The Year of the Songwriter

TRYING to make sense of real life amidst the online noise and traffic of cat snaps and tired adages to "Keep Calm, Lie Back and Think of the Cash" or "Keep Smiling When You've Been Run Over" isn't easy. Keeping your mind focused on the ultimate music prize -when there isn't one in my opinion - impossible.

But somehow in the middle of this squabbling self promotional marketing musical dystopia of DIY free-for-all professionally produced, self funded mayhem, the musicians involved with Sweeney Astray have managed to be creative and industrious. We have done the gigs, made the sounds and lived the daily life of low waged entertainer and free interned artist.

(DISCLAIMER: It's only me (Mike) who thinks like this, not the rest of the people I play music with. Well, not exactly, but only close for some of them)

So what have I personally been doing since we entered the new year of 20124, 21st century, on the brink of environmental catastrophe, dominated by neo liberal quasi-religious market worshippers - trying to exist financially and emotionally as a pro musician, songwriter, guitar teacher and events promoter in a mass panic world of non stop consumerism.

Well... aside from the urban gigs, online streaming song posts, hundreds and hundreds of lessons and a couple of paid parties,  I have been enduring the most creative aspect of this self employment and that is the songwriting process.

Songs with titles such as - Take Me Away, Without Your Love, Sunshine and Swimming, History and Sketches of Elvis, Concrete and Soul, Two People - have worked their way out of my flat to be arranged with the help of musicians like Marta Canellas (cello) and Anna Ashworth (drums) and Elliott Dryden (bass).

And we are now in the process of recording and mixing them. This August is ear marked as a chance to work on them. And maybe I'll have an EP ready in the Autumn. I said maybe...but as we have already spent hours recording and things are actually well underway, it's looking and sounding very promising indeed.

Mike performing in the Guild Hall Foyer as part of Preston Remembers WW1 centenary last month.

  click on the link below to hear our music 

http://www.reverbnation.com/sweeneyastray or http://www.sweeneyastray.co.uk/

 

2014. How it panned out for Sweeney Astray... 

Being signed to a label

Having parted company with Rubi Records (thankfully I didn't sign anything) what was there to do next but carry on regardless and go out and play some gigs...I played with various Sweeney line ups in Manchester, Blackburn, Clitheroe (Acoustic Village), Preston, Liverpool, two Lancashire festivals, a support gig and Edinburgh with no recordings to sell or spread and a small amount of publicity but they worked.

Most felt brilliant one or two felt like a lot of effort for little reward and somehow ridiculous but funny - we won't go there, but as a musician you have to accept that the ridiculous gig is part of it too.

Live Performances

May 2014 The Acoustic Village at the Grand

Anna Ashworth on drums.

Double bass player Hannah Dacey and Mike Kneafsey on guitar/vocals.

Mike (vocals/guitar) and Elliott Dryden (bass) performing at the Korova Arts Cafe & Bar in Preston, May 2014.

Undoubtedly one of my my favourite gigs this year was the one myself and bass player Elliott (pictured above) played at Hurst Green Village Hall as support for Midge Ure, the former frontman with Ultravox and Live Aid organiser.(Thanks to Carl Barrow for organising that and giving us the support slot).

It was packed and the Midge Ure fans gave us a really decent and heart warming response. For one evening we had the fun of playing along with the popstar vibe thanks to Midge Ure's fame and support.  Loud applause, head nodding, cheers, atmosphere and music fans intently watching us and not just drinking. Fine.

It surprised me when at one point I was taking a mic stand back out of the car, pre gig,  and there were middle aged Midge Ure fans hanging about outside in the car park hoping for a glimpse of the proud Scot doing his sound check.

"Is he in there, revivng up, playing C chord and G chord?"

"Well like yeah, he really is and he is a person too. Drinks cups of tea and everything."

"Wow!"

(that isn't really what we said and I never actually saw him with a mug of tea but you get my drift)

I wasn't complaining when Midge fans treated us (me and Ellliott) with the same reverence as popstars outside after the gig!

