Creative fuelling and new guitars

This year is my dedicated ‘writing’ year.  A bit like crop rotation! I have been nurturing some new tunes for a couple of months now and the first one is ready for the ears of more than just my own.

It’s called Woollen Hearts.  I bought an electric resonator last year and also started getting really interested in slide guitar playing….a world unto itself 🙂  It opened my eyes a lot and I had some good fun playing around and seeing what I could come up with creatively.  This is my first installment….

It took me a while to get used to the weight of the brass slide but it sounded so awesome that I had to power through!

I’ll be putting up top quality demos of my tunes over the next couple of months as I write and record I hope you enjoy the journey with me.  They’ll all be downloadable so you can learn the lyrics in your own time 🙂

I sign out with a picture of my beauty of a resonator that helped my write this tune x

my resonator

my resonator

Festive videos and Happy New Year

Last post of the year for me just before I run off to do my Christmas shopping and prepare for indulgences!

I’ve had a great year.  Many trips out from Bob’s Folk Show in Jan,  Songs from the Shed in June, Roots and Fusion session in Sept and the London Folk and Roots Festival in October.

The year has drawn to a close with me enjoying writing and recording some new songs and a nod to festive spirit in my first ever Christmas song:  Little Christmas (Chasing Fairy Lights).  The song birthed when I was asked to be a part of a Christmas album of independent artists by Andy Jones who plays in a fab duo called Just By Chance.  Andy’s record label Searching For Dandelions released the album in December and it is available to download and is called A Searching for Dandelions Christmas 2.

To add a further sprinkling of festive to my tune myself and the very special Blythe Cooper drew up and created a stop motion animation video of cuteness to warm the cockles on those cold winter days.  The video and song have had some great support of which I massively appreciate 🙂

 

cover artwork to the festive tune by Jo Bywater

cover artwork to the festive tune by Jo Bywater

I hope you all have a fab festive time and best of luck for the new year.  I shall see you in 2013 with a renewed and ever more enhanced creative spirit.

Until then 🙂

Jo x

Roots & Fusion session

Last Friday I went over to Stockport on the train to meet up with Roots & Fusion host Rick.  The session’s been booked in since January when it was recommended to me by Bob’s Folk Show so I was pretty excited that it had now come around.

I met Rick and soundman Jay at Stockport college and we headed to the gym where we were to record.  The guys have been recording live sessions for the show in various places around Stockport.  The initial thought for my show was the roof of the college but weather not permitting we headed into the boxing gym. The first time I have been interviewed and recorded my music whilst being surrounded by weight machines and a boxing ring., it was great.

The session was an easy flow and a happy memory.  I like meeting people who are interested and passionate about new music and music in general..

the link to the session is HERE 🙂

Enjoy x

Songs from the Shed session now online

I had a fab time when I headed to Clevedon to meet Jon Earl and record my 3 songs in the shed.  There has been some amazing talent in the shed before me and it was an honour to be involved.  The videos are now online! www.songsfromtheshed.com

I recorded Wave, Scratch the Surface and Disclaimer….all now on the vid page, all now online.  Enjoy 🙂

Jo x

We made a video for Disclaimer

A few months ago I decided I’d like to do a video project for another one of my songs (making the video for ‘Wave’ was such a success and lots of fun with my friends at Soundworx Media). Seeing at ‘Disclaimer’ is a well-loved favourite at gigs it was a no-brainer.   I sent a message out into the ether and after meeting a few potential Videographers I decided Mr Dominic Boyle was to be the one….

Dom is a recent graduate from Edge Hill University. Armed with his awesome camera and a few meetings in Bold St Coffee, we headed out into the streets/coffee shops/parks of Liverpool and thus ‘Disclaimer’ aquired visuals. Dom has been a superstar to work with and it was a great experience.

You can find him in these places: 
Youtube – Poetry in motion: Vocal Media
dom.f.boyle@gmail.com

Have a look and see where we got to in the vid! 

Jo x

Bob’s Folk show Distilled & The Lomax

Just a quick one today to give you a shout out about a couple of music – related things I have going on.  I hope you’re all having a great summer so far whatever that means to you!

First up!  Bob’s Folk Show Distilled Pt1.

I did a session for Bob in January of this year and had a great time.  I got chance to hang out with the man himself for a few hours and then had the pleasure of performing pretty much all   of the songs on my album live in the studio.  Bob now has a second outlet for his show which he is calling Bob’s Folk show Distilled where he put selected highlights from his live show together as a show.  I’m on the first one that was aired last week!  Bobs Folk Show Distilled Pt1.  I’m on at around 15minutes but I also highly recommend checking out the other artists. It’s a great show.

I’ll be heading down to London in October to perform at a festival Bob is responsible for putting on called London Folk & Roots Festival which will be held at Amersham Arms on 28th October .

