Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Hoxton Song (Reprise)

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

HOXTON SONG (REPRISE)

Not long after the recording sessions for The Grown Ups began in late 2009, I set a date for the album’s release. I planned to unveil it to the world on 21^st October 2010 and felt sure that this would leave me with ample time to record, mix, master and manufacture the CD’s. The artwork process hadn’t really entered my head at this stage and, apart from knowing that I wanted liner notes and lyrics, (what can I say? I’m a geek) I didn’t really think it would take up too much space in the overall timeline of the project. As the album release date loomed ever closer, it was clear that not only was I short on songs, I was also sailing very close to wind with regards to getting the CD’s manufactured in time for the album release party. With this in mind, I had moved the release date back to the 30^th October, but, because I already confirmed the release show date with my pal, Jim Boggia, the date to deliver was now set in stone.

Enlisting the help of my good friend and general sounding board, Fin, we began a journey into the wonderful world of artwork. Our nights were filled with discussions concerning graphics, Photoshop and Cooper black font. We would constantly work until the early hours of the morning, on a PC so slow it would have made Mother Teresa use the “C” word…repeatedly. The creative input required to produce the album’s artwork was a mirror of the recording process for the songs themselves. How I could ever have believed otherwise is quite beyond me now. We delivered the artwork to the CD manufacturer with minutes left on the clock and even a lost cheque couldn’t stop the arrival of my perfect, little Pop baby. The Grown Ups was born at 8pm on 30^th October 2010, surrounded by friends, family and well wishers and its birth remains one of my proudest moments as a parent.

Hoxton Song was originally 4:23 in length and the last verse was intended as a slightly melancholic, coda to the rest of the song. The original version also faded out to the sounds of a children’s playground; full of laughter, screams and the rumble of passing traffic. As the recording sessions drew to a close, I knew that we only had eight songs in the can (if it wasn’t for Jim Boggia’s injury time vocals on “Tinseltown” ,it would have only been seven) and, out of sheer desperation, I turned to the holy fathers; John, Paul, George & Ringo, for divine inspiration. During the making of Sgt. Pepper, the fab four’s road manager, Neil Aspinall, had suggested that as the album had a “welcome” song, it should also have a “goodbye” song and, so, the idea for the reprise was born. I thought that if it was possible to separate the last verse and somehow fade into it, then we could create a reprise too. This would also mean that Hoxton Song effectively, book-ended the LP. My friend and trusty producer, Mick Wilson, leapt through the editing equivalent of rings of fire to make this happen and, using Jim Boggia’s beautiful, stacked harmonies, he created his very own hello and goodbye versions of the song. The entire album clocks in at a shade under 30 minutes in length, but, as I have now come to realise, it’s not about the minutes, it’s what you say and do in the seconds that make up those minutes that really counts.

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Safe From Sound

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

SAFE FROM SOUND

The entries in a personal diary should never be underestimated. A remark that seems frivolous, off the cuff or, even, throwaway today can carry more weight in 25 years time than you could ever possibly imagine. When I kept my diary in 1982, I was, unwittingly, fashioning my own little time capsule. As the dust settled on my weighty tome, my life began in earnest, albeit, undocumented. Milestones came and went, friendships waxed and waned and, somewhere along the way, the boy became a man.

When I began to re-read my diary back in 2008, it took a while to comprehend just how powerful the written word can be. I think those 365 pages revealed more about me than all of my alcohol-fuelled, pop-psychology, soul searching sessions put together. I also realised that because no one else had ever read the diary, the life of the boy I used to be had been preserved and he was still very much alive within those pages. As I journeyed through days past, each entry played out like a Super 8mm movie in slow motion; minutes for hours, hours for days and days for months. It was exactly how I remembered it, but, completely different. The same, yet, changed forever. In the end, nothing is ever quite like you remember it and we tend to bend the truth more often than we would probably care to admit. For, even though we live in a world where instant recall, fast forward and rewind are all readily available at the click of a button, we are unable to apply that technology to the one thing that needs it the most; our memory.

