
2022 is completed. Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Scotland, Wales, and lots and lots of England.
The onstage company of Nine Below Zero, The Truth, The Aim, NOVA Halo, The Nathan Persad Trio, Victor And The Bully, Dr Zero & The Hot Heads, The Spiders From Sidcup, Who Are Those Guys (they're Zac Vincent and Dan Williams), Andy Furmage, M.T. Pockets, Matthew Hart, Ashley Stacey and The Morning Sun, Nexus Leap, Simmons and the Stags, and dozens more jams and collaborations with countless musical friends, old and new, here and gone.
From pubs to four people to rammed arenas and fields of tens of thousands - sometimes in the same week. From being tucked away behind a club's P.A. speaker to being up front and centre doing Borat impressions to 23,000 people (king in the castle!). From sets being cut short with zero warning to being told to do another hour for three times the dosh. From heartfelt conversations with Paul Weller, Wilko Johnson (RIP), Alan McGee, Norman Watt-Roy, Bruce Foxton, Kenney Jones, Toyah Wilcox, Pat Sharp, Jon Astley, and the Mayor of Bexley, to a drunk intrusive bloke asking halfway through a song if he could get up and sing Sweet Caroline with his daughters (the answer was no).
In the awful days of late 2020 and early 2021, even earlier this year, none of this was even imaginable with the C word and the B word, and as of this year, the W word. For the experiences of this year to have materialised, I feel incredibly lucky, and these memories I will cherish forever.
Admittedly, one thing I've neglected this year has been the original material front. Earlier this year I put some of my songs to tape with bits I thought "I'll come back to that later", but as the wonders and horrors of life took priority, days quickly turned into months and winter became another winter.
Since then, my tinkling, plucking, and whacking on tracks for NOVA Halo, Ashley Stacey and James Hodder have been publicly unleashed with many more to come, and perhaps most significantly to me personally, The Aim's double album The Master Reset - the intensity and poignant significance of which emotionally and musically burned me out to a point where I've not even opened Logic since August. I urge you to listen to it from start to finish and you'll hear why.
Now, I'm ready to pick the ball back up.
So on New Years Eve daytime, I'm heading to the studio, to immortalise some songs which I'm adamant on capturing whilst the novelty of 2022 is in the present rather than the past.
I don't know what next year will bring, but if it's half as good as this year has musically been, I'll happily take it. Of course the groups and collaborations will continue and perhaps expand, but I'm also hoping to do more songs and shows of my own. Watch this space.
Thank you all for being a part of my year, your wonderful support and kindness, from afar or in person, whether now and then or nearly every time, and I'll see you next year... this week x