Sharing The Stage With Friends

Now that the snow has removed itself from Dublin City, my thoughts have returned to the small matter of playing music and making a living out of it - hopefully.

To this end, I drove up to Drogheda this last Thursday with recording engineer Brian Masterson for a recording session usiing the Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano in St Peters' Church in the middle of the town. At this session, I managed to stop drooling long enough to re-record the piano tracks for "The Art Of Saving Lives", a band CD which I recorded basic tracks for last August but I also spent a good chunk of the day recording piano solo tracks for a new record of instrumentals which I think will be called "The Shape Of Things". I recorded a wide range of pieces ranging from tunes I wrote at college to tunes composed by me last week to a new David MacKenzie piece composed especially for the session. I think it went very well although I guess I'll know a lot more when I hear the disc of rough mixes that Brian has compiled for me tomorrow. I'd love to put this new collection of tunes out at some stage before the summer although I know better now than to put deadlines on these things. Life has a funny habit of getting in the way.

This Friday on 22nd January, I'm teaming up with regular collaborators SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift to perform a Round Robin concert in Bewleys Cafe Theatre on Grafton Street in Dublin. Regular readers of these missives will know how dear I hold Bewleys Cafe Theatre to my heart but this concert will be very very special - three singer-songwriter musicians on the stage for the whole gig interacting with each other and with the audience, each taking it in turns to sing and play their own songs or personally selected covers. A nice informal gig in the intimate surroundings of one of the nicest places in Dublin to spend an evening. Hope you can make it. If you can't, please feel free to invite other Facebook friends to come on my behalf !!

Then the following week, I'm off to London to have a much-needed break and also to throw some copies of my CD Asylum Harbour around and see if I can earn some new musical or music industry contacts. It's a hard industry to crack but you can't get there if you don't get out there and knock on doors. If you know someone who you think should hear it or have any valuable context or perspective for me, I'd love to hear it before my trip.

In the meantime, Happy New Year - may 2010 bring us all what we wish for and dream of.

All the best,



Josh