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Tinseltown

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

TINSELTOWN

In the summer of 1977, one of the kids pictured on the front cover of The Grown Ups died. It was a horrible accident and it, obviously, devastated his family. His mother wore black everyday for more years than I can remember. At least, that’s how I remember her and probably says more about how a child deals with exposure to death, rather than the ravaging effect that time has upon one’s memory. We had all returned from our various summer holidays, only to discover the awful news of the passing of one of our classmates. It was also the year that we left primary school and, so, with the class splintering across various secondary schools in the area, we were somehow robbed of the collective grief process. Most of the parents of the working class families I grew up with had been through the war and, as such, public displays of emotion were not commonplace, if at all. As time passed, I would often see the front room of his house in almost total darkness, save for a small candle, and the shadowy figures moving about within filled me with a sadness that has never left me.

I never mustered the courage to speak to his mother after his death, her constant black veil, powerless to hide the grief that consumed her, was so terrifyingly final. As you grow older, you learn that the hardest words to say are always the most important. Deep down, I think that “Tinseltown” was written as an apology for that.

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Ringing like a Bell

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

RINGING LIKE A BELL

Sometimes you are lucky enough to get in on the ground floor with an artist. By luck or chance you stumble across them playing a small dive venue or sneaking onto the bottom of an established artist’s support bill. I first saw Danny George Wilson perform, alongside his brother Julian, in their band Grand Drive. From the get-go they oozed class. Julian had the soulful Hammond Organ chops and when he and Danny sang in harmony it was like the spirit of the Everly Brothers had entered the 12 Bar Club. I would bump into Danny at gigs and we soon struck up a friendship, bonding over our love of North Carolina Power-Poppers, Dillon Fence . I kind of lost touch with Danny when my first son was born, but, it was clear to see that the wheels on the Grand Drive camper van were beginning to grind to a halt.

Our paths crossed again in March 2008, when he played a show at the splendid What’s Cookin’ venue. I watched as Danny, now all grown up, held the room spellbound and I knew at once that his star was in the ascendance. I returned home, drunk on a heady brew of Guinness and inspiration, and began to write what would become “Ringing like a Bell”. Having endured more songwriting salad days than any man, vegan or otherwise, should have to bear, I knew deep down that this had the makings of a classic song. When the time came to commit it to tape, I knew that I wanted to have a “Faces/Ronnie Lane” feel to the track and, in the end, I don’t think we were too wide of the mark. If I had to pick a favourite from The Grown Ups I think that this would just shave it.

In July 2011, the song became my first ever radio airplay, courtesy of the great Ralph McLean and his sublime “Classic Album Show” on BBC Radio Ulster. The icing on the cake, however, was hearing my old friend Danny’s new band “Danny and the Champions of the World” being played on the same show. As well as Dillon Fence, Terry Reid and Chocolate Milk Shakes, Danny George Wilson and I are also rather fond of the word Serendipity....

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": The Usher's Tale

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

THE USHER’S TALE

Two of my close friends met and, subsequently, fell in love at university. There was, however, one small problem. He lived in Belfast and she in London. When college was over, they headed back to their respective parents homes and so began their long distance love affair. He took a job as a cinema usher and, in the slow periods, he began to write her a series of fantastic, long letters. When the letters arrived in London, she would read them and tell the family how great they were. As time went on, the rest of the family began to read the letters too. So much so, that, when the letters dropped through the letterbox, it was commonplace for them to be opened by whoever got to the front door first.

On hearing this tale of the letters, I immediately thought it would make a great storyline for a song. As I worked on the song, it became clear that there were similarities between their relationship and that of my wife and I. They too had traveled across Australia and even stayed in the same towns as we did. I’m not sure at what point the song actually began to incorporate elements from our relationship as well, but, I quite like the idea of the line between the two stories becoming blurred. The lyrics in the second verse were meant to be like postcards or snapshots capturing the lovers as they make their way across the landscape. The dance of love can be like a shooting star; bright, beautiful, but, gone too soon. If we are really lucky, it holds us forever in its sway.

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": T.E.D.

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

T.E.D.

