We’ve got all these (DIY) Spacemen.......

It was a warm sunny day in July 2017, the day before the start of Truck festival in Oxfordshire. It was also an important date (20th July 2017), as we would discover later that day.

New Exhibit

I have one of my photographs going on display soon.

Award winning gallery owner and entrepreneur Sarah Thorp’s new cafe bar/art gallery/performance space named Alchemy 198 gets launched in just over one week’s time.

Alchemy 198 opens on 17th November and it’s located on the Gloucester Road in Bristol not far from Sarah’s lavish gift shop and art gallery - Room 212.

I’ve just heard that one of my photographs has been chosen to hang on the wall at the launch. It’ll be alongside other works from local artist - Neil Roberts, and music photographer and artist - Martin Thompson.

The photograph chosen of the Alabama 3 has strong links with Sarah and her family. I’m really pleased that it’s been chosen as it’s a favourite of mine.

Taken earlier this year and published by Bristol 24/7, the canvas mounted photograph will be available for sale following the launch party.

More details soon.....

A Return to Brussels and Monty

At the end of 1998 I took my first venture into IT contracting. It was a Y2K contract and the contracting market was bouyant due to companies panicking about the imminent collapse of all the world’s IT infrastructure due to computer systems that could not handle the change from one century to the next.

I was living in Glasgow at the time but the contract was In the Belgian capital of Brussels and it was working for the largest telecoms company in the country - Belgacom. At the time it seemed like a mammoth challenge for me as I had so much to learn; it seemed like a huge leap of faith. Initially I commuted between my home and Brussels but eventually I took a little apartment near Montgomery Square with the occasional return to Scotland.

The square is a famous landmark as it is named after the avenue that Field Marshall Montgomery and the 21st army group took in 1944 when they liberated Brussels from Nazi occupation in their joint allied efforts to free our European cousins. A large statue of Montgomery stands on the square.

The contract lasted twelve months and I finished it in December 1999. A few weeks later, my girlfriend and I saw in the new millennium on the frozen, foggy banks of the river Danube in Budapest. We woke up the next day on 1st January 2000 in Budapest and the world had not collapsed as the Y2K fearmongers had predicted.

A lot has happened in the subsequent 20 years. Today is the 6th October 2018 and I will be returning to Brussels for the first time since I left. This time the ‘work’ is very different. I will be photographing my good friends John Fairhurst and Toby Bang who are supporting My Baby at the famous concert hall - Ancienne Belgique.

For all my twelve months in Brussels I only ever went to one gig and it wasn’t at this atmospheric venue. The band I saw was Underworld who were on their Beaucoup Fish tour and they played a gig in May 1999 at the Vorst Nationaal venue in Forest on the outskirts of Brussels. I went with my work friend Howard Davey who was also working for the same company and went on to become a great friend of mine.

I have some free time tomorrow morning during which I’m going to take the tram back to my old neighbourhood and say hello again to Monty.

Comparison Shenanigans

The imminent release of the new BWP album has drawn comparisons with the eponymous first album by Crosby Stills & Nash. And it's not just due to the terrific vocal harmonies and instrumentation on both albums but also the album covers. What do you think?

I shot the album cover for BWP at Truck festival in 2016.

Someone pointed out that we got the arrangement of the artists in the wrong order just like CSN did. What can I say?

Hanging out in Umeå with Hannah Aldridge and Gustav Sjödin

I was due a holiday after 12 tough months getting life stuff back on track. And holidays this time of year for me normally revolve around snowy mountains. But this time I felt the need to do something different, and it just happened to be my birthday as well.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted that one of my favourite American musicians was embarking on a Scandinavian and European tour that coincided with my holiday plans. Hannah Aldridge was playing in Sweden on my birthday weekend. And there was snow.......... lots of it.

