This is the first in a proposed series of CD's containing only 8 songs. This first one is 'London Diary - Pieces of Eight #1'. It has songs like short vignettes of life in the capital city of England and tells a loose story, being based on poetry and lyrics created around my travels around London over a period of years.
Some songs are directly taken from life (like 'Her Green Coat') whilst others are purely conglomerates and fusions of things I saw and felt as I travelled across the metropolis.
We are very proud of it overall and think it has some great tunes and some interesting lyrics. Its well worth a listen - but then I would say that!
The images shown are from the working options for CD Booklet and Tray. But the final versions are yet to be chosen.
CD's now in stock!
Called 'Messages to No One', my 2022 collection questions and muses on a variety of subjects as I wondered if my short time on air (in a variety of places and reasons) was at an end. There is also the awful and amazing within the work - the awful devastating invasion and war in Ukraine, the amazing Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and then her awful passing later in the year.
Among these world changing events, I was feeling that if I could not longer reach anyone outside my own social circle, then I was truly writing messages to no one; for no one would ever read or hear them. Any mild form of recognition is like an addiction - you want more, not for fame or money (though goodness knows that would be great!) but to do what artists and creatives desire to do; communicate, reach out and touch another's heart and mind.
Without that, or the hope of that, it's like singing into the wind, all is noise but it is futile, doomed to failure. Now, I've been fortunate and have still been on the radio (I'm trying to get my BBC Essex Presenter Bingo Card full as I've spoken to many of them and there's only a few yet to be caught), but the fact remains that if you write yet no one reads - then who are you talking too?
This will be ready to purchase in the first week of February (all being well!).
An acoustic set by us, the UnderTow Duo (Alan Mitchell and Keith Melhuish) recorded at Rogue Studios, Wembley, London on 30th September 2019.
This has 13 tracks on it, all of which were chosen to demonstrate the songwriting, musical and vocal talents of us both.
Some of the songs are (or will be) available in other versions and on other releases; but for a simple guitar and vocal performance, this has to be listened too to be appreciated.
Well worth the £4.99 plus £1.75 P&P!
Grab your copy, order it today!
Having survived my close brush with COVID, I really wanted myself and my family to have a year of consolidation and renewal. We had been planning a big move - to Lincolnshire - when my daughter left Primary School. The idea was she could start in a new secondary school, and we could sell our home in Essex and find something in a coastal village for a slower pace of life for us all.
As will be evident if you've been on the planet over the last 2 years; human plans have no place in real life and things didn't work out the way we had planned. I guess we were fools to think they would. Long COVID, a lifelong issue with lungs and thyroid, saw me in an altered situation and I had to seriously listen to my body if I were to continue to recover.
We still moved, Laura still started a new school and we found a new home; but the journey was not entirely smooth and this collection of over 100 poems documents that and my various reactions to it.
I chose the title because, although the light in Essex is often magical, the wide expanse of sky in Lincolnshire has a majesty to it all it's own and, in the right circumstances, the light can be just as golden as in Essex.
In a great sense of timing, my poems continued to be regularly aired on BBC Essex (thanks Guys!) where I was gaining 'traction' for both my poetry and my music with Keith M. This is why there's a permanent sticker on the front, outlining my small claim to fleeting fame. So, moving 150 miles away was a brilliant tactical move then!
i think this poetry collection is a little more balanced, hopeful, mixed and worth a read - it really is my best to date (but we always tend to think that about our most recent work)!
This was a big year for the world, and an almost a terminal one for me. Ironically, I had settled on the title before the various events of that year unfolded before us. The idea of a poetry collection, written daily (ish) and evolving over time, being called 20/20 Hindsight - a phrase a lot of people use a lot of the time - felt right, and I'm often looking for the title that suits my overall mood of the year, that compliments elements and threads running through the poems.
We were hit by COVID-19 in such force and in such a way as to be almost swept away by it. I ended up in ITU in March and April 2020 and once I was out of ITU; was moved onto a Frailty Ward where my son (Ed) ended up in a bed opposite me.
So this collection is incredibly personal, full of sadness, fear and concern yet also (I think) of hope and looking toward a future that certainly I did not think I had at one point.
The year of 2020 took a huge amount from me, but it gave me things too - one of them a mantra I use often: 'Every day is an adventure, every hour a bonus' and I still wake every day thankful that I have. This set of poems will show you just a little of why that is, should you purchase a copy.
you may notice that there now adorns the front a permanent sticker with 'As seen on BBC Look East and heard on BBC ESSEX!'