In 1982 I kept a personal diary. It is the only diary I have ever kept and I wrote in it every day. With hindsight, 1982 was a perfect choice as it captured the period between my last year at school and my first year at work. It was a year of great change in my life. Leaving school and heading out into the big, wide world had left me feeling like I was on the bottom rung of the ladder all over again, rather than becoming the adult I was so desperate to be. I had always envisaged being magically transformed from boy to man overnight when I hit my 16^th year, but, pre-conceived notions, more often than not, have a way of slapping you right in the kisser.

I was a shy kid and often marveled at how interesting other people’s lives appeared to be. They always seemed to be doing the things I wanted to do: going to clubs, playing in bands, taking drugs and having sex. In short, I wanted their lives. Instead, I lived, vicariously, through the pages of the NME, Melody Maker and Smash Hits. I looked upon music as a religion. I worshipped The Jam and The Small Faces. Paul Weller could have told me to eat my shoes and I would have done it without missing a beat. Stevie Marriot, however, was the perfect role model. He was a Mod (like me), he was short (like me) and had a blue-eyed soul voice that could tear the roof of off the joint (unlike me). Around this time I joined my first band and tried to emulate little Stevie and his Faces. It was a short lived affair and probably lasted less than 18 months, but, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I began to set targets for myself. If I didn’t get signed by a record company by the time I was 18, I would give up. This deadline was extended to 21, then 25, then 30, after which point we never mentioned the deadline again.

Back in my year zero of 1982, a friend of mine had an imaginary friend. She would refer to him all the time, without a hint of irony: “He did this”, “He said that” or “We went there”. I was deeply envious. Although I had the friends I had grown up with, I could already feel myself drifting away from them. I wanted more than the work/pub/marriage/work/pub merry-go-round that seemed to be on offer and yearned for a like-minded soul. The imaginary friend seemed like the perfect answer, but, try as I might, I could never, quite, pull it off. I was much too self conscious and, coupled with the crunching right hook of low self esteem that hit me on a daily basis, was always left feeling like a fraud. To carry it off successfully, you’ve got to believe your own press. On my 16^th birthday, my friend sent me a card and signed it from both of them. It was a great pimp move. I still have that card somewhere……

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Comets

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

COMETS

Our lives are shaped by the choices we make. They wrap around us like a blanket, woven deep into the fabric. What would the 16 year old version of yourself make of the path you have chosen? Time has the power to distort your dreams beyond recognition, to blur the line between sacrifice and compromise and leave you, ultimately, feeling cheated. The struggle to hold true to your beliefs gets harder with each passing year and the pressure to conform almost unbearable. Some days, that little voice inside of you is barely audible and it can leave you wondering if it was ever, truly there at all. Those are the days when compromise sneaks up on you, whispering sweet nothings and false praise in your ear. The temptation to put the car into drive and head for the “easier road” suckers most of us in the end and renders us powerless to ignore the siren’s beautiful lament.

Fast forward and we are knee deep in mortgages, offspring and reality TV shows. Having convinced ourselves that we are happier, we lose sight of what really mattered, what still matters. The kick you got from playing a Clash 45 at full volume, from reading Steinbeck or the thrill of a warm kiss. There are a thousand reasons why you can’t do something, but, only one reason why you can: because you should! Nostalgia is just regret viewed through prettier spectacles.

Driving back home through Islington on a summer’s night, I saw the moon almost perched upon the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was breathtaking. A moment of staggering beauty in the greatest city in the world, my city, my London. I pulled the car over, parked and sat outside the Betsy Trotwood pub in Clerkenwell. I watched as the planes twinkled above the London skyline, the modern world intertwined with the old, and realised that this was exactly the kind of choice we very rarely make. We never stop the car, we never gaze at the moon and we never see the wonder that surrounds us. I wrote "Comets" the next day, believing it to be a comment on the lives of people around me. Looking back, I think it was more like a "note to self" from the 16 year old me.

