Happy Anniversary!

What anniversary I hear you say?

Well... on this day last year we launched my last album 'Battles' with a sold-out show, at St Pancras Old Church in London. With that in mind I thought it apt that I write a little blog about what I've been up to in the in past few months and what the next few months hold in store.

Photo by Rosie Collins (c) 2013

When I last wrote on here I'd just been in the studio recording my Christmas single 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' based upon the short story by Dylan Thomas.

Watch the video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqUx_LgJGJo

I was really pleasantly surprised by the reception it got, how warmly it was received and how it completely exceeded all of my expectations. To get played on Radio 2 on Christmas morning (as I prepared the Turkey!) was surreal and wonderful. Thanks to Clare Balding for keeping her side of the bargain ;)

Christmas already seems like a long time ago now...but the beauty of it (as we all know) is that it comes around every year, so I'll have another bite of the cherry come December when it all starts over again..!

At the end of November, myself, Sarah and Mary got the opportunity to open for Jools Holland and his R&B Orchestra at the one and only Royal Albert Hall..!

It easily ranks as one of my all time favourite gigs and I'd love to think that one day I'll get the opportunity to play there again...fingers crossed!

In January I went into the studio to start work on my next Welsh language album, entitled 'Heulwen o Hiraeth' (Sunshine after Longing) it will be the third album we've released in Welsh. Here are the gents who feature on the record - from left to right (clockwise) - Sion (Bass) CJ (Drums) Arwel (Guitars) and Mei Gwynedd whose job it was to try and make us sound half decent and whose studio we were using!

Looking ahead I have some live shows coming up (check the website for details).

There will also be a TV special on S4C called 'Noson yng Nghwmni' (An Evening with..) where me and the band will be performing songs off the last few Welsh records. It airs on Easter Saturday (19th April).

Finally on Thurs 1st May I'll be returning to St Pancras Old Church for another intimate evening of acoustic music. Get your tickets here now - http://bit.ly/1fsDlRB
To celebrate this fact my good friend Ben A Williams has produced a new video of 'Battles' using footage from that special night a year ago today....how time flies.

Enjoy, Al x

The Covers EP Vol.1

So I thought with the imminent release of my new EP based on songs by other songwriters I admire I'd give you a bit of background on all five artists whose songs I've covered.

 1) Judee Sill -

I must admit I only recently stumbled across the music of Judee Sill but was immediately taken in by her haunting (classical-esque) melodies and intriguing, opaque lyrics. 
She was the first artist signed to David Geffen's Asylum label 
The song I chose of hers was 'Jesus was a Crossmaker'. It is filled with religious connotations and yet you feel underneath it all lies a simple love-song reminiscent of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

Like so many artists of her generation Judee's story is one filled with sorrow and regret as she sadly passed away long before her time at the age of 35 having never received the recognition she longed for and deserved during her lifetime.

Her she is performing 'The Kiss'. This was recorded in London in February of 1973 for the "Old Grey Whistle Test" TV program on the BBC with Bob Harris presenting.

2) John Martyn - 

If ever a man encapsulated the term 'Troubled Troubadour' it was probably John Martyn. 
l first heard about John Martyn from my aunt who bought "Sweet Little Mysteries - The Island Anthology" for me one Christmas. It was a great present as he was someone I learnt a lot from in terms of his songwriting skills and guitar technique.

His songs are always accompanied by an interesting guitar part and he always played around with his tunings something which I hadn't really thought of doing before I listened to his music.

I chose this song to cover as it was always my favourite of his - such a beautiful melody and haunting lyrics about love lost...written whilst he was going through a divorce from his wife Beverley.

There's a great piece written for the Guardian's "Old Music" section where Greg Freeman talks about his appreciation for John Martyn's 'Sweet Little Mystery' here, there's also a link to a live performance from 1984 - http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/feb/10/john-martyn-sweet-little-mystery


3) Tom Waits - 

Tom Waits's repertoire isn't the easiest to get your teeth into...having said that he's written some absolute classics and a bit like Dylan, once you accept the voice for what it is, the songs open themselves up as treasures to behold.

His first album 'Closing Time' (again released on Geffen's influential Asylum Records) is one of my all-time favourites and a great place to start for first time Waits listeners...very simply produced, it's all about the songs and the performances.