The reason is that in March 2020 I sent a poem of mine (Dragons) in to BBC Upload with some music and effects added by Keith and it was played on air in late March! Even better, I was invited on air to talk about it to a presenter! During the chat I told them I was unwell with COVID and they invited me back to talk about what that was like the following week. The day I spoke to them again, I was put on a Ventilator and expected to die. They've been very kind ever since but I hope that my work gets aired because it has some worth, not out of pity!
Why not buy a copy of this book and make up your own mind? (See what I did there?)
This collection of 2019 has no real hint of what was to befall the world over the next few years. How could it? I'm not precognisant, and I was busy with more academic photography work, and with Keith Melhuish working on the second album from our music projects (we release music either as 'UnderTow' or 'Mitchell&Melhuish').
Like many, I watched at the end of the year when news of a 'flu like illness was spreading in the Wuhan district of China. But also liked many I had no inkling of what this was to mean to our world.
So, the poems here are just as diverse as before; a twisted bra strap, a memory of 9/11, rain, leaves, the isolation I often feel as a person and artist plus many more in this 120 poem work of poetry.
Another post-academic photography cover was pleasing and fits in the overall tone of the work quite well. (Well, it does to me.)
Copies are available and I'm happy to sign (almost) anything in a book but be warned - it might devalue the book by a reasonable amount!
This is my poetry collection 2018, my Seventh such collection and maybe the first in the format I'd started to settle on, really love and feel is 'right'. It wasn't totally 'there' yet, but it was close and I was becoming a little more confident with each collection.
I never sit in front of a screen or piece of paper and think "I'll write a poem now". It doesn't happen like that for me, I find a few words or phrase flies in to my mind and I 'see' the poem almost coalesce in my mind and the poem pops into existence.
That's why my poetry is personal, insular sometimes, reflective, intimate. Often a simple word or phrase ('I saw your footprints in the snow') will be the catalyst and the origin of a poem.
For me, poetry is emotion laid bare, a slice of time recorded for all time, irrespective of if anyone wishes to read it. But I hope people do. Certainly from the 2017 collection ('Moments in Time') onward, I think I really started to mature as a poet.
My collection of 2017, set in poetry 'Chapters' month by month with every poem written in that month with pieces of information for background. Sometimes, this will be world or UK events, other times personal or family.
Nearly 100 poems across myriad subjects, this covers a Cruise round the Med, a poem written about the terrorist attack on 'Las Ramblas' (Barcelona) where we had been only a day or so before, writer's 'block', an airplane in the sky and the sound of chimes.. this is a poetry collection of wide threads.
I like the collection a lot. I'd also completed an academic course in Photography (well after 40 years I thought I'd learn the right way to do things), and the title cover is one from my course. One I'm quite proud of.
This is a short novella, which made it into the Kindle Store in 2016 as a 'digital only' release. I knew there was some work to do on it, but I was trying to get my work out there and thought I needed some fiction and this was the only thing that was being close to complete.
But a few years later, I revisited it and began to edit and rewrite it, morphing it into something bigger and (I hope) better. Although not overly salacious, it is very different from my normal fiction and touches - maybe even fumbles a bit - with sex and adult themes. It's the simple story of love, sex and the triangles we as humans create between each other. Life and its intimacies are explored in a fairly open way and when I met Jodie from @RubenArt I knew I had the opportunity to break with my tradition and do something different.
If you look at my books, they all have covers created by me. Normally a photo that I've taken, worked on in Affinity and chosen for the overall theme running through the book. The original art for 'Reflections' was the photo of an Inglenook fireplace with flames dancing, maybe a poor reference to the heat of passion felt by the protagonists in the story.
Meeting Jodie offered a talented artist who could - and would - create a few pieces of Art for the book's cover and inside. I love them, intimate, a bit on the edge of naughty, accomplished; they were a brave step (for me) but added to the book and I love the way it looks in print. If you're looking for a fictional story about love and all it's issues, you might like this one!
And if you buy one, you might get a set of Postcards of Jodie's work thrown in for free! (OK, they'll not be thrown in but placed reverentially)
'Dances of Friendship' is a set of three short stories. One - 'Nomor & I' is very short (no really, it's very short), 'Dark & Light' the longest and the third - 'Friends' written specifically for the collection. Each of the three stories deal with the theme of friendship in it's various manifestations. It is a book for the 'tween reader and those looking for a different reality curve. Although the first story has been read to a reception class in a primary school (they seemed to enjoy it), it was in later classes that questions and proper interest was shown.
The book is the first collection of my stories and fiction to make it onto the page - but it won't be the last!
More fiction titles are coming very soon (hopefully).