Music – John Reed Music

Properly Back In Love With The Cittern

Posted on 30th September 202630th September 2026 by John Reed

I don’t know quite what happened, nor can I explain why I stopped using the cittern as my main instrument, but since Duncan and I released “Heritage” I’ve started to enjoy playing it much more. More generally I felt my writing had become stale, my lyric metering predictable, and my playing was lacking enthusiasm and spark.

Sometimes the general pressures of work and life can hold back creativity. This year, I don’t think I’ve ever been busier – I retired (early) from running a business in January 2023. Yet even during the weeks, sometimes months, in which I haven’t picked up an instrument I’ve felt consumed by the general stuff of life. “There are those who do, and those who don’t. We just did.” I was probably doing too much.

This January, around the time we were re-booting the “Heritage” recording process, I circulated my annual exclusive album to newsletter subscribers (if you haven’t, it’s free and you get just one per quarter). The album included a cittern version of “Heroes and Warriors” from “A Proliferation Of Pointlessness”, my last public solo release. It reminded me that I’d started to mess around with delay and other effects a bit more. So that’s probably the point at which my love for the cittern started to return, not that it ever completely went away.

Because it covers all frequencies, a cittern can easily dominate a song. Each of the five pairs of strings has equal gauge, which gives more resonance than sister instruments like the mandola and bouzouki. It can be difficult to restrain. It’s a beast. I’ve always had an aggressive playing style on whatever string instrument I play. So up until this year, those two things were limiting what I could achieve.

The cittern version of “Heroes and Warriors” covered all bases. It opens with cittern rising and falling on volume pedal, mimicking an organ sound, continues with delay on the treble strings, and builds to a full rock crescendo – what I’ve previously described as ‘thrash cittern’! That one song reminded me of the full range of sounds I can get from this beautiful instrument, if only I would try harder.

I decided to order a different configuration of cittern strings. It’s sometimes minor adjustments that give you exactly what you want. On this occasion, I octaved the middle pair of strings – in lay person’s terms, a thick string and a thin string. It made a real difference to the way I played, and reduced that dominance I spoke of earlier. Here’s a small sample:

Cittern-Dittern

The downside of using a thin string turned quickly into an upside. At first, my normal finger pressure was too great, causing the note to bend. I had to lighten that pressure, and after a few weeks I found I was generally playing with less aggression, and the instrument was sounding as it was supposed to – it actually helped to improve my general playing. For probably the first time, I’m playing the instrument as it is supposed to be played!

And so to “Heritage”. When I dropped down to the Straw Yard Theatre in town to test the cittern acoustics ahead of our rehearsals for The Untangled Knot, I played “The Lowlands of Holland”. Then in July I performed a half hour cittern demonstration for Berwick Fringe, which covered both its range of acoustic and electric output. I’ve since played a few gigs where I’ve mixed those sounds much better, playing songs I haven’t played in a long time, but better. The love has returned.

After The Untangled Knot performance on 21st November, I’ll be taking a break from creating new music to focus on other things in life, and also to become more familiar with the equipment I use. In the last few years, I’ve felt like I’ve been busking it a little, and not fully understanding all the things I can do. So apart from continuing to help organise things, and enjoying the love of playing, I’ll be breaking until April when I’m sure I’ll be unleashing more music on the world.

Peace.

John

Berwick Fringe Is Now A Thing…

Posted on 2nd August 20264th August 2026 by John Reed

“A first ever live performance in the first ever performance slot at the first ever Berwick Fringe”. Let that sink in for a moment.

That was the experience of a young Berwick musician on Friday morning. They’d been coached for a time by Darren Holleywell of Amped Berwick CIC, who took the idea of a local fringe festival out of his head and made it happen. I know how the last number of months will have been all-consuming for him, probably summed up by a text he sent me on that opening morning: “that was the best four minutes sleep I’ve ever had!”

With any new venture there are always supporters, doubters and stick-in-the-mud objectors. So the job of a community music festival goes way beyond the event itself. It’s about encouraging more supporters, and persuading the doubters. There’s really no point expending energy on those who are never going to be convinced.