I first heard this song however covered by another artist Tim Buckley. Though his version had mixed critical responses I liked it and went about to discover the original. I think the lyrics are brilliant at painting a picture (the ultimate goal with any song - make the listener feel as if they're standing in the writer/singers shoes) and the sentiment fits perfectly with the melody.

Here's Lisa Hannigan and Cormac Curran's version performed live at Turning Pirate NYE Mixtape 2012.

4) Joni Mitchell - 

Another iconic artist from the late 60s-early 70s. So influential still today.
She flourished like many singer-songwriters did in the Laurel-Canyon (Los Angeles / California) scene that emerged during that period and spawned many a successful career including those of James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Eagles and many more.
Again like with Judee Sill - David Geffen (seen above with Joni and Cass Elliot from the Mamas & the Papas) was prominent behind the scenes.
The song I chose was written for David Geffen and describes a trip Geffen and Mitchell made to Paris with Robbie and Dominique Robertson (from The Band).


5) Dan Fogelberg

Probably the least well known out of the five artists I chose, Dan Fogelberg was an American singer-songwriter who had his biggest success in the early 1980s, just before I was born.
The song 'Leader of the Band' was his biggest hit and it's not hard to see why - it's a beautiful song with poignant lyrics.
It's a love song but not in the traditional meaning of the term but about the bond between a father and a son.
Not too dissimilar in that respect to Cat Stevens' hit 'Father & Son' in that it tells of how both the father and the son can tend to have difficulties sometimes in understanding one-another but ultimately there is mutual respect and love that they share with each other.

You can listen to the tracks from The Covers EP Vol.1 on SoundCloud here - https://soundcloud.com/allewismusic/sets/the-covers-ep-vol-1

February - The Album Launch

So with this dreary weather persisting, placing myself back in February isn't that hard to do!
It feels like we've been in never-ending Winter so far in 2013 and having just supported Paper Aeroplanes on the last leg of their tour last night it brought to mind their song 'Winter Never Comes' and how unfortunately to the contrary it doesn't seem to want to go away at all!!

February consisted of one major event...the release of 'Battles'. A few weeks previous to the album launch show - I'd had the privilege to open for Tanita Tikaram at the wonderful Cadogan Hall in Chelsea - the resident home of the the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a great venue to play and as you'd expect the acoustics were amazing! I certainly hope to play there again some day.

A few days later I was up in North London to record a session with the guys over at The Crypt Sessions - the first video of which is now available to watch here. Following that I then popped in to do an in-store performance for the lovely peeps over at Spillers Records in Cardiff. 'Battles' would go on to be their biggest selling album by a Welsh artist in February (a very nice accolade to have).

On the 18th Febraury 'Battles' was officially released, and to celebrate that fact, we put on a gig at one of my favourite London venues, St Pancras Old Church.

It was a complete sell-out beforehand so we knew it had the makings to be a great night. I had asked my friend and former tour-buddy Lotte Mullan to open up and she served up yet another lovely set of country/americana/folky-tinged tunes. Go check her out!

I was accompanied once again by my good friends Mary Erskine (of Me for Queen) on cello/piano and Sarah Howells (of Paper Aeroplanes) on vocals. Both are extremely talented musicians in their own right and if you haven't yet heard their other musical projects then click on those links for a taster.

I had my friend (and rather talented photographer) Rosie Collins come take some pictures and as you can see she got some real crackers. You can scroll through the rest of them over at my Flickr page here.

Another friend of mine Ben Williams helped us capture even more of the evening through filming a video with help from Rosie and Jamie to accompany one of the songs off 'Battles', 'Don't Believe in Magic'. Watch it here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Q4PBdmArI

We had decided to record the audio that evening and decided to get some CDs made of the concert as a little memento to all those who were there.
Artwork was made by Anika Mottershaw.

These mini-albums are also now available to purchase at all of my future shows.
We kept four songs off the CD for those who can't make a live-show and put them on a digital EP available to download. A taster of which can be heard below -



Here's hoping that June has a few more days of sunshine in store for us, for as a wise man once said..."we all need sunshine in our lives"... :) x

January.....