I had never been to Sweden. That was another reason to visit. The third reason was down to meeting Hannah’s Swedish band mates from Jetbone last year when they played a couple of times in the UK as her backing band and also an established act in their own right. I liked them immediately and their southern rock influences and style grabbed my attention. If that stuff was happening in Sweden, I thought it was a good time to go and check it out.

A one-hour connecting flight from Stockholm took me 700 km further north to Umeå. The view from the aircraft window revealed lots of water inlets and vast snowfields broken up by the occasional forest and small homestead. It felt remote up here.

The air that greeted me upon arrival was seriously cold. -20 degrees had been recorded the night before I arrived. The snow was deep and the air was bone dry. I had a beer to toast my arrival in a bar across from the bus station and eventually trundled into my digs which were a couple of miles away in a little cottage.

Umeå shared European capital of culture with the Latvian city of Riga in 2014. It seems to be doing well when it comes to Americana music and recently hosted David Ramirez shortly after I saw him play in Bristol. Susto are scheduled to play soon after Hannah Aldridge. Ramirez played at the same venue that Hannah was scheduled to play, a small venue/bar/restaurant called Gröna Älgen run by Jörgen Persson.

At the venue on the night of the show, I met Jörgen who came over and introduced himself. Hannah had not showed up yet and he was running a music quiz beforehand. I teamed up with some locals - Tomas and his wife Marie Louise and we had a good chat and played the ridiculously tough quiz. The equivalent of £20 was the prize money and the winner was well deserving of it. I think I got one question right. It was hard to tell. It was in Swedish.

Soon Hannah showed up with Gustav Sjödin, who is the bass player from Jetbone and is accompanying her on her Scandinavian tour. We said our hellos and Hannah got set up.

Jörgen gave her a big introduction and also mentioned the mad Englishman who had travelled to this remote Americana outpost to see her play and visit Sweden, albeit very briefly. It did seem a bit daft but what the heck I thought. I got a round of applause as well which was unexpected and mildly uncomfortable.

The show went well and the crowd were appreciative. I got a couple of shots of Hannah and Flu playing on the small stage.

Then it's 2am and I'm having a drink in the hotel lobby with both of them after the show. We're hatching a plan for the following day which is just a few hours away in reality. Hannah has another show 5 hours away by car and she needs to leave by midday. We decide to do a photoshoot near her hotel at 9am. I walk back to my cottage an hour away in the freezing cold down streets that remind me increasingly of the movie Let the Right One in. It's atmospheric. I get back to my warm digs and I gradually get the feeling back in my face.

A couple of hours sleep in my cot and then I'm back retracing my steps to the hotel in the early daylight. It's bright and it's sunny. Nice conditions but not ideal for an outdoor photoshoot. It's going to be contrasty and I'll need to choose a location carefully. When I get to the hotel I haven't heard from Hannah, so I scout around the local area to find an interesting location. I find one. It's a kind of fairground ride on the side of the frozen river. The ride consists of several cubicles in which groups of people are supposed to sit. The cubicles are like baskets full of snow and they're a nice shape. In the centre of the ride is a large bare tree. The ride is out of operation and it's deserted. The baskets are connected to the roof of the ride which has large circular coloured apertures cut into it. There are lots of shapes and angles to play with and I reckon this is the place.

To the hotel and I pretend to be a resident and blag some warm coffee and scrambled eggs and bacon between two pieces of bread. Flu is in the hotel restaurant. He laughs and exclaims "That's a proper Englishman's breakfast". Hannah is getting ready for the photos.

Then we're out into the bright cold light and taking pictures around the fairground ride. Hannah has a big coat to wear between shots but it's cold. She was a good sport and soon it was over and we went to a nearby grand gothic styled church to take some close ups inside some interesting doorways.

We didn't have much time to get some shots but it was a good laugh and we got a couple of interesting pictures. Soon Hannah and Gus sped off to their next gig and left me to wander back to my digs along the river path which was now busy with people strolling on a lovely Sunday morning.