Just me and my guitar

When PMD of EPMD said his microphone was his only friend in one of my favourite 90's hip-hop songs - 'Ruff, Rugged n Raw' if you're wondering - I used to laugh and think it was a bit of a throw-away line.

But now, over 10 years later, I finally understand.

I feel the same way about my guitar.

In particular, my acoustic Yamaha acoustic guitar. My first guitar, on which I've written the majority of my songs over the years.

I haven't played my guitar for over a year, and haven't seen it for almost the same amount of time.

I had a bit of a falling out of love with music in 2012 (I  know I still haven't expanded on that yet, but I will), but my guitar was still there for me, and we continued to speak and listen to each other.

There's a bunch of unfinished songs sitting on my computer that I hope (and plan) to finish as soon as I move house, when we will finally be reunited with each other.

Life is probably the most difficult thing I've ever had a go at. Every day is a battle, with either myself or my surroundings and people I interact with, and not having that one friend to talk to has recently become a big issue for me.

It never judges me, it just listens. It supports my ideas (no matter how bad or crazy!) and it comforts me when those around me can't or won't or fail to.

This post is rather stupid I realise, but a lot has happened to me/my life in the last few years, and it's time I started letting out all that built up angst, all the fears, all the joy, all the loss and all the silliness again.

I just hope we see each other soon, although at the moment it feels like we'll never see each other again.

Just Walk - so I did.

A few weeks ago (almost seems like it never happened now) my girlfriend and I took part in a sponsored 30k walk around Goodwood in Sussex.

We were both walking for charities close to our hearts, me; Kitty in the City - a local cat rescue charity that my girlfriend does a lot of volunteering and fundraising for and where we got 2 of our 3 current little fluff balls, and my girlfriend walked for the Dr Hadwen Trust for animal free research, where she also volunteers her Saturdays.

We both hit our targets and raised a nice amount of money that will greatly help these charities continue their amazing selfless work - if you sponsored and happen to be reading this, thank you so much!

The walk itself, called Just Walk was an event by a company called Across the Divide (read about them and their events here: https://www.acrossthedivide.com/about-us/who-we-are/) and it was really well organised, and throughout the whole route everybody was looked after and given lots of encouragement.

For me, the whole thing was a nicer experience than the London to Brighton Ultra Challenge that I took part in back in May 2016, as there was much less pretence, it was possible to walk for whatever charity you wanted to (no matter how small) and the route was divided into much better segments, which made it much less hellish than the 100k London to Brighton event.

One of my best friends had attempted the 100k L2B walk in 2015 but didn't make it to the end. I thought it would be a fun thing to try and agreed with him we'd do it again in 2016. Unfortunately for me, the event was hijacked by another friend who took over the idea and decided the charity we were walking for, which for me, didn't make it feel like I was doing it for the right reasons any more - which is a big part of why anyone would put themselves through this kind of thing in the first place.

The 100k was pure hell, only made harder by that fact.

I didn't make it to the end either - I hit the 72k mark after 19 hours of walking, at which point my legs were popping and twanging, and I feared I was going to severely injure myself by carrying on.

Annoyingly, I was pretty close to the end too, having hit the final section, but I just couldn't carry on. I think it would've been a different story if I'd been putting myself through that for something I cared about, as the mental determination to finish would've kicked in at that point.

I think the most frustrating thing about the L2B walk was that the sections were broken up into different length sections that weren't thought out very well, and to add more hell on top of that, the rest stops were often further on (sometimes much much further on) than the route map stated... an extra 1k or 2k here and there isn't too much of an issue, but when you've just done an 18k stretch and are in desperate need of a rest to sort out your feet and recharge, adding 4k-5k on to a section that big was a bit of a piss take!

Anyway, here's a nice little meme created for me by my team mates which sums up the whole thing for me:

Wanna know the weirdest thing about it all though? Some time in January, I felt myself wanting to try it again! Nobody else would do the L2B with me though, but when my girlfriend spotted the Just Walk event we decided to do that instead - something manageable, yet still a challenge. Because what's the point of asking people to sponsor you to do something you can actually do?! I don't understand that at all.

