This year’s really been about doing as many gigs as possible around the uk. It takes a crapload of work by a lot of people, Kerry my manager, Barry who runs Sandwich Emporium Records with me, John the irrepressible double bass enigma, and increasingly our live agents this year – Alex and Pete. Then there’s John, Harry, Kev and me who travel for hours to play for 40 minutes to 20 people. Glamourous it ain’t.
But there’s a real thrill about this hard work, an authenticity to it. We’re not cheating the system or skipping steps. And the people we meet can see in our eyes what this means to us. Each small step is another brick in this house – we may not be building it super-fast, but man is it going to be a damn fine house.
Every gig throws up another example of this. Like last year we did a tiny gig in Reading, I think all of 4 people listened to it. But one of them told their cousin and amongst the hundreds who listened to our set at Aeon Festival yesterday was her and her massive crew of mates who knew all the words. Brick by brick.
It’s all about enjoying the process too – if you’re always thinking “this will be great when…” then you’re setting yourself up for a big fat fall. What if you never get there? What if you get there and it’s not enough? What if you get there and it is enough but doesn’t last and you lose your mind on the way down?
So thank you to all the people joining us on this journey. Thank you to the plucky bunch who road tripped 110 miles from Essex and back to see our gig in Bath. Thank you to the two girls who travelled all over the south west to see us three times in one month. Thank you to Melody Wood and an army of cohorts who decided to spend 6 months making a stop-motion animation video for Many Fish To Fry with no prompting from me. Thank you to Dan Castro who may be doing something similar. Thank you to Tony Davies and family who like many others have booked and promoted gigs for us in their area. Thank you thank you and so on and so on…
If I have seen further, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of awesome.