This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
How did recording your music with Mikans work and did you begin to think you could interest a record label? I had looked at the best Indie labels, like FatCat, One Little Indian, Fierce Panda and Rough Trade. I sent them emails but got nothing back but that they had many artists already.


I continued to work with Mikans who would take the basic raw ‘live studio recordings’ of me on an acoustic guitar singing a test vocal and he turned them into complete songs. At the same time I had uploa- ded tracks from Jonathan’s re- cordings for BBC6 digital


ra-


dio program ‘Unsigned on the net’ and got sLIVer Tin played by Tom Robinson. I got a men- tion and that encouraged me to suggest Home Fire for the same program. Tom Robinson played my song in July 2010 and unbe- known to me, an A&R man from a new American label heard the song and began tracking the tu- nes put onto MySpace.


Was this how you got signed? In the first week of October 2010, my new song with Mikans, ‘Spitfire’, an allegorical story about my relationship with my wife, had caught the attention of same A&R man from ExPat Records who are based in Neva- da. He sent me an email and ex- plained that his record company would like me to sign a distribu- tion deal. When I asked him why me?, he said ‘Dogman’ had be- come his favourite new and unsi- gned artist from the time he had first heard Home Fire on BBC6. I recently read an article where a rising female singer said success has to be predestined or kind of written in the stars.


Are they releasing your music now? Well I have some new songs, Mi- kans has remixed some and made extra long extended mixes of old and new songs which are going to put on The Crossbreed album http://www.myspace.com/the- crossbreedcrossbred and we have music cooperative going called THE WHITE CHURCH


http://www.myspace.com/the- whitechurch which features our experimental


music. Matt Paw-


son, guitarist with Teaspoon, has put some lovely guitar on tracks, ‘The wolves of Winter Hill are in the city’ and on a new Dogman- Mikans song called ‘It’s a love thing’ which Teaspoon the lead singer says is the best song ever. His band has recorded a cover of Home Fire on their next album Carnival. I am most proud of the fact that I have also taken the pho- tographs for his cover and back cover. Many people do not know me as a photographer but for over 30 years my pictures have ap- peared in books and on television.


Do you feel you have made it in the mu- sic world now? No, not at all. So far it’s cost me money. The Expat Records Euro- pean A&R boss, Paul (an ex Vir- gin Media and V Festival boss) quickly declined when I asked for funding to go into the studio and record a version of Spitfire with Martyn. They are happy to release what we have recorded so far so I am not sure what the future holds. Expat Records have just released the new Kool and the Gang ‘R&B single’ so maybe Kool will sing backing vocals for me....


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56