Following this weekend’s experience I can only see Berwick Fringe growing, but not in any commercial way. Without an infused sense of community, this event wouldn’t work. It’d become just another music festival. Berwick Fringe is about celebrating what we have, because Berwick really does punch above its weight in music, literature and the arts. We may not be unique in that, but why hide what we have?

When Darren first mooted the idea of a fringe festival, I imagined the first one would take in half a dozen venues hosting up to 20 acts. I think he did too. This weekend saw 15 venues open their doors to more than 50 acts. From the opening act Axl (accompanied by Darren on guitar), to a community choir, a ukulele jam, a school band, youth groups, singer-songwriters, duos, trios, full bands, and rock bands across all genres; young artists, new acts, established musicians, and professionals. All of them seemed to understand the motivation underpinning Berwick Fringe. I’ve never seen a town so happy. Every venue was bouncing, and hopefully enjoyed rewards for all their hard work. Every act gave their best.

This morning, Moira and I went down to town at 7am for the litter pick. Apart from a few seagull feathers, there was none. The council guys had already done their job, preparing the town for another busy summer Sunday. So hats off to the whole town for making this a true community event, but most of all, huge thanks to Darren Holleywell for his vision, energy, determination, and friendship. Next year will be even better. We don’t know how, but it will be.

Peace.

John

Just One Reality of Life and Music…

Posted on 27th July 202630th July 2026 by John Reed

Last week, I saw a post on one of the socials by another independent musician exclaiming horror, possibly distress, that they’d sold just two copies of their last two releases. I admired them for their brutal honesty, because in trying to navigate the technological landscape in which most music is consumed these days, all musicians are finding it really tough out there and somewhat despairing.

There’s a wonderful irony about my own last two releases. I chose to release “Elevation” in 2023 100% from this website, but spent about seven months previous promoting it on limited social media. It sold better than any of my previous albums – not massive numbers, but enough to more than justify its CD run. In 2025, I released the deliberately titled “A Proliferation of Pointlessness” (APOP1) entirely to highlight the difficulties that my fellow independent musician was banging on about last week. We had a great listening party for APOP1 with loads of positive comments, but during the past year the album has sold just 8 copies. I therefore justify my album title!

Essentially, this means we are all guilty to a greater or lesser degree of not putting our money where our supportive comments may have been, but this really isn’t a simple issue. It combines a range of changes to the entire music landscape since the early days of Napster, from where the brilliant idea of streaming first publicly emerged. Great ideas are often appropriated by men in grey suits with big wallets or borrowed wealth. As the host of a weekly independent radio show on a minor channel, I have a pretty good idea of the sheer volume of music being produced – and missed – across the world. I’m frequently sent albums by artists who are entirely new to me, even though they may have been living off their music creations for most of their lives.

People cite the global pandemic as being one of the single most devastating agents of change in music infrastructure, and that is certainly true for the live music scene. However, the damage to recorded music was done long before, as consumer habit replaced buying the music they loved with paying a significantly lower streaming subscription. When markets change like that, you aren’t going to change them back, so you have to sail with the tide.

You do need to stand your ground though, whatever level you’re at, just as our independent musician friend did last week. As independent musicians we’re either part of the conversation or we aren’t. Independent music and art has always, always in the end, helped to shape its future. We are creators, therefore it is our role to create. Nothing is a given but we don’t give up, even when the proliferation may seem pointless. I very nearly did.

Peace.

John

This Is Not An Ideal World…Mick

Posted on 13th July 2026 by John Reed

Yesterday, Mick Jagger warned about political lectures at rock concerts. In an ideal world, I think many of us might agree with that, but this is far from being an ideal world. The political machinations of the far right over the past few decades have led the world to where we are today. It’s a re-run of the 1930s in Europe, with an additional level of tyranny taking US politics in a direction nobody would ever have expected.

The term ‘rinse, repeat’ is commonly used these days, but in the case of contemporary global politics it appears we forgot the ‘rinse’ bit. There’s very little clean about 21st century politics, at every level. One of the reasons for that is that everybody expects everything to happen instantly. Life, history, and human development all show that political quick fixes rarely work. In an ideal world, they might, but this is not an ideal world.

