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Back in the studio, 3 more tracks mastered

Yesterday was a hugely productive day in the studio working on the album “All is fine till the world goes pop” album featuring Towse. We mastered and signed off on “In these times” “They don’t mind” and Wait until the pain has gone” I’m delighted to have so many superb musicians on this project including Towse from California, Michael Ross from Nashville, Laurent Zeller from France, Agi on backing vocals, Emily Mercer and Josh Burnell on keys, Fergus Quill, David Bowie Jnr and Howard Taylor on bass, Rich Ferdi on percussion. This is proving to be the dream team of artists and of course Carl Rosamond as usual does an amazing job on production.

“All is fine till the world goes pop” is due for a release in September ahead of the live appearance in Oct supporting Jon Gomm.

There are at least four more tracks yet to finish – “Come on Down” “Nothing here sounds good” “Take Heart” and “Maybe” We’ll be back in the studio every two weeks to work up these additional tracks and I’m super excited to see/hear this whole project emerge. As well this album, there with be a “Nick Cody & The Heartache” EP “You gotta move” released ahead of October on Green Eyed Records. In 2023 I’ll be releasing the first Code-E1 remix album and we already have “34 tracks in the vault” for that release.

Guitar tubes for classic guitar sounds

I’ve always been a massive fan of guitar amps, preamps and combos that are driven by tubes or as we say in the UK, ‘valves” To my ears there is something about the sound that has never been replicated by digital and solid state units. I recently took ownership of an extremely rare Groove Tubes 75 stereo amp, which I found on “Gumtree” of all places. Over 25 years ago I bought the Groove Tubes Trio preamp that fits with this, which replicates all the great Fender guitar tones. I’ve only ever seen one of these Groove Tubes 75 amps and that was in Amsterdam. Its a big unit that takes up four rack spaces and is pretty heavy. It uses three different types of guitar tube, 12 AX7, 6L6 and EL34s.

Groove Tubes 75 power amp

Egnater, Randall and Synergy modules

Many years ago I came across a modular preamp system created by Bruce Egnater. Bruce created a series of modular units that could be slotted in and out of a preamp chassis, and these all analogue hand built units perfectly replicated the sound of classic amps. This meant you could have a simple unit and quickly switch from a Fender to a Marshall to a Vox or any other kind of sound you wanted. The M4 units would house up to four different modules, each of which had two channels. This makes for a massive range of sonic choices for any guitarist and all these units were powered by a pair of 12 AX7 tubes. There was no UK distribution for these preamps and there were only 3 places in the USA you could buy from. I bought my first M4 from the wonderfully named Cowtown Guitars in Las Vegas and later persuaded Egnater to deal with me directly. When I bought the second M4 case these were clearly in demand for high end studios and I was third in line to Steve Vai and Def Leppard who had the first two units!

Super Rare Soldano X99 Preamp

I heard about the Soldano X99 preamp over 20 years ago and checked out the two major guitar specialist stores to see if a purchase was possible. When I rang one store owner, I was greeted with hysterical laughter as he commented “Nick, do you know how rare these units are?” To my great surprise, 9 months later he rang me to say ‘Martin Barre from Jethro Tull just brought in his X99 and you are first on a long list of people wanting this, so if you want it, I need to know NOW!

Supro amps

In recent years, I’ve become a massive fan of Supro amps and especially the Comet 1 x 10 combo that was recommended by my great Nashville guitar friend Michael Ross. He runs Guitar Moderne which is a great site for all guitarists. The Supro has a bite to its sound and I first used this live with “The Heartache” last year live. Its a one channel amp with a ten inch speaker and like all classic class A amps weighs a fair bit. That said its a terrific sound unlike anything else I have heard. I later bought the Royal Reverb pictured below which is seriously heavy, but much LOUDER! Both these amps use classic 6L6 tubes

Supro Royal Reverb

Guitar tube prices are cranking and David Gilmour’s stash

With the current global situation there are only a few places left that make guitar tubes and one of the main ones is in Russia. Tubes are therefore getting rarer and a lot pricier. Many years ago I knew one of the reps for Mesa Boogie amps and he arranged for me to have a tour of their USA factory. I’d also heard that Mesa still had some of the classic Phillips 6L6 tubes and at the end of the tour asked about this. “How did you know about these the owner remarked? These are mostly reserved for Dave Gilmour!” I persuaded them to let me have some of these items which I put in my Mesa Boogie 290 power amp in my studio. Twenty five years on, I’m running the same tubes and of course Dave Gilmour didn’t grab a stack of these without good reason!

