News: January – Happy New Year

January 1, 2017 — Leave a comment

It’s the 1st January 2017, so it’s time for a fresh start, time to turn over a new leaf, time to make new year resolutions, and of course time to crack on with all of the new ideas.

I’m hoping to start this year on the right foot, and this requires some thought and planning. We all feel obligated to do this in some shape or form as it provides an aims for our achievements.

Last month I posted four blogs on Planning Creativity, and through writing these I have essentially made my plans for the year, and have other ideas ready to be planned.

I would like to let you know of a few things happening this Month…

Human Imperfections EP – 27/01/2017

NEW RELEASE – On Friday 27th January 2017 I’ll be releasing my new EP ‘Human Imperfections’. Since performing the live show alongside Matthew Creed (Jammy Custard), I’ve developed a new found love of playing drums, and this EP is about just that. It’s the first time my drums (often only heard live) will be featured on a record, so I decided to take a step back from the electronic sound a little and just play. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. If you would like to hear it first, keep reading, else you will be able to purchase it on my Bandcamp page, and listen to it on Spotify etc…

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Human Imperfections EP Launch at Gwdihw – 25/01/17

Independent Venue Week – If you would like a chance to hear the new record live, then come and join me at Gwdihw in Cardiff where I’ll be headlining at Lloyd Griffiths amazing night All My Friends with support from Simeon Smith and Tetrahex. You can buy tickets here

Creativity Blog – This month I’ll be blogging about a constant battle many of us face; Life vs. Creativity. I’ll be introducing the idea of what can stop us from being creative, and the hard/awkward decisions we’re made to make in order to compensate. This is a subject close to my heart as it’s been a constant struggle for me, so please read, comment, and talk to me. I’d like to hear how you deal with the battle yourself.

Future Plans – I have two more releases lined up later in the year and more blogs, so keep your eyes and ears open for news and updates, it’s best to follow me on Twitter or Facebook for more frequent updates @5thspear and Instagram for giggles

News: December – Nearing the End of 2016

December 5, 2016 — Leave a comment

Yet another year doing my thing. Year Two has been released into the ether, and all of the feedback has been positive which has delighted me. A real confidence booster if I’m honest. I was a little worried it wouldn’t be taken well or deemed as boring. ‘Waking Up With Clapping Head Syndrome’ and ‘Slightly All the Feels’ have been featured on both Adam Walton and Bethan Elfyn’s shows on BBC Radio Wales also, so I’m glad to still have support from Adam in my second year.

October saw me playing 2 live shows alongside Matthew Creed from Jammy Custard. One being our first live set outside of Cardiff featuring at Bristol’s new electronic open mic sessions known as CHK ONE. A unique idea that really seems to have hit the spot with the community. Artists pre-register their interest to play and founder Jae Task curates the applications. They seem to be doing really well and hype around the night is increasing quickly. The guys live video the night, and I’m really please with how it turned out. Check it out below

November saw another live set at performed at Brickstock at Brickworks, a festival run by Fizzi Events. Cardiff Electronic Music Producers Network (CEPN) invited me down to play. It was a fun quirky evening. The same night I invited my friend Simeon Smith to come and take some photos using his oldschool cameras, and these are the new photos you’ve seen floating around my social media links. It was great doing a a shoot with this dude. He’s fun, creative, relaxed, and all round good guy.

At the end of November Simeon popped up again, and invited me to play alongside him for his own set at CHK ONE, which I was more than pleased to do. We performed tracks from his most recent EP entitled ‘All Is Undone’. It was great fun playing a show and not having to worry about the electronic side for once, simply trying to be the best drummer I could. Something I hope to do again soon.

I’ve recently added a limited run of CDs to my merchandise section on Bandcamp so if you’d like hardcopies of my releases handmade and put together with my loving hands, head over to http://5thspear.bandcamp.com/merch for that stuff, and keep an eye, as I’m making it my duty to make sure I have stuff on there at all times, but don’t you worry. I shall have it with me at gigs also. Hopefully.

December is now a planning month, I’ve got loads of new ideas for what I want to get up to over the next year, and one of those ideas is running my blog on creativity, which I will be updating each week. The next news update will be in January, but there will be plenty of bits in between, so make sure to stop by, follow me on Twitter/Instagram for daily notes, and like my Facebook page for events and giggles. x

News: Year Two

September 21, 2016

So, March was the last time I posted something here.

What have I been doing? Well, a whole lot of nothing, and a whole lot of everything.

I’ve played a couple of shows, but mostly been trying to keep my head down around the day job to get my next release sorted, and now I’m finished, and I’m happy.

It’s been tough, probably one of the toughest processes I’ve been through. I had planned to release this at the start of the year but just couldn’t get it done. When I thought it was finished I asked for feedback from friends and colleagues. All the feedback was positive, with one home truth: “You can do better”

I agreed whole heartily, and decided to stick at it. It’s frustrating when your brain thinks something is finished, but you heart says no. I was simply being lazy.