While all countries are being encouraged to dramatically increase defence spending, ostensibly to replace arsenals that are being exhausted by 25+ armed conflicts around the world, the true essentials of life are being appropriated by sinister commercial forces: water, agriculture, power, property etc. And bugger the climate! This is our far from ideal world today.

It’s also the case that while government spending is thus diverted, spending on music and the arts (but not the high arts) is like the sponge you just squeezed dry. Yet is to the arts that the medical profession turns to for ‘social prescription’, and it is the arts which lifts us after our working week, and it’s to the arts that successive governments have turned to attract a younger vote. That art has further been devalued by multinational streaming platforms and cyber-plagiarism, is just a further kick in the teeth that we’re all having to deal with.

I’m not necessarily linking these two issues, nor am I saying that Mick is living in some kind of fantasy bubble, but there is good reason why some musicians choose to get political. It’s why flower power rose in the 1960s. It’s why the punk revolution happened in the mid-70s. It’s why Band Aid happened in the ‘80s…It’s why Pete Seeger happened. It’s why Bob Dylan happened…and it’s why Bruce Springsteen has taken a stance against the current US regime. He was already a political writer way before Renee Goode and Alex Pretti were murdered in plain sight by ICE, but those killings really stuck in his throat in ‘the land of the free’. So I applaud him and others of his celebrity for using their massive platforms to say “Enough is Enough”, because most decent human beings on this planet have really had a gut full. Politicians need to start taking note.

Sometimes, it isn’t just about ticket sales and people having a good time. Those things still happen anyway.

Peace.

John

The First Ever Berwick Fringe

Posted on 3rd July 2026 by John Reed

On the late morning of 31st July, the very first Berwick Fringe Festival opens, with 13 venues giving a stage to more than 50 artists, drawn mainly from the local area. As a town of around 13,000 people, Berwick punches musically way above its weight, with a huge pool of original songwriting and musicianship from which to draw. So get yourselves to Berwick upon Tweed!

The day before this shot was taken, high winds were driving waves along the River Tweed. What a difference a day makes.

I know from experience that events like the two-day Berwick Fringe don’t just happen overnight, especially the first of its kind. The event organisation has to be driven by a few dedicated people, sometimes just one. It consumes them from its conception through to its reviews. Back in the day, I stage managed events at the University of East Anglia, including the Norwich Folk Festival, which was held at the university ‘village’ every year. So none of this is new to me, but there are plenty of reminders.

I remember once co-organising a single day festival in Manchester comprising a music workshop, demonstrations of different instruments, an art studio, an early evening meal, and seven bands over five hours in the evening. Some of those bands had never played live before. Some of the artists had never played together before. There were local bands, Midlands bands, and a folk duo over from Nova Scotia. Yet that single event spawned twenty-one different collaborations.

Music is a very powerful force, for those who create it, play it, watch it, and listen to it. It can calm us or energise us, inspire us and enthuse us, it can lift us or evoke memories, and it can be a truly wonderful escape from our busy lives.

The Watchtower on Northumberland Avenue is often missed by visitors to the town. It lies north of Berwick’s Elizabethan battlements on walls that predated them.

Berwick Lighthouse stands at the end of Little Pier, its wall protecting Little Pier Beach from the estuary of the River Tweed. A calm and magical place at the best of times, the tower seems to act like the pin of a brooch holding together sea and sky.

Berwick upon Tweed, as distinct from North Berwick which is about 45 minutes’ drive north, is situated north of the River Tweed – the natural English-Scottish border – but in England. It was once Scotland’s most important port, and was fought over by the two nations, exchanging hands 14 times by the time the then Duke of Gloucester (Richard III) and his army of mercenaries took it for the English in 1482.

This compact town is enclosed by 16th century town walls, has three bridges across the river, river and woodland walks, a quayside, a lighthouse, five beaches, clifftop walks, and multiple independent shops, cafes and bars. Berwick is a life force in itself, so take a trip here at the end of the month, and savour its cultural and historic delights!

The Amped Berwick Fringe takes place on 31st July and 1st August 2026.

So come and join us!

Peace.

John

The Eyes of Rutherglen and Leith

Posted on 17th June 2026 by John Reed

Today, 17th June, is my umpteenth birthday. So it’s important to me to do something that gives back to someone who’s been a lifelong inspiration.