Selecting future live appearances in the covid era

Covid 19 put the world on pause and for the last few years. After many years of playing local gigs, UK festivals and overseas festivals and gigs, I’m now rethinking opportunities for playing live. There’s a real joy to bringing music to a live audience and to date we’ve had many superb live opportunities with different ensembles, including playing at The Lagoa Guitar Festival in Portugal, a number of sold out album launches and some solo appearances in New York and Nagoya.

One live gig is worth eight rehearsals

My producer Carl Rosamond always chanted the mantra “One live appearance is better than 8 rehearsals” I never really understood this until we started to play out in live venues. Its been a fascinating journey from the initial baptism of fire, when after a few local gigs, I found myself on the main stage at an international music festival. On that occasion, I learned more in 45 minutes than in the first year of rehearsals. When I look back at the footage, aside from playing everything at speed, the performance even in these early days was pretty solid.

Less is more

In the last two years, I’ve only to date so far arranged one live outing, this time with the new Heartache ensemble. This was an opportunity to try out some of the new material. I’m pleased to report that the set was well received and the material stood up really well in a live setting. One of the benefits of playing live is that you discover very quickly how well material is received by the general public, especially if its not your typical fan base.

To date its been fun playing local venues, but it can be a lot of work and crank up some costs, especially if you have a policy of paying the band regardless of income from any venue. The benefit is mostly a massive education in what its like to front a band to entertain an audience. I’m lucky to be playing with many superb musicians, which has meant that I’ve really had to up my game musically, especially as I am fronting all these ensembles and we are playing original material.

Selecting future venues and creating “musical events” v gigs

After a number of years playing the local circuit, I now far prefer to organize much bigger live opportunities, through the Music for the Head and Heart and Green Eyed Records platforms. This means starting to host more established artists and providing evenings of entertainment, rather than simply doing gigs. This doesn’t preclude doing future gigs, but now I’m adopting a policy of “less is more” and being more selective about where and when we play. This means a great deal of planning as great venues are in short supply and established artists will plan ahead for live appearances. Also this means a lot more personal investment in signing contracts with artist’s managers who understandably want the assurance that events of properly marketed.

Previously I ran two Music for the Head and Heart events pre covid and am now planning a series of much bigger musical evenings starting with a showcase event October 7th with Jon Gomm.

Creativity through collaboration

In keeping with the Green Eyed Records “creativity through collaboration” I am delighted to be offering Towse from California as well as my own Heartache ensemble. In April I already have signed another major international to play in Leeds as part of the forth Music for The Head and Heart showcases, with one of my ensembles supplying support.

We’ll be looking at “The Old Woollen” in Leeds again, as it is covid friendly, has free parking, full bar, fully seated and crucially a superb sound system. Crucially we have a great sound engineer for these events and none of the constraints in terms of curfew and audience limits which in my opinion hamper playing at some other venues in Leeds.

Musical momentum and organization

One of the key lessons I have learned in recent years is that if you want to make any kind of impact musically you need to be well organized and maintain constant momentum in musical releases. This means investing a lot of time and money in what you do to stay on the radar. It also means constantly reaching out in new ways to bring your audience to a wider public, unless you want to constantly play to exactly the same audience!

The schedule for 2022

The first single for 2022 will be “She’s Tough Enough” which is one of the collaboration tracks with Towse. Below is the promo for this single and the full audio and video release will be out March 11th on all platforms

Following this release, there will be another Nick Cody & The Heartache release, also on Green Eyed Records in May, called “That Gal is cool as f**k. We are currently editing the video for the track having already done two video shoots. Following “That Gal” will be another Cody/Towse collaboration currently being decided. The track will be one of the 12 tracks on the album due for Sept release “All is fine till the world goes pop.”

Towse

To date, we have 10 of the tracks “in the vault” with three already mastered, including “Thinking in Circles” which has been released and a terrific ballad “Go Now” which is unreleased. Next Monday I am in the studio signing off on the next single. Its an absolute joy to work with Towse and to help promote her music with my network of contacts. That’s the power of “Creativity through collaboration” This is truly an international collaboration of musicians with Towse from California and Michael Ross from Nashville as well as many great UK musicians and Laurent Zeller from France.