So I've decided to try and make this into a monthly thing even though I'm pretty useless at keeping it up I'm hoping this will spur me into being more regular (even if I am only now doing the January post....). I've used the picture above as a reminder of the rolling hills and 'snowy-linen' land and of how damn cold it was back in January!

It's been a pretty whirlwind start to 2013 so far....in my last post I mentioned the next single being 'Make a Little Room' well that got January off to a great start by being added onto the BBC Radio 2 playlist (watch the video here). I then had many a surreal moment when my song would come on the radio as I'd be driving home / cooking in the kitchen or just pottering in the flat! It was a surreal experience having Steve Wright say my name during the middle of the afternoon...great feeling nonetheless. It was then picked up by Magic FM and added to their playlist too!

At the beginning of the month the session I'd done for great new music website Daytrotter was released (alongside a cool cartoon drawing of me)..you can listen back to the session here.

At the end of the month I was invited up to Glasgow to take part in the wonderful Celtic Connections festival that is held up there lasting almost a month. Being a Welshman it was a festival I felt extremely at home with playing. The venue I played was the stunning Mitchell Library in support of Tanita Tikaram. It would be the first of our dates together incorporating some gorgeous venues along the way.

 


Whilst we were up in Gateshead preparing for the show at the armadillo shaped Sage (not too dissimilar to the Wales Millennium Centre) - I popped in to see the guys over at Amazing Radio HQ. They are big champions of new music and have real music lovers in their midst which is nice to see! I did an acoustic version of 'Make a Little Room' for them. You can watch it here.

Make a Little Room

Happy New Year to you all!
Really looking forward to 2013 and all it has in store... scroll down to see my January/February tour dates with Tanita Tikaram. Be sure you get your tickets early to avoid disappointment.

First off fresh for 2013 here's a first look at my next single, which is a revamp of 'Make a Little Room' and it is available to download from today on iTunes - http://bit.ly/Zsq2NW - or AmazonMP3 - http://amzn.to/UPkclU plus be sure to enjoy the canal based video above!

Artwork by Anika Mottershaw

January / February Live Dates (w/ Tanita Tikaram)
 

Tues 22nd Jan - Celtic Connections Festival, Mitchell Library, Glasgow - click here for info
Thur 24th Jan - The Stables, Milton Keynes - click here for info

Fri 25th Jan - The Sage 2, Gateshead - click here for info

Sun 27th Jan - City Varieties, Leeds - click here for info

Mon 28th Jan - St George's, Bristol - click here for info
Sat 2nd Feb - Cadogan Hall, London - click here for info 

Singing for Cerys

Hello Friends!

As I've spoken about at length in previous posts on here - http://bit.ly/UL1Ban - Battles - my next album was recorded out in Nashville earlier this year with Charlie Peacock (Producer of The Civil Wars). Someone who knows a fair bit about Nashville is Cerys Matthews, having lived there for a few years herself, so it was great to exchange stories with her when I dropped in to do a session at BBC Radio 2 the weekend before last whilst she sat in for Dermot O'Leary. We sang her a cover of Catatonia's 'Road Rage' just for good measure!

Then on Thursday myself and Mary headed to St.Pancras station to perform as part of Station Sessions http://stpancras.com/station-sessions more info on that when it becomes available.

Yesterday I then found out that the broadcasting legend that is Sir Terry Wogan had given Treading Water a play on his BBC Radio 2 show and Jen Long & Ally McCrae had also given it a spin on their BBC Radio 1 show!

That is all for now - I'd love to hear what you all think of the new album.

My first solo UK headline tour starts NEXT week -- details of where I'll be visiting and when can be found on my website, hopefully see some of you on my travels.

Diolch yn fawr x 

Treading Water

Hello Friends!

I'm pleased to present you with the new(ish) video for my latest single 'Treading Water'.

Directed & Edited by Rosie Collins (http://rosiecollinsphotography.com/)

This will be the first single off the next album Battles which I recorded out in Nashville with Charlie Peacock (Producer of The Civil Wars).

Here's the cover (artwork by Anika Mottershaw) -

 

You can pre-order your copy of the EP now via iTunes - http://bit.ly/O2ZzSl or Amazon MP3 - http://amzn.to/KphCLs

My first solo UK headline tour is also fast approaching and will take place this October --

Details of where I'll be visiting can be found below, hopefully see some of you on my travels.

