NEWSLETTER 22 NOVEMBER, 2005

Well there's been a lot happening, but very little of it has been on this site.

The CD, tentatively entitled 'N.I.C' has now been finally completed. I have put off attempting to release it this year because by the time it was finally recorded and mastered, completion of the pressing and artwork would have brought me to about now anyway, and with Christmas festivities already happening it seemed the wrong time to try and hold a release party.

So, barring misadventure, I will get on to the final stages in about the second week of December which means it should be available for release in about February, 2006. I'll keep you posted as to details of the launch. You're all invited.

I've been having a ball at www.mixposure.com since I joined in late July/early August. It's a great site with a stack of very talented artists. I'll give a shout about a couple of them later in the newsletter.

So far I've had great responses to, in particular, Hardies Men, Six O'Clock Swill, Tonight, Time to Train the Horses and Mid Life Crisis.

At the moment LIGHT THE FLAME (click the link to go to the page where you can download or stream the track) is the number 1 track in 'all genres' for the week and has been getting lots of positive feedback.

I've also been involved in a couple of collaborations which have been great fun. The two most significant collabs have seen me linked with a magnificent sax player by the name of Alexis Van Eeckhout. I had posted on mixposure a home demo version of a jazz track I had written and had performed using my synth playing a trumpet sound. Alexis and I were corresponding about another artist and I finally bit the bullet and asked him to have a listen and make some suggestions. He went further, and offered to play on and remix the track. I've called it NEWRYBAR (click the link to take you to the page)

Buoyed by the success of that track I asked Alexis to play on another track that I'd written some time ago. This one's called MAIANBAR SUNRISE (click link to take you to the page). If you listen to nothing else from this newsletter I'd ask to please listen to this one. I got very emotional the first time I heard Alexis sax part that starts at about 1:08.

Maianbar was posted yesterday at about lunchtime and by the time of the update of the charts had reached number 9 in all genres for the day.

I'm really proud of the two tracks with Alexis. If you listen you will hear the amount of talent this man has, and to be able to collaborate with him via the internet (he lives in Belgium) and create such fantastic music together is just one hell of a buzz. We're currently working with another mixposure artist Aron David Bradley on a three way collab for a track written by Aron which has a bit of an 'Allman Brothers' feel to it.

At the moment, in addition to having tracks 1 and 9 on the weekly charts at mixposure I am also number 18 in the 'All Time' 'All Genres' artist chart, and number 3 'All Time' 'Rock' artist on the site. Hardies Men has now reached 38 in the 'All Time' 'All Genres' rock chart, with Time to Train the Horses at number 71 of that chart. And I have two tracks in the 'All Time' rock charts top 10 (Six O'Clock Swill and Mid Life Crisis) and another 2 in that charts top 100.

So things are bubbling along nicely.

I've also done a collaboration with an American songwriter, Lex Zaleta. It's called 'Fastest Way to Gone' . This version is only a very rough demo, but interesting.

I've also written a new song for Jack Attack and Chokoes, my roadies.