Secondly!  I did a gig on Saturday at The Lomax, Liverpool.  Awesome gig and awesome venue.  The Lomax was reopened recently as a music venue and has a great and supportive vibe for good music.  It’s run by T2F and I’ll be heading there again for a gig on  Sun 26th August for the bank holiday festival.  Lots and lots of bands and acoustic acts.  I’ll be playing solo in the upstairs room at 8pm. You have been warned…

The Lomax, Liverpool pic by Adrian Wharton 2012

The Lomax, Liverpool pic by Adrian Wharton 2012

See you soon

Jo x

London and Brighton mini tour

Last week was awesomely busy.  There seem to be a lot of people inspired to learn to play guitar for the summer.  This for me is very good.  This means I have been spending increasing hours in the first half of my week meeting new guitar students.  This is good!

Jo Bywater Guitar Tuition 2012

Interspersing my increasing demand as a tutor came a nice little couple of days off for my long-ago-booked gigs in London and Brighton.  These two gigs have been on my list for a few months so I was very excited when they finally arrived.  With the National Express and Mega Bus as my chosen method of rock n roll transport I headed down to Greenwich on Wednesday towards The Pelton Arms.  The British summer has so far being a British summer at its best…this of course means a lot of rain.    This meant that en route to gig I got absolutely drenched.  I stayed in a hostel near Deptford Bridge.  Round the corner from the hostel was a piece of paper stuck to the wall that had ‘Cardboard City’ written on it, with an arrow pointing down the road.., this did make me question whether I had made a mistake..

So…London…my gig was with Icarus Club run by the lovely Phil Dearing.  Very friendly and supportive.  I sold copies of my album and had a return invitation.  This I take as positive.  The bar was some decent real ale and a pay-what-you-want for food deal on a Wednesday. 🙂 I played and ran off into the night towards the Cutty Sark and onto cardboard city. All was well.

Up early and I jumped on a bus to Brighton.  Pre-gig I met one of my good friends Mark M Thompson from uni that I haven’t seen in a few years.  We obviously hit a few pubs and pints of beer and had the quickest catch-up, compressing 6 years into 3 hours.  Knowing I had to sober up a tad in order to play a gig of decent caliber we headed for some food, bid goodbye and I again ran off into the rain towards the Brunswick. 

A friendly gig where I also got chance to see the fabulous ‘The Finds‘ headline.  Very tight band.  The sound was great and there were a few familiar faces from the Pool there too.  Unexpected and very welcome.  I met some really nice people who like my music too.

I stayed the night in another hostel in which at 4am a massive fight broke out upstairs by seemingly somebody who was very upset about his bed…  The morning hit and I took a long walk down the sea front, had an espresso in the Alchemist Cafe and begun my 9 hour coach journey back to Liverpool.  On our stop off at London a guy tried to get on the coach with a Tarantula….he couldn’t quite grasp why the driver said no….:/

Done., looking forward to many more trips and gigs!

x

Light painting adventures

Tuesday night after some pre-planning and practice shots, myself and Liverpool photographer Hayley Blackledge took to Sefton Park with some LEDS, a camera and my guitar.  The plan was to head to the awesome bandstand and spin some burning wire wool. (whilst I posed with my guitar and avoided having my hair burned :)).  HOWEVER, on arrival we discovered a newly, more secure iron gate that should prevent us from doing such things.  A few musings later, on the brink of figuring out plan b, we discovered that actually it is now EASIER to get onto the bandstand….. so we did.  I have never been on the re before so it was very exciting, it was dark, 11pm so not much to see but still excellent. We did notice one small thing though….  mainly that the floor and roof were made of wood.  Hmmm, for this we decided spinning fire was probably not a good idea.  Adventures = good. Arson = not good.

Hayley has been exploring the wonders of light painting for some time now.  After seeing her previous pictures I had approached her to see if I could get in on some of that funky action for some music promo shots, in a skill-trade manner.  She, happily obliged.

The reassessed picture she went for in the bandstand was to have me standing with the guitar whilst she spun a bike wheel covered in LED lights to create a dome. She then drew shapes with a strip of lights, culminating in musical notes.  Magic! we did this a few times and then ventured off further into the darkness to the waterfall and proceeded safety checks for picture two.  Safety checks mainly to make sure we didn’t burn any of the park that is so well preserved.

For this one I held my guitar up in the air whilst Hayley spun a whisk on a chain. The whisk was filled with burning wire wool. Like a sparkler! Excellent. Though, convinced I was for a while after that part of me was on fire….not so, thankfully 🙂

All of the shots were done on a single long exposure.  Really awesome to see in action and I’m very happy with the results! More to come. In the meantime take a look at more of Hayley’s photos here and if you need something doing she does the lot, from weddings to fire!

x