I’m honoured to be on bass duties for The Organ Grinders at the Ashburton Blues Festival in Devon this weekend, supporting none other than Muddy Waters Jr., son of the blues legend himself.

Be there for the Saturday evening session (28th May 2011 from 6pm) to catch this awesome band in full swing (and funk, and latin, and blues)…

I am very pleased that I’ll be playing bass with Band of Hope at Wood Festival this year, on Saturday May 21st at 1pm. Wood is a great festival with strong green credentials – running as it does entirely from renewable energy. In addition to all the great music there are workshops, discussions and places to eat and drink. Day tickets are available, as well as weekend tickets allowing camping in the lovely surroundings of Braziers Park.

According to Wood Festival’s own news blog: “Festival regulars Band of Hope open up the Wood stage on Saturday with beautiful pastoral folk-rock…”. So there…!

On 29th April (Royal Wedding day) the Portcullis club in Wallingford rocked into the night, to the sound of five local bands, including the newly-formed “The Invisible Few”. Headlining was Wallingford’s own Band of Hope, with other support acts We Aeronauts from Oxford, Holton’s Opulent Oog and Hundred Acre Wood. The event was organised and promoted under the “Acoustic Ballroom” banner.

Performing with me in The Invisible Few were Maff Potts (keyboards), Tom Crook (guitar) and Mark McKee (drums). See below for a video of one of our tunes, “Two”.

Click here for more videos

Mark and myself also appeared as a two-piece incarnation of The Invisible Few the following afternoon, for Thrive’s Trunkwell Gardens, near Reading, open for the NGS.

The Invisible Few, playing some of my original songs, now have their own profile on ReverbNation. From here you can sign up as a fan, hear our songs, find out details of the latest news and upcoming gigs, and watch our videos.

See also the ReverbNation link on the right hand side of every page here! >>

At the weekend I had the pleasure of laying down some bass tracks in Wallingford with acclaimed singer/songwriter/guitarist Neil Halstead. At the controls was Nick Holton capturing it all live in pure analogue! Look forward to hearing the results… certainly sounded darn good in the room.

I will be joining Gordon Buss as we take on the Ugly Dog Poetry persona on Sunday 17th April at around 8pm. Gordon’s intricate, mesmerising, hard-hitting and thought-provoking poetry will be on the menu, while I will be providing a improvised double bass accompaniment.

The venue is the Blagrave Arms, Reading (RG1 1PW), where a new series of live music and poetry events is beginning on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Click here for more details.

Short notice, I know, but tomorrow night (Friday 11th February) I will be accompanying poet Gordon Buss from Ugly Dog Poetry at the marvellous Pangbourne acoustic night, Hall of Sound.

Our 20 minutes of fame tomorrow will feature Gordon’s verbal pyrotechnics and my improvisation alongside on double bass.

On Friday 25th February, I’ll be singing my own songs as the opening act for a “Showcase”-style gig at the Arts Bar, Wokingham. The piano music of Steve Hunt will be the main feature for the evening. Starts at 7:30pm. Free entry!

This evening, I uploaded a new piano-and-voice-only demo version of my song “English Rose” (which features as a poem at the end of my book). You can listen via SoundCloud:

Finished recording my new “full band” version of the song Two, with drums, bass, guitar, keys and of course vocals! Check the key change for the last chorus!