Mike and Elliott will be playing at Cloudspotting Festival near Slaidburn (The Forest of Bowland) Lancashire on Saturday August the 2nd 2014. Mike will also be running songwriter workshops and Elliott will be working on the sound desks.

Elliott Dryden bass player with the Remedy and sound engineer also plays gigs with Sweeney Astray

Another musical performance I enjoyed this year was the three nights I played as part of  a semi pro band full of jazz musicians for a school show. It took place at the St. Mary's Centre in Clitheroe. I teach around 16 students as a peripatetic guitar teacher at Oakhill Community College in Whalley and a a good few of them were singing in Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat (you know the one that had DonnyOsmond/Jason Donavon as the lead). We provided the sounds. It was awesome!

Those nights held a togetherness and down to earth warmth that truly lacked in the cold hearted competitive zones of pub gigs in city centres. I find the teachers to be fab and my students are all full of charisma and charm - no really. And I'll carry on working there in September for maybe my fifth year (I think it's about five years).

I felt lucky to be part of it.

But we also played at a couple of festivals including the Middle Earth Beer Festival 2014 (above). At one of  these, the generous hearted Mancunian and minor celeb George Borowski was kind enough to get on the mic, after I'd done a performance with vocalist Katie Ritson, and announce that Mike Kneafsey is "one of the best songwriters alive today."

I felt very grateful for that boost to my confidence as often nobody says very much to me at all either way. Either they decide I don't need it, feel competitive or they just think my music is shite and don't care. 

Click on the link below

https://soundcloud.com/mike-kneafsey-songwriter/colours

 (Mike Harding the famous Radio folkster dj wrote the comment "That does it for me!" underneath the facebook post of this Donovan cover when I posted this online to promote the Acoustic Village gig. Well chuffed! I recorded this track with folk guitarist Gren Bartley, signed to Fellside Recordings, at Shamrocks Studios in Balderstone, Lancashire. The Gren Bartley Band headlined the Acoustic Village we played at the Grand in April. Such a lovely stage to prance about on with great equipment and sound)

Photo Sessions

So far we have managed two sessions. A Sweeney Astray in the awesome and ornate Avenahm Park with myself, Hannah Dacey and Anna Ashworth with friend and photographer Matthew Ainsworth having us scramble on rocks and undertake some serious The Prisoner BBC TV 1960s poses (the lead actor Patrick Mcgoohan mean anything to you?) .

The other session, my friend Sandra took the pics. She took the snaps in a ruined farmhouse on a rugged outcrop on the Isle of Skye. With beautiful blue skies and wild ocean surrounding us, it was very different from another rainy day in Preston.

But we're not releasing them yet...

Films and EPs...

Sweeney Astray were filmed at Blackburn College in the summer of 2012 playing through five or six songs. Myself, Hannah and Anna. And thanks to sound engineer Joe Fossard (who has worked on pop bands including the Smiths in his long illustrious career). Eventually we were able to provide a live soundtrack as a physical cd which we sold at the Acoustic Village.

I put this onto bandcamp as a three track EP and released this on the 21st April 2014 as our first online commercial Sweeney product. It took me hours and days to upload.

Then we eagerly awaited the film to be edited. And literally nagged staff at the college to fulfill the promise they made to provide us with one. For years. Literally. Eventually staff explained they had lost the footage. Hmmm...

But here's the soundtrack link..(click on the link below to hear the tracks)

.http://sweeneyastray.bandcamp.com/album/sweeney-astray-live-at-blackburn-college

We did however play the Sunday Sessions at Reidy's Guitar Shop in Blackburn and they filmed this version of Cafe Rendezvous and  put it on youtube.

I may have had about four hours sleep and eight pints of Guinness the night before so maybe I don't look my best but the sound is good. (click on the link below to see the film)

 http://youtu.be/gUMlpoZuJ30

The next Sweeney Astray gig is at the Oddbar in the northern quarter Manchester, as part of the Travelling Band's night Shut The Far Cupboard, on Sunday August the 3rd 2014. The line up will be myself, Anna on drums and Hannah Dacey on double bass  as she is back on holiday from the Royal College of Music London.

