Body popping Werewolf and Million to one odds

The summer in England shot past in a thoroughly entertaining flash with no freak floods round our way and some loverly sunny days. Check out the Dancing werewolf who invaded the stage at Lamp in Hull and busted some moves to the “Last of the summer wine” drum n Bass remix when supporting the fantastic Crucibles .. courtesy of Cally who was in the bemused crowd.

After finishing recording some acoustic tracks for a Japanese promo CD, I had a few gigs including one at The  Sesh for local legend DJ Mak. There seems to be some great originality coming out of Hull right now and after having watched a disturbing herd of cringe worthy shite over the last 12 months or so, I can safely feel proud of my East Yorkshire roots. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a large amount of tosh kicking about.

Anyhow, much to my delight, it seems that a Man-made band has organically formed, with no MSG’s… just the odd PSP …and a bit of recreational LSD..

After starting out joined acoustically at the hip with guitars and harmonies courtesy of Lord Shaun Chance “Chanwell  III”, we have acquired the skills of beat technician Gav White (Concrete Breaks, Sorry Loves, Fonda 500, Rod, Jane and Freddie… ) and Sub frequency generator James Markham (GST Cardinals, Natural High best of breed category).

The Man-made Noise live experienced has now leapt forward and in a short time we got it together for some  shows in Nottingham, Barnsley and Manchester.  See the pics of the Night n Day cafe gig in Manchester by super photo girl Shirlaine Forrest.

Myself and Lord Chanwell played an acoustic show at Liverpool Parr street studios and afterwards I posed for a picture outside the club that hosts the legendary Cream nights. A car full of lads went by and all we heard was the beautiful Liverpudlian accent in full effect which was a sound not too dissimilar to coughing up phlegm…. “Fuggghhhhin errrbet”…class.

Amidst Man-made stuff, the highlight of the summer had to be when I joined an all star cast with electro-funk genius Dr Dot on the Sesh stage at the Hull Freedom Festival. I was drafted in to do some Whacka Chacka guitar work, while Bradford based rappers  JND and EXP whipped the crowd up with some slick rhyming. It was difficult for me and Gav to stop grinning from the point when Carl the Moog and keys specialist turned up in a newly ebay purchased black taxi to the full sized green dragon shuffling along the stage busting slo mo zombie moves. Nuts! and all that without a full band rehearsal.

So now I am back in Tokyo to do what is essentially my second tour. Unfortunately finances are such that I am alone on the trip so I am just with my Acoustic guitar, my effects and synth pedal, doing looping and beatboxing etc. I have had 6 shows so far and the reaction has been cracking. Its a shame that I am not with the full band but fingers crossed for the future eh.

So…. last saturday I sound checked at Club Era in Shimokitazawa where I was due to headline and then went to grab some food with one of the other Bands on the bill.  On route to the restaurant, we passed a venue which I am due to play on the 20th Oct, only to find that “Man-made Noise” was written outside on the billing. A quick check up by my tour manager Kimiko revealed that the staff were waiting for me to turn up to soundcheck. What followed were a few frantic phonecalls and a few embarrassed faces and I grabbed my stuff from Era and agreed to play both shows. Luckily I was first on the bill at this venue so I was able to dash between the two. Its difficult to describe the vastness and the complexities of Tokyo and the chances of stumbling across that club, noticing the billing, then managing to play both shows to avoid any issues arising from a double booking. Needless to say, I am gonna do the lottery this week.