A Crisis Of Confidence

 A crisis of confidence?

I'm not sure if that's the right phrase. I'll try to explain how I'm feeling.

I gave up making music 2013. It had become hard work, I struggled to write anything meaningful (at the best of times), my recording were sloppier than normal, my heart just wasn't in it, so it simply faded away.

In the early months of 2021 I started uploading all of my material to Bandcamp. This lit a spark in me again. During my hiatus I had sparingly written bits and pieces, and around July I started constructing and recording these songs that had been lingering about. Once I had completed the album I set about promoting it on social media. This is something I'd not done before. 

I struggled with it. My music means so much to me, and it's difficult to comprehend when it doesn't resonate strongly with others. After a few weeks of promotion I was burnt out mentally. It was at this point that depression sunk in, which is something I didn't really need to put myself through, and not something I generally associate with music production.

During my promotion efforts I found a very supportive community on Twitter I slowly pulled myself together and interacted with fellow musicians who seemed to understand where I was coming from, so before I knew it I was recording fresh material again. Another album has now been released, and I can feel the same stress, anxiety and depression hitting me again. 

A question was asked yesterday. "Why do you put your music online?" It wasn't directed at me specifically, but I simply don't have an answer.

I've come to the conclusion that my life is constructed around four main elements. 

• My family
• My work (to enable me to support my family)
• Exercise/Cycling
• Music/Painting

In order to maintain these elements time needs to be allotted to each. Music sharing and promotion is beyond the scope of my life. Also, generally, social media is not something I enjoy. A lot is lost in translation, and I take too much to heart when I probably shouldn't.

So, I'm feeling a little lost. Why am I doing this? I enjoy making music, but I don't enjoy sharing it so much. I find myself in the position of wanting to head off and do some soul searching. Should I just give up again? I don't think I want to do that. Should I just make music for myself and keep it private?

I'm going to take a break from the way I have been operating for a while. I've found starting this Blog quite useful for getting things out of my head. I will likely continue you that if the mood takes me.

22 Album Release Weekend

The opening weekend went really well for me. Spotify listens were up compared to the last album with 64 in total. Nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it's nice to know that people are listening on a small scale. It's the first time I have ever seen two people listening at once! Which is cool.

I'm also fortunate enough to have sold a few copies of the album on Bandcamp this is a huge boost to morale, and funds, so it's very much appreciated. You can purchase digital downloads as well as a physical copy on CD. I burn each of these CDs myself at home. The cover itself is professionally printed, but the cd label is printed on my inkjet printer at home. It's generally a very good standard, and doing it this way means I can sell them on cheaper than if I was paying for production elsewhere.

Another New Album! 22

This album was recorded as part of a competition held by the small independent record label Lights & Lines Basically, write and record an album within the Month of May.

Recording another album for 2022 was not something I had planned. When I initially saw the concept of the competition, I was not keen on the idea. I’ve rattled out many an album in a month as a younger man, and none fill me with a great deal of joy these days. I discussed the premise with my partner, and after much deliberation in my own mind I decided to give it a go. If what I produced was not a suitable quality, I had not actually lost anything. I had two ideas for the project. 1, a song in each key. I’ve never really written songs with key signatures, so I thought this would be an interesting concept to push myself into creating something new. 2, A kind of concept album, essentially I would improvise four songs each around 10 minutes long, and then cut these four songs into shorter phases that would enable the album to hopefully not be boring. Idea 2 won as I felt this would be much more achievable within the competition timescale. Bearing in mind I had nothing written at all, I started out quite simply. I chose four tempos and then searched out four beats. I also chose four sound samples, and these would become the themes of each song.

I began improvising. Guitar, bass, keyboard, my notation software that I had been learning to compose on, whatever was to hand. Slowly but surely I added more and more to each song until they were a mass of noise. This was probably done in the first two weeks of the project. It was then a case of stripping everything back, finding the bits that sounded good, deciding when to make the cuts, so that I had more than four songs. It was an epic task, and one that felt fairly unachievable at times. Eventually I broke everything down into 12 phases, and these needed tidying up a lot. I also had to try and write lyrics. The remaining time before the competition submission date was a mixture of listening to rough mixes, writing lyrics, recording vocals and re-recording other instruments that I felt I could do better.

I did not manage to complete everything as I had hoped, so very slight alterations were made during the month of June. Some drum revisions, percussion and vocal re-recordings. The essence of the album remains the same, but I wanted to publish a more polished product. I have credited all songs to my partner and I. With the way the album was composed and recorded in is impossible to untangle what I did alone, and what I received in collaboration. Overall I’m happy with the results. The lyrical content, although sparse, has a great deal of meaning. It details mankind's interactions with nature and the consequences of our actions. Although I did not win the competition, to my surprise, I did make the final shortlist of albums. From that list the eventual winners were taken, and as a result the album gained a "One To Watch" award for which I'm very grateful. 