Double bass player Hannah Dacey is back from London!!

Earning A Living

(click on the link below to hear one of Mike's covers)

 https://soundcloud.com/mike-kneafsey-songwriter/anna-go-with-him-cover

Meanwhile aside from all these gigs,  I have been teaching guitar full time and exhausting myself in the process covering the bills. On the last two Saturdays of July, I performed at  a paid wedding party and a 40th  (the former with Elliott on bass and the latter I did solo).

They proved to be fantastically enjoyable having worked hard all year at gigs to suddenly play through popular covers for a dancing, singing, happy crowd of appreciative revellers felt uplifitng.

A fair reward for years of learning, practising and teaching too, I like to think.

Stydd Gardens near Ribchester where the Wedding Party took place

Dancers and singers having a good time!

A "silent" disco! You had to be there.

The guys on before me at the 40th were true pros. The chap on the left is called Roy and told me he'd played some of these 70s covers when they were number one in the charts. Good man!!

Cheesi Tchaikovsky's owner Andrea held her birthday in the square with plenty of burgers and beer. And of course - live music!

 Commissioned Song - When The Whistle Blows

 (click on the link for  an amateur video made by a friend Emma of the song When The Whistle Blows at Picnic in the Park, Preston, 2013)

http://youtu.be/RYpeMWSfVLE

Lancashire County Council/South Ribble Borough Council commissioned my song When The Whistle Blows to be used in a historical film as part of the Preston Remembers back in June. It was part of the centenary remembrance of World War One. With both my grandfathers serving in the British Army in that conflict it felt fitting to show them some respect and sing a song for and about them both.

I played to a backing track and film in a church in Leyland as part of a film showing and live performance involving myself and three other songwriters. We also played songs in the foyer of the Guild Hall to an invited audience.

Later I was invited to join friend and songwriter Andy G Oliver and play live on BBC Radio Lancashire on a roadshow location at the seaside, at Blackpool.

All great experiences to be part of, a special thanks to Nigel Stewart for his efforts,encouragement  and drive as a main organiser.

A sign that four songwriters are lurking somewhere.

Behind the stage at Blackpool!

 

Recordings...

As I  wrote higher up...for me the most exciting thing to be part of is finally getting round to making an EP/album. The one I started with Rubi Records in November 2013. This time bass player Elliott Dryden, who now works full time as an apprentice sound engineer at the Grand on York Street in Clitheroe and myself took it upon ourselves to start recording a whole bunch of new songs.

As far as I'm concerned better songs!

We've been working on it since May and intend to really try and sort out some finished track by next September. Here's some pics of us grafting and having fun...

I should mention this includes a new version of Two People with cellist Marta Canellas of Barcelona...

and new songs Take Me Away, Sunshine and Swimming and new versions of Tales from Kawau. Sketches of Elvis. Without Your Love. History and maybe even Concrete and Soul or Above Me Now.

Well thanks for reading this far and hope to see you soon. The last time we played was on Sunday July the 13th at the Big Gig in Chatburn (organised by songwriter Andy Oliver). That was a great chance to catch up with local friends and groove off the back of a gig truck to a chilled out crowd. 

Chilling out in Chatburn!

Playing off the back of the gig truck. Not us but I took this as I was packing up.

And just to let you know our friends Katie Ritson (vocals/guitar) and Elliott Dryden (bass) have been busy doing their own musical successes. Too many to mention here. Long may they roll!!

Playing to a crowd of thousands! Elliott's view from the stage before The Remedy support gig with James Blunt earlier this month at Hoghton Towers.

Katie Ritson playing at Stepping Stones Festival having had a personal invite from folk star Maddy Prior.

Catch up with you soon.

Mike Kneafsey

 (click on the link below to reach a solo Mike Kneafsey music site)

http://www.reverbnation.com/mikekneafsey