Sometime in 2019 I was contacted by Music Tech Wizard, John Timney who requested I take a good old trip with my good old double bass down to the studio to help out with a recording project for a man called Dave.
Provided for me was number of tracks featuring a bloke playing an acoustic guitar and singing in a broad Mackem accent. As one third of Sunderland super group Captain Naughty Fingers I was sold on the concept. They had me at ‘Mackem’.
A few hours (and a few swearing fits) later, Timney had managed to get an album’s worth of bass out of me – at which point I clocked out. He went on to capture performances by Fiddler Ged McCormack, Singer Shannon Powell and himself on drums.
The resulting album has been made available for digital download and on streaming services, however I would recommend getting a physical copy of the CD featuring artwork from Dave’s brother, Peter.
It was strange to play on an album without having met the song-writer so I was chuffed to received a invitation to play at the album launch at Steels Club in Pallion where I could meet Dave and the other contributing musicians.
I had been tipped off that to be around Dave was something of an experience and he didn’t disappoint.
During the rehearsal and onstage at the gig he seamlessly drifted in an out of storytelling mode, painting a verbal picture as a backdrop to each of the songs (some of this commentary was captured on the original audio files I had been given earlier, but I’d assumed they’d just left the tape running between songs and not bothered to cut out the talking).
One minute he’d be fondly recalling pinching coal as a kid to take back home to his family, the next he’d be a bar and a half into a tune and the rest of the band would have to jump in to join him without letting on that we were still day-dreaming about the old days none of us could remember.
I’d learned the songs, but this was all about feel, and Dave has real intuition for taking the audience (and his band) on a journey with just the right amount of banter, storytelling and the musicianship to weave it all together in a way that got the whole house clapping and stamping along.
Overall an absolute pleasure to be part of and I’m secretly hoping to get the call about a second album to do it all again.
Groovebox Adam 