I gave it a rest for a week, a month, I think that then turned into 4 months, then came back to it. I started adding new sections, cutting the tracks down in size, deleting whole sections and sounds, re-arranging, re-arranging, re-arranging, recording new parts. Everything.

Throughout this process I had a gig to prepare for, my second headline show. I decided that half of the stuff had to be new material. I was playing in Cardiff with the mindset that everyone who had seen me play had heard it all before. I was glad I chose to do this. The comments were outstanding. Positive vibes all around about the new material, and people really seemed to engage and enjoy it more than previously. This was another push in the right direction.

Life got in the way again, motivation quickly disappeared, procrastination kicked in. The struggle that every creative battles with.

I finally got myself back into it a few weeks ago, nailed it within a few days, and guess what. Today it’s been uploaded. I’ve decided to hold off on it until the 7th Oct, but I wanted to just get it up into the ether ready to be distributed across all the platforms as close together as possible.

One final thing I would like to add. Being a musician is about being a musician. I’m an electronic musician, yet this album is relatively organic. I’ve never been about trying to make new sounds with the fanciest synth out there, in fact I’ve found that often to be tedious. For me it’s about getting an idea ‘down on paper’, and going with it. This whole album is just that. Electronic sounds do feature, but most of it is about me finding a bit of a voice, in both production style and melody creation (something I’ve struggled with for a long time).

This release is truly a stepping stone for myself, and I’m only looking forward to carrying on with writing new material having learned so much from what I’ve just achieved.

So guys, keep an eye out. Year Two is coming.

News: Releases and getting onto Spotify… Eventually…

March 5, 2016

I’m getting itchy feet… Is that the expression?

2016 has been very busy. The day job is doing it’s thing, and when I can I sit down in the studio and bash my head against a brick wall to see what comes out (Brains, hair, dust, paint… You know) I will.

So before Christmas I sat down for a week and got a bunch of ideas going. My project was a mess of loops playing over and over again, whilst I drank coffee, nodded along and tried to consider what their end result might sound like.

Well, they were all buried into my hard drive. There’s me thinking “none of this is good enough, I hate it all… blah blah blah”. A few months ago I came across some inspiration sitting in the studio of Nick Harrison (drummer of Sous Les Paves). Nick was wanting to talk about how to play live, and how we both work in the studio. We threw ideas back and forth, and then I though “screw it, the best way for me to show you is this project file with all the new ideas I’m never going to use”. One by one we flicked through each idea “crap… crap… crap… oh wait… I like this”.

So it began. I discovered around 8 out of 20+ ideas that I wanted to work on. Standard. I got rid of all of the junk that was holding me back in the project, and kept the stuff that would keep me sane.

Since then I have been popping into the studio every now and then to sit down and arrange everything. Of course I’m still banging my head against a brick wall, but I’m getting somewhere, and I really like what I’ve got to show you.

To go along side this, I’ve decided to try and push my noise further afield. In this day and age, most people are using streaming services such as Spotify to listen to music, so even with stuff uploaded for free on bandcamp, most people won’t listen to it, others still don’t know what soundcloud is…

So within the next month or so (hopefully), Year One and Imperfections EP should be released on Spotify and other streaming services for you all to enjoy.

There is however a catch.

There is this well known dilemma that the music industry is failing. People aren’t wanting to pay for stuff, I’m exactly the same. It’s why I originally posted my stuff for free. This isn’t good. It’s come to my attention that people like myself, offering stuff for free, essentially means that people might not want to pay for the proper good stuff (I’ve said stuff a lot). I sit and watch interviews with people I aspire to be like, and what they’re saying is true. The internet is full of free stuff, that’s free for a reason. I’m beginning to believe in myself enough to put a price tag on what I create, to set an example and to try and encourage others to do so.

My releases will no longer be free through Bandcamp, but they will be free to stream from services such as Spotify etc, and available for purchase on Itunes, Amazon and Googleplay etc.

Onwards and upwards aye…

News: 2016

January 13, 2016

So it’s begun. We’re already 13 days into 2016, and I can’t believe it. Any fellow creative will understand. I look at what I’ve done and I think of all the time that I wasted, it gets me down, I get upset. HOWEVER. 2015 was also packed with a load of stuff that pushed my music making passion forward. You can scroll down and look through sparse blog posts regarding what I got up to. Adding it all up it actually puts a grin on my face. I’m very lucky to have gotten to where I am so far in such a short period of time.

The highlight I’m looking forward to though is this…

MY FIRST HEADLINE SHOW.

To see my name in big on a poster like this is awesome. I’ve stepped into a few bars around Cardiff to have people say they’re coming and looking forward to it, which I hate to say, makes me hella proud of myself 🙂

Blue Box Promotions is run by the legend Adam Whitmore, who I’ve met before at networking events and who also takes part in a lot of other promotion groups around Cardiff. When he first invited me to come and play at Free For All festival I jumped at the chance of kicking the new year off with a festival show. When he asked if I would headline the Friday night, I was ecstatic.

Thanks to all. Lets start 2016 with a bang… After those big flashy things exploded in the sky… Peace x

5th Spear

5th Spear, Electronic Musician and Drummer, Cardiff UK

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