A Musical Journey

This time last year I wrote a few entries about my memories growing up and all I went through an all that.  I remember getting to the point where I had just started making music and being in a band with my old school mate.  That was the starting point of my musical life really, so I would like to take it from there, and document all the music I have made since, I have been very busy in the last 11 years and have a whole sack full of albums and projects and ideas.

My first musical project started as 'The EvE', it was my mate Rich on guitars on vocals and me on keys an production.  Rich was a great natural songwriter and we got ourselves a 4 track and recdorded hundreds of songs.  I look back at the songs now and laugh at how I recorded them, I would scoop out all the high frequnecy, bounce them Mono.   But to understand how to record music you just have to press every button and see what it does.  It was when we got a digital 8 track that we really started to make some really strong stuff, in the second year of making music together we really got good at it.  We lived together in many houses and flats, always setting up a studio, then when we couldnt pay the bills we would move somewhere else.  Like a couple of little gypsys.  We would smoke lots of rocky, listen to lots of Radiohead, Floyd, Nirvana, it was when downloading music came to life with Broadband, and we would just smoke, listen to music and make music.  This is an album of songs, that I think are the strongest and favourites out of the more than 200 we recorded.  We changed our name to U-Nuclear along the line, and I do hope and have a feeling we will make another great album together.  But this is where it all started with me.....

U-Nuclear - Fall out 2004
All through those days with Rich, I would record my own stuff aswell.  I made this album that was OK, but I look back now and it was so depressin haha.  I suppose I should upload it as it's part of the legacy, but maybe when I am dead.  But anyway, me and Rich had started to drift apart, I went to community college to study music and be around musicians more.  I got into my first proper band as a front man and we called ourselves Marmalade Dream.  We did some recordings on an old 4 track we borrowed from the college and they are quite good.  But not as good as we were live.  These were just my ideas for songs, that they played on.  I was workin with a great guitarist Steve Simon and we started to build a good musical bond.  So here is the first Maramalde Dreams recordings...2005




While in college aswell, I started another project with a Punk Thrash Ska guitarist and we called ourselves 'Buttercup' I would go fuckin crazy on gigs, usually end up weeping under the stage crying nursery rhymes, haha.  One of the best gigs I ever played was with Buttercup, cos we actually got BOOOD!  And it felt great.  Inciting that type of response in people where they boo you, got me even more crazy for it.  We went into the college studio one day, and just recorded it in 1 take and overdubbed the most dryest fuzz guitar, hahaha, funny band and funny days. Here is the Buttercup E.P.




Marmalade dreams and Buttercup disbanded operations and with the guitarist from Buttercup "G Dog' we formed White Trash ana Halfcast.  We had laptops doing the drums and Taylor on 5 string octave bass.  We had a great sound, and when we would practise people would come in and listen.  We had a really good chemistry and we recorded a little e.p.  It was a New Years Eve and I just sat in alone putting the vox on them, and we did a nice job.  Within days of us putting them online we were flooded with interest from labels and management.  We chose to go with Monochrome Media who also managed a really great band called The Seal Cub Clubbing Club.  We developed very strong as a band under Spike and The SCCC.  Here is our first recordings we did.  2 of the songs were to be on our first single we released.  Judas to The Masses and I Dont Know.


Around the same time I was still recording songs with my mate from Marmalade Dreams Ste Simon on guitar.  I had a really crappy computer and Reason and Cakewalk, and I went about writing and recording some of my own little ideas on them.  Ste added great guitar and we got some nice songs done.  As with all my previous bands, I would just improvise the vocals, and then try to form them into something.  These Peggy songs were starting to get a lot of attention aswell.  I was paid to go down to London and play a gig at the Hilton Hotel at this conference for helping people break through in the Music Industry.  With my ripped jeans, my long long hair I went down and played, and said I am here to represent the dole.  These songs were recorded on a slow computer with a mic that hissed, a desk that was stuck on Cathedral reverb and a 6 inch jack lead.  Peggy Brainchild - Mummy Got Laid 2006