The Eyes of Rutherglen and Leith was written and recorded in 90 minutes on 16th June inspired by a recent update on the legal battle to restore Dick Gaughan’s music to its rightful owner. So first and foremost, it’s a tribute to one of the finest folk singers who ever lived, and secondly to a true inspiration both to my music and to values of justice and humanity. If you want to contribute, here’s the GoFundMe link, set up by Colin Harper:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/aatux2

That someone with a 60 year career in music can have the rights to their own creations ripped away from them by others whose only interest is mercenary financial gain, is something that should astonish us all. It should also encourage us to secure and/or battle for our own intellectual property rights in a world where techno-juggernauts are tearing them to shreds: fight for what is ours, and help those who are not in a position to. It really feels that the fight has gone out of humanity in this 21st century world.

As a student back in the 1970s, I had the absolute joy of hosting Five Hand Reel at venues at both the University of East Anglia in Norwich and in a couple of pubs in my hometown of Blackpool. So I met Dick Gaughan on a number of occasions that he’s highly unlikely to remember. However, I would add that you know when you’re in the presence of a really special human being.

I should probably add that I barely remember these encounters myself: the Norwich ones were generally preceded by a few of us (including their road crew) drinking an entire barrel of beer. I think we’d already preloaded for the Blackpool ones. All were joyous, fun occasions, but the music always took centre stage and it’s stayed with me for half a century. Those evenings remain some of the finest I’ve ever experienced in music.

Please consider buying The Eyes of Rutherglen and Leith. All proceeds go to the cause.

Peace.

John

Subvert Launched on 12th May

Posted on 12th May 202613th May 2026 by John Reed

On 12th May, a new cooperative music platform projected itself into the world. More than 22,000 musicians across the world joined the cooperative to promote their own music, share, stream and buy the music of others. The initial numbers indicated how desperately a cooperative music platform was needed in this most collaborative of industries, in these most challenging times, at least collaborative at the coal face.

As with any new development, it will be met with a mix of enthusiasm, interest, delight, and not a small degree of skepticism. With anything new that’s been put together, I like to err on the positive side. So I’ve uploaded “A Proliferation Of Pointlessness”, my latest solo album released on 29th August 2025, by way of dipping my toe in the water.

Like other members of the cooperative, I’ve streamed the work of other musicians on Subvert, and I’ve bought music to check how the system works. Some of those songs will appear on The Compendium radio show in the coming months. It appears to be a seamless process, so please give it a shot.

Back in 2018, I removed my solo music from the major streaming platforms after having two albums stream-ripped. Those platforms were doing little for my music profile anyway, so it was actually no big deal. Their rates per play for streaming were and continue to be downright insulting. They’ve become much worse since.

In January 2019, Apple Music (then only iTunes) were the only streaming platform to not appeal a US court judgement which ruled that all such platforms should pay artists 44% more per play. I’m afraid I rather dumped them in the ‘baddies pile’ with all the rest, and was wrong to do so. Therefore at some point I will be restoring my music to Apple Music.

For the moment though, there are three places where you can stream or buy my music:

Buy from Bandcamp
Buy from Subvert
Buy direct from here on my website

I am always grateful whenever someone supports what I do. Each of us has a preference where we stream and buy, and it seems better to have a presence on a few platforms that are genuinely supportive of independent and original music than to patronise the bloodsucking money-grabber bean-counters at Spotify and Amazon.

Please do give Subvert a whirl!

Peace.

John

The Untangled Knot Is Here

Posted on 3rd April 2026 by John Reed

Well we weren’t going to start our project on April Fools’ Day! The Untangled Knot is now officially a thing. It’s as much a community project as it is a music project, in which we aim to bring people together to demonstrate what’s possible. Our pilot performance here in Berwick on 21st November will be preceded by a four-hour afternoon song creation workshop, in some way to mirror what we’re doing as a group over the next few months.

We began our work together on 2nd April. Although we’ve been scheming for a while, the deal has always been that nothing would start until the official start date: no tune creation, no lyrics, no preconceived ideas, no nothing. It means we all start from the same point, and each have the same amount of time to write our three songs for the project. The Untangled Knot is a clean page for all of us. This is where the journey begins.