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Northern Exposure

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

I have always, and still do, suffer from a lack of self belief which manifests itself, at best, as a lack of confidence or, at worst, as a crunching, right hook from the hand of low self-esteem. You could put me in a room of 10 musicians and I would immediately relegate myself to 10th position without hearing any of them play a note. When I started playing live again back in 2009, I performed at "open mic" night where the acts went from the sublime to the ridiculous. On my arrival at the venue, I was greeted by the sight of a young boy walking around the room with his guitar strapped on, but, slung behind his back with the headstock facing the floor. I thought this kid must be seriously fucking good! Maybe this is how a young Stevie Winwood would have strutted around back in the early 60's? Nothing could be further from the truth. When the would-be Hendrix actually began to play, it was clear that he knew three chords and he played each of his cover songs with said three chords. Even if the song actually required more than those three chords or different chords altogether, he played those songs and sang a melody which bore no relation to the original song. You had to admire his bravado. He was fearless. He was stupid. Maybe equal measures of both, but, as we all know, presentation is everything.

Back in the early 90's there was TV show called Northern Exposure. In one episode, the Ed Chigiak character sees his low self esteem brought to life in the form of a sneering, sniping and vitriolic dwarf. Once Ed realises how much this self loathing is affecting his life, the scene ends with the little guy, tail between his legs, wandering off into the woods. My little guy is still around, and probably always will be, but, nowadays, when I hit the stage to perform, I look that little fucker right between the eyes and give him the middle finger....

Happy Birthday to "The Grown Ups": Hoxton Song

As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk

HOXTON SONG

Sometime in late 2008, on a whim, I bought a piano . I hadn't really written anything substantial in over five years, other than the beginnings of a song that would eventually become "Ringing Like a Bell" , and I had begun to wonder if my writer's block had applied for permanent residence. Not being a piano player by any stretch of the imagination, I found that just by changing the bass notes over a floating chord immediately freed me from the tired guitar chord progressions I would normally veer towards. Sometimes you just need to hear the same notes in a different order. Who knew?

Around the same time I had started to use Facebook and hooked up with a few old friends I grew up with in Hoxton. On one of the groups, somebody had posted a copy of the photo which would become the front cover for The Grown Ups. Whilst discussing this with one of my old school pals, he said that he still remembered me being drunk on top of the postbox after my sister's wedding and trying to convince the police that I was merely overcome with emotion, rather than a heavily intoxicated 14 year old. That afternoon, returning to the piano, I sang the line "That's me drunk on top of the postbox. " over a descending bass line and Hoxton Song tumbled out in about 20 minutes flat. In little more than the time that it takes to cook a Vesta meal, I had finally emerged from the songwriting wilderness.

A few years previously, whilst driving through North Carolina, I spotted a Grizzly Adams type character emerging from the woods, carrying four rusty car exhaust tail pipes on his shoulder. To this day, it still puzzles me as to exactly how the donor cars ended up in the middle of a forest. In my head, I see myself with a full-on trapper's beard, emerging from the woods and dragging an old piano behind me.

Songwriting is like that....

"You're gonna die up there."

What is it about the moon that is so inspiring? Is it the fact that it seems so big that you could almost touch it, or that, unless you happen to drive around in an Apollo landing craft, you will never set foot on it. Either way, that gravitational pull has us all, at one time or another, reaching for something completely beyond our grasp.

Romantic notions aside, it is a cold, dark place where no known life form can exist. After all, "There is no Dark Side Of The Moon, it's all dark". So, why on earth would you want to visit such a god forsaken place? I think that because it is such a permanent fixture in our lives from the very beginning, it has an almost siren-like quality. On a clear night it can always be found smiling down on you, trying to tempt you with it's other worldly charms. When I was a kid, I used to picture the man in the moon as a kind of spiv-like character, opening his coat to reveal stars and moonbeams for sale, each one of them hanging perfectly from the inner lining.

Perhaps, it's a symbol of a time when we believed anything was possible, when TV fed that dream and promised us that a brave new world was just around the corner. We watched, in our millions, as man set foot on the moon and believed that we'd all be whizzing towards the thin blue line within the next 5 years.

Fast forward to 2011 and we seem to be looking back with an almost, whimsical longing to a planet inhabited by Martin Landau and his band of brothers. Perhaps, the reason we send robots deep into the far corners of the galaxy is that we now know, without uncertainty, that the Solar System is a very, very lonely place. Careful what you wish for Space Cadets....

