Last weekend brought me 3 very different gigs. On Saturday night i was invited to play the launch for United Conscience at Studi0 2 Parr st. These folk are non-profit organisation setting up to help train and match up volunteers with international projects in a way thats financially more accessible and ensuring that the money goes straight to the project it is intended to support. Total pleasure playing for a full room and a worthy business intention…!  That done I ‘ran’ round the corner to the old faithful Zanzibar to perform at Songbook Sessions. A smaller crowd but it was great to see some friendly and familiar faces out in support of my musical quest. I did get a pat on the back by the sound guy Morgan too for rocking out on acoustic 🙂

Sunday gig travels took me to Manchester. Put me on a train with a coffee and a book to write in and I’m the happiest lone traveller in the universe (is that a capital ‘U’? ..) even if I was surrounded by upturned Fosters cans spilling over from Saturday night….this train was GRIM.  Manchester was ace. I played at ‘Listen with…’ for the lovely Craig White at the Greenroom. Top attentive crowd. Every egos dream but somewhat daunting when you find the whole room silently focussing on you 🙂 A moment where a brief flit of thought pops in and asks…’so do you still think you want to share all those thoughts and feelings with these people…?’ 🙂 IDo! 🙂 I got a chance to reunite with Owen Duff. His stuff was great. And we got food…really good food too!

I arrived back in da Pool just in time to see We, the Undersigned be the backing band for the legendary Dawn Penn at Mojos. Awesome gig.  This was injected with humour when my mate got annoyed with some girls dancing in our way and after telling them she was the manager asked them if they were old enough to drink (cheeky :)). They skipped off and returned with their ID (that my mate was too drunk to read and it was too dark to see anyway). I may never grow up…I think this mentality has stayed with me from reading too much Beano when I was a kid. Yeah, blame the Beano. On the way home I found myself trapped in a strangers garden with the very same friend who had suggested we garden hop to her flat instead of walking round. Much giggling and nettle stings followed. We had to go back where we came from anyway because there was no way over. This realisation occurred only after we had scaled an 8ft wall…with my guitar. I do have a very vivid memory of hearing my guitar cry as it was dropped over the other side of the wall….:( It was ok tho., tough cookie…maybe a little out of tune. Top Weekend!

Album-wise I had good news this week in the form of FATEA magazine asking if I would be interested in putting one of my tracks in for their Autum showcase…erm…..erm…………YES PLEASE! …ahem..i mean, yes that would be great, thanks. 🙂 I went searching and discovered they had written a great little review of the album on their site…

‘Jo Bywater, delivers a hard edged, fiesty collection of guitar driven songs. She seems to be an artist of boundless enthusiam and no mean talent. Raw and dirty around the edges, troubadour blues, that at times look like they are seeking to simply go out there and kick your head in, juxtaposition with a more compassionate, more reflective attitude, love it.’

Lesson of the week: Avoid garden hopping with your guitar.

See ya next time!

Jo x