The Nick Cody & The Heartache EP “You Gotta Move” is almost completed with 4 of the five tracks already mastered. “Hold that thought” is the last track to master and then that project is completed ahead of a showcase live support appearance on Oct 7th with Jon Gomm at the 3rd Music for The Head and Heart showcase. I’ve realised that it makes more sense to do selective bigger gigs than small local appearances which cater to much smaller groups of usually the same enthusiasts. There’s a place for that, but its better to work with more focus.

Studio Time

All this work requires planning studio time to maintain momentum. Great studio professionals are always busy, so I have now booked studio time up until 2023 on a monthly basis. I am also lucky to have my own home studio which has been revamped with new gear, so we have a lot of recording options. Its important to maintain the best quality sound and not compromise in any way, especially if you want radio play.

Marketing momentum and packaging

As well as planning recording time, its essential to plan marketing on a rolling 6 week basis. I’m more convinced that the strategy of releasing and promoting singles ahead of an EP and album is a better way to go. Simply releasing 12 tracks in one blow means you lose making the best impact. There’s also an argument to say that these days people are more interested in individual tracks. I’m a fan of physical products, but have come to realise the need for really good packaging. This means some careful consideration on what’s presented and instead of getting mates to knock something up, better to employ professionals. All this activity means investing in a great deal of time. Special thanks to everyone involved in these projects as its all about collaboration and sharing resources.

The power of collaboration where everyone benefits

I’ve been thinking recently about “the power of creativity through collaboration” and how there are wildly different artistic visions among artists and every different behaviours. I set up Original Ukulele Songs to provide a platform for ukulele artists who are interested in creating original music. The resource was and remains 100% totally free for anyone interested and some artists have the ability to have their own bespoke pages on the site to promote their music. Its essentially a totally free advert for performers and to date over 150 artists from all over the globe have taken advantage of this opportunity. I then started to look at running live events for some of these artists and in 2017 sponsored a stage at a known ukulele festival. We showcased 7 acts, videoed the event and this also helped promote artist awareness. The feedback was terrific and it was a packed audience that stayed to listen to all the performers, even though most attending only knew a few of the artists. This was a great example of collaboration and artists working together, rather than in isolation.

Expansion to Green Eyed Records platform

After a few years, I realised that the ukulele world was too small and there were too many politics. It made more sense to create 2 bigger music platforms, Music for The Head & Heart and Green Eyed Records. I’m grateful for some great assistance from a number of people who have supported this concept and in particular Sylvie Simmons and Frank Wilkes from Kycker who freely gave me a lot of time in thinking through the core concepts. The central theme for the OUS platform, MHH and GER are to promote the love of great music and the core ethos is doing this through collaboration and sharing. I’ve also realised the value to seeking out like minds and above all working with professionals. Its early days as the GER platform is less than a year old, but the FB page and the main site are getting great attention and feedback. More than ever this is IMO a time for creativity though collaboration to promote great music.

Why isolation is the death knell for most artists…

I’ve been happy to financially fund these resources and its interesting to have a huge range of reactions. On one extreme I have had some great article contributions and advice from seasoned professionals and at the other extreme I’ve had some quite bizarre reactions in promoting GER. On one FB I was promoting a live event cross posting and running ads for all the artists attending and one person hilariously accused me of incessant posting on a particular FB page. I immediately posted an apology for any offence created and politely reminded them that the the purpose to posting about a forthcoming live event was for her chosen artist to reach a wider audience.

Not only was I not taking any fee from the forthcoming event as a support act, but also was personally help fund the event to promote great music. All of this help fell on deaf ears and I realised that some folks don’t real get the value of working with others and prefer to work in isolation. That’s IMO always the death knell for most artists, both financially and creatively. Of course everyone has the perfect right to follow their own beliefs, but its hilarious when those who choose a path of isolation then complain about how isolated they are from reaching a wider audience essential for basic living expenses as well as being able to complete creative work to a good standard! Its a shame, but I have realised that there’s little point in explaining “the elusive obvious” in such situations!