I was starting to play the acoustic guitar a lot more.  I felt it was a challenge to write a song that can stand alone on the acoustic.  I was used to recording and overdubbing lots.  But I was being drawn more and more into the acoustic, playing some open mics and jam sessions.  I was always used to playing with a band behind me, you are pretected then.  But when its just you and your guitar singing sad songs, you are much more vulnerable.  One day me and me mate Pete took some acid and went down to an ancient woodland and he shot this vid.  I still play this song today, I really like it, and it was the first steps into me finding myself as an acoustic singer songwriter.  It was around this time that I was invited to LIPA to meet and Jam with Paul McCartney.  So I did. Which was nice.




White Trash ana Halfcast were also developing nicely.  We would take the set everywhere.  From dirty techno punk, to sweet Ska.   We played a great gig at the Barfly with the other bands under our management.  The amazing Black Wire and The SCCC.  Our dear friend Tony recorded it, and we would go on to record some songs with him.  Here is our crazy live set from The Barfly.




At the same time I was immersed in Orwell and Bill Hicks and Alex Jones.  One weekend I didnt open the curtains.  I just recorded this little E.P all in one big go.  I used samples from 1984, Hicks and Jones and as I felt this world conspiracy open up to me, I felt I was seeing things.  I felt lost, a bit down.  But I recorded this little e.p and I like it.  We Are The Dead.  I was calling myself Peggy Brainchild at this time, because it came to me in a dream.  It was an identity for the wacky weird ideas I was coming out with.




With the Legendary producer Tony Birch who worked with Spike at Monochrome, we went into Crash Studios and we set up a recording space in our rehearsal room.  It was right next to the toilet, it was damp and it stunk.  But we loved it.  Tony recorded 2 of the songs on this E.P Be Minor and Neon Man, our live set was really taking a strong turn.  Inspired by The SCCC we would make our set all join into one, with samples and interludes between this musical journey.  Here is the Last White Trash e.p.




I had finished 4 years at college, and uni was the obvious next step.  I just loved being around musicians and learning all I can.  When I got my first grant from Uni, I blew it all on a 16 track digital recorder that I had wanted for so long.  I left myself Pennyless for the next 3 months, but I didn't care, I had some powerful recording gear.  The song End Of The World on the previous album was recorded on it with the band.  But I did another little solo album.  It was just a few ideas really to mess around with the 16 track.  Its called Crash, cos I recorded it in Crash.



Well, looking at it half of those songs on crash were recorded in this mansion in Penny Lane.  It was a strange turn of events.  Let me explain.  In my first year of Uni, I was evicted from the student accommodation for smoking a joint in my room.  I was gutted!  By the luckiest turn of events, I was asked to look after this empty 15 bedroom house on Penny Lane,  by this millionaire from the Isle of Man.  I said OF COURSE!  I didnt have to pay any rent, and I set up a studio there.  In that same week of me getting evicted, my band White Trash ana Halfcast broke up!  All that energy we put into the band, just thrown away by the other 2.  Me and Geoff were die hard though, and we instantly went on making a new band called The Dawn Fanfare.  I spent my next grant on getting a good computer, and a soundcard and a really good studio set up.  We recruited an amazing Sax and Keys and Vocals in Jenny Kermode and we went about recording our first demos.  It was great to have powerful studio software, and we threw so much on the tracks.  Loadsa vocals, loads guitars, vocals reverb.  But I love these recordings.  Good memories with Geoff and Jen recording them.



I have a good friend, who has been a friend to my whole family.  My brothers and sister.  He is an angry street poet and one of the most prolific songwriters ever.  He is dome like at least 50 albums, just loves recording and its very inspiring.  We love recording together, and when I got my computer studio set up, I went round to his and would help him set up his and show him how to use Cubase and Reason and stuff.  We would get some great stuff in the Process.  So we called ourselves SLUTCO which is Sut and Col together.  We were both into the Icke and Jones and took a lot of fun singing about the royal lizards.  Here is our first album we did together.  Great stuff.



