2015 seems to be flying by at an alarming rate of knots. Recorded output from both projects is well underway and by autumn, both releases should be complete.

I dearly love playing with both Echofire and Dawn of Elysium. They are both very different animals. I like to keep it simple with Echofire, where I can turn up, plug in and rock out on my guitar with my mates and have some fun whilst still crafting some great songs. Dawn of Elysium is enjoyable for quite different reasons. It’s more introspective and atmospheric and technically more involved (effects, backing tracks, recording development).

The Echofire EP is presently shelved as we ready our set for the first couple of gigs. Most of the recording is done. There is just some vocal work left to do before we can crack on with mixing it. We chose to use Voltage Studios for this. I have been a regular customer at Voltage for over 20 years. Tim Walker has been and continues to be a huge inspiration to me and I have learned much from him over the years. He often brings the best out in me and has a knack of knowing what we want from a recording with any given project. I will always champion him and certainly in any band I am in which has live drums, Voltage will be my first choice.

The Dawn of Elysium album has seen me get involved with self-recording to a greater extent than ever before. I have dabbled over the years but in truth, never actually finished anything properly. I think this has been partially a confidence issue but also I now realise that I didn’t have a plan or the funds for an effective workflow. Up until recent times, hardware studio solutions were either prohibitively expensive or seemingly not flexible enough and I thought DAW solutions were a bit confusing and complicated-looking. I have owned a digital 12-track recorder for years and have done bits and bats but I guess I focused more on its limitations and gave up too easily. However, the 32-track I recently bought is in a totally different ball park and using that, along with a DAW makes for an enjoyable and simple process.

When Phil left the band in early 2013, we were left drummer-less. We had to take action and I very quickly dived into programming drums for the band. This partly forced me into a production type role and moving forward, recording the band seemed the next logical step. It took a while to take that step as we were out gigging for a lot of 2013/14. In recent weeks, it has been inspiring and encouraging to see a brand new song go from initial jam to fairly well together recording and whereas the album itself will be a culmination of the work of the last three years, I realised that future recordings can happen almost as the material is being written. This excites me from the point of view of the future development of the band and it has also inspired me to think about what else I would like to do from a recording perspective.

I have a song which was recently started with Dawn of Elysium but it didn’t work within the context of the band. This is something I’d like to start work on fairly soon as a starting point. It got me thinking along the lines of a solo release but then I figured it might be a more enjoyable experience to work with some different musicians on a casual, studio-only basis and encompass some different sounds and influences. After putting feelers out, I have chatted briefly online with three quite different people and there are one or two others which I’d like to speak to fairly soon. The possibilities are exciting and I am looking forward to devoting some time to plotting and planning later in the year.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic Bradford City fire disaster, which saw 56 people lose their lives. In order to commemorate this and raise money for the Bradford burns unit, a re-recording of the classic Gerry and the Pacemakers song “You’ll never Walk Alone” has been released via Voltage Records, featuring various celebrities and local musicians, myself included.

The song can be purchased as a download via various outlets, including Amazon, iTunes and Google Play. It is priced at just 99p. Please feel free to buy yourself a copy and encourage others who may be interested to do so. It is a charity single and all of the people involved have provided their services free of charge, some of them working tirelessly to see the project through. All of the proceeds will be donated. I have already bought a copy myself.

For a full list of credits including the performers and team behind the project, you can visit this page.

If you would like to purchase the song, then please choose one of the following links:

Amazon

iTunes

Google Play

Following on from the Dark Embrace – Tears of Pain remaster release last August, we recently unearthed another relic from the archives.

It was 1996. I had left the band by this point to concentrate on Dawnraiser. Craig had also left the band (although he was to rejoin shortly after). The band entered the studio to record two songs – “Desireless” and “Memories”. The drum stool was occupied by Dawnraiser’s Stuart Lockwood for this.

Although I did not actually play on this recording (replaced by this point by Rohan Lander – a lovely bloke and a fantastic guitar player), I did play a major part in the creation of the songs as did Craig. I am immensely proud of what we did, particularly with the song Desireless and I still regret having left the band before having had chance to participate in the recording.

The songs were never circulated all that much but were tagged onto the end of the Tears of Pain tapes as bonus tracks for a time. Up until recently, I had only ever heard very poor cassette reproductions and thanks again to Tim, it’s great to hear them sounding much closer to how they were intended.

Now and again you get one of those weekends. The kind which takes a few days to process and the kind where you feel as if you need a weekend to get over.

Friday night saw Quasimodo play with Rhombus at Players bar in Wakefield. I must confess I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind as I was driving and pretty tired after the working week. The trip across was worth it for the venue alone. It’s a great setup with a pub downstairs and venue upstairs. The sound was probably one of the best I had heard for Quasimodo and the performance matched accordingly. We had to head off before Rhombus got into the swing of their set due to Saturday morning work commitments. When my bands are ready for gigging, I shall be making enquiries about playing at Players, it is always great to discover a new place.

