A setback

I thought maybe it's time I explained why my pace of blogging has slowed recently, and why I've got so behind with commenting on other blogs, and responding to emails and everything else. There's been a bit of a setback with the music which has distracted my attention away from the garden.

The small independent record label who released my album Mind The Gap has gone tits-up, and I haven't been paid for my sales. The most immediate impact of this is that my album no longer exists as a going concern, at least until I can get it re-issued. I'm not impressed, because CD sales are one of my few sources of income, and the album (which only came out last August) represents two years' work.

It's not just me either. I've spoken to a number of artists from the same label and it seems none of us have been paid, nor even told our sales figures. As if it isn't difficult enough for musicians to earn an honest crust without having somebody else pocket our hard-earned cash. For some of the artists the sales figures matter more than the money ... how can they make a decision about whether it's worth re-issuing their albums when they've no idea how many they've sold? We've all been treated very shoddily.

I must admit my first instinct was to curl up under the table with my thumb in my mouth, but after a few weeks of being very depressed I'm ready to get on and sort things out. One thing I have in my favour is that my album has been getting good reviews - really brilliant reviews in fact - so I know I have something worth pushing. It's just a case of what to do with it next. Rather than throw myself on the mercy of another indie label, I'm planning to set up my own tiny label and release the album myself. It will mean scraping together a few hundred pounds upfront to get the CD pressed and printed, and a lot of work promoting it, but at least I'll be in control of things and will have a sporting chance of hanging on to any future income.

Some excitement

This is one of the rare occasions when I blog about something other than gardening, because one of my tracks got played on Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music yesterday, and I'm very excited. It may not mean much to you if you're outside the UK, but Stuart Maconie is a very well known presenter and it's a big achievement for a small independent artist like me to get onto his show. I've been played on regional BBC radio before but this is my first time on a major national station.

What made it even better was that the Freak Zone is one of the few radio shows I listen to, so I actually heard it come on. I had a few confused moments of "hang on, I know that song ..." and then I had to stick my head against the radio to convince myself that really was where the sound was coming from.

The track he played was from a new batch of songs which I've been working on with a collaborator, Dick Langford, who plays guitar for me, writes with me and does complicated arrangements and production way beyond my capabilities. On the surface of it we're a bit of an unlikely pairing, given that I've built my credentials as an ethereal English folksinger and he's a rock god. But somehow we really inspire each other and the songs have been flowing. Including some weird and wonderful hybrids from our cross-pollinated musical backgrounds. We've done everything from ukulele-driven cockney comedy numbers to full-on psychedelic freakouts. It's a wonderful experience to have the opportunities to explore all this different music.

Leafblower: the scourge of English suburbia

My life as a gardener doesn't usually have much overlap with my life as a musician, but I do have one horticultural song.

One November morning I was just getting some recording done in my home studio when my next-door-neighbour started up his blasted leafblower. I'm not a big fan of leafblowers at the best of times ... they don't seem to serve any purpose except to move debris from one place to another, turning your problem into someone else's problem. They stir up a whole load of dust and crap into the air, and waste a lot of energy in the process. They also seem to make the most godawful irritating whining noise which for me is on a par with someone scraping their fingernails across a blackboard.

On this occasion I got incredibly cross with my neighbour. Not only did he spoil my recording, because a sensitive studio mic will readily pick up that kind of noise, but he spent a pointless half hour blowing all the leaves out of his garden onto the public highway, where they immediately got messily redistributed by passing traffic. What is the point?!

In fairness to my neighbour he's not the only person in the street who does it. There are a lot of leafblowers in this area, and a lot of people who are selfish and thoughtless enough to blow their garden debris out onto the street, where it blocks the drains and obstructs the pavement. Then the council have to come round with a lorry and collect it all up, and we wonder why our council tax bills keep going up.

Anyway, I had to channel my anger into something positive, so I wrote a song about what I'd like to do with that pesky leafblower.

To my surprise, the song became a minor hit on internet radio, and people still write in to the DJs and request it. I've done a few different versions and remixes, most notably in collaboration with the great Phideaux Xavier.

And now someone has been kind enough to make a video for it!

So here it is, and I hope you enjoy it (click the play button under the vid to start it). The tree images were filmed in Alaska, a very long way from my English garden.

Leafblower (Crazy Paving Mix)
Vocals: Rebsie
Guitars: Phideaux Xavier
Video: Bob Nisbet

First gig ... heehee!

I have been a bit slack with my blogging in the last couple of weeks, but this is why!

I played my first gig on Monday at The Night Owl in Cheltenham, which means I got to play on the same stage as Jimi Hendrix (he played there in 1967).

I don't have a band at the moment so I had to make do with my own guitar playing, and all the other instruments were on an iPod! It worked though ... the audience loved it and so did I.

My new album is released today!

I'm not very good at blowing my own trumpet (although I can play my own guitar) but I'm too excited not to mention this. Today is the release date for my first solo album, Mind The Gap, which I've been working on for more than a year.

I suppose the genre which fits my music most closely would be psych-folk, or folk noir. There are quite a few traditional British folk songs on it but for the most part I do them in a very non-traditional style! Psychedelic guitars mixed with more traditional instruments like fiddles, mandolins and celtic harp, and ghostly voices. A lot of it is kind of dark and haunting and it's music to fire your imagination rather than to bop along to while you're doing the ironing. Some of the songs I wrote myself. And there's a Pink Floyd song on there too!

And of course there had to be a song about gardening. My neighbour is very keen on horticultural powertools, which is fair enough (I enjoy doing most garden jobs by hand, but I appreciate not everybody does) and as I have a home studio I often get my recordings spoiled by whining leafblowers or spluttering hedgetrimmers. One day I got so pissed off with it I wrote a song called "Leafblower" explaining exactly what I'd like to do with that wretched piece of machinery.

Anyway, if anybody is interested in getting a copy it's available now from The Lost Records for £9 plus p+p (or $11.99 if you're in the US). At the moment that's the only place it's available from but it will filter through to other outlets over the next month or so, such as the iTunes Music Store.

Or if you just want to have a listen out of curiosity there are some song samples on my website, www.rebsiefairholm.co.uk.