Happy Easter!
Sometimes, I do really daft stuff. This is one of those times. A few years back I threw together a few eggs, and made an omelette of a video of ineggscrable puns, all to the tune of Irving Berlin’s ‘Easter parade’ on Electric guitar. Seemed like a good idea at the time! So, here it is again!
Home again…what a trip!
Well, as Midnight struck on Sunday night, I finally arrived home in Turre, after a drive from Alicante and a flight from Amsterdam. The Rocktober tour was a great success, and we made many new friends and fans along the way, as we played in Copenhagen (Denmark), and Helsingborg (Sweden) with Swiss rockers GOTTHARD – Fredericia, (Denmark) in the rock pub Kahytten, and The Heavy Metal Maniacs Festival in Hoorn, just North of Amsterdam, Holland.
Bass player Jan relaxes between soundchecks…
The HMM festival was a great way to finish the trip on a high, and the songs both old and new were well-received by the fantastic crowd. We’ve put quite a lot of promo in place during the hours we weren’t gigging and travelling, which will become apparent as we go into the New Year and ready ourselves for finishing and releasing the new album. We’ll also be getting out and gigging to promote it too!
Soundchecking in Sweden
Gotthard very graciously let us use their new electronic matrix backdrop screen – that’s Gotthard soundchecking right there!
A road trip like this also helps bring the band closer together, personally as well as musically, and we had a lot of laughs on the tour, a lot of it provided by crazy signs!
Don’t think I’ll be eating here, thanks…..
If you were a bloke, would you buy your clothes here? ….didn’t think so!
I got up early on the last morning so I could have breakfast with the guys. Lars, Jan and Poul were setting off in the ‘Witchmobile’ back to Denmark and Sweden, Mike had a midday flight out of Schipol to London, and as my flight to Spain wasn’t until 17.55, I took the train into Amsterdam and hung out, wandering the streets and checking out the Hard Rock and the shops and the sights.
Quintessential Amsterdam….
Witch Cross are back!
Many many thanks to the huge number of people who are helping us realize the dream all over again, including videographer Peter Hansen
On the ‘Rocktober’ Road with Witch Cross
A missive from the road, as I write to you from my hotel room in Hoorn, Holland, ahead of our appearance at the Heavy Metal Maniacs festival here this evening. This is the last stop on our Rocktober, which has taken in 3 countries. It’s been a busy but amazing time. We have to cram as much as possible into our time together as the band also live across 3 different countries! So, in between support slots with Swiss rock legends Gotthard, gigs in our own right and a festival appearance, we’ve managed to do photoshoots, video shoots, green-screen filming and interviews to camera.
Tivoli – the venue as seen from the Ferry to Denmark
For me personally it was great to re-visit old haunts, such as Helsingborg in Sweden, somewhere I had not been since 1979, and it’s always cool to gig in Copenhagen, something I did many times back in those days. The guys from Gotthard were very gracious and supportive, and we thank them for two great shows at Amager Bio, and Tivoli.
Mike & Paul: Two Rock Gods in Hoorn
We’ve had a ball, and can’t wait to take Witch Cross on the road again in 2013, when we’ll have lots of surprises and great new music in store for everybody!
‘When you’re on tour, you’ve gotta eat well’. Paul takes this thinking a little too far….
Two trips to the UK in a week – Business & Pleasure!
My heads still spinning from yo-yo-ing back and forth from the UK recently. My first weekend involved a trip to attend my Dad’s 80th birthday party, which was fabulous, and a great chance to catch up with extended family and old neighbours that I rarely get to see living in Spain as I do.
L-R: Dad, My sister Kaz, Me, My daughter Hollie, My son Corey
Dad had a great time, and I wrote a song especially for the occasion called ‘Eight-Oh, let’s Go!’ which you can listen to below:
He also gave a speech, so I’m going to cause him terminal embarrassment now by publishing it on here! 🙂
It’s certainly a great milestone, and I’m glad we could all be there to celebrate it together.
