So, it’s been a quiet time (again!) with a return to a lot more teaching and less performing, but I’m really pleased to announce that next month I’ll be releasing a duo album with Amy Davenport. This is a personal project that we’ve fitted in between some fairly epic life events, house moves, and more.
Titled “A Boat of Promises” after a song I wrote a couple of years back, it features 11 songs, accompanied on cittern or guitar with Amy and I singing. Alongside a couple of trad. tracks and some newly penned stuff of my own, we’ve chosen some less familiar songs by some of our favourite writers including Nancy Kerr, Archie Fisher and Stan Rogers.
Boat of Promises has been one of my own most requested songs for the past couple of years so I’m happy to announce, it’ll be available to take home from August. The CD will be launched mid-week at Whitby Folk Festival 2019 – watch this space for more details!
A shocking gap since the last post, but in that time I’ve moved house a couple of times had a child who takes up quite a bit of my time and am only now slowly grinding aroudn to the much anticipated third album. The tracks are written and arranged, gigged and ready to go in the box, I just need to find a spare few days for recording. Watch this space, or alternatively and possibly more usefully keep an eye on my artist page over on Facebook. In the meantime, here’s a brief seasonal snippet of something I recorded for my friends over at Bright Young Folk.
King Herod and the Cock, Bright Young Folk December Sessions
Hope you enjoy it, and best wishes of the season to you all.
I’m predictably poor at keeping the site updated with any kind of news, but just thought I’d quickly check in. Those seeking more regular waffle should probably keep an eye on the Facebook musician page, but coming reasonably soon will be a new duo site as the bulk of my current work is alongside fiddle ace Tom Kitching. We’re working on a new duo record, and taking club and festival bookings into 2016 – a few just added to the gigs list.
I WILL update as and when that new website comes along. Over the next few weeks I have a couple of solo club shows (Bracknell and Tonbridge), a band show at the fantastic Ely Folk Festival and then onwards to my local festival Sidmouth, where I’ll be playing and teaching. There’s a reasonable chance that I may be slightly sleep-deprived due to the imminent arrival of our first child. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you somewhere on the road!
Anyone who check here will already know how terrible I am at writing updates, but here’s a quick one. I’m doing a few dates between now and Christmas with Tom Kitching. You can catch us at:
Bradninch Folk Club, Devon on 18/11/2014
The Black Swan, York on 20/11/2014
The Globe, Glossop on 27/11/2014
Letchworth and Baldock Folk Club on 10/12/2014
The Stables, Milton Keynes (Gav teaching Workshop) 13/12/2014
The Electric Palace, Harwich, Essex on 17/12/2014
We have a bigger tour coming up in the spring – see the dates page, and if you know of anyone looking for an act next year or 2016, point them in our direction. I’m also teaching a couple of workshops (see above for the first.)
Hi folks – hope everyone had a splendid festive season. I’ve relocated to rural devon and have spent the holidays changing strings, knocking down walls and putting up shelves. I also found some time to start work on some new projects and musical material is now firmly in the pipeline.
Lots of news to come over the next few weeks of various flavours – I’ll be announcing a number of UK festival dates, and I’m also running a day of C tuning guitar workshops in Milton Keynes later this year covering things like my tunings themselves, accompanying song and building chordal accompaniments from melody. Feedback from previous sessions has been great with a couple of players describing the sessions as ‘life changing’. Places will be limited, but I will announce details closer to the time here and on the Facebook page.
I was tremendously flattered to make the list of Albums of The Year in the fRoots critics poll, and I recently heard that I was shortlisted as one of three nominees in the Male Vocalist of the year category in the Fatea Awards (announced 8th January). You can listen to the awards who live online at 8pm on the 8th January.
Tom and I start gigging again this coming weekend with a duo show at Foundry Folk at the Tobie Norris in Stamford.
I’ve also spent the holidays swooning over the amazing book ‘Wood, Sweat and Tears – The Guitars and Times of Roger Bucknall’ which is a tremendous pictorial history of Fylde Guitars. I’ve been playing Fylde guitars since 1995, having fallen in love with a rather battered Oberon model as a spotty student. It has served me well for the past 18 years, but needed some fettling so Roger reset the neck and put a new bridge on it. I’ve owned a few Fyldes, all wonderful, including a Falstaff which is also now back in Penrith for some TLC. I’ve also put a deposit down on a new one – somewhere between these two I hope!!
In the office at Fylde Guitars, Penrith
Making the Fylde players list has been one of my life ambitions since the day I hopped on the train up to Kirkham back in 1995 to drop off the Oberon first time around. I’ pretty chuffed to be sharing page space with not only the lovely Ben Walker and Megan Henwood but Pete Townsend and Jethro Tull!
Anyhow – all this talk of guitars reminds me that I have to change the strings on three guitars and two citterns! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and see you somewhere on the road. Here’s a little seasonal video of Hymn for The New Year
enjoy
Gav
Hello all. We’re having a great time zooming around the country playing a few gigs in support of the release of The Bone Orchard. This morning it had crept up to the edge of the top 100 on the iTunes chart – if you haven’t got a copy, go grab one now!
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-bone-orchard/id598522318
Reviews are coming in and they’re incredibly favourable – you can check a couple of recent ones out over on the facebook page as well as a few videos from the Cheltenham shows.
This week Tom and I have played in Manchester, Bishop’s Stortford, a stop off last night to play a dance in Biggleswade and we are playing in London tonight just near Euston station. It’d be great to see you somewhere on the road so do come and say hi. Next week we’re off to Bradford!
