TeamHorseTales

The second Team Horse release was a 5 track e.p. entitled 'Here Come The Hurricane', which was a line from a Simple Minds song, fact fans. I think Jim Kerr actually sings "Here Comes The Hurricane" but I liked the sound of 'Here Come' better. Feeling much more confident that there was an actual audience for this sound I really went for it again in terms of creating something downright nasty sounding. It was at this point in time I found out about a website called Echoes And Dust. They'd reviewed And So I Watch You From Afar and 'Gangs' had actually been selected as their album of the year. I figured I should send my CD to them for a review and lo and behold, the site's chief Dan Salter wrote some lovely words about the e.p. I didn't know it at this point, but this link would be massive in the reshaping of my musical 'career'. A fair amount of the songs I recorded over the years all pointed to one thing. Sometimes it would be blatant...

Boosted by recent higher profile gigs with ASIWYFA I found myself supporting the legendary Japanese psyche band Acid Mothers Temple, in the Pavilion bar. The gig was put on by the lovely Darren Smyth of Strange Victory. I’d never heard of these dudes before and was intrigued to find a group of long bearded gentlemen ensconced in this tiny upstairs bar prepping themselves for the show. The prepping consisted of burning off CDRs of their back catalogue, which matched my own recorded output of being vast and numerous. So we had something in common! I had a special ‘treat’ for the audience that night. I had lined up the piece of music by David Rose, known as “The Stripper”, to play over the PA as I collected up my gear. This also included me putting on a ridiculous dance routine of swinging leads and instruments about as I packed up my stuff. It got the biggest cheer of the night. I never did it again mind you! I also found myself supporting the American artist Josh T Pearson, for his ac...

  This blog is going to be slightly different from my regular ones. What happens next in my musical journey is very much shaped by my dalliance with one particular band. I want to devote a blog to covering the good times I spent with And So I Watch You From Afar. To this day, ASIWYFA remain one of my favourite bands. The band have continued to be a presence on the live circuit and despite line-up changes still release intriguing and ever evolving music to tantalise. Through my association with Echoes And Dust website, I’ve reviewed several of their albums. I first noticed ASIWYFA when they played as support to We Are Knives, another Belfast band with incredible musicians. I didn’t know what to expect from them as their band name initially felt kind of pretentious, albeit the lyric from a Deftones song. It became apparent though, that the instrumental post rock the band were creating was right up my street. I’d been listening to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky and ea...