The following weekend saw me returning to the area for a show with Bootleg Counterfeit (B.C.) Sweet at The Diamond in Sutton-in-Ashfield. This historic venue has played host to Judas Priest, Budgie,and my great inspiration Glenn Hughes’ Trapeze over the years, so we had to be on our mettle.
We played to a packed house, were well looked after by owner Gary, and the fans were fantastic. An added bonus was that my son, studying for a music production degree at Huddersfield University, drove down to meet up with me and catch the show.
Next time I hit the UK I will be down South, for yet another B.C.Sweet gig and a recording session for the upcoming Witch Cross album.
It’s that Time(s) of the Day………
While there’s a bit of a lull on the gigging front (the calm before the storm!) I’ve been trying to help my partner Miki get more of her artwork online in video format. This has necessitated writing dedicated musical soundtracks – some of them of considerable length. The latest, for example, clocks in at just under 7 minutes, and is an accompaniment for her ‘Times of the day’ series – a huge body of work that depicts, in watercolours, exactly that, from dawn until nightfall and all points in between. I wanted to write something that, if you like, ‘followed’ the development of the day, starting understated, then building to a huge crescendo before finally falling away to single notes. I’m quite happy with ‘A Journey through the day’ – as I’ve called it, as once again it pushes me compositionally, taking me way out of my comfort zone as a rock and pop writer, challenging me to build on a continuous theme over a long period of time while trying to (hopefully!) sustain interest in the piece. Check out the video and soundtrack below:
Moore’s Muso Music….
I like to think that my remit as a writer is eclectic, and never more so than when my partner, the French Artist Miki asks me to create a video to showcase her various works. This time it was her musicians paintings, an astounding array of pieces featuring musicians as diverse as Son House, Michael Jackson, Tal Wilkenfield, Steve Stevens, Billy Corgan, Robert Plant, Barry White, and all points in between! Because of the sheer volume of works to be shown – Sixty-four in all, ( and that’s only a small proportion of her musician paintings) the video was always going to clock in at going on for 8 minutes, allowing for the fact that each image would need around 8 seconds ‘screen time’, so I set about composing a soundtrack that would run for around 8 and a half minutes to be safe. When I do this kind of work, it’s not a song I need of course, moreover, a vibe, a feel that will suit everything that appears on the screen. Clearly, I couldn’t jump around through the different styles as the different musicians appeared on the screen every 8 seconds or so – that would’ve been utter chaos! -So I went for a continual bass and drum groove, with a recurring breakdown section presented slightly differently each time it came around. Alternating guitar and synth solos try to keep the interest throughout.
I always enjoy this sort of project, as it takes me into areas I don’t normally go. I would never describe myself as a keyboard player for example, never mind a soloist(!) but on this piece – imaginatively entitled “Muso’s Theme”, I have a go! What surprised me is how much I can hear Jan Hammer’s influence (but not his skill) come out in my effort. I used to listen to his mid 70’s work with Beck quite a lot. It was a one-take thing, warts’n’all, but I kind of liked it, so I left it in!
For the gear geeks, I used a Fender Jazz Custom bass with Lace alumatone pick-ups and a Stellartone tone styler, a Fender Aerodyne Stratocaster, an Ibanez AS73 Semi-Acoustic, and a Roland GW-7 Workstation.
But the stars of the show in this video are Miki’s paintings – check them out. You can buy all of them as prints from
Bio
(Born: 20th May,1958, Chesterfield, England) is a Bass Player and Lead Vocalist. Formerly with Tubeless Hearts, he played with English Pop band Christie from 1990 to 2003, and featured in Graham Oliver’s Saxon on two European tours, before other commitments resulted in John Ward taking over vocal duties for the resulting Oliver/Dawson Saxon CD releases. Nevertheless, he appeared on Graham Oliver’s solo album End of an Era returning the favour after Oliver had appeared on Tubeless Hearts Three CD. READ MORE….
Tubeless Hearts 1994
Christie 1990
with Graham Oliver
BC Sweet 2008
CD’s AVAILABLE NOW!
Download my 2009 solo album FOR FREE!!!
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CHRISTIE
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