Kontiki - Cotton Mather

The world of popular music is littered with great, lost albums, terrific records which somehow dipped beneath the public radar, only to be unearthed years later when the band members were either too old to rock out or had actually rocked completetly off of this mortal coil. Maybe the lost album is, in itself, a lost art. With the way music is now released in the digital domain and stored for perpetuity, no recording should ever be deleted and, therefore, lost? Think of Big Star and their first two records; two of the most glorious slices of Power Pop heaven you are ever likely to taste (I'm still not convinced about the "Third"). Out of step with the music of the early '70's, their hooks, melodies and achingly, beautiful harmonies languished in record collections of only the very knowing, until a fan chanced his arm and wrote a letter asking them to reform. The subsequent reformation unfortunately came to late for founding member Chris Bell who was killed in a motor accident in 198. Even if you were lucky enough to catch the new line up, Alex Chilton could never understand how these early and, to him at least, embarrassing songs were held in such high esteem.

Back in the late '90's(1997 to be exact)I got my hands on a copy of Cotton Mather's Kontiki CD and I was hooked from the very first listen. What the f*ck was going on in these songs? A vocalist (Robert Harrison) from Austin, Texas who sounded more like Lennon than Lennon, but also sounded like Sir Robert of Dylan in equal measures. Operatic interludes (I can dig that), audio bleed (lots of it), tape hiss (yum yum) and chock full of Power Pop hooks you'd sell your kids for. King Mono-Brow, Noel Gallagher liked it so much, he got Cotton Mather to support Oasis on tour! I saw the band in London about 4 times and even managed to have a great little chat with Robert Harrison about the recording of the record. Many years later I discovered him alive and well on MySpace and emailed him, mentioning our little chat. Gracious as ever, he even said he remembered it.

So, coming full circle and, even though he has been busy with his new band, Future Clouds and Radar, we find that Robert has decided to fund the re-release of Kontiki as a Kickstarter project. This basically enables fans to pledge money to the project in order to reach an agreed funding target. As long as you hit the target, the funds are released. The good news is that the target has already been met and the re-release is set for January 2012, thus ensuring that this great, lost album never goes M.I.A again.

On The Air

It's unlikely that meeting Jackson Browne would not be considered the highlight of my week, or, indeed, year, but, last night my song, Ringing Like A Bell, was played on BBC Radio. This was my first ever airplay and I couldn't be happier that it was played by the rather wonderful Ralph McLean on his BBC Radio Ulster "Classic Albums" show. Ralph is a genuine music fan and obviously wears his anorak with pride, just as I do. So, to have my song sandwiched between Brinsley Schwarz's mighty "Peace, Love and Understanding" and Shack's majestic "Comedy" was like a dream come true. The fact that I was listening to show live on the web only made the feeling that much sweeter. I felt like Mark Cavendish being launched into the final 50m by Mark Renshaw, only it was Nick Lowe who was my lead out man and you just can't fail to win when "Basher" is on your team. And you know what? I think I can see Paris from here....

The Great Pretender

Ever since I got back on the road myself, I don't get to see as many gigs as I used to. This week, however, I went to see the same bill twice at two very different venues. The artists in question were Dawes and Jonathan Wilson. On tuesday night I caught them in the basement of the Slaughtered lamb, just up the road from my beloved Hoxton. The Lamb has a real funky little vibe to it with leather seats and a few nooks and crannies to sit in. Dawes were superb, a real master class in both songwriting and musicianship. They went on to back Jonathan Wilson for the majority of his set and, as well as being their producer, he was equally steeped in those laurel canyon traditions as Dawes were. Then, to top off a great night of music, they brought out Jackson Browne. Now I have been a massive fan of Browne's ever since I got my hands on a heavily scratched copy of his masterpiece "The Pretender" and, even though I have seen him perform live before, to see him singing not more than 10 feet away from me was like a dream come true. They played one of Jonathan's tunes and then went into "These Days" and "Take It Easy", at which point the whole room was singing along. As they said in The Comic Strip " Everybody loves the Eagles".