I’m more interested in great music rather than being part of any artist fan club and I have become increasingly more selective about who I work with. In my non musical capacity I have a successful history of promoting events across the globe and running many productive marketing initiatives. The key ingredient in two decades of success is working with those who value collaboration and appreciate that

“No one of us is smarter than all of us”

Working with like minds and creating new opportunities

Later this year the next Music for Head and Heart Platform in association with Green Eyed Records will feature Jon Gomm as the headliner and Towse along with The Heartache as a support act. These evenings are all about great music and its an absolute joy to work with such professionals. Jon had already agreed to be interviewed for Music for The Head and Heart and its a real privilege to host him in a live capacity at a great venue in Leeds. The headline act for 2023 has also been signed and similar to Jon that performer has a very busy international schedule, so we have to plan ahead to secure the booking.

Green Eyed Records encourages artists to work together for the promotion of great music. I’m happy to put my money literally where my mouth is and to sponsor events, marketing and equipment with no strings attached. Many artists regardless of how talented they are, don’t have the individual reach to attract a wider audience. The old argument “We’re not interested in being big” is usually a cop out as many such artists often struggle to maintain paying weekly bills, never mind being able to invest in bringing their creative voice to the wider world.

Building a creative team for music distribution

In recent years, I’ve realised that regardless of how good your music is, unless you have the right creative team in place, its probably never going to sound great, and/or reach a wider audience beyond friends and a few fans.

The challenge is to find people you can work with and to work within an affordable budget. Its easy to burn a huge amount of money and time and get very poor results. I’ve blogged on the value of getting a great producer here and without a great producer, your music will in my view have very limited appeal. Yes, there can be different ideas on what “great sound” can be, but there are key ingredients that will always be in place if a track is going to draw attention. Great producers will be in demand and its crucial to find somebody with both the technical skills, but also somebody you get on with and can work with.

The devil’s in the detail

Once you have the production sorted, there are a host of other considerations, including covering the following tasks

Digital distribution

Physical product pressing

Photography

Illustration and layouts

Radio promotion

Social media promotion

Video production

Its taken some time to find people who can fulfil all these functions. An artist can do some of these tasks, but I’ve found that employing a specialist will always produce a much better result. Yes it may cost financially, but it will save a huge amount of time. Crucially the end result looks much better and my philosophy is always ” play the long game” as you never get a second chance to create a first impression”

My next single will be “She’s Tough Enough” which is a collaboration with Towse from the USA, and released on March 11th. The full album “All is fine till the world goes pop” will be out later this year

The elusive obvious in music promotion?

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a major music producers house in the USA to listen to some demos of a new international artist’s album due for release the following year. One of my music colleagues and good friends asked the question ” In these days of social media, are record labels still important for artists? The reply was “Its all about reach” and finding new ways to connect to a wider audience! I’ve often commented that I’d never want to rely upon music solely from my income and am in a great position in that my non musical work and international profile as a communication specialist allow me to fund music projects for myself and others. It also allows a terrific freedom which means I have 100% control over all my material and when and where I choose to play live. I have the greatest respect for anyone wanting to work as a professional artist, its not an easy task. Below are some personal observations and thoughts. Feel free to agree or disagree!

Building a fanbase

Frank Wilkes from Kycker gave some good tips in one of the Green Eyed Records videos on building a fanbase

One of the reasons I set up Green Eyed Records was to encourage collaboration and discussion between artists and to look at sharing resources. Of course not everyone gets the value of this and to my great surprise I’ve seen all manner of individuals literally “snatching failure from the jaws of success” insisting that they know better than anyone else while moaning about their financial state as an artist, mostly as a result of a limited audience reach.

Yes, some may have a core base of fans and seek financial support from these individuals, but there is of course a ceiling to what is possible if you are not reaching out to a wider public. In recent years I had two solo performers actually voice their annual earnings (I didn’t ask for this information!) both indicating that their entire earnings for the year was less than the average UK salary!

Both these artists have had to date a small loyal following, but constantly in my view miss excellent opportunities to reach a wider audience due to their own narrow thinking. When challenged the response is usually something like “I’m not interested in chasing money or being commercial. I’m following my own vocation” which enlists lots of sympathy from core fans (nothing wrong with that) but they are mostly heavily dependent on the good will of a few people which is always somewhat precarious in the long term. Of course there are no rights and wrongs in such matters, but all the successful artists I have spoken to appreciate the value to collaboration and delegation in reaching a wider audience.