I was starting to have a big catalogue of music, and lost of good contacts and friends in the music industry.  I had just left the Mansion after 6 amazing months there.  I moved into a flat in Kensington in Liverpool and I decided to set up a record label so that it would be a home for all this music I was recording.  As soon as I set it up with the way I would want a label to be run, it attracted so much immediete attention.  So this flat in Kenny, turned into the label HQ and I would get so many people down and record so much.  Here are the albums for this label I produced - but didn't have a hand in writing.



I still found time to throw my last Peggy Brainchild album in aswell.  Just sitting in on me own, recording songs and ideas.  Here is Strange Observations that was recorded in between producing all the previous albums.



Me, Geoff and Jenny from the Dawn Fanfare, went on to recruit bass in my old friend Craig Ebrell and the most amazing drummer I have ever known Ciaran Bell.  We had such a good sound, and from that first practise we just knew it was gonna be great.  It was.  I was gutted after White Trash had broke up, but this band was even better.  I was really focusing on my front man performances.  It would be intense, crazy, but backed up brilliantly musically.  Great band, and great gigs.



I also met an amazing beautiful singer called Sam Taylor at a songwriters aftgernoon.  We worked very well together, and she had the most stunning voice and heart.  We recorded a little album for the label, as we worked so well together.  Auroras Dream.



I also met a great guitarist and friend Aus.  We both loved the Floyd and the smoke.  So we spent a whole year writing, recording and mixing this.  It is the biggest project I had ever attempted.  Each song would have close to 100 tracks on it!  I would maybe like to mix it with some less reverb, and more powerful vocals.  But I still think it is a great album.  Beneath The Mindless Ocean.



When the Dawn Fanfare members were parted for a summer, me and Geoff the guitarist set about making our own little album.  Guttermask was born, and this album that keeps with our angry punk roots.  Really like this album musically and lyrically.  We got some good stuff goin on here.  The song FKN CNTS Was born one afternoon with no weed and too much energy.


Me and Radio Ray did another album under the SLUTCO guise here aswell.  We tried to be as angry as we could but still keeping our wit and musicallity.  Really love this album.  VITAMINS FOR RATS



The end of Uni was approaching and we in The Dawn Fanfare knew life would be taking us away.  We hadnt managed to break the NME yet, though if we had more time we would have been massive.  I know that because of the special live energy we had and the songs.  Here is our last e.p we recorded before life took us all apart.


It was approaching the end of Uni, like I say and I was wondering what I wanted to do with my life next.  I had been going busking a lot to support myself and was finding myself more and more on the acoustic.  One lovely evening I went into Mello Mello studios with Simon Knighton, we drunk lots of wine, and he really captured my raw busking edge that I was having.  Really great night that, and after we had finished the album, I killed Peggy Brainchild.  I wanted to reinvent myself a bit.  I was just about to turn 30, and felt fresh in my head.  Great experience at Uni, recording lots of music.  But I felt it is the start of a new chapter.  I decided to travel through Europe and become a street musician full time.  But here is my first proper acoustic E.P.  Produced by the Legend Simon Knighton.



So I left England for the first time in my life and set out to see the world with nothing but a guitar on my back and a positive heart.  To try and become an acoustic songsmith.  I spent 2 months in France, then fell in love with Amsterdam!  I met some amazing people there at the Magneet Festival, and when I returned home, some came to visit me and record!  One was Cato on Accordion.  We did a nice little album together.


My dear mates Ron and Simo also came, and we did some great recordings.  After the festival we went to a squatted farm house in the middle of nowhere and recorded a little album.  They came to see me in Liverpool and we did some good recording.


I was struggling being back in England, and couldnt settle.  That first time leaving the country, and having a real adventure had only wet my appetite.  All through the Winter I prepped myself for leaving once again, but this time not coming back for a long time.

The Dead Sea Captain was born, and here we are, and here you are.  At the end of one chapter, and the start of another one.

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