August 2009

…well sort of…

Last month, Miri, Giles and I made the trip up to Milton Keynes to visit Yamaha HQ and record a session for a competition and to be also featured in a podcast. Whilst we weren’t particularly impressed by a rainy Milton Keynes, the Yamaha building was pretty cool. Did you know it all started when Mr Yamaha took a reed organ apart and decided he could make a better one himself? One of these early prototypes was on show in the foyer, but with a massive ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ sign unfortunately…

We were interviewed by Richard Allinson of Radio 2 fame, and yes, he really does have a ‘radio voice’ in real life – paired with a crushing handshake – but a very nice fella. We recorded a couple of tracks, one of my favourites ‘Blue Skies’ and ‘An Invitation’ which you can hear in the (abridged) podcast below.

I’m next playing with Miri at the Watershed in Wimbledon – a home match if ever there was one – on 18th September – keep up to date and have a listen to other tracks on the myspace – myspace.com/wheresmiri.

Last month, Tom Robinson had the debut radio airplay of Adam Wedd & The Independents new single ‘The Differences We Display’. It was also featured in his weekly podcast, which you can hear a shortened version of below (copyright owned by BBC etc etc).

The track was recorded on my home studio setup (bar drums & bass which was done at MI7 studios in Acton then transferred over). We spent quite a while tweaking it, re-recording bits, bringing in fancy violin ideas and messing around with banjos! I can’t remember the full names of all 8 musicians playing on the track, but special note to Tara Flynn (as seen on Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle & The Omid Djalili Show) for her backing vocal “icing”, and to the excellent Luke Sital Singh who provided backing vocals and a bit of common sense in the production department. Adam is getting married next month, so best of luck to him, but I’m sure you’ll be able to catch Adam & us Independents playing another gig soon-ish…

Hope for Planet Earth was a national tour and resource DVD featuring leading experts and thinkers on the subject of climate change; what it is, how bad and what our moral response could be. The 2009 tour finished very recently, and whilst there are currently no plans to tour again there is a resource DVD you can buy from here hopeforplanetearth.co.uk.

The show kicks off with an introduction video played on a big screen. Footage was put together by Tearfund to a piece of music I had partly created, and partly adapted from a song by Flight School that I had recorded and played on (hear them here – myspace.com/myflightschool – credit to a certain Ed Priestnall for that cool piano riff)!

It’s not exactly HD, but you can see the results below: