Last night..

I walked into the pub and Waynes World was playing on the projector screen. Good start.

You came out glammed up and didn't disappoint. You all smelled and looked wonderful and delicious, and ate all the cake and bought cds and t shirts.

I wore myself thin, but managed to channel Queen of Uncool in order to perform the songs to the awesome ability you were expecting.

I really enjoyed starting with some oldies, as much as I did inviting a full band up to play the second half with me. The EP in its full glory.

I may have spent awhile talking. A lot. You know how sometimes you make a phonecall and get the answering machine, and you leave a long rambling message, maybe going off topic a bit, and then wish you hadn't left one at all. This was me in between songs. I blame lack of sleep.

There was more I wanted to say though, that I did not get the opportunity to. I wanted to tell you what the EP was about, directly, as well as in the grand scheme of things. By that point though (just before we performed 'winter') the pub had accumulated a number of stragglers (I had released the door lady to run riot with cake) who were making a level of noise loud enough to disable me from discussing such subjects with the delicacy required. So I didn't. But trust that there is enough purpose behind the concept of the EP and enough meaning in the music to sum up a few months of my life with some accuracy, and that I hope it goes on, spreads out, and heals. Then it will have achieved its purpose.

The Winter EP is available to download here.

Why we must save the physical format of MUSIC.

In a way, those people who write books, and make art (hard-to-make-ends-meet creative jobs, sometimes involving selling your dreams..) are very lucky.

People may read, or look at art on their computers, but it doesn't stop them wanting a magazine for their train journey, or to hang art on their walls at home.

Perfume, hair, food..all mediums offering creative work that people still need for physically, tangible products. But music?

Essence, mood, captured, for you.

Music is ESSENTIAL to enhance so many of these other elements; hair salons, fashion shows, high street retailers, soft candlelit dinner.. So much art & written word is inspired and indeed created while listening to music. Yet music is being overlooked. Cheapened.

Film has also suffered, but if you're watching a film you downloaded for free, those actors and actresses are going to remind you that real people made this movie happen, and you have not made your contribution to it. Music stays in some far reaching place in your mind, in your soul.

My EP.

I bought my music equipment from scratch to record. I didn't just write songs. I wrote, performed, produced, recorded, engineered, edited and promoted them, I sought other people to make their musical contributions in performance, I took time, spent money, made effort, many late nights staring at a computer screen, and though I am very glad I did it, should I have to sell these songs through an online company for 50p?

Let me say again, music is ESSENTIAL to so many other jobs, not just creative jobs, people in factories, long haul drivers, the health industry, it's therapeutic uses are widely recognised and of course it helps keep millions of bars, venues and night clubs in business, every day and night of the week.

"The fashion industry hijacked the Oscars" I heard someone say the other day. True. (And they have their hands in music's pockets too).

But now the musicians, are expected to make money from the clothing sold at gigs, from the cult of personality ("celebrity") that makes you want to attend our shows, be associated with us, and all of the merchandise that represents us.

Except the actual music.

The music now lives in your computer, in your ipod, in your HEAD.

It's true and fair to say, we do all all like to share creative ideas; books, films, clothes, music.

But it's not the labels killing the music industry.

It's you.

PS I may or may not make my music available digitally, and while I do believe in a non-eco friendly-let's-buy-the-physical-album approach to music in general, I affirm that people should be free to purchase music as a download.

I think it's great (and very "convenient") but the value of music is being lost, and while people would like to argue that labels have driven the price of music into the ground whilst focussing on artists hair, apparel, and interview skills, I think that only we, the people, can decide how much a song means to us, how much we really value music, and I know that my friends and I truly do, and my music, is worth much more than 50p, I thank you.

Friends.

Hey,

So I was thinking about this time when I was about 10, and I was in a singing class. This new girl joined us, it was her first day. I'd offered to help her out, excited by a new face.

WE'd not been singing long, when I realised that although she was making a noise, it was constantly a semi-tone or two lower than what the rest of us were singing.

I asked her outright "Are you tone deaf?"

She got very upset and left the room, crying I think.

Thing is no one really got angry at me, cos they knew me..they knew, I meant no harm. And after that incident-she knew.

I was just being honest, just being me, and just asking, if she had an issue she knew about, that prevented her from hearing the correct pitch to sing-as obviously this would impede her progress?

I didn't mean anything by it, I was interested and concerned.

We talked and she shrugged it off. We grew to be best friends.

I've never lost this part of me. I will always be that honest. But these days when I say those things that I mean to say-that I mean no harm in saying, there's not always someone around who knows me that well, to know that what I'm saying has no malicious intent, or maybe some people take me the wrong way because they have their own issues.

Either way, I still am who I was then. A faithful friend.