Since finishing the recording of Mayflower one of the many little jobs I’ve been doing is to record an album of cover songs to include in the Thankyou Package that I’ll be sending out to people who have pledged money to fund the disc production of the album.

Drew and I have been busy trying out a number of songs, adding bits, taking bits away and we have been left with 9 songs we feel good enough to present for your listening pleasure. A couple of these songs will only be available on a lovingly hand crafted, recycled card, home designed and printed CD to folks who pledged £50 or more to the Mayflower funding project. The package will feature a print of Liz Crowley’s specially commissioned painting on the front too.

(There will be one or two extras available to anyone who would really love one – just ask!)

The rest of the songs chosen I will be making available on my Bandcamp site as free downloads here. Go help yourself

I thought I’d write a little about the songs I’ve chosen but first off I’ll let you know what they are . (Please note, these are different to the covers that certain WeFund pledgers have commissioned me to record – it will be their decision to let them be for general aural consumption or not)

American Tune by Paul Simon

How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? by Blind Alfred Reed (you’ve maybe heard Springsteen or Ry Cooder cover this one)

Shoals of Herring by Ewan MacColl

Chelsea Hotel No.2 by Leonard Cohen

Hellhound on my Trail by Robert Johnson

Time You Old Gypsy Man – words by Ralph Hodgson, music Sean Tyrrell

Dimming of The Day by Richard & Linda Thompson

Done This One Before by Ronnie Lane

Dark As A Dungeon by Merle Travis

Hi All,

I hope you’re all well and looking forward to saying goodbye to Winter.

I am so very chuffed and grateful for everyone who has showed support and pledged money to ensure the physical production of the Mayflower CDs. I’m overwhelmed by the number of people who’ve gotten involved and so pleased that we’re going to be able to make the quality of CD I’d hoped. Thank you!

In one weeks time the deadline for the WeFund project will have passed and the we can send the artwork and songs off to be pressed.

In between meetings and gigs with By Lantern Light, playing some of the new Mayflower songs out and about, and making preparations for the Mayflower release it’s been a busy few weeks since I got back from the peace and quiet of the Lincolnshire coast.

Drew and I have finished recording the cover songs for a CD to be part of the Thank You Package for people who pledged funding for the Mayflower album. It’s been a fun project to make some renditions of songs I love and try and put a new slant on them. Liz Crowley has painted a cover for the CD again (she also did images for “…live from the Coleman Kitchen” and “[sic]“)

Although most of the songs will eventually be available via my bandcamp page the physical CD will only be given to fans who’ve pledged via WeFund. I’ll write in detail about the choice of songs in a separate blog in a couple of weeks but the collection will feature some traditional folk songs, a tune by Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Ronnie Lane, Blind Alfred Reed, Robert Johnson, Ewan MacColl and a poem by Ralph Hodgson set to music.

My good friend, band mate and Photoshop wizard Matt Lakey has designed some promotional material with me using some of Rob Bridges’ images and Liz Crowley’s new design – again, stuff that will be given away to Mayflower pledgers and on sale later at shows.

in between my own gigs and work I managed to get out and see Stylusboy launch his new 4 Walls CD at the Warwick Arts Centre. Also playing that night was Chris Tye who I thoroughly enjoyed too. Here’s a live video of a beautiful new song from him. Enjoy:

With just a few weeks left to go on the WeFund Mayflower Project the total is in the high eighties and has been creeping up gradually and encouragingly. I know there are still a few folks who are waiting to pledge and some collected donations from friends and family to be added to the total so I’m really hopeful and feeling positive about reaching the 100% by the deadline in mid March.

I’m really looking forward to having the CD ready to give to everyone and gauge people’s reactions.

Next week I will be finishing off a CD of covers songs that will be part of the goodies package to send to anyone who’s pledged £50 or over. You’ll eventually be able to hear a selection of these at my Bandcamp site but the whole thing will only be available to pledgers as a thank you.

At the moment I am back working at a place called Tithe Farm on the Lincolnshire coast where I came last summer and recorded a lot of the ambient sounds that I’ve used on the Mayflower album. It’s great to be in the country where I can lose myself in planting, gardening, chopping wood, and making bread and still keep in touch with the online community and write a blog. It’s a good mix of hard work and relaxing, taking time, and meeting new people. I’ve played at a local folk club in Alford which went down pretty well and slept like a log every night.

When I was back in the Midlands last weekend I met up with Rob from Redwood Photography for a photo shoot to get some promotional shots for when the album is out. We met at Browns Independent bar in Coventry (where I knew I could get a hearty vegan meal), had a quick chat about what we were going to do and took some photos in Browns, around the outside and in The Herbert Art Gallery too before heading back to Browns for some lunch.

Over lunch Rob interviewed me for his website blog which you can read here as well as see some of the shots from the session. We think we got some great images once I relaxed into it and I’ll definitely be using some of them for PR soon.

Keep an eye out for a guest blog I am writing at the moment for fellow musos Barricades Rise for their website. I’ll let you know when it’s finished and up.

