THIS IS GOING TO SOUND REALLY DODGY BUT…

…I genuinely did meet Matt Steady for the first time at Leicester Forest East services on the M1 with foundation on my face! Matt and I met virtually via Twitter and it didn’t take long to realise our kindred spirit – a desire to make good music and to do it the right way (hopefully!). I could hear a fiddle in some of my songs so I needed a fiddle player, and Matt seemed to fit the bill.

I was on one of my endless driving tours of the UK back in January working on various business projects and on the last Friday of the month had to drive home from Peterborough. Knowing that Matt lived in Leicester I suggested we should meet up by way of breaking my journey home. At that time Matt worked just around the corner from the services so it was an imperfect perfect venue for us both – imperfect because I have a deep and lasting loathing of motorway service stations!

I have a contract with an organization in Peterborough and was required that morning to have an official photograph taken for some publicity shots. Throughout the winter I had suffered from dry skin on my face and it had been getting worse. The previous evening I had stopped over in a hotel in Northamptonshire and the central heating in the room was like a mistral all night – I can rarely be bothered complaining about these things, although when I do it is generally attracts spectators! When I had showered I saw that my face was a bright shade of scarlett, and tried to soothe this angry visage with a range of hotel soaps and ointments from my overnight bag.

Suffice to say that nothing was working, and during the hour long drive to Peterborough I arrived at a solution. The organisation’s head honcho is a lady I have known for many years and I was having a meeting with her before the shoot. “You’re going to need to let me use your foundation…” I said, pausing for effect, “…because otherwise you are going to have a very red faced export consultant in all your photos!” Thus she expertly applied her foundation to my face. If I had done it I’m sure I would have emerged from the meeting room looking like a bonbon.

And so the photos were taken and the whole day went off very well. I left Peterborough at about 3:15pm and made my way west then north, arriving at Leicester Forest East about 15 minutes before Matt. Knackered. As we sat and drank tea and ate something not especially nice, I suddenly remembered I hadn’t washed the foundation off my face as I had intended to do, and that I probably looked a bit freakish like the late David Guest (I’m still not entirely sure what that man ever did), so I spun this yarn about having to borrow a lady’s foundation in order to have an important photo taken! Thankfully, he bought it!

You can find Matt’s excellent blog at https://www.facebook.com/groups/BloodIsThickerThanGold/?ref=bookmarks

I am delighted that Matt has agreed to play violin on some of the songs on the Dry The Life EP. My part of the recording is done, so there is just Matt’s contribution to add plus the voices of Emma Perry, Kate Ferris, and some other special people, then we can release the EP in time for you all to buy it for someone as a Christmas present! You can keep up to date with Matt’s work at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/BloodIsThickerThanGold/?ref=bookmarks

DRY THE LIFE is a seven track EP that mixes the astonishing sound of the cittern with other folk instruments, voice, and some progressive sounds. The EP will be released in November.