Sleeve Notes for new Album "Bare Bones"

On listening to the first couple of tracks of Bare Bones I doubt you'll be clicking the iTunes buy button straight away.

The production is basic, to say the least, the vocals are often overwhelmed by the guitar and vice versa. Many of the tracks are short, have untidy endings, lack a "bridge" or "middle eight" or even a chorus!

This is my "back catalogue", my history. Many of these songs were recorded over ten years ago at 3am using one basic microphone and an old Mac. An audio notebook of ideas and inspiration.

But there are songs, oh yes, and that's what I want people to hear. Naive perhaps, basic even.

The alternative would have been to leave them, let them rest on a hard drive until the Mac eventually dies. But then what would have been the point? I still play many of these songs; I will often take parts from songs, a chorus, intro or theme and use them in a new composition.

So these songs are footprints, the tracks of my journey to the here and now.

No vocoders, no auto tune or expensive production or mastering.

Have a listen, you may even remember hearing one for the first time at that gig 8 years ago with that guy you didn't know in that dodgy Soho club you went to just the once to check it out but never returned. Or you may have been round my flat one night after the pub and cajoled me into playing something.

Or, of course, you may be listening for the first time in which case, don't judge too harshly as what you are listening to are just the "Bare Bones"

See what I did there?

Original artwork is by my good friend Charles Olsen