bobs folk show

Revamp, Songwriting, Radio & gigs 2015

This weekend whilst I was soaking up the vibe of Halloween, Day of the Dead and trying to write a Christmas song I also took it upon myself to update my website. It’s still a gradual work-in-progress but is now much snazzier and more organised 🙂 ACHIEVED!

To celebrate this, I bring news..

Last month was the return of Liverpool Acoustic Songwriting Challenge. I had intended to enter this for a couple of years now but 2014 was the year I actually put it into action. The challenge was to go to View Two Gallery in town (Liverpool) and pick a piece of artwork to write about. This was a really interesting undertaking for me as I haven’t written many songs in this way before. I enjoyed it a lot and here is my offering below. I have been selected as one of the 10 finalists and will be performing at the finals on 21st November at View Two Gallery, Liverpool. There are some really strong contenders among the other finalists and it will be a great night. So…if you fancy, come along and see what’s going on!

In gig news…. I have been confirmed as a performer at January’s Great British Rock & Blues Festival in Skegness. This is very exciting for me! I will be doing an hour long show on Sunday 25th Jan on Blues Matters stage @ 1.15 – 2.15 pm. Hope to see you there!

Finally…Last week marked the return of the one and only Bob’s Folk Show. Bob was one of the first to hear/play my debut album Cycle Grace Pulse Break in 2010 and has been an encouragement ever since. His show is always a great listen of folk and roots artists and the first one (including my track Chopping Wood), can be heard here..The show is every Tuesday at 9pm., go and check him out.

That’s all for now…stay warm and creative!

Jo x

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

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

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

See you soon

Jo x

Rockin acoustic with Songs from the Shed

This weekend was a corker!

It began with a very, very early morning start to head down to Clevedon. I’ve had this planned for a couple of months now (since Jan), when the lovely Bob of Bob’s Folk Show helped me to spread my musical name around a tad and I was introduced to Jon Earl through the ever important life source Facebook. Jon runs a show called Songs from the Shed. It’s renouned for hosting a mixture of quality emerging and emerged acts. The one before me was Paul Heaton from Beautiful South/Housemartins. Very excited I was to do this day trip and musical quest and see what this legendary shed was all about.

Jon started Songs from the Shed up a couple of years ago after wondering what to do with the shed in his garden. A pub-based conversation occurred and the direction was to invite musicians to play in the shed, video them and upload it online. Awesome. Well, down the line, 900, 000 youtube views later and whole lotta good reputations brings us to my weekend.

I have to say, I got quite excited. I did my warm up in the back seat of the car in a pub car park and then headed to meet Jon at his ace house down the lane. Jon’s a good bloke. We had a cup of tea and then headed to the Shed. It was extremely surreal but awesome. I literally unpacked my guitar and got stuck into 3 of my songs from Cycle Grace Pulse Break. Jon video’d them on a hand-held camera. No sophisticated mics or even a tripod. This thing is all straight up hand held, microphone on the camera. Happy days. Old school my fave.

The shed is full of things that have been collected or given, there’s loads of things in there to keep people like me interested for a very long time. And the bathroom has it’s own life entirely. I could have spent half a day in there just reading the walls. 🙂

With the patter of rain on the roof we were done and dusted in 1 take each. Time for a cuppa and a chat and off to find fish and chips by the sea! Incidentally it felt like we walked into Fawlty Towers for the pleasure of this but what a cool day!

Sunday was spent climbing Mount Snowdon with Blythe. 2 1/2 hours up and 1 1/2 back down because we were going to miss the last bus for the car! Today my legs are having real issues walking down stairs. Good job I get to spend it sitting on my butt!

Feeling pretty postive about this whole thing! 🙂

Jo x

Bob’s Folk Show session

This brings me to Feb 2012… already. Tuesday (31st Jan) I headed down to Chertsey on the train to play on Bob’s Folk Show (www.radiowey.co.uk).

