We were interrupted as it became clear there were some ticket returns, so I slid away from Andy & Clare, paid my money and got a seat at the back to watch the support, a male/female duo called Blackheart who had several nice tunes and some adventurous delay settings on their acoustic guitars. They engaged the audience nicely too, notably when the male guitarist announced ‘this next song is perfect for a Saturday….’, forgetting it was Friday (and the track was actually called ‘Wednesday Afternoon’. Mad……).

Soon, the time arrived for Stackridge to pick a path through the crowd and take to the stage. They opened with Andy’s song ‘Red Squirrel’. I didn’t quite know what to expect from them, but it became clear as the show progressed that the band was not one to confine itself to one type of music. I heard Beatles-inspired melodies, folk, elements of what some might call prog rock, blues, Americana, jigs and a sublime section where the entire band whipped out ukeleles and sang a kind of music hall singalong with pin-sharp harmonies and a healthy mouthful of tongue-in-cheek humour. They covered songs such as ‘The Road To Venezuela’, ‘The Last Plimsoll’, a divine rendition of ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometimes’ (James Warren’s Korgis side project) and a rousing version near the end of ‘Big Baby’. James’ left hand moved niftily around his Fender bass – for this tour, he was standing in for Jim Walter on the instrument – whilst Clare flourished effortlessly on violin, guitar, vocals and ukelele. Andy showed himself to be a superb guitarist, exhibiting complete control over his intricate lines and a transparent understanding of the blues in many of the songs. Glenn Tommey on keys and Eddie John on drums (’46 tomorrow…’) were consummate pros, providing a rock-solid foundation for the majesty of the front three (can you tell from this that I quite liked them?).

They did a couple of encores and left to climb the wooden stairway at the back, behind the mixer. I hung around in the lobby a little later and was delighted to say hello again to Clare, Andy & Mike whilst getting the opportunity to have a brief chat with James Warren & Glenn Tommey. The photos are a splendid record of a happy evening for me and I’m so glad to have finally met the band and had a chance to watch them perform. I drove back to West London with ‘A Victory For Common Sense’ on, marvelling at the twists and turns in ‘The Day The World Stopped Turning’. Any band that puts out a song called ‘Cheese And Ham‘ is OK in my book. I recommend you buy their albums forthwith.

Any James Henry followers based in and around North West England might conceivably find themselves enjoying a shopping, eating, drinking or perhaps a cinematic experience within the elegant confines of Manchester’s Trafford Centre complex. This is the place where scenes from Gok Wan’s TV series ‘How To Look Good Naked’ are filmed, most notably the final, cathartic ‘catwalk’ sequence which takes place in a huge concourse overlooked by a truly gigantic TV screen. This screen happens to be the centrepiece of Trafford Centre TV and we’ve managed to secure some broadcast time on it for the video. So…..for anyone strolling around this area between 7.30pm & 10.00pm over the next six weeks or so, glance up at the BIG screen and you might see ‘Don’t Let It Happen’ in all its widescreen glory.

http://www.traffordcentre.co.uk

On the edge of dominant economies

Suburb evacuees

Pass right under the……….

Overspill…………..a labour of love, sweat and ears. Ears frazzled in front of speakers, angled towards virtual mixing desks and bent over real amps and guitar strings. It’s an album I’m very proud of and is a significant milestone for me. The journey from concept to finished article has been a learning experience to say the least, fraught with many obstacles and frustrations, but ultimately rewarding and gratifying.

I had an ADAT 8-track tape recorder that I’d made “Sweetener” on. When it came to preparing the ground for “Overspill”, I figured that the production should be a little more ambitious than the one given to “Sweetener” and this could only be realised with a new, fully featured, “digital” studio. I set about assembling this new recording hub around a purpose-built PC, new software and the retention of one or two bits of “historic” equipment. A room in my house was given over to the project, to the extent that a couple of adjacent walls soon had acoustic panelling on them, subduing those horrid bass frequencies, everyone! Slowly but surely, I had an area I could get to work in. Then the fun started.

