2022 - A Year In Review
Well there goes 2022, a year of ups and downs for so many reasons. I’m not immune from the cost of living crisis that is seemingly never ending but I soldier on in the world of self-employment and have had some very interesting experiences in the last year.
Weddings
After the absolute travesty that was 2020 for weddings, I slowly got back into playing solo weddings this year. Some of these were booked in during 2021 and some came fairly last minute
I had sort of fallen out of the scene a little with solo weddings (something I’m determined to put right in 2023). Facebook advertising bit the dust for me a long time ago and my relationship with social media in general is very much hate/hate. I find it difficult staying on top of things when it comes to SM as there is so much content out there these days. It’s so easy to get swamped/phased out/distracted and on top of that I have guitar students, schools & my own website to keep track of.
Nevertheless, I played a few weddings this year and enjoyed them all. I found myself in Switzerland (more on that below), Carlisle, Birmingham, Congleton (twice in a month), Shropshire, Wetherby & many other places that escape me right now and every Bride, Groom & guest have been lovely. I’ve been thinking about new arrangements for weddings too and will be posting more videos in these next few weeks while I have the time.
I’ve also made a deal with my self to keep up with this blog too. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve written and posted then left it for months. My YouTube channel has also suffered from neglect lately but I will be on the case with that too.
Songs I Want To Play
Remember this? Over lockdown we started a project (as did every other musician on the planet) to record and film ourselves playing all the songs we never got a chance to play live but secretly longed to. Those 2 years of isolation gave us over 20 videos and in November 2022 we finally got the chance to play it all live, together for the very first time!
We practiced hard over several months with quite a few 4-8 hour rehearsals at Salford University to, first of all, remember what we actually played in each song, tweak and refine some arrangements then bring it all together for a live performance.
We played on the 4th & 5th of November at the New Adelphi Theatre in Salford and it was amazing. To see people up close, enjoying what we were playing live was just brilliant. A lot of my musical friends turned up unannounced to watch too and had nothing but praise. Being on stage with the best musicians I know or could hope to play with was something I’d waited a long time for. I couldn’t have hoped to play with more accomplished musicians and everything any one of them played or sang made me smile the whole way through, especially Jonny’s vocoder part in PYT!
The first night was filmed and recorded as in the process of being edited so look out for more info on that soon!
Switzerland
This year I travelled abroad for my first ever wedding in a foreign country. The email enquiry came in around January time asking if i could come to Switzerland to play at a wedding on 6/2/22. I replied saying “damn right I can!” (or words to that effect) but nothing else was heard until after that date had passed.
As I suspected though, being from another country the date was actually the 2nd of June, not the 6th of Feb as i read it and I subsequently got a reply from Magdalena & Chris. The deal was done and I travelled over right in the middle of the half term travel nightmare we saw at the end of May & start of June where Easyjet among others were cancelling flights left, right & centre. Fortunately for me, my flight was the only one going to Switzerland that day and didn’t get cancelled, nor did the flight on the way back.
The only other thing left to worry about was my guitar going through the hold luggage. It felt like putting a child through the luggage system, such was my anxiety but Easyjet defied expectations and got the guitar there and back completely unscathed!
As i was there for a few days, I ventured off into the local town of Basel for a wander, something not easy to do with a wife and child in tow but I was on my own this time. Straight after breakfast I was out and terrorising the locals with my Englishness and pigeon German language half remembered from school and half gleaned from google translate when doing something particularly tricky such as asking for the bill at the pizza restaurant…
The wedding itself was lovely. A small congregation from Switzerland, Poland, Germany & the USA meant a very lovely day.
The Manytones
My main avenue of music performance this year has been with The Manytones, a fantastic group of musicians who have all become very good friends. I’ve played over 60 dates with them this year, culminating with a very lovely trip to London in December to play for a large corporate event and also film a new promo video which should be being uploaded as i write this (link to follow).
We also ended up in the Mull Of Kintyre for a gig, which was absolutley amazing
We went all out for the filming with multiple camera operators as well as professional sound recording by my good friend Paul Robinson, who you may remember as the bass player in my Gypsy Jazz videos. Every singer we have was with us and Paul arranged several new tracks including Beyonce & Rihanna medleys with some very difficult vocal harmonies. Our rehearsal the week before proved invaluable, especially for me as Paul’s arrangements involve very seriously difficult chord progressions!
I continue working with the Manytones into 2023 and beyond and we have some big things planned so stay tuned for that. You can visit the website by clicking here.
Other gigs & shows
This year I’ve played many amateur dramatic shows and very nearly got a chance to play on a professional touring show. In 2022 I played in:
“Pippin” for UCLAN
“School Of Rock” at Rivington & Blackrod High
“Shout” in Adlington
“Rent” for about the billionth time
“Wind In The Willows” for CATS in Bolton
“Matilda” at Thornleigh College, Bolton
“Little Shop Of Horrors” in Burnley
“Flashdance” in Knutsford
I missed out on covering for the guitarist on the “Dreamgirls” as some of the run was cancelled and he couldn’t then take the week off he wanted. Easy come, easy go, as they say.
Another first this year was playing in Bremont’s watch shop in St Anne’s Square, Manchester. The store was holding a Christmas get together for their clients and I was asked to play Christmas tunes for a few hours (I didn’t play Christmas songs the whole time, nobody wants that even if they think they do) and it was a very lovely gig to play, everyone was so nice.
2023
So, my plans for 2023 include:
Create more content for YouTube (what would you like to see?)
Get back in the groove with social media, no matter how much it pains me
Push forward with The Manytones & Songs I Want To Play
Write a book on playing the guitar. Not the usual instruction book but a light-hearted look at the last 25 years of my playing and what I’ve learned
Write an actual book on playing the guitar. A not-very-light-hearted look at technique etc.
Post in my blog more often
How about a new gypsy jazz collaboration video?