Impromptu Duoing – yep, definitely a word.

One of the best things about touring is stumbling across other musicians/singers and having the occasional jam together. On my recent tour with Chris Webb however, it was a little different.

A few weeks ago Emily Larkin put her history books down and came to a gig in Cafe Filou (one of my favourite places to play) in Steinhude, near Hannover.  She had never been confident enough to sing on a stage before – apart from the odd school concert. We talked a bit about music we liked and she agreed to sing a song or two with me. She hadn’t even finished her first line when I realised I had to have her singing on my next album. Not willing to wait until I had a new album ready, I invited her to a video session in Duisburg with the lovely Alex Schroer a couple of days later.

Here are the fruits of that session. It’s a cover of The Weakerthans’ My Favourite Chords.

Oh don’t worry, she’ll still be on the album.

Emily, Chris and I will be playing at Salt Cafe in Bristol together on Friday 8th September.

Besta Venya – Out Now

Hey. Hi. Missed you!

Seriously. Anyway. So I finally made a record. Wrote the songs, recorded the songs, got them mastered and sorted the artwork – with help from me dad.

It’s out. It’s scary. I’m pleased with it.

It’s late and I’m tired because I’ve been editing a video for like EVER. You can watch it over there to the right. It’s a video for my second ever single release (the first was in 1992) and is for the song Down With The Yoof.

If you would like to buy the album it is currently only available on CD (again on the right there) and will be available from your favourite digital outlet from Monday 1st May.

Course, all this ‘right’ gubbins won’t be the case if you’re reading this on your phone but I’m sure you’ll find it somewhere.

Right. Definitely bedtime. Cheers for all your support x

New Album

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi All, So I finally got round to finishing my album. Twelve more songs – or at least pieces of music – for your pretty ears. It will be available here from Monday 3rd April and you can pre-order (and pay) by clicking HERE. It will be available digitally on all platforms from Monday 1st May.  I’ll also have a few copies at gigs from 10th (ish) March onwards, so feel free to get one from me then.

Track listing is as follows…

Make Yourself At Home
Down With The Yoof
Guess I’ll Never Know
Es Tut Mir Leid
An Open Letter To My Human
Half A Song For Suzy
Ode To Marburg
A Simple Song
Departures
More Like This
Not Fooling Me
The Other Half

New Record

Hi All, (If anyone ever reads this)

Hope all is wonderful. I have had a very busy summer of festivals and it’s all been rather lovely. I realised however that it’s been a couple years since I made a record so I thought I’d conjure something new up. I’m currently in Spacewolf Studio in Wells, Somerset and hope to have finished something by Christmas.

I’ll probably start annoying you all about it soon.

Cheers Nick x

Trees. Loads of ’em.

Just back from my first visit to 2000Trees. What a glorious festival. So well run and such a friendly vibe throughout, even in the cuddly-fighty-pits. I had the great pleasure of joining Ben Marwood, with my mandolin, for a couple of songs at the end of his Axiom set.

For ‘Singalong’ Barry Dolan AKA Oxygen Thief/Non-Canon joined in on vocals and impeccable kazoo solo, and for ‘District Sleeps’ Frank Turner got up to sing much to the crowd’s delight. Ben had been unable to play for the last couple of years due to ill health so it was so good to see him back and at his very best. Not that he had to sing much of course, as every beautiful human in the tent knew every single word which they shouted out in his general direction.

So up for it next year!

Here’s a clip of District

x

Apologies… (again)

Hi, Firstly apologies for being really rubbish at posting on here. I have been rather busy if it helps.

Since my last post I’ve toured Germany and Holland three times and made many new lovely friends at festivals and gigs around the UK. I’ve also been busy writing and I reckon I’m only one or two songs off a new album. Most of the summer will be spent doing festivals with the band but I have a few solo shows too. Really looking forward to my first 2000Trees appearances this week. They’re only fringe gigs but I’ve heard so many good things about the festival so I’m grateful to be involved.

My next trip to Germany is in September when I’ll be doing a few gigs with Lonely Tourist. He’s really very good.

Hope to see you on the road soon

Gigs of course can be found on the ‘Gigs’ page.

Cheers Nick x

Home again…

Hi. Just home from a glorious tour with Gaz Brookfield and Ben Wain. It was so much fun and I had the pleasure of making so many new friends. We have about 7 weeks off and then we hit the road together again, this time overseas. During the last tour I sold many of the new T-shirts which have this design on them

TREE_NPFA_image

I have some left so I’ve added them to the online shop over there —->

In other news I’m delighted to say that I’ve started work on a new album which will hopefully be available by the end of the year.

See you soon

Cheers Nick x

 

Happy New Year

Hi all, Sorry for the delay in updating. Hope you had wonderful Christmasses and delightful New Years. I have been busy touring and discovering new countries (they had already been discovered but I’d not been before). One was Sweden where a drummer Marcus Carter, from one of my teenage influences ‘Newcranes’ organised a few gigs for me. Sweden was very ace and I can’t wait to return there someday soon.

The other place I finally got to play was Dublin. Been there twice since my last post and it was all I hoped it would be. Got to meet so many lovely and inspirational people. Again looking forward to going back there again soon.

The first part of this year I’ll be mainly touring with Gaz Brookfield and Ben Wain. We will be doing the UK in Feb and Germany in April as we did last year. It would be lovely to see some of you at one or two of the shows (which are on the ‘Gigs’ page).

There are also a few more songs currently being created so there may well be another record coming out by the end of the year.

Cheers Nick x

 

Summer’s Here

Hi, Thanks for stopping by. Welcome to June. I have just returned from a couple of weeks in Germany where I met lots of lovely people. The gigs were – for the most part – good fun and the currywurst was more than impeccable. I write this post when I should *actually* be packing the car for a week or so at Glastonbury Festival. I’m playing there with the False Alarms on Friday 26th June at the Avalon Cafe at 7.30pm. It would be lovely to see some of you there. We’ll be playing on the Thursday evening too but venue is yet to be confirmed.
July and August are mainly free from gigs which is lovely as I really need to write a few more songs. There will be a few of course and the dates will be posted on the gigs tab because that’s how the Internet works. Take care folks and hope to see you soon. x