MATTHEW NORTH MUSIC

Well 2015 has been a busy and productive year for me.  I released 2 solo albums this year, one my third album of improvised music ‘Valentine 3’ that was recorded at the Phoenix in Exeter this was then followed up by a compilation album called ‘Singles and Sessions’ where I compiled all the digital only material to a full length CD album. In between these two albums I released 2 singles ‘When you cry’ and ‘I See You’ described by the BBC as ‘Love it, Love it, Love it’. Most of my musical year has been taken up with performing with the Mike Westbrook band. The piece we have been performing ‘A Bigger Show’ started out last year, though it has many refinements and tweaks since then including one additional song. Later in the year we had the good fortune to record this album live with producer Jon Hiseman. Since then the live shows have been getting better and better and I do hope that we travel further afield in 2016.  I did hope that to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the début

Well its been a long journey but today I have a new single out called 'When You Cry'. Im not sure what will be next for me but I think for now I'm not going to record any more solo stuff. I have a busy year with the Mike Westbrook band as well as working on Secrets For September recordings.  Anyhow take a listen here.  Buy it from Bandcamp  :  iTunes  :  Amazon UK  :  Amazon.com  :  HMV Digital

2014 was a very strange year. It was the first year in music where I went into the year without any kind of ‘Band’ on the go. I decided to have a go and see if I could do a solo gig a week to try and up my game at the singer / songwriter thing though I did kick off the year playing a one off show as guitarist to National Pastime this was my only show of 2014 that I played electric guitar. In February I did the second Department Factory ‘Valentine’ show this time I was accompanied by Michael Soundy on Djembe this turned out to be the last time that I played live with Mike as he decided to leave Secrets For September. I felt that the performance was much better this year and the CD came out very well even if it wasn't a massive seller. I had been offered a solo gig in the south east for later in the year so I decided as the solo gigs were going not too badly to do a small tour, and to go with this I also recorded some solo material. Initially was going to be just a couple s

So the question is how many bands that have been around almost 50 years still have the same line up and have never broken up ? Answer not many the closest is probably U2.  Most major bands have had so many line up changes over the years there may be only 1 or 2 original members left. Robert Smith is the only original member of the Cure, Dave Brock for Hawkwind, Nick Rhodes for Duran Duran & Chris Squire for Yes. Drummers Fair well in that the only long serving original members of Pink Floyd, the Yardbirds & The Animals are the Drummer. Nobody batters an eyelid in that Lynyrd Skynyrd have hardly any original members because of the fateful air crash. Or lack of original members of Big Country  or Thin Lizzy. So why last night was social media full of venom for what Queen are doing these days? Freddie died in 1991 and the band carried on finishing off music and while John Deacon retired Brian and Roger carried on with various musical projects my answer is this Why the bloody h