Surely the point of asking somebody to give you money for doing something is that you're going to be taking on a challenge, that there's the risk you may not be able to pull it off, but you try your best to do it anyway, and you EARN that money.

Next year we're going to do the 40k for just that reason - there's no point doing another 30k, we did it already, and we go walking quite a lot anyway. I literally have no idea how I managed to do 72k of the 100k walk, but I will attempt it again in the future.

Seven years later - a lightbulb moment

Last night whilst in the shower I had a lightbulb moment.

I'll explain in a minute.

Recently I've started getting an itch to start working on music properly again, and I'd actually wanted to write a blog explaining why I stopped in the first place, but spare time being so rare for me at the moment, I haven't had a chance to yet - but I will.

Just recently my Drewvis facebook page has been receiving a number of new views and likes (no idea why!) and it's actually been niggling away in my head and finally made me want to actually finish the new album I wrote over a year ago.

A recent visit from my good friends Natalie Wouldn't from Seattle has also ignited something in me again (they always seem to do that!) and so not only am I now gearing up to get the new album finished, there's also serious talk of starting a new band with some of the closer members of Second Time Lucky.

This is a big thing.

For all of us.

It will make more sense to anyone else out there when I actually get around to writing my 'why I fell out of love with music' blog post soon.

But trust me, it's a big step, and a big deal.

So, going back to my lightbulb moment in the shower last night...

When I was at BIMM (Brighton Institute of Modern Music) doing my songwriting degree back in 2009 I received some feedback and suggestions about one of my songs (Short Measures) which at the time made no sense to me at all, I was happy with how it sounded and it's structure etc. and that was how it should be. But the feedback has always stayed in my head, and I've always tried to understand how it could possibly be of any use. Seven years later... it was last night in the shower that it finally made sense to me... I will explain what the heck I'm yabbering on about, but not now.

You'll have to wait until you hear the new version of it! ;)


And just on the off chance you read this blog and haven't heard my music... here's the last album:

The one where I attempt profundity but fail...

Being upset by friends is something that we all probably go through in our lives.

By the time you get to my age (mid thirties if you must know!) most people have seen friends come and go and siphoned out the ones that are flakey, fakey, or emotionally draining and have a nice solid collection of close, reliable, loving people that you could trust with your life, and you would do anything for.

More like family.

Families have ups and downs too though.

So what happens when your "family" - or a few of them in this case - upset you and they don't even realise?

That's the situation I've been in recently, and I've dealt with it the way I tend to deal with things like this - I've distanced myself from the situation and those who have hurt me.

It's a natural thing to do, and I'm particularly good at it unfortunately.

The problem with dealing with it in this way (and I think it's because I've changed a lot as a person over the last few years) is that I'm then left with the burden of conscience. Thinking and thinking and dwelling on the situation.

(That's not healthy by the way.)

But more annoyingly, in the end, I always seem to be the bigger person and brush it aside and just get on with it, reconciling differences (where differences are reconcilable) in my head and putting it down to just being a nice guy.

Being a nice guy never got me anything until later in life*, so there is some truth in the saying 'nice guys finish last' and the thing that is eating me up right now is that when I see the people that hurt me, I'll just do what I always do and act like nothing's happened because they're my "family" and it's my job to protect them from being hurt or upset themselves.


On a side note, I must add that I have the best friends I could have ever wished for in my life. Nobody's perfect - especially me.




* I have to say, the rewards of being a nice guy really are worth the wait!

Pepper - Ohana - Super quick album review

I'd almost forgotten about Hawaiian ska-reggae-punk band Pepper.

It seemed like they had all but disappeared from my life, aside from the odd pointless 'bands in town' demand emails I kept getting over the last few years.

Luckily though, whilst using Spotify's awesome 'discover' feature, I stumbled upon the new Pepper album, Ohana.

I love it.

It's got all of the elements I love Pepper for - with the exception of the departure of their more ska-punky songs.

It's laid back, full of summer vibes, yet still full of bouncing ska/reggae infused energy. The lead vocalist has one of the best voices I've ever heard - when I originally discovered Pepper many years ago I was convinced it was Brad from Sublime doing vocals!

