2020 ROUND UP

I’ve decided to focus mostly on the positives for this post - the things I achieved and am proud of. It’s been a challenging year in so many ways - but more than anything it’s made me realise just how lucky I am. My levels of gratitude for who I am, my position in life, my upbringing, my relationships - they’ve never been so high.

Anyway - onwards!

koko - music direction and drums

The year kicked off with a belter of a debut show with KOKO, the band for whom I put the live show together at the back end of 2019. The show sold out, and I’m happy to say it went without a hitch. The show was at The Waiting Rooms, Stoke Newington.

USA ROAD TRIP

Just after the show, off Lauren and I headed for a two week road trip around California! We stayed with my good friend and native Californian Dave who, along with his family, did an incredible job of hosting us and making us feel super welcome - firstly we stayed in Oakland, thereafter heading up to Calistoga, near Napa, to get some Californian country air and drink an awful lot of wine.

Lauren and I standing above the town of Calistoga - a beautiful, quaint Californian town with a quiet hustle and bustle made up of mostly locals.

Dave and I, a few pints of trendy IPA in.

February brought a smattering of shows, including this ULTIMATUM wedding performance - another happy couple and another highly stressful 12 hours of driving to Lancashire, loading in, gigging, loading out and arriving home at 3am before jumping on a flight to Bucharest at 6am to join Declan J Donovan on tour. Massive thanks to Shane Benson for coving the first few shows of this tour and doing a smashing job!

BACK ON TOUR WITH DECLAN J DONOVAN

Before the world turned upside-down and all live music disappeared for the duration of the year (It’s currently Jan 3rd 2021 and we still have no sign of it returning), I actually managed to get some touring in. Heading back out with Declan J Donovan, we firstly traveled around Europe on a tour support slot for Alice Merton, and subsequently had a stint on the UK on a headline tour. Watching the news unfold during the latter half of the UK stint (early March) was a extremely strange feeling - as close to the feeling of an impending apocolypse as I wish to get in my lifetime.

Scott, Declan and I having a little pre-gig cuddle in Birmingham.

Tour manager Bibes, who insisted we visit the Pig Museum in Stuttgart. An experience I do not regret. Since all live music work disappeared he’s created an amazing hot sauce company South London Sauce Company - check it out!

31st Birthday!

More or less the day after we returned from tour, the first Lockdown was announced. Basically meaning no going outside whatsoever except for exercise. So, here’s me having a lovely birthday stare-out-of-the-window! And what a lovely stare it was. Suffice to say Lauren did her best to give me a nice 31st - supplying me with beer and laughs as I tried to stifle a sense of utter bewilderment at the situation.

After a couple of weeks of being in the same room 99% of the time, and feeling as close to loosing it as I ever have, I discovered that the studio space I use in Brockley, South London, was able to be used under lockdown rules (counting as a workspace). Having this space enabled me to crack on with my first major release as a solo artist - CASSICUS, and with the help of absolute legend Ben Hammond at York’s Reel Recording Studio I had a terrific debut with my tune Torn, picking up some lovely junky blog coverage and bagging some BBC Introducing airplay.

The screen I stared at from around April to the end of the year!

Recording drums for the second CASSICUS release soon to be hitting the airways!

I spent most of summer honing my writing and recording craft, investing in my set up and enjoyed bringing in some emerging artists to my studio to collaborate and begin building a showreel as a songwriter / producer - I’m looking forward to developing this side of my career more in 2021.

Family Time

It came as a welcome bit of respite to have a small family gathering in celebration of my Uncle’s 70th over the summer!

Black Lives Matter

As the virus has reached every corner of the globe, the Black Lives Matter movement was gathering pace, and it was without hesitation that we headed out to join the protest. Weighing up whether or not to attend was an extremely difficult decision, but one I am comfortable was absolutely the right thing to do. Racism was showing no signs of waiting for COVID-19 to be over.

over to berlin

I was delighted when a two performances with KOKO were confirmed to be happening in Germany, one at Reeperbahn in Hamburg (big thanks to the drumming / MD legend Mike Park for doing an immaculate job in covering me for this!), and the latter for the TV show Culture Cast in Berlin. Flying there was an unsettling experience, as much as I had missed the buzz of flying to shows, as I sat on the flight, face mask on, all of around 20 people were my company on a plane made to carry hundreds.

Suffice to say, the experience was VISA-free; my heart breaks that we musicians now find ourselves in uncharted territory as a result of Brexit. Massive uncertainty remains as to the viability of touring for emerging artists. My freedom of movement has been stollen from me and I’m still struggling to come to terms with it - doubtless I never really will. Brexit is the biggest heist ever conducted in the UK.

other highlights of the year

2019 ROUND UP

Hello!

