Ending a sad day by raising a glass to my Auntie Barbara. Sleep well Babs and give my Uncle Joe a kiss from me xxx (Taken with instagram)
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen,…
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen,…
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen,…
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen,…
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen,…
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can…
Happy Birthday to “The Grown Ups”: Northern Exposure
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
I have always, and still do, suffer from a lack of self belief which manifests itself, at best, as a lack of confidence or, at worst, as a crunching, right hook from the hand of low self-esteem. You could put me in a room of 10 musicians and I would immediately relegate myself to 10th position without hearing any of them play a note. When I started playing live again back in 2009, I performed at “open mic” night where the acts went from the sublime to the ridiculous. On my arrival at the venue, I was greeted by the sight of a young boy walking around the room with his guitar strapped on, but, slung behind his back with the headstock facing the floor. I thought this kid must be seriously fucking good! Maybe this is how a young Stevie Winwood would have strutted around back in the early 60’s? Nothing could be further from the truth. When the would-be Hendrix actually began to play, it was clear that he knew three chords and he played each of his cover songs with said three chords. Even if the song actually required more than those three chords or different chords altogether, he played those songs and sang a melody which bore no relation to the original song. You had to admire his bravado. He was fearless. He was stupid. Maybe equal measures of both, but, as we all know, presentation is everything.
Back in the early 90’s there was TV show called Northern Exposure. In one episode, the Ed Chigiak character sees his low self esteem brought to life in the form of a sneering, sniping and vitriolic dwarf. Once Ed realises how much this self loathing is affecting his life, the scene ends with the little guy, tail between his legs, wandering off into the woods. My little guy is still around, and probably always will be, but, nowadays, when I hit the stage to perform, I look that little fucker right between the eyes and give him the middle finger….
Happy Birthday to “The Grown Ups”: Hoxton Song
As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little “behind the scenes” feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk
HOXTON SONG
Sometime in late 2008, on a whim, I bought a piano . I hadn’t really written anything substantial in over five years, other than the beginnings of a song that would eventually become “Ringing Like a Bell” , and I had begun to wonder if my writer’s block had applied for permanent residence. Not being a piano player by any stretch of the imagination, I found that just by changing the bass notes over a floating chord immediately freed me from the tired guitar chord progressions I would normally veer towards. Sometimes you just need to hear the same notes in a different order. Who knew?
Around the same time I had started to use Facebook and hooked up with a few old friends I grew up with in Hoxton. On one of the groups, somebody had posted a copy of the photo which would become the front cover for The Grown Ups. Whilst discussing this with one of my old school pals, he said that he still remembered me being drunk on top of the postbox after my sister’s wedding and trying to convince the police that I was merely overcome with emotion, rather than a heavily intoxicated 14 year old. That afternoon, returning to the piano, I sang the line ”That’s me drunk on top of the postbox. ” over a descending bass line and Hoxton Songtumbled out in about 20 minutes flat. In little more than the time that it takes to cook a Vesta meal, I had finally emerged from the songwriting wilderness.
A few years previously, whilst driving through North Carolina, I spotted a Grizzly Adams type character emerging from the woods, carrying four rusty car exhaust tail pipes on his shoulder. To this day, it still puzzles me as to exactly how the donor cars ended up in the middle of a forest. In my head, I see myself with a full-on trapper’s beard, emerging from the woods and dragging an old piano behind me.
Songwriting is like that….