You can find a copy of the album HERE

An introduction and biography

Hello there, 

Welcome to my Blog. I'm hoping to write pieces of information regarding my musical development. This is more for my own benefit I think. I have been recording music for many years, and a lot of my past experiences are now lost in my memory. I hoping to retrieve some of those memories and from now on add to them.

So, I'll start off with my biography. This was initially written to try and promote my album 21. After an eight year hiatus I started making music again, and this biography was written to try and help promote the album on social media. It has changed slightly, it was much more morose when I originally wrote it, but I have edited over the past few months to try and rectify that...

I started out in 1997 when I picked up my brother’s guitar and learned a few basic chords. Having grown up in Shoeburyness, Essex, I can’t explain why I became hooked on the guitar. I had spent the last 7 or so years of my life listening to Jungle and Drum & Bass exclusively. I had tried to become a DJ but struggled to keep two records in time. Maybe the guitar seemed easier?

From the very beginning recording my ideas was something I wanted to do. With the little money I earned from my job in a record shop I purchased a cheap ¾ size folk guitar, a Tascam 4 track tape recorder, and a horrendously cheap microphone.

With my inability to play an instrument well, and my knowledge of recording music seriously lacking, my early recordings are painful to listen to. However, they are part of my development as an artist, and without them nobody can see how far I have come.

In the year 2000 I was made redundant. With the money I received I purchased a new guitar, a digital 8 track recorder, a substantial supply of hash, and I also paid my parents a year's rent. My intention being, developing my craft, recording a breakthrough album and getting a record deal.

It’s ridiculous when I think back on it now. I wasn’t that accomplished, I didn’t play live, I had no band. Although I sent my recordings to every record label I could, I received no reply. Hardly surprising as I had little to offer them.

I became more and more reclusive, more and more agoraphobic. My smoking habits didn’t help. I became very paranoid. I was certain that my hedonistic lifestyle from my youth would catch up with me, and that I would just die. I reached breaking point in late 2003, I melted down and eventually sought help. First by speaking to my family, second by seeking professional help. Most importantly I think, I gave up drugs.

I always continued writing and recording songs throughout these troubling times. Purchasing new equipment through the years. I used my music as my therapy, developing my style as I went. I guess at its essence I would describe my music as rock, but it is heavily influenced by the electronic genres of my youth.  

In the year 2004 alone I released 8 albums. When I say released, I mean that I passed them out amongst my friends and family. By this point I had come to the conclusion that nobody (in the industry) really cared. These songs meant nothing to anyone but me. As with any artist, I guess, they are a musical diary of my life. Stress, anxiety, phobia and paranoia it seems are perhaps just not everyone’s cup of tea.

From 2005 onwards my writing and recording slowly decreased. My life was changing. I was slowly becoming less scared of myself, I went out with friends and family, and most importantly I established a long term relationship. Music was no longer my therapy, or it was less and less a part of my therapy.

In late 2013 I relocated from Essex to South Lanarkshire. My 20th album was released in early 2014, I stopped recording entirely at this point. The reality is that I’d fallen out of love with recording my music, and the longer I didn't record, the harder it became to find the enthusiasm. 

It is an incredibly time consuming process, and it became a chore to carry out that process. I would occasionally pick the guitar up and play it, but even that became less enjoyable as I became less proficient. Song-writing itself also became non-existent. In the past I had written about being unhappy, however I now found myself a much happier person…

Fast forward to April of 2021. I started the process of uploading all of my previous albums to Bandcamp. It made me realise what a huge part of my life music was. Around July the same year I started messing around with a few riffs and samples that I had.

I had no intention of making a new album, I was just enjoying the process again. It took me a few more months to get the sounds I wanted again. I upgraded some of my recording equipment, and set about remembering how to record and play. Encouraged by my partner Vicky who co-produced with me, I took time to craft the songs slowly. In the past I had very much worked with the attitude of "that'll do" whereas with these songs if I was unhappy with something I would return to it. Again and again if necessary until I was happy with the results.

During the promotion of this new material I discovered a thriving indie music scene on the social media site Twitter. This had not really existed for me before, and to find like minded individuals was a breath of fresh air. It is through this community that I have been inspired to continue making music, and so after 8 years I’m in the position of releasing two albums in 2022.