MATTHEW NORTH MUSIC

 I have literally seen the worst documentary on music that I have ever seen. And I mostly only watch music related TV.  “My name is Ottilie” Presented by a singer called Dana Masters whom I have to say I have never heard of.  Now there has never been a Docco about Ottilie before, and there has only been a couple that have been made about Chris Barber. The best being a Radio 2 Docco a few years ago.  The opening gabit of the whole thing was that that Ottilie was an unknown Blues singer. Firstly in her heyday she was more of a Jazz singer than a blues singer but I won’t split hairs about that. The point made that she was unknown couldn’t have been further from the truth. She was the singer in the biggest jazz band in the UK at the time. She sold a LOT of records both with the Barber band, and many solo releases. Though they were mostly Barber bands records where she took the title. Es the Paterson Girl Eps. She did make a couple solo records the album on Marmalade real...

  Wow it would appear that I haven't actually done a roundup for a while, 2021 for some reason got missed out. Oh well.  2022 was always going to be an interesting year, It was the year to bring me a new decade, and having to admit that I might be properly middle age. It also meant that my band All Living Fear was also a whopping 30 years old. More on that later.  The Locos in Exeter Jan 2022 I had been beavering on with my electronics work and my YouTube channel. One of my videos went viral in the end of 2021 and a few others got a lot of traffic, this gave me a massive boost of views and subscribers and it wouldn't be long that my channel became a proper thing, that has started generating a little bit of an income, so I am very grateful to all of my subscribers there. If you are not on my youtube Click here . The first gig I played was with Russell Sinclair in Exeter, this was the first of 47 gig that I played with them this year. I had fully intended on working on my ...

Is this is the start of normality? I reckon so. A couple days ago I found out that the Human League were playing a food festival in Cornwall. This show was only announced at the end of last month and like a lot of things down here has relatively little to no promotion.  Being a new event I wouldn’t expect it to be a big thing, Anyhow I went on to the web site and got a ticket. Day ticket was £44 with fees, to see the League at a new event lass than an hour’s drive form home, yeah good for me. When I got there found a well organised car park, got parked up walked to the event. Ticket and wristband exchange was quick and I had to provide my Covid vaccination code.  Walked into the arena, saw a few stalls there, a big wheel and couple other amusements. Even though it was a very new and small festival it did feel very corporate. It was a Food based festival with some famous chef’s putting there name to it, but I couldn’t tell you who they were. But, there was only about 3 or 4 foo...

2020 like any other year, I have bought music. Some new some not so new.  I probably have listened to The Beatles more than any other band this year. and I ended up buying 4 box sets. The Beatles in Mono is just fantastic, the best clear way to listen to those albums. I managed to get the box set at a decent price secondhand BUT be aware there are Chinese knock offs. badly made with audio sourced form MP3s. The Singles collection is awesome. All cut as well as the original singles with lots of punch and excitement. I must confess I haven't played all of the white album box yet, but the attention to detail is superb, and the book is magnificent. The last box is the 1980 WRC box set called From Liverpool. I bought this as it contains alternate mixes that are not too common plus its a well cut set of 8 Lps. and can be found at a very low price. Parologram on Youtube has some great videos on the Singles box set and the WRC one.  Also found at a good price is th...

Photo taken outside my home by Lawrence Hyne aka Greenbeanz Photography.  This years end of year blog really is going to be like no other. 2020 was shaping up to be good. I had a small tour with All Living Fear booked, a Sell out gig at Ronnie Scotts with Mike Westbrook as well as loads of other Westbrook shows in the diary. What was there not to like? Well I will come to all of that later. A photo from Arthurs Soundcheck 2020 Kicked off with the usual January trip to Butlins Minehead for 'Giants of Rock' this year was going to be great as I had not see my dear friend Arthur Brown for a little while and he was playing on the opening night. It was also the debut of a new band so a lot resting high. It was a great show well received and also had a fine evening meal too. Saw and photographed a few other great acts too. I really love these butlins weekends, great music, always loads of friends there. I started the idea of doing some new electronic music, I came up with one track a...

CSN in Cardiff 22nd September 2015 Croz Cardiff 22/09/15 Last night I got to see the Davis Crosby film ‘Remember my name’ a very deep and honest documentary where Crosby talks frankly about his life. He appears very sincere about his life and the mistakes and regrets that he has.   I enjoyed the film a lot and think anyone interested in music or even just a film about someones live will get something from it.  Crosby very much regrets many of the things he has said and done over the years, and with all of that he has had a renaissance in writing and recording in the last few years,  though you can tell all he really wants to do is make peace with many that he has fallen out with. And there appears to be quite a list.  Crosby shows some of the important places in California mixed with some rare archive telling his story from then to now.  There are many sad tales in the world of music, one of the saddest in recent times to me has to be the falling out of Dav...

Here we go Lockdown 2, well I decided that I will make a conscious effort to try and write new music and do something. I have had this massive writers block for over 4 years now. In essence every time I try to write something I feel that I am just re working the same thing. Songs in the same tempo, key and chord structure, so I decided to just stop.   This is why in recent times I have just recorded a couple covers and re worked a few old songs. It’s a strange time, I have many wonderful musicians that I can call on to work on stuff, the problem is that I don’t have the material to work with.   With All Living Fear we are working on songs, and they all have one thing in common, Andy has written them all. He’s got plenty of material, so fingers crossed we will have a new album. We are thinking of getting it on in 2022 as it will be the 30 th anniversary of the band and Me and Andy will both be 50 *(Michael and Paul might be a little bit older!!) . One thing I have ne...