Choosing a band/artist name? Always check before you start marketing

Before creating and launching a website and ramping up social media, its a good idea to check that your band/artist name isn’t already being used by a Las Vegas Strip joint or lingerie clothing line! Sounds like basic common sense doesn’t it, BUT I’ve seen countless examples of this kind of mistake. This can cause all manner of confusion online and in the worst instances mean that you can be sued by another party. As always its the details that are important here and it doesn’t take a great deal of time to check domain names and do a proper search online to see if anyone else is using that specific name. In my non music capacity I advise on branding and marketing and run trainings for other professionals in UK, Europe, USA and Asia. The name of a band/artist is crucial in the same way as the name of any business.

Common misconceptions about social media?

Not a week goes by when I don’t see somebody moaning on social media about social media and especially with Facebook. What these characters don’t appreciate is that

THE CUSTOMER IS THE ADVERTISER, EVERYONE ELSE IS A USER OF THE SERVICE”

The expectation that FB will accommodate all your commercial needs for NOTHING, is totally delusional! These social media platforms are businesses in their own rights and like any business are there to make money. Its also not compulsory to appear and spend time on these platforms. Yes, the argument can be made that the users supply data for the platforms, but its extremely naïve to imagine that these platforms are going to be charitable concerns for those who don’t pay to use the service. In recent times I noticed a post from a business owner flagging up that social media is all about “engagement” This is not news unless you’ve been living in a cave in some remote part of the world! There are many benefits of using social media, BUT it requires learning some time and financial investment to really discover the benefits. Simply moaning about the platforms on the platforms is quite frankly bonkers.

Always watch the figures to avoid car crash scenarios

I’m lucky to come from a business background and have an awareness of the need to watch margins. A great example of this was running the first two Music for The Head and Heart events. I’m always keen that the artists get a good deal for playing and the audience get good value. This was a challenge when we had a maximum capacity of just 78 people in the room. Assume there are 3 artists playing at these MHH events and they each bring a guest. That immediately means we are down to 72 people. With myself and the sound producer, we are now down to 70 people. One artist suggested “Nick, you can’t charge more than 6 quid for anyone to attend” If I went that route, The maximum income from that evening would be 420 and out of that I need to pay all the artists, sound guy, the venue and all promotions.

I suggested to another performer that they move an event from one with 120 max capacity to one with 230+ capacity. That immediately would have created more “headroom” for sales as well as meaning there was more space for covid considerations. Past the initial break even figure the evening then had the potential to generate the artist substantially more income. Of course its down to each artist whether they want to limit numbers or expand their audiences and potential earnings. Either way, its always smart to look at margins, so you make live work financially viable and often this attention to detail at a most basic level simply is not there. People who bang on saying “Its not just about being commercial” are often the exact same characters who reply massively on the good will of others and bemoan their lack of income! There’s no rights or wrongs, but as always attention to detail will always make for avoiding car crash scenarios.

Most of this is of course common sense, but as an old boss of mine used to say “Sense ain’t that common” Again each person needs to decide for themselves what works and these are simply my opinions, but they they are informed opinions from a proven business background and a fair bit of discussion with a wide range of musical artists from those scratching a living playing to a small fan base to those selling out huge stadiums internationally.

Nick Cody

Setting up Green Eyed Records

April last year I decided to set up Green Eyed Records as a platform for music lovers to share thoughts and resources. I’ve blogged previously about some of the challenges for artists in creating and promoting music and I always return to the same conclusion, that a whole new way of thinking is long overdue.

The central idea for Green Eyed Records is “Creativity through collaboration” as in my opinion the old record label model doesn’t really serve the artist’s interests these days. Sylvie Simmons interviewed me here on the GER concept and did a great job of asking smart questions about the validity and viability of the whole concept.

Green Eyed Records

GER on social media and the importance of momentum

Last April I set up GER on FB and Instagram to create awareness for the platform. Social media has become a key factor these days in promoting music awareness and this has been a great opportunity to gauge how people respond on these mediums. Of course some artists and FB enthusiasts don’t really understand how social media works and confuse “users” with “customers” on these platforms, sometimes with hilarious posts. Over the years I have literally been happy to “put my money where my mouth is” and support the promotion of great musicians, previously through the Music for the Head and Heart platform and now Green Eyed Records.

I fully respect that we all have different ideas on how to promote music, but I’m increasingly aware of artists snatching failure from the jaws in this respect. Of course covid has reduced a great deal of the live playing income stream and streaming has killed a lot of product revenue. This calls for a new way of thinking and in 2022 I’ll be running a series of new initiatives through Green Eyed Records that will help artists reach a wider audience beyond their existing core fans.

