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The Adventure Continues

Posted on by John Reed

35 years living in the same house in south Manchester is something I never imagined when we moved in here on 5th December 1986. Before then we’d lived Bristol and Bath, then in Reading for a couple of years, travelling north every six weeks or so to see family with our very small daughter to whom travelling long distance in a car was a clear form of torture. Both Northerners, we are now moving even farther north, away from the mainly Fylde-based wider clan but closer to where our children are putting down their roots.

In the last few days we’ve been going places “for the last time”, but these are places we’ve lost attachment to as this city has changed. On Thursday morning we walked around Sale Water Park with our very tall son. The January morning light was especially beautiful in the hanging mist, and it felt like a parting gift – part of the process. On Friday morning we spent time with our now much taller and quite thin daughter, partner, and the twin baby girls. Part of the reason we are moving north is because they acquired some land in the Borders where they are to build a house and hopefully a workshop.

It has felt in recent years like Manchester’s spirit of independence and general arseyness has been systematically undermined. A lot of good people have done a lot of good things during our time here, but there’s a sense now of exasperation at losing some of its characteristic regional control. Apart from the first time when it was safe Conservative (and thanks to Boundary changes), every time we’ve voted here we’ve helped to vote in a long-standing Labour MP in a safe seat. Our move takes us into true blue territory, where our votes will once again be used in true opposition. We are moving to a place which is known throughout history for its independence and arsey qualities, and a Tory MP who simply has to go.

There are of course other people we’ll miss dearly, and for it will be a real wrench to not be able to pop round to Ali Karim’s and spontaneously create music. We’ve known each other since late 2015, and my music journey would not have developed without his patience and extreme skill. But he knows he can leap on a train for 5 hours and be 10 minutes’ walk from our new house at the other end of the line. Our work together has only just begun.

I know there will be high emotions leaving here on Tuesday. Our small family is ingrained in the fabric of this house. We are only the third occupants of this 1928 semi-detached, in a road where there has been little change in personnel. We know some of the neighbours we care about will be out to see us off. Our next door neighbours moved in the year before we did, and they’ve been amazing, but all of them know where we will be. The tortuous conveyancing process that has led us to this point only reaffirmed our decision to start a new adventure elsewhere. It was awful. And as we grope towards Tuesday amid dismantled shelving units, piles of books, and equipment and instruments in bags, the parting gifts keep on coming, from the beautiful dawn around the Water Park on Thursday to today’s appearance of our resident fox in broad daylight sniffing around our garden for a place to dig another hole. We leave a garden behind that has attracted wildlife of all kinds, and we look forward to doing the same with our new one.

Peace

John

 

 

“Inheritance” Release Date 18th October

Posted on by John Reed

It’s almost reached that time when all the recording, editing and mixing is out of the way and the new record is ready to master and send out to the duplicators so that physical CDs drop just before the release date. “Inheritance” is done, and I’m hugely proud of it, for so many reasons.

The songs on “Inheritance” are much more personal than in my previous works, because some are about me or things in life that I can relate to, the things that make me tick, where I came from, and who I have become. Writing about family and ancestry adds an extra responsibility to get facts right or interpret them with sensitivity. I am lucky to have a wealth of written and photographic evidence to support the substance in the songs, and to be able to relate some incredibly interesting stories from the real lives of immigrants, adventurers, rogues, and survivors.

While my previous works have had the cittern as the main instrument, “Inheritance” was written and recorded with a guitar I’ve had with me since 1977. The guitar bed track for each song was recorded in one hit, so that the album carries something of a live feel about it. One or two of those guitar tracks were really challenging, so I played them endlessly in my attic before taking them into Ali Karim’s studio. We may edit one or two short sections, but overall, what you hear is what I played.

Vocally everything was fine until I was recording “Peace” on 26th of July. Everything had gone well until mid-afternoon when I felt depleted of energy. I should really have seen the warning signs when I arrived at the studio demanding ‘something sweet’ to eat, because that generally means I’ve recognised I need a kick! So I demolished half of a breakfast cereal that was not unlike Sugar Puffs. The following day I was at A&E having tests on my heart after severe chest pains and breathlessness, which may have been asthma or angina related or could indicate heart disease. I will find out more at an outpatients appointment today but I’m happily optimistic.

So the vocals for the final two songs “Montevideo” and “Woodpeckers” had to be recorded in one hit because I didn’t have enough breath to sing for too long. Rehearsing in the attic was interesting as I whispered along to the guitar tunes, or sometimes just thought the lyrics. On each of those recording days I had another mid-afternoon dip in form but since then I have felt much better, as is normally the case when I’m about to go for a medical consultation.

Duncan spent a day with us adding backing vocals, and Matt added his violin and viola magic to both my album and Duncan’s new songs. Having my son on backing vocals felt appropriate for an album called “Inheritance”. As we sat there discussing the epic final song on the album “Tablets of Stone”, Ali decided it sounded like the last song I would ever record. If it is I’d be happy, but it isn’t intended to be. As well as being an honest deconstruction of me, it is also possibly the most direct and at times vicious attacks on injustice that I will probably ever achieve.