October Live Dates
 

Wed 3rd Oct - Eric's, Liverpool - click here for tickets
Thurs 4th Oct - The Cluny 2, Newcastle - click here for tickets

Fri 5th Oct - The Basement, York - click here for tickets

Tues 9th Oct - The Portland Arms, Cambridge - click here for info

Thurs 11th Oct - Glee Club, Birmingham - click here for info

Fri 12th Oct - Cookie Jar, Leicester - click here for info

Tues 16th Oct - The Castle, Manchester - click here for info

Weds 17th Oct - South Stree Arts Centre, Reading - click here for info

Thurs 18th Oct - Glee Club, Nottingham - click here for info

Fri 19th Oct - Louisiana 2, Bristol - click here for info

Sat 20th Oct - The Gate, Cardiff (as part of Swn Fest) - click here for info

Tues 23rd Oct - Bicycle Shop, Norwich - click here for info

Weds 24th Oct - Komedia, Brighton - click here for info

Thurs 25th Oct - The Boileroom, Guildford - click here for info

Sat 27th Oct - The Wilmington Arms, London - click here for info

For up-to-date ticketing information please visit my website http://www.allewismusic.com -

complete with gig listings, lyric section and much more:

Best wishes and thanks again for your continued support

  Al x

Our Lines Remain

Hello Friends!

I'm pleased to present you with the new video for my latest single 'Lines Upon the Sand' off the 'Our Lines Remain' EP - Directed / Edited by Rosie Collins (http://rosiecollinsphotography.com/)

It's had a few spins already on both Radio 2 and 6music by Janice Long and Steve Lamacq (massive thanks to those two) and is officially released on the 1st of July.

Here's the cover (photo by Rosie Collins) it was taken outside my local - The Halfmoon Pub in Herne Hill (I've watched many a Liverpool FC defeat in there recently!!) -

Pre-order your copy of the EP now via iTunes - http://bit.ly/O2ZzSl or Amazon MP3 - http://amzn.to/KphCLs

It's also a pleasure to announce that my first solo UK headline tour will take place this October --

Details of which can be found below, hopefully see some of you on my travels.

October Live Dates
 

Wed 3rd Oct - Eric's, Liverpool - click here for tickets
Thurs 4th Oct - The Cluny 2, Newcastle - click here for tickets

Fri 5th Oct - The Basement, York - click here for tickets

Tues 9th Oct - The Portland Arms, Cambridge - click here for info

Weds 10th Oct - High-Barn, Great Bardfield - click here for info

Thurs 11th Oct - Glee Club, Birmingham - click here for info

Fri 12th Oct - Cookie Jar, Leicester - coming soon

Tues 16th Oct - The Castle, Manchester - click here for info

Weds 17th Oct - South Stree Arts Centre, Reading - click here for info

Thurs 18th Oct - Glee Club, Nottingham - click here for info

Fri 19th Oct - Louisiana 2, Bristol - click here for info

Sat 20th Oct - TBC, Cardiff - coming soon

Tues 23rd Oct - Bicycle Shop, Norwich - click here for info

Weds 24th Oct - Komedia, Brighton - click here for info

Thurs 25th Oct - The Boileroom, Guildford - click here for info

Sat 27th Oct - The Wilmington Arms, London - coming soon

For up-to-date ticketing information please visit my website http://www.allewismusic.com -

complete with gig listings, lyric section and much more:

Best wishes and thanks again for your continued support

  Al x

Live on the Wire // Abbey Road Studios (Debuts Session)

Morning all,

So this week I announced the release of my latest EP entitled 'Live on the Wire'.
It's a two-track offering of recordings made at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London.
The songs were also filmed as part of the 'Abbey Rd Debuts' series on Channel 4.
Also with me on the day were Sarah Howells (http://www.paperaeroplanesmusic.com/) and Mary Erskine (http://www.talkincolour.com/) go check out their music! 

Here's the video for 'Make a Little Room' -

If you'd like to get your hands on the mp3 versions of these songs.
They are available as a free download to all those who sign-up to the mailing-list.

You can sign up here - http://allewismusic.com/ or via Facebook here - http://on.fb.me/JIdFm0 

Artwork by Anika Mottershaw (http://www.anikainlondon.com/)

Enjoy

Al x

Tales of Nashville and a tour of Wales w/Paper Aeroplanes

Hey y'all!