After the journey home, we decided to stop off at our favourite pizza parlour for some food. Mystic Pizza on Morley Street is an awesome little place. Just one guy on his own lovingly makes each and every pizza freshly in front of you. He’s really friendly and always takes the time to make each and every customer feel welcome.

We had parked on Edmund Street around the corner and I discovered that the Polish Parish Club was no longer there. The familiar gold letters had been removed and a smaller sign saying something about coffee and cake was present. I have to admit, despite being a former member and regular, I had not used the club for quite some time. It had been riddled with various problems for many reasons for a while and it had experienced a significant decline in custom in the last year or two. It was kind of sad to see it closed and I wish the people who had the power to do something about it had been more forward thinking at the time. Oh well, another one to add to the long list of missed opportunities in Bradford.

Saturday night was a belter. Dawn of Elysium played at our regular watering hole The Black Swan. It was the last gig we are doing for a while as we want to focus on recording and writing for a bit. We were playing with Hands of Industry. They are a great bunch of guys and we had a good laugh with them afterwards. They played a brilliant set. The gig was put together by DJ Mark Musolf, who was very friendly from the outset. It was a nice change to be playing a Black Swan gig which we didn’t put together ourselves and Mark did a fantastic job of both organising and DJing afterwards. We’re looking forward to hopefully working with Mark and Hands of Industry again in the future, either separately or together. The gig was exactly what I needed. I had become a little jaded, which happens now and again but it gave me the boost required to kickstart my enthusiasm again.

After the gig, we all piled down to the Mill for Trap Door. Trap Door is a monthly rock night which has been going since last August. It has gone from strength to strength and deservedly so. The team behind it are very passionate about what they do. The music is a great mix over two floors and the whole package and vibe is very reminiscent of the original Bradford Rios.

Another great piece of news came about on Saturday evening about a new rock venue/club called Trash opening up on Sackville Street. The club has been up until recently the West 29 gay-friendly nightclub and previously Utopia and Lingards. The opening night is next Friday (3rd April). I have been to the club a few times over the last few years and I have to say it already has a rock nightclub feel to it anyway. I really hope it takes off. It’s already situated in (or at least very close to) the independent quarter of town. I believe this is exactly what is missing with more and more bars opening in the area, it makes sense to have a destination venue for later on and it is great news for the live music scene. I think it will compliment greatly the newly redeveloped Beehive cellar bar (also a destination venue), which has a real alternative vibe to it and if it stays varied enough to have something different on that last Saturday of each month to compliment Trap Door too, there’s no reason why everybody can’t be happy.

There is a real air of positivity about Bradford nightlife at the moment and long may it remain. I for one have grown very weary of naysayers and it looks like some of the negative elements which have plagued us in recent years are long gone. I love my city and I wish others who are from here would a bit more too. So yeah, top weekend. Here’s to the next one!

In a slight diversion from my usual music activities, last night I went to Voltage studios to record some guitars for a remake of the Gerry and the Pacemakers classic You’ll Never Walk Alone. It’s a record which over the years has been synonynous with football. A version was recorded in 1985 by an all-star charity group called “The Crowd” in order to raise money for the Bradford City fire disaster fund.

In order to commemorate the 30th anniversary of that tragic day and to raise some money for Bradford burns unit, it was suggested that the song be re-recorded and released under the name The Crowd 2015.

This 2015 re-recording was the brainchild of Lloyd Spencer and has already attracted considerable interest from various celebrities who will be performing on the record. I volunteered my services and duly went in to record my parts last night.

It’s no secret that I have never been much of a football fan but I am an avid supporter of my home city and as part of a community who all know someone who was affected by this terrible disaster, it’s an honour to have been able to contribute in any way I can.

If you would like to follow the progress of this project, a Facebook page has been created where you can read news of who is taking part and also when finished, where you can purchase a copy.

The Crowd 2015 Facebook page

A long time ago, we had a thriving metal scene in West Yorkshire. A lot of bands focused on the doom/death sound, the most prolific of which were heavyweights Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Solstice, Serenity and Chorus of Ruin.

In 1994, I met  bunch of guys in the Mannville Arms in Bradford and we started talking about setting a band of our own up. After a few rehearsals and line-up tweaks, we had our little outfit together. It was the hey day of Bradford Rios and we got to play with some much bigger acts such as Napalm Death, Anathema and Cradle of Filth as well as our contemporaries such as Garden of Remembrance and Epitaph. It was a great time to be around in Bradford.

We recorded this debut EP in the summer of 1995. None of us had recorded before and we didn’t really know what we were doing. It was the first time I recorded with Tim Walker, a relationship which continues to this day. Primitive though the recording process was (not much in the way of double tracking), I think this still sounds pretty good for an afternoon’s work. Tim has kindly digitally remastered it and I have put it up on here for your perusal.

Listening back brought back many memories of those times. It’s certainly not the best example of the music of the time or even the best example of the work Dark Embrace turned out but it’s a slice of history for me. Feel free to download and listen at your leisure.