#SupportindependentMusic – John Reed Music

It’s honestly been a bit weird to get back into recording this week. A wonderful break on the Scottish Isle of Mull opened up a number of new channels for making music, inspiring new sounds and instilling confidence. When I finally got back into the studio making music on Tuesday after several months out, I’d forgotten some of the basics, but after a few days it feels like a place I want to be.

Multiple projects have been waiting for me there, waiting for me to get my act together, and for better eye health to play its part. I’m organising my studio time more carefully so I don’t strain what is already strained by gawping for too long at computer screens. And so it began on 24th June. First, the battery failed in my original Eko E-20 and I didn’t have a spare in the house. Now all instruments and pedals have new batteries. I broke a string after installing the new battery, so changed all the Eko strings, then snapped another. I now have strings on order for all my instruments! I think I’m now set to go.

I worked out yesterday that I have around 40 songs to record across three different projects, and to make life easier I’m recording the main instrument and vocals for all of them over this next six weeks to create a baseline for each. Some of these are re-recordings of songs that were created a couple of years ago. I want each project to have its own identity, and the reintroduce those older recordings would have got in the way of that.

Following the Eko string and battery saga, I put it aside in frustration and picked up a cittern and was able to create bed tracks for two cittern songs. Now I’m back in the swing, those will both be re-recorded. One of the songs is already begging me for single status. Rather bold of it if you ask me!

By the time we reach my October newsletter, you will all know at least part of what I’ve been up to. The solo work “A Proliferation Of Pointlessness” gathered a new dimension on Mull, and Duncan and I will simultaneously be recording and re-recording for our collaborative album “Heritage”. So it’s all hands on deck, and I’m looking forward to getting at least some of these works in circulation before the end of the year because there is much, much more to follow!

Peace.

John

Matt Steady and I only seem to do ‘ridiculous’ when it comes to our road trips. These last few days might have just seen our most ridiculous yet, albeit not entirely planned! Being based in Berwick upon Tweed, I set off in November for the short(ish) journey to RT Projects in Durham for a short live-in-the-room session for Sounds Good (okay, it was 30^th, but it sounded good). It was my first time playing live in the room for close on 3 years, so it was nice to be in a place where I’m known, albeit virtually up to this point. I repaid that confidence booster by playing three songs I’ve never played live before, on the basis that I if could manage that the rest of our sets should run nice and smoothly.

I was back on the road the following morning bright an early just before 6am. The first signpost I saw was “A1 Closed”. For the uninitiated, the A1 is my main route south – the quickest route – and I was diverted through thick fog through the County Durham countryside, eventually to join the alternative A19 about 15 miles down the road. Joining the A1 around York, the fog finally lifted just south of Nottingham, and I arrived at Matt’s house in Leicester by 9:30am for a cup of tea and our only pre-gig in-the-room practise. One hugely fortifying fry-up later, and we set off for Hastings at noon: follow the link…

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Hastings is on the south coast of England. Berwick is the country’s most northerly town. I can walk to Scotland from my house. Our plan was to return to Leicester the same evening because our early evening gig at Jenny Lind should have allowed a 10pm return. Someone up there had other ideas. This was our first gig of original songs together since 23^rdNovember 2019. It was extremely nice to be back playing after such a long hiatus, and in front of an appreciative audience in a nice part of the world.

And so to our return journey. No fog this time, just drizzle and several incidences of bizarre motorway driving (from others not from Matt!) … and a signpost saying ‘A21 closed’. For the uninitiated, the A21 was our main route north to London and onwards to Leicester via the M25 and M1 motorways! We were diverted along winding country lanes for about 15 miles until finally we returned to our planned route. Hunger was beginning to kick in seriously so “Services 40 miles” was not entirely welcome, and there’s a whole other story to our sustenance for the journey. We re-fuelled our bodies at an appalling fast food outlet (a misnomer of ever there was such a thing), and drove the final leg north.

After a few miles “M1 closed – Junctions 19-20”. That’s just south of Leicester, so we rued our luck and drove on, shortly afterwards to find a kind of ‘by the way, we’re really screwing you this time’ sign “M1 down to one lane – Junctions 14-15”. Between that and multiple other slowings-down to a mandatory 50mph, we finally exited the M1 for the M6, which was closed further north, and A46 to Leicester for which there was a further diversion. We finally stood in Matt’s kitchen for a celebratory Welsh whisky around midnight.

Tomorrow, we drive from Matt’s house in Narborough near Leicester to Narborough in Norfolk – how spooky is that? – combining a live-in-the-room session with a live radio session for West NorfolkRadio… follow that link too!

Yes, there will also apparently be football on the telly but that is often best viewed with muted sound.

Peace.

John

John Reed Music

Tag: #SupportindependentMusic

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