In the meantime, stay healthy, work less and live more, and see if you like this video by The Daydream Club. It’s made me want to make a backwards video too!

Hello,

Apologies for neglecting the blog side of things – Twitter (/wesfinch) and Facebook (/wesfinchmusic) get updated regularly with news and I forget about here.

The WeFund project has just broken the half way mark with 6 weeks to go and with some local press coverage from Warren Manger at the Coventry Telegraph and the continued support from you guys ‘re-tweeting’ and sharing links and spreading the word I’m very hopeful of making the full amount in pledges in time.

With everything going on there’s a couple of other projects and videos that I haven’t been writing about but here’s a link to the latest video by Adam Nicholas which is from the album launch party the bad and I did, showcasing new songs from ‘Mayflower’ and playing older ones for friends and family. It’s one that I’ll use for promotion again when the CDs of Mayflower start getting out and about.

Project WeFund: Mayflower, where I am attempting to ask for fan funding to help towards the cost of physical CD production for my new album is launched. You can view a short video, complete with exclusive live performance of ‘Close Enough For Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (featured on Mayflower), all the info and explanation of how to pledge money at http://www.wefund.com/project/mayflower.

I have so far reached 34% of the total needed which is really encouraging. I’m extremely grateful to those of you who have stepped up so far but I really hope we can make the total by the end of 8 weeks or it’s down to Staples for me to buy a lot of card, a reel of blank CDs and some felt tip pens!

Just in case this is new to you: this WeFund pledging model is a way of funding arts projects with collective patronage where the artist makes promises in return for the amount of money pledged. At the set deadline, only if the total amount of money pledged reaches the total required does money change hands and the artist have to come good on their promises.

Aside form being busy setting up the WeFund page and working to get the album launched it looks like the spring and summer are coming in to focus a little bit too. Some festivals have been booked, including BaaFest in Northumberland and confirmation pending, the meat frenzy that is Grillstock in Bristol. The latter might seem like a bit of a moral dilemma for a vegan musician and I guess it is but maybe I can get my facts and opinions honed a little more for the inevitable conversations and use it as a chance to live by example without preaching right and wrong.

I’m also currently recording some covers with Drew Coleman again, for a special EP, all of which will be available to WeFund pledgers of amounts of £50 and later some of it will be online. It’s growing all the time so it may even be an album! There’s also some new songs in the pipeline but it’ll be a while before they see the light of day.

Well, stay wrapped up people, and be thankful for your warm beds and full bellies. We are incredibly fortunate people by comparison with most and at the start of another year. Let’s hope it’s a good and productive one,

w

Here we are in the wake of the consumerist orgy that is Christmas and New Year, holding on to or amending our New Year Resolutions and staring down the barrel of 2012. I hope, apart from all the eating, drinking and gift giving and receiving, you’ve all had good times with loved ones have been able to show if not tell them you love them.

I hope 2012 is a good one for you, whether it spells the end of the world/humanity or whatever or not. Personally I’m going to get this new Mayflower record out and work to have it get me more opportunities to play wherever I can and keep making a life from my music. 2013 or no 2013!

The songs have been mastered by my good friend Garfield Mayor at his Rooftent Studios and the artwork is nearing completion by the talented Graham Crowley of Tui Media in London. I’m really happy with it all and have received some really positive feedback from people who’ve heard a few of the tracks.

I think the very last thing to be completed is the ‘thankyou’ list on the sleeve notes and this is due to the way I’m going to raise money to produce the physical CDs.

I’ve begged, borrowed, exploited and underpaid a lot of kind and generous people to have this album at the stage it is and I’m extremely grateful for such talented and supportive friends and family. Now I have nothing left to actually make a CD to give to people and even in this climate of downloads I still want to produce physical CDs, with artwork, sleeve notes, credits etc. I’m old fashioned!

I’m not going to borrow any more from friends and certainly not from an evil greedy exploitative banking corporation. What I’m going to do is use and arts funding scheme of collecting pledges whilst giving promises of incentives – a scheme used by the company WeFund. http://www.wefund.com/ to produce a limited run of high quality digipak cases and CDs.

At this stage I’m waiting for my page to be reviewed and accepted and once that’s done you can see my pitch and the incentives I offer to people pledging. Everyone will get a ‘thank you’ on the CD inlay, anyone pledging over £10 will receive an album too anyway, plus there are some other payback promises that you might want to check out.

I hope you can get involved. Nobody gives any money unless the goal total is reached and everyone gets something in return for pledging. I think this is a healthy and interesting way to make things like this happen.

Finally, the last few months few months have been a time of fairly big changes for me. I haven’t been writing much but I can assure you I have been busy. I am very grateful to be able to play music and to continue to work on what I love to do and so I raise my peppermint tea in thanks to you for your support in listening, reading this, attending shows and giving feedback.

Thanks, write soon,

w

On this Sunday just gone (11th December), the band and I put on a house concert to showcase songs from the forthcoming album Mayflower in the huge lounge of a magnificent house in Coventry.
(Here is a preview of a new song from the album. Please note, I’ve made it so that to be able to listen you need to be a ‘follower’ of me on Soundcloud, which is just a click or two away. here.)