When the show was done I watched as JB headed straight over to the young sound guy manning the PA and shook his hand. Here was a classic artist who has never forgotten his roots. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk to the great man, so I headed over and introduced myself, shook his hand and told him that I was going to shout out for "Linda Paloma", but, thought it wasn't fair as it was Dawes & Jonathan Wilson's show. I gave him a copy of my CD and he smiled and thanked me. I said goodbye and then walked up the stairs or maybe I floated up, I'm not sure which, but, I know that at that very moment I was the proud owner of the biggest smile in London Town.

As I walked into the Tube station, I put on my iPod and selected Jackson's "The Pretender" album and, as if the evening hadn't been serendipitous enough, the final track (The Pretender) finished at the exact same moment that I put the key into the lock of my front door.

I did it all again at the Borderline on Wednesday night, but, even though Jackson was the special guest again, it just couldn't top my fleeting moment in the California Sun with the Great Pretender the night before.


"Make room for my forty-fives
Along beside your seventy-eights"

Sharp Dressed Man

As an old Mod (1980's version, I'm not that old!), I still like to look the part, wherever possible. Whilst walking through St. Paul's this morning, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window and realised that, even after all these years, I haven't strayed too far from the clean, crisp modernist lines of my youth.

I have an almost Imelda Marcos - like addiction for ankle boots. In fact, I think my entire teenage years were spent be-hooved in a pair of Chelsea boots. On my heels were the obligatory Blakey's shoe protectors (eulogised so well by my good friend Danny Wilson in his "Red Tree Song") which probably meant that my footsteps could be heard in outer space. On the very rare occasion that I do wear a pair of shoes, my ankles feel like they are naked and I have repeat the policeman's mantra of "nothing to see here, move along" over and over in my head to prevent myself from running to the nearest shoe shop and buying another pair of chelsea boots.

The morning's attire was topped off with my fave vintage leather jacket (with ankle boots too, of course) and as I walked on, a young lad looked at me and said "I love the jacket, Man". Which just goes to prove that once you have "it", you never lose "it".

"We are the Mods, We are the Mods, We are, We are, We are the Mods"

Ringing Like A Bell

Walking across Holborn Viaduct today, I watched as a man crossed the road and was almost run over by a cyclist. Nothing new there, happens all the time, I hear you say. Well, yes it does and this is central London after all. However, what really struck me was not the fact that the dude on Shanksy's Pony was completely oblivious to this near miss, but, that in order to warn ol' Roy Rogers that he was imminent danger, the cyclist rang his bell. I'm not sure who was most at fault really; pedestrian Roy for not even looking as he crossed the road or the cyclist for actually believing that anyone apart from Steve Austin would be able to hear his Fisher Price super-duper ding dong device above the ceaseless throng of taxi's and bendy buses.

The humble cycle bell is from an age gone by, a time where car horns went parp or poop. I can't think of anything more pointless to have affixed to your handlebars whilst traversing the mean streets of Holborn, except, perhaps, an ashtray. The highway code states the following "Be considerate of other road users, particularly blind and partially sighted pedestrians. Let them know you are there when necessary, for example by ringing your bell." So, there you have it loyal reader, unless you want to start carving notches on your handlebars any time soon, you'd better make sure that your bell is Big-F***ing-Ben....

Nice Konk

As a means of killing time during the long periods spent waiting around whilst on jury service, I have started to read "Kink" by Dave Davies of The Kinks. It's no secret that Ray and Dave no longer see eye to eye (I doubt they ever did!), but, both come across as though they enjoyed very little of their time in the spotlight. Another thing that never ceases to amaze me is how Pop celebrity seems to mix the utterly mundane with the outrageous. Tales of drunken excess from the legendary Hyatt hotel in LA are spliced with orders for plastic bottles of Woodpecker cider and ham sandwiches. Drug fuelled, sexual hi-jinks and cross dressing share equal billing with games of snooker and watching Arsenal. It only seems to confirm what I have always suspected about fame: it is, for the most part, rather boring. When asked what it's like having been in the Rolling Stones for 25 years, Charlie Watts replied "5 years of playing and 20 years sat, waiting around in airports"

Fame: you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy....