Hitting the not-so-tender-anymore-but-still-sort-of-a-bit-tender age of 30 is a landmark for anybody. So it comes with a tad more reflection than is typical that I look back on my most varied, chaotic, and downright bloody enjoyable year as a professional musician to date.

Maida Vale bbcr1

Kicking things off in January I hit Maida Vale with IDER, for a Radio 1 recording session.

IDER are a duo led by Meg and Lily - a veritable pop powerhouse who have written some of the most beautiful pop songs I’ve been lucky enough to record to.

Lily and Meg listening back to the mix with in-house engineer Simon.

Astraea filming

Shortly after this came another wonderful Mahogany session, this time with Astraea, who I had begun to work with last year. It never gets old watching an artist grow, and this project is certainly no exception - Jennifer is not only a phenomenal vocalist and pianist, but a composer of very high esteem indeed. Not only a performer, she composes and arranges wonderful re-interpretations of famous songs which have appeared in a multitude of nationwide commercials of recent years, such as this year’s ‘Very’ Christmas advert.

Happy drummer!

A silhouetted look for the Astraea session

music direction for ADMT

Donning the Music Director cap I headed up North, incidentally to my birth-town of Doncaster, to meet and begin work on the live show for pop R&B artist ADMT. An immense vocalist (and drummer), we had a great couple of days of laughs and rehearsal to prep him and his band up for Live and Leeds festival.

Declan J Donovan

This was concurrent to touring with rising pop star Declan J Donovan - already established in Germany, the crowds were packed, and as always in Germany, wonderfully warming. It’s a super fun project to be involved with, not only is Declan a consummate professional capable of dealing with all the stresses and strains of touring and live performance (and only 23), but the team are all top-notch human beings. With music direction from Mike Park, FOH from Matt Acreman and Tom Rogers, TM duties provided by Andy Bibey, and bandmate Scott Nelson - it’s a great feeling when everyone pulls together to create something greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Waiting for Smith

Next up was beginning work with the effortlessly cool Waiting for Smith, having been invited in by the brilliant music director and drummer Luke Marc Hughes. This was a really slick operation from the get-go, Luke having assembled a great team. Non-stop jokes and laughter, as well as fantastic music of course - sending hearty big ups out to Harry Lloyd (the artist!), Tim Hillsdon (drums), Carl Holt (bass), & Alex Lanyon (Guitar/keys).

Tom Walker in Lisbon

As we entered the summer I began gearing up for another couple of shows with team Tom Walker, this time a headline show in Lisbon, Portugal, as part of the festival NÖS Alive 2019, and a pop festival at Arena Birmingham.

For NÖS Alive, once again sitting in for Alastair Thynne, the show has developed a great deal from the last time I performed with them 9 months ago, so it was a lot to get through - and a full 60 minute show. It’s no small thing to perform to 50,000 people after being away from a project for so long, but everything went smoothly and I had a ton of fun with the guys as always. Shout outs to Dave Glover (TM), Pete Lee (keys), Sam Odiwe (bass), and of course Tom, for being a bunch of bloody legends, super warming, and incredibly easy to work with.

Ultimatum

Nearly immediately having retuned from Portugal, it was a giant head-space switch back to my solo production Ultimatum, to get ready to showcase for a number of events entertainment agents at Music Bank. The show was already well underway and receiving bookings, so I’ve put a little collection of best bits below.

More Declan J Donovan!

Back out is was for to make my debut on a tour bus, for a good long stint back with Declan and the boys. Some highlights below, as well as an entire concert if you’d like to make yourself a brew and check it out (looking at you Mum and Dad).

If they didn’t have enough of me already…

Sticking with Declan, we then rounded off the tour with a stint in support of Tom Walker! Two parts of my professional life came together is an unexpected and lovely way. The tour finished with a show at Brixton Academy - and in another bizarre serendipitous twist - where in the past I performed with The Beach on my birthday and had happy birthday sung to me by the crowd, this particular show landed on Declan’s birthday, and we got another round sung for him!

Lauren Marsh came along for the photos, and took some of these winners below.

Who would’ve thought that on the two times I play Brixton prior to becoming 30, Happy Birthday featured in the set on both occasions.

A very happy chap.

Music Direction for KOKO

As the winter set in, I began work as musical director and drummer with the incredibly exciting new band KOKO. Without revealing too much at this stage, here’s a shot from the first rehearsal!

Family and Friends

Finally, of all the things I’m extremely grateful for in my life, nothing makes me more so than to have the family and friends I do. Here’s a few highlights from the year!

The big 3-0. This took place at a place called Novelty Automaton - one of the most idiosyncratic and delightful museums in London. GO!

The two people that enabled me to have the life I live!

My fiancée and I represented in a pretty accurate depiction of our lifestyle!

A new little man in the family!