I’m fairly new to radio sessions but 2011 brought me a spurt of them and after booking in for this session in October last year I realised it had arrive pretty quickly. I’m mostly pretty confident and chilled with this situation, the worst thing that tends to happen to me if I think about it (which I try not to..) is that I start to think I’m going to forget my lyrics whilst live on air 🙂 .. it’s not happened yet…

I REALLY enjoy journeys and so heading down via London with a coffee and a book and my guitar was great fun for me. I get all philosophical and creative. I felt like a muso…:) a proper one. So… Bob’s Folk Show.. I met Bob in Chertsey and we headed to a pub where Keith Moon used to drink. A beer, a halloumi sandwhich and some good old convo about being independant and sticking it to ‘the man’ we then headed to the radio shack which is next door to the hostpital in Wey. Awesome 🙂 proper studio, bit of vintage about it, I loved it. Bob’s massively into his music so we chatted and he introduced me to some artists he liked and then we did 2 hours of his show. It was fantastic to have the opportunity to play 9 of my tracks live inbetween listening to some fab independant musicians. Great show, great bloke and I’m looking into sorting some gigs down in London in the next few months. I stayed in a hostel that night in Pimlico and as I arrived at midnight (after Bob very kindly drove me after the show) I had the amusing situation of having to negotiate making my bed in the dark whilst 12 other people were sleeping. I like random. I woke up pretty early and walked out the door to see the Thames and for a little saunter across London . It was a beautifully lit morning…

If 2012 is all like this I will be HAPPY! I urge you to check out Bob’s Folk Show. If you’re into decent, high quality acoustic music that’s not generic…..

Jo x

Festives, newness, Southern Comfort and Lime

As my final mail of 2011 I mainly wanted to say thank you to everyone who has supported and enjoyed what I’ve been upto creatively this year whether it be music or art. Cheers! And thanks to those I’ve shared the gigs with. It’s been a great and varied year. My favourite!

2011 started off with my album released and ready to gig. I spent the year sending messages to magazines, reviewers and radio shows and got a significant amount of positive feedback. All the reviews i’ve had so far are on my website and I’ve had some great local help from Seven Streets, LSU, Liverpool Acoustic, Radio Merseyside, Nerve and this month Good Vibrations gave me my final review of the year.
Nationally I had positive reviews from FATEA, R2, MU Mag, The Girls Are and Americana. In terms of radio I had a fab experience on ICON Radio, KVFM and ‘Folkscene’ on BBC Radio Merseyside after being invited by Mr Stan Ambrose. As his only guest I had the whole show and had my entire album played. Definately a moment of pride and acheivement. There’s has also been great support coming my way from Bob’s Folk Show to the South!

Over the last 12 months my gigs were a little chocolate box of mixture. December culminated in two great gigs, the penultimate in LLanberis, Wales after which I went mountain biking in Snowdonia and the final gig of the year at Sound Women in Huddersfield, which was preceded by a traffic-laden, 4 hour journey from Liverpool!

Work – wise I’ve spent an incredible time building up my guitar students and also taken on more commissions art-wise. The most recent two being illustrations for a childrens book and a painting for a present I’m half way through for a customer in USA.

My plans for 2012 are of the writing kind. New music for the new year and the forming of a tour, possibly Europe. I’ll definitely be gigging as ever around the UK. Plans for the capital city are afoot. 31st Jan I will be playing live in session on Bob’s Folk Show. http://www.radiowey.co.uk

My album Cycle Grace Pulse Break is for sale at http://www.cdbaby.com.jobywater2
My blog and updates are as ever to be found at http://www.jobywater.com

The shows I’ve done and art I’ve created will very soon be on the site!

Again, many thanks and I wish everyone the best for the end of 2011 and most definitely 2012!

See you there

Jo x

12 Bar Club and Bob’s Folk show

After an awesome gig and day of art-perusal in London a couple of weeks ago i find myself heading back down there for a nice social chill and a gig on 16th October. Lucky, lucky me booked myself a slot at 12 Bar Club on Denmark st. Door £5. I’ve also just organised a date to perform in the studio on Bob’s Folk Show on 31st Jan 2012. Though it’s seemingly far away I’m pretty sure i’ll be there pretending not to be nervous quicker than expected :). Bob will be playing one of my tunes on 11.10.11 for those who want to tune in! I listened to the show last week and there were some great artists on, definitely recommended.

I also have 2 tunes (Let Go & Disclaimer) on the playlist at Women of Substance radio for the next 3 months. Happy Days!

Currently spending much time teaching guitar, drawing illustrations and analysing the world down to its quantum physical particles.

Bring on the Autumn 🙂