The GER FB numbers have grown at a surprising rate and at the time of writing are already

2,043 people like the page and 2,247 people following the page

The Boomer factor

In one of my great conversations with Sylvie Simmons, she pointed out that the FB music enthusiasts were mostly the boomers. “Baby boomers” or “boomers” are described as “The demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is generally defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the post–World War II baby boom”

We started to notice that posts about classic artists like Carol King, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury attracted a huge number of likes and shares, way beyond my expectations. One photo of Freddie and Dave Gilmour generated 8.2k likes and 234 shares. Another graphic about bass players to my total surprise generated 7.6k likes and a staggering 1.7k shares!

GER for 2022

In 2022 in conjunction with Music for The Head and Heart, we’ll starting running some live showcase events which are part of the next phase of GER. I remain convinced that the best hope for music promotion is through collaboration and discussion. In these tougher economic and covid times, I’m convinced more than ever of the need for better ways to promote and discuss great music. GER is one small but growing group that will help promote “creativity through collaboration”

Smart musical investments

Over the years I have come to realise the value of investing in really good musical gear. This has proved to be true for amps, as well as acoustic and electric instruments. I remember talking about this subject to my good friend and international violinist Laurent Zeller who commented that 15k would buy you “an ok< but not great violin!” Of course everyone will have a limit to what they can afford, but my experience is that a well made instrument will often inspire better playing. The challenge with mass produced instruments is that often the quality is at the best of times variable. I remember talking to one international artists in NYC who commented that for one well known brand you’d need to play ten to find one good one!

Reviews of gear?

Online reviews of musical gear can be useful, but there’s no substitute to having an instrument in your hand so you know how it responds and how it sounds. Also its a good tip to have somebody else play, so you can hear the result as a listener as well as a player which of course is very different. The challenge these days is to find any store that holds sufficient stock so that you can reference how things sound in the same acoustic space. Increasingly stores are closing and some of the ones I used to go to like Chandler Guitars in the UK, Hill Country Guitars in Austin Texas and Matt Umanov in NYC, no longer exist. Online reviews can also be very biased and partisan, so I mostly take these with a pinch of salt!

Luthier built instruments

Luthier built instruments can often be great investments as well as great playing instruments. When I first looked into buying and playing ukuleles, I was lucky enough to pick up a Collings pre production concert uke which had been at NAAM. As with all Collings instruments (both electric and acoustic) it sounded amazing and that was the start of my ukulele collection. I later bought my first Shimo from Japan and I now have eight of his instruments which have been used extensively in the studio. These still remain my favorite ukes, unlike anything else I have come across and I’ve played a lot of ukuleles from all over the world. There are a lot of “uke shaped objects”, some “ok” ones, some good ones, but few really great ones. In the UK the only place I shop at is Matt Stead’s store, where by far you get the best quality and prices. For acoustic instruments I love Sobells, Collings and Gregor Nowak’s instruments. I also have an excellent Pete Howlett uke that is quite unique.

Some of the growing family

Here are some of the growing family

Bye bye to 2021 and a great year ahead

2021 has been quite a year and a record year for writing new material. I currently have 48 tracks “in the vault” and 34 tracks already to go for a very different project. The main focus has been on the Heartache material as well as releasing the first track with Towse. I also set up Green Eyed Records which is an expansion of the Music for The Head and Heart idea which promotes “creativity through collaboration.

Special thanks to Sylvie Simmons for a great interview on GER and a series of terrific conversations about the music industry and to all those who have posted on the GER FB page, which is growing at an amazing rate. 2022 will see the emergence of a Music for The Head and Heart live showcase on a much bigger scale with some fantastic artists. There will also be a major MHH showcase in 2023 as we have already agreed to host a major performer to head up a great showcase. Thanks also to Jen Geering for great behind the scenes work to keep GER on track, Carl Rosamond for amazing sound production, Neil at KimWaves for radio promotion, Rob at Fans for Bands, Frank at Kycker for great advice and everyone who has been involved in creating such great music.

Special thanks also to all the radio plays from Andy Coote, Nick Field, Shelly Morgan, Mike Evans, Daz and many others

Wishing everyone a very cool yule