We took an early decision to minimise sounds that were not at least generated from real instruments, so you will hear me playing n’goni, wah-wah cittern, a very special lap steel guitar, and take on simple keyboard parts for the first time. But don’t go away from this article thinking that means “Inheritance” is deviating from my folk roots. These are probably the best songs I have ever written.

So please give it a listen via https://johnreed.bandcamp.com after its 18th October release, or you will be able to hear a few tracks on some of the fabulously supportive regional folk stations in the weeks leading to it. All musicians will tell you that their latest work is their finest yet, but actually when a record is complete that judgement is up to you.

#SupportIndependentMusicians #BuyDirect #SupportIndependentRadio

 

Chorley Live and Cakes

Posted on by bsa_mar

On Friday evening I enjoyed a peaceful hour sat in my car in a car park minding all the gear between #ChorleyLive gigs, with accompanying potato cakes, and listening to Jennie Abrahamson’s ‘Gemini Gemini’ album (stunning by the way, and highly recommended) while #MattSteady played his third gig of the night. I’d not heard of Jennie Abrahamson before she and Linnea Olsson opened Peter Gabriel’s ‘Back To Front’ Manchester gig a few years back with ‘Snowstorm’. Nor had I heard silence like that in a large auditorium for many, many years as her spellbinding voice took us all to a different place. “How do you get support gigs like that?” I pondered!

The act who me and Matt Steady followed that night at Chorley Central Library was ‘Solo Floyd’, one man with a fabulous voice, a guitar and effects pedals doing Pink Floyd covers. Like me, David plays music that requires listening to, and to a large degree the packed audience were a listening audience. As I stood with my instruments at the back of the hall I became irritated by just a few people who seemed incapable of understanding that in some circumstances you have to shut your mouth: a couple of blokes who had exceeded their beer quota before 9pm that evening; one of the stewards wasn’t exactly being quiet and respectful; and there was a pre-teen boy being a bit of a nuisance, but I was once that boy so it was more easy to understand his position!

Matt and I came through our gig feeling like we’d done well enough but there was no foldback monitor, so we had little idea how we sounded. Matt could barely hear his violin, and while I could hear my voice the bass strings of my cittern seemed to overpower the treble and I was unable to enjoy that feeling of certainty that performers need in order to give of their best. In fairness, the sound guy Daniel had never worked with a cittern before so he was on a steep learning curve, and by the end of the 45 minute set he’d cracked it. Then I changed from cittern to guitar for the final song and screwed it all up for him again!

So we had the foldback conversation and the following evening they had two whopping great monitors for us. Unsurprisingly the difference was staggering, and all Matt and I needed to do was concentrate on the music. It was of course hugely helpful to the sound guy as well because I didn’t need to press ‘boost’ on my preamp to occasionally hear my cittern as I had done the previous evening. Then came the moment of the night, and probably the festival for me.

This was the first time I had used the new preamp at a gig. No amount of practise can mimic a live show, but I was well rehearsed and knew the sounds I wanted from it during the set. I had a slight delay on the cittern but hadn’t been able to hear exactly how it would sound in this larger venue. We played ‘The Smile’ at about the mid-set point. As we got half way through the first chorus I thought “Wow! That preamp is giving me a pretty spectacular sound!” (Matt by the way had exactly the same thought), but then I looked round and saw Daniel on his keyboard!

The spontaneity and spirit of collaboration that you get with other independent musicians is something special, and his unexpected intervention worked stunningly well. I spent part of the drive home wishing that had been one of the tracks that Gary filmed for us, but in the cold light of a working Monday morning I’m just glad to have the special memory. There are many great things about mobile technology and social media, and I’m forever hearing marketing types talking about the ‘experience’. But this wonderful moment in a set that we absolutely nailed is now the domain only of those in the room on the night, at Chorley Live 2018. Now that’s what I call an ‘experience’. Thank you Chorley Live 2018 – see you again next year if you’ll have us!

 

 

 

So Here It Is….

Posted on by bsa_mar

For me, there is something incomplete about producing an EP or album until I finally receive the physical CDs. So first, here is #TheBreedingGroundOfVile in its physical form. It looks great. It sounds great. It takes time and a big effort from a whole bunch of people to get a CD to look right, and to reflect the mood of the music it delivers, and I am very pleased with the results.

I now have three physical CDs: #Moorscape, #DryTheLife, and #TheBreedingGroundOfVile. There is one more work #TheMadnessEP which you can find at https://johnreed.bandcamp.com/album/the-madness-ep that happened due to one of the increasing number of happy accidents that has accompanied me on my music journey since I bought my first #cittern in July 2014. The Madness was released in January 2017 when we were in the early stages of recording The Breeding Ground – more of that later.