Here's a picture of myself and Sarah Howells in front of an old Chevrolet truck outside the studio where I spent the last 2 weeks in Nashville, Tennesse recording my latest album and I'm already pining to be back there.

It was an amazing experience to get to work with such talented musicians and if you'd like to hear more about how I ended up going over there and about my time there you can read all about it on my blog over at - http://allewismusic.posterous.com/

You can also see all my pictures from the trip here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjyV5XPA

Now that I'm back on home soil I'm pleased to announce that I'm about to embark on a tour of Wales with my good friends 'Paper Aeroplanes'.

We'll be travelling the length and breadth of Wales over the coming months, playing at some beautiful venues along the way so be sure to come say hello!

For further ticketing information please visit my website -

complete with gig listings, lyric section and much more: http://www.allewismusic.com

 

‘….an attractive, melodic collection of acoustic pop.’ - Q Magazine 

Live Dates
 

Fri 4th May - Acapela, Pentyrch - click here for tickets
Sat 5th May - The Parrot, Carmarthen - click here for tickets

Mon 7th May - Festeaval, Suffolk - click here for tickets
Thur 10th May - Llew Du, Aberystwyth - click here for tickets
Fri 11th May - Blue Sky Cafe, Bangor - click here for tickets
Sat 12th May - Ty Siamas, Dolgellau - click here for tickets

Fri 8th June - Arts Studio, Swansea Grand Theatre - click here for tickets
Sat 9th June - Torch Theatre, Milford Haven - click here for tickets

Sat 16th June - Snails, Cardiff - click here for tickets

Best wishes and thanks again

Al

Nashville (and a 24hr stay in New York) - Week #1

Hey y'all!

I'm already getting in to the southern lingo here in Nashville and it's only been a week!
Time has flown since I arrived here a week or so ago, we've been working hard in the studio pretty much everyday and have recorded a lot of new material which I'm very excited to share with you soon!

I touched down a week last Sunday and headed straight to Downtown Broadway where all the Honky-Tonk Bars are situated and met up with Sarah (http://www.paperaeroplanesmusic.com/) who'd arrived a day earlier. We settled on Tootsie's and spent a good few hours there listening to some great live music before retiring to our hotel rooms excited to be starting work here the next day.

We got picked up by Producer extrodinaire Charlie Peacock in the morning and duly headed to his home/place of work the beautiful Art House (http://www.arthouseamerica.com/blog)

Having introduced ourselves to everyone in the team (Charlie, Andi, Sam, James and Richie) we went straight into our first writing session of the day with the talented Sam Ashworth. He eased us in gently by playing us a wonderful guitar line and vocal melody that fitted in perfectly with the style and method of myself and Sarah.

By the end of the day we had a completed song and decided to record it there and then / performing it as live with myself and Sarah singing full performances of the song together (though in seperate vocal booths!) It was amazing to think we'd only been here a day and already had a new song written/completed and recorded!!

Next day we had two further writing sessions booked in with the amazing Brooke Waggoner (http://www.brookewaggoner.com/) and Matthew Perryman-Jones (http://mpjmusic.com/)

Both sessions yielded songs we were extremly happy with / both different in their style and approach and yet somehow still in keeping with our 'sound' so to speak!

To celebrate Charlie took us all to the famous Loveless Cafe - Here we got to sample some proper good 'old fashioned 'Southern' food including Biscuits (which us Brits would call 'Scones'), Fried Okra, Fried Catfish, Fried Chicken.....do you see the common thread here!

Wednesday we went at it to record some more!
Charlie invited down three extremly talented musicians to play on the sessions - Mark Hill (http://markhillbass.com/) Steve Brewster (http://www.stevebrewsterdrums.com/) and Matt Slocum (of the band Sixpence None The Richer).

Together we laid down the foundations to 3 new songs including the two written only a day earlier. It was an honour to have such talented people performing and playing our songs and a very humbling experience.

The next day we shot a performance video of the song we wrote with Matthew Perryman-Jones with Sam Ashworth at the helm - directing us and capturing all the footage.

Then sadly it was time to say goodbye to Sarah as she had to go back home to Blighty to do some shows with her band 'Paper Aeroplanes' (see previous link).