I had to figure out, pretty quickly, how to use my new software, which on first examination appeared as complex and sophisticated as Noel Coward. Plug-ins, audio connections, routing, inserts, transport, on-screen editing – all this for a few minutes of a bloody pop song. Well, thankfully, I’ve had a serious interest in the mechanics of music production for almost as long as I’ve been writing songs and, with my newly acquired system, I was free to delve into a Pandora’s box full of sonic tricks, unthinkable in home recording until only a few years ago. I can’t recall the number of hours I spent scratching my head over something, wondering why this didn’t work or why that wasn’t producing the sound I wanted…….but after much anger and teeth gnashing, it began to come together. I’d already done some rough demos on a little hand-held 4-track recorder and been able to dump the results into my new PC, to use as the basis for my master recordings. I soon started tracking some guitars and vocals and, would you believe it, we suddenly had some listenable foundations. Because of the immense multi-track capabilities of the digital workstation, I had the chance to be more adventurous especially when it came to recording vocals; I could have massed choirs if I wanted! However, I realised it was important not to go overboard on certain aspects of the production, as ultimately I had to do what I considered best and most appropriate for each song. Sometimes, you have to rein yourself in…………

Leaping forward some months, I reached the mixing and mastering stage with nervous system still intact. It was at this point I managed to hire a legendary figure in the world of music and music production. Jon Astley was producer of The Who’s album “Who Are You?” in the late 70’s, a huge pop star in the US in the mid 80’s and is now renowned in the rarefied arena of audio mastering having worked on projects for George Harrison, The Who, Abba, Tori Amos and many more. He took on my album and gave it the most delicate polish, removing all the clicks, pops and grit that I’d missed. He’s undoubtedly a wizard and, as a welcome bonus, a nice person!

My paying gigs kept coming in, so I could reinvest promptly in those less glamourous areas of the project such as manufacturing and web development – vital in themselves, though, and crucial to where I am now. Getting to various landmarks, such as taking delivery of my finished CDs, launching a revamped James Henry website, playing first gigs with my new band, this all gave me such an immense sense of achievement – all with the help, along the way, of the small band of people who’ve supported and followed me right from the word “Go”! I’ve now got an official release date for the “Overspill” limited edition CD of Thursday 16^th June 2011. It will be for those “uber-fan” stalwarts as much as it is for myself – and if anyone takes the trouble to buy it, they can read who some of them are in the credits……………..!

PS – in case anyone is wondering, the picture attached to this post is of some office polystyrene tiles that have been leaked on by some rogue plumbing…..

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen – that was an approximation of the opening salvo from an “Overspill” album track that has “the Mediterranean aroma” about it.

Industrial Injury is a pretty funny composition. Its inspiration, I have to admit, comes principally from two sources.

Firstly, I’ve had the privilege of listening to Frank Zappa music for over twenty five years, and there’s an album of his dating from 1967, a largely instrumental and spoken word project, called “Lumpy Gravy” which I consider to be one of his finest. I can’t deny it is somewhat bizarre, as was most of Frank’s work. However, the title track, “The Theme From Lumpy Gravy” if you will, is a fantastic little melody that leaps out at you like a pea from a shooter, and it pushed me into writing something in a similar vein. There’s a great live version of it, performed by Frank’s last touring ensemble from 1988, which appeared on the 1991 album, “Make A Jazz Noise Here”.

Secondly, I was a big fan of the old Herbie series of films – the 60s and 70s Disney ones that had Dean Jones, Don Knotts and Cloris Leachman in them – and I vaguely recalled The Love Bug having a soundtrack that, to me, added immensely to the funny scenes of Herbie “automatically” whizzing around somewhere. The music, written by a guy called George Bruns, always sounded a bit sped up and the melody lines were chaotic little jumbles of 8th and 16th notes – it still cracks me up when I hear it now (how old fashioned, eh?). Industrial Injury brings that kind of genre to mind when I listen to it.

As a postscript, many listeners may also associate the “opening salvo” with the kind of cowboy music you got in the old John Wayne or Gary Cooper westerns, or even from the Lone Ranger theme. It’s that musical representation of the galloping horse, although my version doesn’t quite progress in the standard, country and western fashion. Perhaps my horse suddenly decided to express itself by showing us its jazz hooves or something – who knows? Throw in a few Cossack-inflected “Hey-Hey-Heys” half way through and there’s a veritable, trans-continental stew of a tune brewing.

It is one of my favourites from the album “Overspill” and I hope that you all get to hear it, sometime soon.

