ironic, as I'd only recently replaced a broken one...if only I'd known. Still, as any musician knows, these things always come in handy. Unless you're an acoustic act, or you mime.

I also secured another booking, plus there's some photographs on the way, which judging by the snapshots on the camera display, looked very good indeed.

So all in all a very useful night and I'm back in Hebden Bridge this Sunday at another acoustic night, at the Hole In The Wall. This time I'm the 'headliner' doing about 40 minutes. Needless to say I'm looking forward to it. Let's hope the River Calder holds up.

The night is called 'The Hole Note Acoustic Club', here is their myspace site.

There's two other gigs this week with the band doing the Malt Shovel, Drighlington on Friday and then another solo gig at Moorlands, Ogden on Saturday. The latter will be busy as there's a party and DJ booked also, I'll be playing more of a covers set for that one.


JOIN MY MAILING LIST!

If you would like to join my mailing list (which is by email of course) and receive news, links and free content all you have to do is click the link below!

JOIN THE MAILING LIST

Click the above link, and in the grey box enter your email address, then click subscribe.

You will then be sent a confirmation email from my provider, where you simply click another link to activate. This is just to ensure you are allowing me to send you emails.

*You will receive a free mp3 download when you join!! This song is not available for free on the internet.*

I look forward to talking to you and sending you many happy emails!