This brings us to the weekend and our 24hr stay in New York City.

One of the bands Charlie's been working with recently are called 'Zach Williams and The Bellow' (http://www.zachwilliams.com/). He had recorded most of their latest record live at a small venue in Lower East Side Manhattan called 'Rockwood Music Hall' and last Saturday night they showcased a lot of that material. So Charlie, his wife Andi and I headed over to watch them play.

It was a brilliant show and I'm pleased to say I have seen them play in such an intimate setting as I'm sure the size and prestige of the places they are going to play in the future is only going to go up and up so check'em out!

Having touched back down in Nashville early on Sunday morning I decided to do the tourist thing on my day off and head to the Country Music Hall of Fame (http://countrymusichalloffame.org/ )

It's a facinating museum - one I recommend you visit- even if you're not a huge country fan. It's just interesting to see the development of the genre and how it influenced so much of popular American culture.

Then one of those nice surprises. I found out via the Civil Wars's Twitter feed (http://bit.ly/GRPO1L) that 'The Staves' (http://www.thestaves.com/) were in Nashville that night playing at the famout Basement venue - http://www.thebasementnashville.com/about

It was nice to hear some familiar accents eminating from the stage and I felt as if I was back home in London! If you're not familiar with their music check'em out too as they're brilliant.

Not only that but also on the bill was Ben Howard - someone who I had the honour of playing with at Swn Festival in Cardiff last October. There was a whole gang of them making their way back from SXSW in Texas to the East Coast of America in Campervans...what a great way to travel!

And that rounds off my first week in Nashville, Tennessee - stay tuned for part two

Al x

 

Civil Wars, Honky-Tonk's and Grand-Slams ....

In telling the story I'm about to tell I guess I should start this post on Christmas Day 2011.
That day I received a copy of 'Nashville Skyline' by Bob Dylan on Vinyl as a present from Sarah (Howells) who sings with me.

It was apt that she chose that one for it was one of the few albums of his I didn't have and little did I know at the time but it's title would come to shape my next couple of months...

A few weeks earlier I'd been watching Jools Holland and had enjoyed the following performance by a band I hadn't heard of namely 'The Civil Wars' - this is them performing the title track from their debut album 'Barton Hollow'

I'd really enjoyed the performance but hadn't followed it up with any research into who they were or where they were from. Then one day whilst on Twitter a friend of mine posted a video of them performing another of their songs and having watched that I decided to purchase their album.

It quickly became the flavour of the month on my iPod and throughout the Christmas period I was constantly listening to it.

Therefore when it came to the time to start thinking of people who I'd like to work with on the new album I thought I'd see where and with whom they'd made 'Barton Hollow'.
It turned out the man they made it with was a Mr Charlie Peacock based out in Nashville, Tennessee. I read his blog and found it refreshing the way he spoke about capturing the magic within a performance of a song. I thoroughly recommend you read it (if you're into that kind of thing) -

http://recordproducer.typepad.com/record-producer/2010/01/performance-product...

Feeling I had nothing to lose I decided to email him and sent him links to a few of my songs, not really expecting anything back....then something really unexpected happenned - A reply!

Following on from that initial email exchange we said we'd reconvene our conversation after the Grammys as unbeknown to me - Charlie and the Civil Wars were up for two this year. Sufficed to say - they won them both! http://www.grammy.com/news/and-the-grammy-went-to-the-civil-wars

Since then I've seen their name plastered almost everywhere here in London - they've cropped up on the Tube / in the papers / on the BBC Breakfast sofa even...!!

I was even fortunate enough to catch them perform a sold-out in-store gig at Rough Trade East last week. It was great to see something which clearly has grown organically without any forced-image led PR campaign - they are just really good live and sing/write great tunes! Simple!

So where does that leave me? 

Well I'm off this weekend to Nashville - home of Country music and the Honky-Tonk Bar.

I will be there for two weeks working with Mr Charlie Peacock and various other talented musicians on new material. Sarah Howells is also coming for a week, so I'll have another Welshie with me for the journey.

I'll be blogging about my experiences whilst I'm out there and sharing with you all that I get up-to.

Finally I couldn't leave you without wishing the Welsh Rugby Team the best of luck on Saturday afternoon in their pursuit of a third Grand-Slam in 8 years! What an achievement that would be..!!

