MATTHEW NORTH MUSIC

Two nights in Bristol 26th September 2010 So on a very nice Sunday afternoon I ventured up the M5 to Bristol to play 2 little gigs in the city. The first one was at a place called The Rose Of Denmark, now I cant count how many times I have been plat this venue in the last 20 years going to various gigs in the City, but on this occasion I actually set foot in the place. Was a bit odd when I got there as most of the pub was having a roast dinner, while a PA was being set up in the same room and soon after backline and drum kits were being piled in. Still I was on first so bang on 4pm I took to the stage. The first set consisted of Fortunes Light Feel Friends Forever Love is a Spirit Broken Dream The set went down OK and it was good to have some decent monitoring while playing. So after the set we ventured into the main city centre, was very useful that a lot of street parking was free no a Sunday. Had a late lunch at a place called Zerodegrees wasn’t bad there they did a good Pizza. The...

The making of ‘To Behold’ Well this is a story that goes back to spring 2009, I was working on a few ideas and I came up with the basic riff and bass line, I added some keys and just jammed over it. After the initial recording I took it home to work on and I did some work on the drum programming, then it sat for a good 6 months. In the meantime I had written a chorus for it and some lyrics and I started playing it live at my solo gigs that I have been doing and in the spring I worked on the band recording put in the choruses and had a structure there. I then went to my friend Roger O’Donnell’s house and asked him if he wouldn’t mind recording some Moog on it for me. His initial solos were great but he was using his trademark muted sound, and after much nagging I got him to open up the filters a but to make it sound a bit more rock, and what he recorded to my ears was amazing, exactly what I wanted. He did 3 takes and I edited some of it together to give some layers. This song then sat...

20th September 2010 at the James Street Vault Well first things first, I will start with Mondays gig at the James Street Vault. Now the JSV is a pub that is right in the middle of the University in Plymouth , but innless you know its there you would have no idea of its existence if you get my drift. I played a short acoustic set down there a few weeks ago, and impressed Mark the promoter down there enough to give me a gig. Is a bit tricky for me at the moment not actually having a band for the first time in 18 years, but the ‘North and Parker’ concept is a very neat bridge as we can have a full sound and play whatever we like, new songs, old songs even the odd cover, and it can be electric or acoustic, and all the way it keeps the chops up and hopefully keeps the audience entertained as well. So we got there about 8pm set up our kit, had to wait till 9 for the pa to set up but once arrived sound checking was a relatively easy and simple process. We made up a song on the spot ...

Acoustic set at the Pilgrim Inn Bristol 9th September 2010 So last night I ventured up to Bristol to play an acoustic night at the Pilgrim Inn run by Mark Venus whom puts on a lot of acoustic nights in Bristol. I only had a 20 minutes set so was a tricky choice of what to play, in the end I did Fortunes light Jessica Love is a spirit To behold I didn’t intend on playing Jessica I blame it on not having a pen to write a set list, I was going to do either 29.9 or Broken dream. Anyhow the set went down pretty well, looks like I will probably be playing some more stuff in Bristol in the not too distant future.

North and Parker at Ryan's Bar Torquay 3rd September 2010 Last night was a bit of a special gig for us, really the first official post All Living Fear gig, billed as North and Parker and as we were the only band on the bill we had to extend the set, so the obvious thing is to play 2 sets one acoustic and one electric. The acoustic set was made up of Fortunes Light Feel Friend Forever Drowning Love is a Spirit (Arthur Brown Cover) Broken Dream What made this different to the normal acoustic sets that myself and Niall have done is that Niall was playing slide guitar rather than Bass, this had a great sound, especially as he was playing his guitar through a compressor and a memory man analogue delay pedal. After a break of 5 minutes we then took to the stage for the electric set, there was only really 1 stable All Living Fear song in the set specifically Jessica, the rest was either song I have written in the past year as well as a few of my older tracks. To Behold (With Synth solo) J...

Torquay Ryans Bar Acoustic Gig 28th August 2010 Well last week I played a show for the very excellent charity Rowcroft Hospice. The show was at Ryans bar in Torquay, a special town to me, I was born there, I formed my first band proper with people from Torquay and played my first proper gig there. I had recently had a car accident and was temporally without transport, this meant 2 Cabs, 2 Trains and 2 Buses but I got there! The venue is a great little pub, well its really 2 bars in one, the top bar where the gigs happen has a good atmosphere and an excellent PA that puts a lot of venues to shame. A few old friends turned up which was great, the set that I played was Fortunes Light Feel Drowning Broken Dream Love is a Spirit To Behold Twenty Nine Point Nine Jessica It was then a mad dash to the bus to get back and tomorrow I return to the venue this time with a full electric and acoustic set. Above photo taken by Dee Ryans Bar landlady