Before #Moorscape I had not experienced the process of putting together an album, so everything was new to me. At that time I had done some work with a young marketing company in Leigh, Greater Manchester – https://www.thinkcre8.co.uk– who had produced a couple of roll up banners and promotional leaflets for my business. Their work was so good that I asked them if they would like the challenge of creating a CD cover. I don’t think they were ever going to say no!

So I sent them a bunch of photographs and my mock up ideas without really considering how superior their efforts would be. What they came back with was simple, eye catching, and properly dimensioned, yet missed none of the detail I had included in the brief either in the CD sleeve or the face of the actual disc. They quickly became my ‘Go To’ accomplices for any kind of promotion for my music, and they raised the standard with the follow up #DryTheLife EP cover … because that’s what they do, and it generally takes a couple of weeks for them to perform their magic.

CR8 don’t print the actual CDs. They get the design to a point where you know anything sent to a CD printer will be exactly as you want it. The process involves proofs being sent back and forth a few times before the design is signed off and sent to their CD printing partner – https://www.showcasecreative.com– who organise the glass master from which the final physicals are printed. Showcase’s process takes between 7 and 10 working days.

Everything is still a learning process for this collaboration, and one day when I was harvesting stuff on my allotment I had a call from Lauren at CR8 to say that both they and Showcase had realised their quotations had not taken into account the fact that The Breeding Ground was a double CD. Nor had I!! So an accommodation was reached and 10 days later a couple of boxes arrived at my front door.

   

Meanwhile #TheMadnessEP still has no physical CD…or does it? There are plans afoot to do something a little different for 2019.

The buzz you get from seeing something you have created finally arrives with you beats any temporary excitement that an online release might give. It’s partly because you have something physical that feels less transient, that feels like more of a gift to those who choose to buy it, but it’s also the result of a process that involves a lot of good people, from the musicians and the producer to the people that help with the design process. Thank you all for making this possible.

You can buy #TheBreedingGroundOfVile and all of my music at https://johnreed.bandcamp.com

#SupportIndependentMusicians

Posted on by bsa_mar

I seem to spend a lot of time online giving the music industry grief for its paucity of support for independent musicians. This isn’t something I’ve just discovered, it’s been something I’ve been concerned about since the last throes of punk, when the industry used to trawl the pub and club scene signing almost anyone who could pick up the guitar. Fast forward to today and just think for a minute of all the artistes from that era who either made it big, remained in everyone’s psyche, or we have lost.

The music industry has always favoured artistes they can make bags of money from. The musicians themselves get a very small slice of the cake as it gets gorged by distributors, agents, promoters, record companies, ‘management’, the main radio and TV stations (on and offline), reviewers…the list goes on, but I just got bored. The whole industry is way out of perspective. Multinational companies have been established to make money out of music, while the vast majority of musicians struggle on, some holding down a day job, others just constantly struggling to make ends meet. There is not much in between.

Every Sunday morning this year I have been listening to songs crafted by independent musicians. I call it my #SundayListen and you will find it all over my @JohnWaldeaux Twitter page every week. I always listen to every song all the way through, because I like to think that other musicians would one day give me the same respect. Songs are often stories where the lyrics take you on a journey. They can be sad, uplifting, energising, emotional, encouraging, depressing, and other adjectives as well. Sometimes it’s the music that dominates and builds throughout a track, so if you don’t listen to the end you will never hear some of the gems that my #SundayListen has gifted me.

There has rarely been a bad track, and sometimes a ‘bad track’ is more because I don’t like a band’s style of music rather than the track being genuinely ‘bad’. These days we have at our fingertips some incredible, accessible recording technology, so great music can be made behind closed doors when fifty years ago it would almost certainly have had to be performed live in order to be heard. However, this post really isn’t about the technology because there are some sensational musicians and songwriters whose music is rarely heard, and which never charts or sees the inside of a TV or radio studio.

My #SundayListen comprises music I have listened to for decades (some by major artistes), and new music I have found through social media followings; through community radio stations such as Music for Grownups, Folk Union, the Folk Pilot, Readifolk, West Norfolk Radio to name but a few; through Bandcamp, Reverbnation, YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud etc… Today I listened to a mix of folk, folk rock, soulful acoustic, rock, and jazz funk. I bought some of it, because if I like it I will buy at least one track, sometimes an EP, sometimes an album, and sometimes the musicians have very kindly provided free downloads, which I download if I like them. I rarely buy music from major bands anymore, because they’re doing okay. They will afford their next meal, their fuel to the next gig, and put shoes on their kids’ feet.

 

So here’s my suggestion. Just once a month, either pick tracks to listen to from my #SundayListen, other playlists, independent radio stations, or go and search out your own playlists. The golden rule is #ListenThrough. And if you like what you hear, share the music, go and see a band live…  #SupportIndependentMusicians #IfYouLikeItBuyIt #LoveLiveMusic