I wonder if they play rugby in Nashville..... 

Magpies and Mileage

Four weeks ago I shared with you a brand new song of ours called 'Mrs Evans' from the as yet untitled new album. So I thought I'd try and make this a monthly occurrence and therefore introduce another new song 'Blackbird & The Magpie'. Those of you who have been to a live show recently may recognise this one from my set as it's been "road-tested" a few times recently!

Since I last wrote something on here I broke the 70,000 mile mark on my car!
It's been a year of many miles, especially considering that we've now reached the 1 year anniversary of my Caffè Nero Tour where I clocked some serious mileage!

In February I've been to Pontardawe, Norwich and Shoreham supporting the lovely Webb Sisters. Check them out here - http://www.thewebbsisters.com - They recently dueted with Gotye, currently No.1 in the Singles Charts no-less!

Here's a picture taken by Alexandra Bone of myself and Sarah from the Norwich Arts Centre:-

I did a great little gig at the Gwdihw in Cardiff with the very talented Greta Isaac.
The people from the MMP came down and gave us a nice review.

http://themmp.tv/live/al-lewis-gwdihw-8-february/

Finally then last weekend we then headed up to Bangor, North Wales to perform at a Welsh Language Student Night. They were all up for a good time so it made playing for them an easy job for us the band!

 

 

 

New Year / New Song - An ode to Mrs Evans

With it being a new year and all I thought I'd share with you this video of myself and Sarah Howells performing a brand new song of ours called 'Mrs Evans' from the as yet untitled new album (due in 2012) at her flat in West London.

Hope you all like it

Al x

p.s Here's a picture of my little DIY studio (well it's just a microphone and a laptop really) where I'm making my demos in preparation for going into the studio and recording them proper!!

October Shenanigans

When I last posted something on here I was in the middle of touring with Eleanor McEvoy, so that seems like the logical place to pick up on this new post!

Thanks to everyone who came along to see us on the 'Alone Tour'.
After the Eastney gig we headed North and I got to visit Hebden Bridge and Kendal in the Lake District for the first time. Both places I hope to be going back to in 2012. It was also nice going back to places such as the wonderful High Barn in Braintree and Cox's Yard in Stratford-on-Avon. Every night was an absolute blast providing us with a delightful audience and a gorgeous setting.

Special thanks goes to Eleanor for having me along - she was always on top form every night and set a great example to me as the 'young pup'..! You can see my collection of pictures from the tour here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjwwLTqW

On a cold Sunday in October I dropped in on the lovely Jen Long at BBC Wales HQ in Cardiff to perform a few songs for her Introducing in Wales show on Radio 1. I was sad to hear that the BBC are planning to get rid of such shows across the UK in the next round of BBC cuts, it would be a very sad move if the show went as for local bands looking for that initial exposure on radio it is a great platform to get your music heard. Good luck Jen whatever happens x

The following day I travelled down the M5 to Clevedon near Bristol to perform at the most famous Shed in Britain (Shed of the Year no less) for Mr Jon Earl (who you see pictured in his shed)
He's had an array of artists perform in his shed including Eleanor McEvoy and my friends Paper Aeroplanes and Emily Baker so I was pleased to be joining such an illustrious list.

You can view the session here: 
http://www.songsfromtheshed.com/Al-Lewis-Session--144(2563961).htm

October also saw the release of my new music video for Treading Water. Directed by the brilliantly talented Rosie Collins - Click here to watch the video: YouTube / Vimeo

I rounded off the month by attending the Welsh Music Prize award ceremony in Cardiff as part of the Swn festival which I was also appearing at during that weekend. It was rather surreal for me to be standing next to James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers and Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, bands who I'd grown up listening to and then there I was nominated alongside them for 'In the Wake'. Personally it was a great way to celebrate the past year and a bit of releasing and promoting the album as I was accompanied by most of those who'd been involved with me in some way or another in making it!

I didn't take a camera with me but this video gives a flavour of how the night progressed:

Gruff Rhys was a worthy winner and someone who's flown the flag for Welsh music for over a decade so I think he was a good choice for the inaugral winner, my favourite song from his winning album Hotel Shampoo is Space Dust #2 - check it out! I'm a sucker for harmonies/duets!