Pop is NOT a dirty word

Greetings loyal reader,

Long time no blog, I know, but, I do have a good excuse. I have been spending every spare minute locked away in the recording studio working on my debut album. Now, debut albums should be, in my mind, at least, something that you complete by the age of 21 and then fade away into the land of pop obscurity. Perhaps rearing it's head a few years later in the 50p box at your local Our Price, store but, vanishing without a trace all the same.

As the saying goes, "life is what happens while you're busy planning other things" and that is true for me. When I started out as a musician, I gave myself the target of "making it" by the the time I was 18 or else I would throw in the towel. That target got pushed out to 21, which, in turn, got pushed out to 25, then 30, then 35, after which the brain and I never discussed the target again. As the learned professor of history, David Lee Roth, once pointed out, "life goes on without me". He also set his poodle rock hairdo on fire, so maybe he's not the best scholar to adopt as a life coach.

As the pop star life, seemingly, went on without me, I got married, travelled the world, worked for "the man" and had kids. I still bought the weekly rock bibles of the NME & Melody Maker and pored over the monthly mature rock publications like Mojo & Uncut and watched as many bands hit the target as was humanly possible. Some nights were so awe inspiring, they were almost like a religious happening. One night in Cambridge, Jeff Buckley actually made me cry, so heartbreaking was his delivery of "Lover you should have come over". Another night, Jellyfish hit their harmonies so perfect that people swore that 4 guys on stage could not sound that huge without the use of backing tapes. I watched Superdrag rock the life out of me and my bottle of Samuel Adams in the searing afternoon sun of downtown Charlotte. The list and the ticket stubs (yes, I am a geek) go on forever, but, one sunday night watching Dillon Fence support the Black Crowes in London I realised that although the Pop life was going on all around me, I still wanted to hit that stupid target.

There were plenty of other crutches along the way to convince myself that I could be happy without livin' the dream. The purchase of vintage guitars, the riding of hi-end mountain bikes and even 5 years playing in a covers band. To this day, when I hear the opening few bars of Mustang Sally it still makes me want to eat my gun. So, as the creative juices were all but sucked out of me, unconsciously, I just decided to stop playing when my second child was born. I didn't really pick up the guitar and I had absolutely no desire to try and write a song. The creative well was drier than a mormon wedding. It wasnt just that i couldnt write a song it was almost as if i had forgotten how to.

As I have previously mentioned, A few key things happened to get me back on track . The first was seeing my old pal, Danny Wilson, play a solo show and being blown away by his ability to totally captivate the audience and the second was buying a piano on a whim. The third was hooking up with Philadelphia musician and all round good guy, Jim Boggia. So, one day, after taking a trip down memory lane, which involved a visit to my old primary school and a walk around my beloved birthplace, Hoxton, I came home chock full of memories and the "Hoxton Song" came tumbling out from the very first time I sat down at my newly acquired piano. A quickly recorded demo was beamed across the pond to Jim and, after a few anxious months of waiting, Mr Boggia delivered the glorious backing vocal arrangement and sublime bass line into my inbox. What happened next all seems a bit of a creative blur now, but, I seemed to go from one serendipitous encounter to another. I was introduced to my co-producer, Mick Wilson, through a friend of a friend and we hit it off straight away. Not only did he live a stones throw away, but, he had also just finished building his own recording studio in his garden. Rates were agreed, harmonies were sung, timing was questioned, nuclear strength coffee was consumed and, over the period of 10 short months, my debut LP, "The Grown Ups" was born.

So fast forward to the present day and you find me with my album released and available at the click of a button. You can download it, stream it, buy the CD and even come and see me play the songs live. So, as I write this, I'm sitting here waiting for the latest issue of R2 (Rock 'n' Real) magazine to hit the newstand (it features a review of my LP) and trying to put a band together to play a show at the IPO Power Pop festival in London on May 30th - How cool is that?

As Woody Allen once said "80% of success is showing up". What I have learned, is that, if you ask nicely, people tend to say "Yes" a lot more than they say "No". So, put your Chuck Taylor's on, step out into the sunlight and get yourself some happy!