When I was a kid, I lived for Saturdays. Getting home from school on a Friday afternoon was about the best feeling in the world, as the anticipation of the weekend was, truth be told, often better than the weekend itself. But anyway, my average Saturday would begin with a trip into school to play a football match that our talented junior 11 would invariably win……Then, I’d journey home to find the telly on already, for either the BBC’s “Football Preview” or ITV’s “On The Ball” if I was late. Meanwhile, my Mother would be marshalling a massive pressure cooker, half filled with a mix of chicken, vegetables and her mysteriously gorgeous stock. This homemade soup heaven, combined with a selection of bulbous, buttered, crusty cobs, was dinner for Dad and I before the pair of us would head off to Anfield for Liverpool FC’s afternoon exhibition against some unfortunate, lesser football team. We’d stand with a bunch of my Dad’s mates near the back right hand side of the Anfield Road end – yes, the away end in those days, before football crowds were segregated – and I would be placed in front of one of the crash barriers, stood on a foldaway stool Dad had made himself especially for this purpose. My attachment to Liverpool Football Club was bred into me on those exhilarating days and, unlike orthodox religion, I’ve never shaken it free. Once we’d witnessed another Reds victory, we’d shuffle out with the hordes and I’d accompany Father to the Hermitage Tavern for his after-match pint of best. Suitably refreshed, he’d march me home to catch the end of Basil Brush, tea while Doctor Who was on and then a bag of crisps during The Generation Game. If it was Summer, I’d be off out to play for a while until, with the light fading, Father’s booming vocals would soon emanate from the doorstep, requiring my little arse to scuttle inside forthwith – otherwise, I might miss Ironside and Match Of The Day……………

I remembered many of those times when I began putting the lyrics together. You might not recognise what I’ve just described as synonymous with the finished song, but I tried to capture something of those carefree Saturdays I used to have – a feeling, more than anything. And even today, I’m still in mourning when a Saturday Morning ends. Can’t help it.

I also met Maria briefly and exchanged a few music-related stories – she’s an extremely charming and charismatic person, with a long list of projects simultaneously on the go, including a PhD in Psychotherapy! Later, I managed a few words with a couple of the other acts involved, including a band from Burnley called Gizesque, who’d traipsed all the way down from the North West that day to appear. I even got fed by the venue – not a regular occurrence at the gigs I usually do.

Anyway, I got through an “Overspill”-heavy set which included Freak Summer, Checkout Idling, The Sun Is Cracking The Flags, Don’t Let It Happen and, finally, Milsom Heights – a difficult one to finish on, as by then my voice had begun to dry out under the strenuous disco lights they had aimed at my chest from stage left. My good friend, Bob Craig, rescued me by sneaking on half a bottle of Heineken – I don’t think anyone noticed, so I remained entirely professional to the end……….

Onwards to the next one on March 17th……

Check it out this evening, on BBC London 94.9FM. Or, if you miss it, listen later on the iPlayer.

This morning, Billy began his Saturday morning show with the song……….Saturday Morning, a track from my “Sweetener” album. An old mate of mine Paul Malone, who I used to play guitar with in a band back in the 80′s, sent me a message on Facebook saying that he’d been on his way to [a famous supermarket] when he heard this track at the beginning of Billy’s show. He liked the sound of it and turned up his car radio to hear it a bit better – not realising it was me until it finished!!!

I went on to the BBC website and found Billy’s programme. It’s hard to describe the buzz you get when you hear your song included in a radio show (even though it wasn’t live). I guess the big bands must get a bit blase about it after a while – well, I’m not a big band so it’s an ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS thrill for me. Thank you to my friend Mal for letting me know it happened and to Billy Butler for his continuing support for my music. Onwards, ladies and gentlemen……..

My apologies for the absence of any news over the last month or so. We’ve been working hard in Henry Towers, preparing for the launch of a new single, trying to arrange gigs and planning our long term strategy…..Sounds mysterious, eh? Well, let us see what unfolds, everyone!!

In the meantime, I’d like to take this opportunity to make you aware of a novel that is published this month by Simon & Schuster UK. It’s written by my friend Jeremy Poolman and is entitled “The Road Of Bones”. It is the story of Russia’s greatest thoroughfare, the Vladimirka Road, a route that has been “at the centre of the nation’s history, having witnessed everything from the first human footsteps to the rise of Putin and his oil-rich oligarchy”.  For anyone living in or near the South East in the UK, Jeremy is appearing at The Travel Bookshop in Notting Hill on Thursday 17th March at 7pm, reading extracts from his book and talking about its creation. Here’s a link for more details:

http://www.thetravelbookshop.com/eventsandtalks/?-session=flcart:0E252F1E3D641AECB1D7F099F422849C

Jeremy is a wonderful author who I met completely by chance at a small gig I was involved in, some eight years ago in Putney, South West London. On that occasion, he very kindly came up to me after my performance and complimented me on it, to the extent that we swapped numbers and addresses and, over the ensuing years, became very good friends.

He has already released a series of books, many on the (loose) subject of America, including A Wounded Thing Must Hide (tracing Libbie Custer, the wife of the notorious General) and My Kind Of America. He is a truly unique and gifted writer, so please take some time to check him out.