Tag Archives: willy mason

Festivals, sessions, releases

I played my last few festivals of the year with Willy Mason at the weekend (many more to come with other bands). It was an absolute joy playing with him (and bandmates Gardner Allen and Raymond Black). You can watch some highlights from our set at Latitude Festival over at BBC 6Music.

Also last week I played a BBC Radio 3 session playing guitar with Bella Hardy. You can listen to that here. I’ve now done sessions for BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6… any suggestions on how to get a Radio 5 Live session would be much appreciated!

I’ve been recording a lot with the Moulettes over the last few weeks, the final day of recording was yesterday and it’s been a lot of fun so thanks to them and to Joe Gibb.

Today I’m off to Church Road Recording Co to record some double bass for Fear of Men. Should be fun.

Busy summer begins

My festival season began with a baptism of fire this year – a warmup show at Southampton Joiners playing with Willy Mason, The Mariner’s Children AND Emma Gatrill, three hours sleep in a Travelodge on the M3 before an 8am ferry over to the Isle of Wight festival to perform with Willy Mason before getting the hovercraft (yes, HOVERCRAFT!) back to the mainland and a train to London Waterloo arriving just in time for soundcheck with Woodpecker Wooliams for Yoko Ono’s Meltdown Festival.

Now I’m in the studio with Campbell Austin, AKA T.S. Idiot. He’s a fantastic songwriter but he keeps taking the piss out of me for having a website. I know you’re reading this Campbell: GET WITH THE TIMES, MAN.

Besides Campbell, it’s been an absolute pleasure to play with a load of exceptional musicians for the first time: Sam Walker on the multiple keyboards / shaker / cape, Anisa Arslanagic on viola and violin, Hannah Miller on the cello, Ollie Austin on the drums, Bjorn Dahlberg on bass clarinet and Jim Mortimore on bass. I’m looking forward to playing with many of them on the Moulettes recording sessions, which take place immediately after these in the same studio with the same producer (Joe Gibbs). It’s nice to be working Monday to Friday with these guys then three or four festival appearances each weekend for the next month or so – good to have some kind of routine.

Also off to Corsica Studios tonight (great venue) to support Landshapes at their album launch. I’ll be playing with Eyes & No Eyes, and also played trumpet and tenor horn on Rambutan, the album that Landshapes are launching.

A heavy month

I’m finally back home in Brighton after two tours in a row, playing with two bands on each of them. I’ve just done the maths and worked out I played forty-three live sets in twenty-nine days with five different bands.

First was the tour of Europe with Sons of Noel and Adrian and Eyes & No Eyes. These are two bands where I get to make an exceedingly large amount of very loud noise, which is always fun. We started in London then went through Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Germany, trying and succeeding to maintain what others might dismiss as an unsustainable level of fun. The shows were fantastic and driving around the alps was absolutely stunning.

After an exceptionally long drive we arrived back in Brighton and Willy Mason was already waiting for me… we had a quick pint, a short sleep, then did two days of hard rehearsing. It was remarkably easy to get the songs up and running despite the fact that drummer Felix Weldon and I had never met the the other guys in our transatlantic group – Gardner Allen (keys), Nina Violet (viola) and Farley Glavin (guitar). We had some great extended psychedelic jams and drank a lot of Orangina.

The next day was a long one too, as I played with Sons of Noel and Adrian, Eyes and No Eyes and the great Damo Suzuki at the Green Door Store. It was a fantastic night, you can hear a recording of the Damo set below and there are plenty of videos on YouTube too.

Then the next day another long hard rehearsal, made better by the fantastic home made sandwiches at Brighton Electric, then off on tour the next day. As well as playing with Willy, Felix and I were supporting with our band The Mariner’s Children. Shortly after the doors opened for the first show in Portsmouth, I was delighted to learn that the opening solo act for the whole tour, Siobhan Wilson, was astounding. A wonderful, effortless voice and great songs, keep an eye out for here.

The unsustainable level of fun was once again maintained across a really enjoyable run of dates around the UK and Ireland. This was due in no small part to the omnipotence of tour manager Mido and the high spirits of lampy Tom Laurent.

On our return to London we still had the EP launch for the new release from The Mariner’s Children to do. It took place at The Lexington and went off without a hitch – expect videos soon.

Got back late on Monday night after that one, had a whole day off, now I’m very much looking forward to playing with Emma Gatrill supporting Tiny Ruins tonight at The Hope.