In similar fashion, participants in our November workshop will be tasked with creating a song in an afternoon. It’s less easy to enforce the ‘no preconceived ideas’ rule, but we have some good ideas on how the workshop will work. The idea is that anyone or any group of people who feel confident enough will be invited to perform their afternoon creation in support of our debut gig. More details about that will follow soon.

Each of us has different experience of making things happen in our own music. In my case, I know the spontaneous approach works because that’s how Ali Karim and I created our “Breathe” album. It began as a happy accident. Rather than reviewing past video footage, we opted just to create something. I happened to have a few sets of lyrics in my bag at the time. Four hours later we had the title track, and that’s what you hear HERE. Thereafter, we constructed each song in a day from a randomly selected set of lyrics. At the end of the process, we threw all that video together in Breathe, The Film and edited it in four frenetic hours.

I’m not someone who likes working to rule books, and that’s carried into my music. Jamming can be a great way to find a way forward. It’s a little different for The Untangled Knot because we won’t be writing our album songs in the same room. Following our three-month writing period, we’ll be adding to each other’s work, then exchanging vocal and instrumental files. We then have three periods of rehearsal here in Berwick, one in October, two in November. The last of these will be in the few days before our debut performance as a group. The album will come from initial recordings, rehearsals and our pilot performance, which will also be streamed live to the world. Ambitious? That’s not something we worry about!

Although Rachel and I began talking over two years ago, we’ve never worked together as a group before. We have never met as a group. Beth contributed to Shirley’s debut “Begin, Began, Begun” EP in 2024, but that’s the only prior creative connection in our locker. All we’ve done so far is to establish a basic theme and agree a ‘progressive folk’ style, purely so the final album will feel like an album and not a collection of songs from four different artists. I say ‘all we’ve done’, but actually we’ve created a fabulous spirit between us, and that will be the springboard for the songs that emerge. So here’s our Project Start Day Video to give you an idea of who we are…

Please follow The Untangled Knot on whatever social media you use. We are in the throes of creating a website, and our links are also available HERE. We will be creating a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of creating CDs and other merchandise, production, and other marketing costs, and will signpost that nearer the time.

This is a hugely exciting project to be involved with. It’s a project of equals in a world that doesn’t feel especially equal, a project of freedom in a world of restriction, and a project of possibilities in a world where things feel impossible right now. So join us for this inspiring ride!

Peace.

John

Four in One

Posted on 22nd March 202622nd March 2026 by John Reed

I have four bits of news for you. It’s been a very busy start to the year, so the next seasonal newsletter will probably be a bit of a monster. Because of that, I thought I’d give a quick summary of the things that are immediately upon us.

The Newburn Smugglers

This new, 3-track EP came from an introduction to an illustrator here in Berwick, who commissioned me to write a song for one of her workshops at the library on 27th March. One song turned to three, each with a different angle on the bungled attempt in 1715 to take Lindisfarne for the Jacobites. The EP will be released on Tuesday 31st March.

Another Stream Of Consciousness

The twice-postponed live stream will now take place at 18:00 (UK) on Tuesday 7th April. It’s a celebration of the release of “Moorscape” on 4th April 2016, and with at least one of the songs from “The Newburn Smugglers” in the mix, promises to take a slightly folkier turn.

Quarterly Newsletter

The next seasonal newsletter will be circulated on 1st April, but in the afternoon! If you aren’t yet subscribed and want to know what I’m up to in and out of music, just sign up at the top of this website at www.johnreedmusic.com

The Untangled Knot

A new collaboration. Four minds, one purpose. We have a Link Tree – this will direct you to our Bandcamp and all our socials. Our synchronised writing period starts on 2nd April, when each of the four of us is tasked with writing three songs in three months for the others to work on in the two months that follow. Please also jump over there and follow/subscribe.

All other projects are live and ongoing. “Heritage” with Duncan has completed its first tracking phase and we’re hoping to have the second phase completed in April. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I took a lightning trip from Berwick to Blackpool to record Emma and Kate singing backing vocals on a near 11-minute folk song that comes from the moors and valleys around Rochdale. Add to that the Berwick Fringe and other live shows over the summer, and my year ahead looks significantly more positive than that of those being bombed out of existence in various parts of our planet, where they have no peace left to keep.