The owners of the place, Pete & Anne-marie very trustingly let us invade on Sunday morning and set up the band, PA system and have a quick sound check before our family and friends arrived.

I got a bright pin (a small barrel – to those of you not familiar with real ale terms) of real ale from the local , and a few other bits for people to enjoy. No coca-cola, no mini sausage rolls or vol-au-vents though!

My friend Stylusboy opened up by playing a solo set and brought along Rob Bridge who’s already turned out some great shots of the afternoon on his site here.

Adam Nicolas, who has made a couple of videos for us at Open Air Sessions filmed the whole event and conducted an interview with me about the day and the new album which we’ll be putting together as a momento of the day and a promotional video early next year.

I have many people to thank for their support and help in putting on this event; you know who you are and I’ve said thank you in person.

I’ll be sure to share the finished video when it’s all done but in the meantime, enjoy the Christmas Holiday season, eat drink and be merry, and I’ll hopefully see you at a gig very soon,

w

Hello All,

Apologies for neglecting you recently. I’ve been busy organising a few things, researching stuff about the music industry, gigging, looking for more gigs and blah, blah. Anyway, I hope you’ve been good and this finds you well.

We’ve been rehearsing some of the new songs from the forthcoming album to play this Friday the 25th at the Maudsley Pub in Coventry (upstairs room) for the Ditch The TV night. Kel Elliot (now Mrs Rashleigh) will be playing double bass for us, (as Brad is on tour with manic New York hipster banjo player Curtis Eller http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=curtis+eller&oq=curtis+eller&aq=f&aqi=g8&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1377l11409l0l12023l12l6l0l0l0l1l891l1223l1.2.6-1l5l0) as well as playing with her own band.

We’ll be missing a mandolin player too as Drew is still touring with Bellowhead but we will have a pretty full compliment with Jools on fiddle and Hugh on trumpet as well as the usual suspects.

I’m looking forward to playing 4 of the new tunes for the first time. They’ve been sounding great in rehearsal and I’m hoping they’ll go down well.

If you can’t make this Friday I do have a good few other gigs lined up either playing solo or as part of a duo and trio, all listed on the Upcoming Gigs section.

___

While you’re here, I just wanted to mention a new project I’ve gotten involved in. It’s a web based network of musicians and potential house concert hosts called Slowbizz http://www.slowbizz.com/.

I have a profile on there with a write up: http://slowbizzartists.blogspot.com/2011/11/wes-finch.html

At the moment, as a new venture they are building up a roster of artists and hosts. If you think you’d be interested in hosting a house concert or just finding out more about it then please have a look. They have a good philosophy and some good ideas. It needs music fans like you to get involved!

w

After a few headaches, the Wes Finch Music mailing list is active.

Please sign up for some news and offers if you haven’t received the first newsletter already.

Thanks,

w

As I write, the one and only Drew Coleman who plays mandolin often with me live, plays it on the new EP and album, who has engineered, mixed and mastered the new EP is sending the last of the completed album tracks for final mastering in his studio before Drew heads off on tour with Bellowhead. Drew has won himself a well deserved job of monitor engineer on their November UK tour and has, as promised, helped me to finish all I need for both the EP and album on time. Gawd bless ‘im.

In case you don’t know, let me explain. I’ve been recording an EP and an album at the same time with Drew and the band over the last 8 months or so. You might ask me why I’m doing both at the same time and then putting them out for sale so close together, and I’d say: because that’s the way it happened and it’s what I wanted to do. I just am. In my mind they are two quite different projects and have different motivations behind them. Whilst we’ve been working on the album we dove back to do stuff on the EP as well; to give ourselves a break from one and get enthused about the other.

OK, so the EP is a collection of 4 songs that have previously been recorded. (Not that I don’t like those older recordings – I’m still proud to show them to people and sell them at shows.) On the EP there are 3 songs from my first album with the original Dirty Band (‘Now Look Here, It’s the Dirty Band, see?!’) and Jack To Do from the Asthill Grove album. These are long standing live favourites and songs that I have played over the last few years a lot. I play them now with people who weren’t involved in the original recordings and the songs have evolved in subtle ways, matured a little, and I wanted to record some new versions, with the folks who are now the Dirty Band and have something more faithful to what we’re doing now.

It was a fun project and I’m glad we did it. The songs all have something new for those fans who have the original incarnation (for instance Lucy’s awesome flute parts in Whodat?) and it’s something fresh for people who’ve heard us for the first time to take home too.

We also did a re-recording of Asthill Grove’s ‘Aint We The Lucky Ones?’ with a full band and, don’t be scared, a twin recorder solo (an idea I stole from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Breathless) but this is something I ended up placing on the album as I felt it fitted better with the new group of songs.

As for the album, that’s another blog but for now the EP actual CD is in production this week, is available as mp3s on http://www.amazingtunes.com/search?t=users&q=wes+finch and should be available to buy from silvery records online by Monday. Alternatively, come along to a gig and grab one from me and save yourself p&p.

I hope you enjoy, and I’ll be back to write about the album shortly

wx