Hello

It’s been a bit quiet on the website front. That doesn’t mean I’ve not been busy with my music, but real life pressures have meant that I’ve not been able to update “the socials” as much as is necessary in this day and age. However, as artists, we have to remember that we can still be making art, without the need to tell everyone that we’re doing it. We have to make the art for ourselves primarily.

As I have some new projects on the horizon (more on that soon) I thought it was time for some new promo photos. Any excuse to look moody!! These sorts of things make me feel slightly uncomfortable, but I think Mrs Clements has done a decent job of making me look ok.

I’m holding my 2012 Gibson J45 Standard in these shots.

Here is a new instrumental track I’ve been working on. “Robots Can’t Dance” partially came about after I’d been listening to a lot of songs by Buckethead! If you don’t know who he is, you should really check him out.

As usual, all the instruments are played by me and I also did all of the drum programming, using EZDrummer by Toontrack.

After a bit of a hiatus, Under the Influence is back with Episode 10.

Rob Lane and I recorded this on 9th June, the day of release of the new album by one of our favourite bands, Extreme. We discussed how we got into the band, our love for Nuno Bettencourt and Pat Badger and I got to drone on about my Washburn N2 guitar!!

A little noodle, using my 2009 PRS DGT into my Friedman Mini Dirty Shirley Amplifier. Backing track supplied by Elevated Jam Tracks.

Jamming over a Buckethead style backing track, using my PRS RH2010 Special.

Here is a new instrumental track. This song has come out of my most recent demos.

Sometimes, I write a song with a vocal melody in mind. Other times, I lay down a melody guitar part from scratch and I realise, that would be the vocal line! That is certainly what happened with “Shadows Dancing”

I also took some inspiration from the recent album by Trip the Witch, a project featuring session legend Tom Bukovac and Dean DeLeo of the Stone Temple Pilots. That mainly instrumental record, is rooted completely in great song writing, where the guitar lines, replace the vocal melody.

Here are a couple of new tracks that I have been working on for some time! I’m trying to get more music finished and not just leave it stuck on my hard drive.

“Broken Promises” is a song I’ve tried to complete for a long time. “Faith/Love” is a song that came out of a video demo of a pedal that I did many years ago.

Here is a video of my band The Nightwires, performing the song “Look For Me” during our recent visit to the Flowerpot in Derby

Here are my two pedalboards, currently in use.

Both utilise Pedaltrain Pedalboards. The larger Pedaltrain Junior is used mainly in my home studio and when I do looping videos. I have used it recently for a couple of gigs by The Nightwires. However, even though its not as large as some, its blinking heavy to carry around! This board is powered by a Gigrig modular power supply system.

The smaller board is the one I use the most. I take it to lessons when I need some extra sounds and it’s the board I used on the Ryan Hamilton tour, last year. It’s so much lighter and really does everything I need. This one is powered by the One Spot CS6 which is designed to fit under lower profile boards, like the Metro series seen here.

A few years ago, I gave up on the pedalboard “rat race” I got tired of changing things regularly and decided it was time just to play with what I’d got. It has been a great decision and I have stumbled across a selection of pedals, that really work for me. The only thing I did change recently was to add the Boss Dm2 Waza to the Metro board, Its my favourite delay pedal.

I also stopped going on the boutique train. I know a couple of these pedals are slightly expensive, but I wanted to use stuff that wasn’t too esoteric and could easily be replaced.

Both these boards go straight into the front end of either my Morgan AC20 Deluxe or Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini. I’ve never been a fan of effects loops.

There are a few changes coming for 2023. The main one being that this website (and YouTube) will be the only place where you will be able to watch and listen to my latest “content” i.e. my art that I have dedicated myself to for a few decades!!

I’ve got to the point where I need to streamline the process of posting my videos and music, in an attempt to put more of it out. There are just too many Social media outlets to think about these days and I’m not convinced it makes any difference, whether I post on all of them or just one. There is so much competition out there and I’m getting a bit fed up of being sucked into the internet comparison game that affects so many musicians and guitarists. The amount of views my videos get on Instagram, Facebook etc are so small, I’d rather not have to worry about it!

So make sure you bookmark my website and YouTube channel and that way, you will keep up to date with all my musings.