PS) Spot the Steady!

Peace.

John

It’s All About History

Posted on 28th February 202628th February 2026 by John Reed

I sometimes wonder why in 2014 I suddenly found myself creating music, why I bought an acoustic Ashbury cittern on a whim, and why that day it seemed to play me in Hobgoblin Music , not the other way round. You can call it a calling, but if it was that it took a very long time coming, because I’ve enjoyed music, played guitar, and been involved with music to a lesser or greater degree since childhood.

I don’t tend to psychoanalyse much of what I do. I just get on with it “There are those who do and those who don’t but we just did” is the motto by which I live life. Just like these blogs and writings long before, a body of material builds up. You can look at it as a kind of diary, but I’d rather look at it as something with a purpose: a means to an end, even if I don’t yet know what that end may be. So the blog mixes personal experience with campaigning, the odd rant, and offering support for my fellow independent musicians.

Some of you will know that the first song for Nightsong’s “The Peasants’ Revolt” came from a print I’d bought in Norfolk in the 1990s from one of my favourite pubs on earth in one of my favourite villages on earth. I was first taken to Castle Acre in Norfolk on a Landscape Archeology field trip with the wonderfully inspiring Alan Carter, and followed it up with a number of student trips out: walks in the medieval castle and priory grounds and around the village walls. Experiences like that stay with you, and their importance resurfaces at precisely the time they’re meant to. Thus, “Pauper’s Son” was written in 2019.

Fast forward to January 2022, and on one of our first walks down the hill after moving to Berwick I noticed an information board situated by a gap between two large houses. It’s the remains of St. Leonard’s church from where Edward I (Longshanks) oversaw the sacking of Berwick Castle in 1333. Farther up the same hill is the site of St. Leonard’s Nunnery, in a field by the A1.

This would have been Grace Griffin’s final view

A little farther down the hill is the gate to Coronation Park which overlooks the River Tweed, with the castle remains on the hill above. Near the top of the winding path down to the river there’s a memorial to the last person hanged in the town. Grace Griffin was sentenced to death after murdering her pub landlord husband, although evidence was at best circumstantial and witnesses dubious. Originally intended for a second Nightsong album, “Murder Of Grace” was the starting gun for “Borders, Battles & Bounds”, which is still a work in progress. Sometimes it pays to wait for the right spark, the right time to start, resume, or complete a piece of work. However, when the messages keeps coming, there’s also a need to fulfil the promise you made to yourself, to finish what you started.

Then just last week, I was approached by talented local illustrator Alison Edwards, to write a folk song at very short notice, then perform it at the end of March. The Jacobite Rebellion story I was provided with is hilarious, and has led to two further songs being put into the same project. During our conversations, I mentioned “Borders, Battles & Bounds”, and that I was looking for a few more stories about the ordinary lives of women in Berwickshire and North Northumberland. I was put in contact with the Project Director of ‘The Wilson’s Tales’, who happens to have about 450 I can draw from! Things are getting very interesting.

On 10th March, I drive south for a fleeting visit to my old stomping ground to record the fabulous voices of Emma Perry and Kate Ferris who have kindly agreed to add backing vocals to an 11-minute folk song. I’ve been working on it since the tail end of last year, when a Rochdale videographer and local historian asked for permission to use my song “Watergrove Farm” to back one of his videos. In return, he gave me permission to write a song about one of the stories he’d collected from the area. That song is about the life of a ‘lime gal’ who worked in the Wardle Valley near Rochdale…which was partly inundated by Watergrove Reservoir, the subject of “Watergrove Farm”, the second song on my “Moorscape” album.

So, forget the histories of the lords, ladies, kings, queens, and bishops who liked to write their histories only from their own perspectives and agendas. It appears that the interpretation and re-telling of the histories of real people has become something of a vocation. Apart from being inspiring, interesting and enjoyable, it feels like we all need reminding from time to time that our own histories may one day be related by our descendants. Some of these stories might fade from existence if they are not re-told, and many are fascinating.

Peace.

John