“Manager” was written to provide me an outlet to channel my rage regarding a certain manager of mine… Well, i’m happy to say it has worked, as i feel much better about the whole situation

Today, i’ve finished the mix and listening to it now, i’m feeling quite serene and grown-up about the whole situation. Such is the power of music…

The track will be uploaded to the site on sunday 1st July so check back in a week to listen to it.

As promised, i’ve uploaded a new track today, and it’s called “no chains no ties”.

The song was originally written with another performer in mind but hey, things change and i ended up singing it myself.

As its title indicates, it’s about freedom, and more specifically, freedom within a relationship. Musically, it’s kind of strange, it’s got strings, and slow elements, i guess it’s a mid-tempo track - i don’t do many of those

 Check out more details at http://www.natjm.co.uk/index.php?page_id=21 and you can listen to the track in the music player located on the right of the page.

On saturday, my girlfriend was away for the day so i had the flat all to myself, giving me plenty of time to record “fighter”. So there i was, practicing the bass line when i felt a little hungry. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a glass, went over the sink to rinse it and my feet were covered in water!!! A pipe was leaking from under the sink and there was a huge pool of water in front of it.

Being the plumbing expert that i am, i swore a lot, panicked, started sweating, tentatively checked out what was happening, panicked some more, thought about calling our handyman & panicked some more. Finally, amidst all this, i managed to work out where it was coming from, and to stop it.

I lost more than two hours dealing with this so it wasn’t until 2.30 that i went back to recording, and everything had to be wrapped up at 5.30, which was the time i had promised to call my friend who lives in Finland. Who says you can’t record and edit bass, guitar and vocals in under 3 hours?

Looking back on it, the events actually helped me to record the song, considering it’s a relatively fast and punk number, so the urgence of the situation transferred well into my playing

I’m slightly concerned because last night, as i opened up a chocolate soya drink on my desk, a few drops splashed out and landed on my left speaker. Now, it’s all dried up but i don’t seem to be able to scratch the chocolate off, it’s weird!

My speakers are a pair of Tannoy Reveal 6, they are beautiful (http://www.tannoy.com/Reveal6) and now, they look like a kid is taking care of them, i’m feeling rather silly.

I’ve been having problems at work with my new manager, so it wasn’t surprising that i wrote about this, and a few other managers i’ve had in the past. I wrote the first draft in February, and picked it up again a few weeks ago to properly work on it.

I’ve recorded the vocals for the song this morning and i have to say, i’m feeling very good about it

I’ve also finished mixing the next track, “no chains no ties”, which was originally written for someone else to perform, but that didn’t happen. It will be published on here on the 14th June (next thursday) in the evening.

Finally, i’ve finished writing another song, with a working title of “fighter” but it’s going to change.

Apologies for the server shutdown last night and earlier this morning, everything should be back in order now.

So today, my girlfriend and i went to visit some friends of hers. All charming and everything… Then one of them took her guitar out, demonstrated her skills (i didn’t like what she played but she played loads of different notes and very fast) and then put her acoustic guitar in my hands and asked me to play a song.

So i took the guitar - a lovely Ovation guitar shall i add - and the oversized pick she was hading me out (it was one of those giant triangular ones). Wasn’t too sure what to play but thought i’d have a go at one of my old songs “i want some sweets”, which i haven’t played for one year or so but was written on an acoustic guitar so it was quite appropriate. I forgot a lot of the lyrics and forgot to play the chorus between verse 2 and verse 3 but i did rather well apart from that.

It’s weird how playing to a small group of people you know in a living room can be a lot scarier than playing to 100 strangers in a venue. But hey, i came through it and i even had some fun