As I said, this review is super quick, but my favourite tracks on Ohana are:

Reckless
Start You Up
Wait
Big Mistake

2008 was their last album 'Pink Crustaceans and Good Vibrations' - and not a great one at that, with a half decent e.p 'Stitches' in 2010. They allegedly released a self titled album in 2013, but I can't find any concrete evidence of this.

Anyhow, Ohana is great, and in perfect time for the summer. 6 out of 7 from me.

Alborosie - Freedom & Fyah - Album Review

Today has been a good day.

It started with finding a fully working 40" Samsung TV. Nice.

Then I got my hair cut. Nice.

Then when I got home, I logged on to Spotify and FINALLY the new Alborosie album Freedom & Fyah was sitting there waiting for my ears.

Having heard the single 'Fly' a couple of days ago and being pretty disappointed with it because of the horrendous overuse of autotune on it, I was actually dreading hearing the new album.

I'm going to talk a bit more about the autotune thing in a minute, but for now I'll let you know what I think about the album as a whole. It's been three years since Alborosie's last album 'Sound the System', which was a corker. Just about every track on the album is great.

Two years before that album came '2 Times Revolution' which was also really good and had a hefty amount of cracking reggae tunes on it, and was a welcomed follow up to 2009's 'Escape from Babylon' which was the first taste I had of Alborosie, and he immediately became one of my favourite contemporary reggae artists, and he is by far the most authentic white reggae artist that I listen to.

Read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alborosie I can't be bothered to tell you about him.

Over the last year or so there have been a few tracks released by Albo, and it kept me in suspense, really excited for the new album which I have listened to three times already today - so that tells you it's good already.

It does lack some of the catchiness that I've become used to from Alborosie, but nevertheless, the album is consistant and has been more or less worth the wait.

My favourite tracks are 'Rich' and 'Poser' which are probably the albums strongest, catchiest tracks.

My biggest criticism of the album, and not just Alborosie's - I'm talking about a lot of current reggae artists here too - there's just way too much autotune used throughout the album. When used sparingly, and well, autotune has its uses and place within music (never thought I'd hear myself say that!) but seriously, it's to the point of overkill here, and that made me a bit sad.

Alborosie can sing, so why not just sing the parts instead of singing them and then murdering them with the autotune? For me, it's honestly enough to shorten my listening span of this album, and although he's used it on pretty much all of his albums to a degree, this one just takes it too far.

The man can sing, and has a great voice, but honestly, if you can't sing a certain melody well, get that person that's featuring on your song to do it!

Anyway, I'll shut up about it now, but reggae artists - please please please put the autotune to rest and leave that to Ke$ha and the other artists who need it in the mainstream charts.

As with all of Alborosie's previous albums, this one is really well produced and mixed - Albo has an incredible knowledge of reggae production and there are some amazing videos on YouTube of him in his studio mixing some tunes and it's hypnotising to watch him do. His dub albums are also great - check out 'Dub of Thrones' your ears will thank me if you like a bit of dub reggae!

The only thing I felt this album was truly missing was the little bit of rocksteady/ska that he usually manages to squeeze in on at least one track, the song 'Goodbye' featuring Nina Zilli on his last album is an ear worm for sure.

All in all, my ears were most pleased with 'Freedom & Fyah' but as with all of the albums I've been waiting for that have come out this year, I just hope the wait for another one isn't too long.

I'm giving this album 5 out of 7, it might've got a 6 if it wasn't for the autotune overkill.

I'm no Kit Harrington but...

...it dawned on me the other day that I essentially went through exactly what his character Jon Snow did.

Just like Jon, I'm a loyal, caring, hard working and just person who served his cause and people with honesty and integrity, and yet in the end everything and everyone turned on him and murdered him.

This happened to me in the not so distant past believe it or not. Well... I wasn't murdered obviously, I'm using it as a metaphor of course.



But then just like Jon Snow... I came back from the dead.

Stronger, and more determined than ever.

Ok, fair enough, we're yet to see that stage yet from ol' Jonny boy (season 6 is being well slow) but I'm sure he's going to spill some well deserved blood.


So, to those who put knives in me, and those who wanted to see me burn...

Karma doesn't discriminate, and she also doesn't fail.

We'll see who has the last laugh.

That elephant in the room is me, and elephants never forget.