Hello
Heres a history lesson.
I first picked up a guitar when I was 16 when my little sister showed me how to play smoke on the water and then I started playing properly on my 17th birthday when my Dad bought me my first electric guitar.
I played predominantly Greenday and Offspring songs in my bedroom through my tiny 15 watt amplifier for the first year and a bit.
During this first year me and my friends started playing out at my uncles studio and formed my first band. We couldn't really play and had no name at this point but we had a great time and looking back on it I believe it was a great way to start. We rehearsed every thursday and many interesting recordings were made during this time.
We first played live at a club called smilies at somebodies party. We played are version of Buck Rodgers by Feeder which looking back must have been awful. Are first proper gig was a party in my home town. We still couldn't play perticulary well at this point and as a result it probably wasn' to nice on the ears. We opened are set with a instrumental version of smells like teen spirit then played a few songs that i can't even remember. We even used a 15 watt guitar amp for a vocal P.A. We had no idea what we were doing but it was great fun.
After a while of playing covers at parties and a few proper gigs we brought in Carl to play bass and Tom (The bass player / singer up to this point) concentrated more on singing. We played with carl up until the band finished in about 2004. After this I moved through a few bands, even a heavy metal band but I never felt Right in any of these.
I went to Grimsby College to study music in 2004 and here I met Lawrence McManus who immediately befriended and we started talking about forming a band. He said he knew a drummer and I said I knew a bass player and we formed a band with Lawrence on vocals and guitar, me on guitar, Phil Porter on drums and Carl Lewington (Bass player in my old band) on bass.
We were a punk/rock band and we rehearsed a lot and started writing are own songs which I had never done in a band situation.
We entered a battle of the bands competition when we thought we were ready to play live and played a half hour set of Thin Lizzy, Jimi Hendrix covers and our own songs. We went down well and even though we didn't win we had a great time and it was a good starting point. After this we signed up with a local music promotion company called Solid Entertainment and started gigging regulary at a venue called the Winter Gardens which became are main venue. By this point we had a lot of our own songs and were starting to build a following plus we were a good live band.
We played a big gig in a town called Caistor and went down really well and later found out that it had been recorded which we released as a E.P.
Soon after this we played a another battle of the bands competition at Grimsby Auditorium which was put on by a record company called Magnectic Image Records. I remember having a great time and we played really well and we had a lot of fans in the audience who cheered us on. We came 3rd and we couldn't quiet beleive it.
After this we played a few more gigs and then Magnectic Records rang us up asking if they could sign us for a single deal for are song 'Sleeping Under The Starlight'. We were very taken back by this and saw it as a great chance but when we met up with them it wasen't all they said it would be. The contract they wanted us to sign was full of bad points and no good points. This was the beginning of the end for Gimble as Lawrence wanted desperatly to sign the contract and see where it would take us where as the rest of us didn't want anything to do with it. We didn't sign the contract and continued with are gigging and writing but the damage had already been done and the band began to deteriate much to my dismay.
Everything came to a head a few months later when we were rehearsing for a show and an argument erupted which ended in Carl quiting then and there. This was extreamly upsetting as I had played with Carl in pretty much all my bands and it was the last thing I wanted to happen. My friend Dean came in played bass for us that very same day and joined permantly after this but it never felt the same after Carl left.
The band continued to gig, write and rehearse but things were going from bad to worse. I finally called it a day when I asked Lawrence if he still liked what bought to the band. When he said no I said i'd leave. This was extreamly upsetting for me as my time with Gimble was possibly one of the best times of my musical life so far and part of me wishes it hadn't gone the way it did and we were still playing togther but i'm very happy with where it led me and I am very happy with my music and wouldn't change anything.
After I left Gimble I started to focus more on my own music which is whats playing in that little box up there. It was more Blues/Rock based than the Punk/Rock music of Gimble and its what I enjoyed playing in my own time. I decided to start recording my music and I wanted to release my songs on an E.P to see what people would think of them and had an ambition to get gigging. Later i found this to be harder than I thought.
I released a 6 song E.P and it seemed to go down well. At the same time I started up this myspace to get my music out there even more which i hope its doing. Soon after releasing my E.P I played my first gig at the Mayfair Club in my home town. The Mayfair club is also where I played my first ever gig. My brother John played bass and Phil from Gimble who had recently left played drums. We went down really well and it was great fun.
After this i decided to organise my own gig at the same venue but when gig night came i only managed to break even. It was a bit of a nightmare but some good came of it as we recorded 4 songs live which are on my album and it caught the 10 minute jam we did right at the end of the show. It was a one off moment and i'm so glad we caught it.
I did a few more gigs after this which were great fun but i was getting frustrated at not being able to gig as much as i wanted. In October of 2007 I moved down to London to study music at the Institute Of Contemporary Music which has without a shadow of doubt made me a better musician. As much as i enjoyed my time in London it left me in a bad way but thats not for you to know. I moved back to my home town of louth in june / july.
Over the summer (2008) i did my best to get as many gigs as i could. I gigged quite a lot in louth at a pub called cobble bar. It had a great atmosphere and my music seemed to go down very well. I have played there many times now and plan to go back when i can.
I went back to grimsby college in september 2008 to continue studying music and to find a permanent band so i could really start to push my music.
My old drummer Phil Porter had moved to leeds to go to university so i was on the look out for a new drummer. I asked my friend Kyle Mortimer who i had known from the last time i was at grimsby college. I asked if he would be interested and he said yes. We rehearsed when we could and it was just just great fun. Kyle bought a new energy to the band that hadn't been there before.
We did are first gig at college in november where we went down really well and had a great time. We have done many gigs in louth and the surrounding area since november and all have been great fun and we have gone down really well.
I plan to push my music in 2009 as much as i can and get gigs where ever i can.
I beleive that all my expeirences have had an effect on how I play and how my music sounds. I have just recorded my first ever album of ten of my own songs and feel my style is starting to develop. I have an ambition to take my music as far as I can and play it live whenever and where ever I can. I am extreamly dedicated to my music and its one of the most important parts of my life and I don't plan on doing anything else.
Thank you for reading this.
Dave

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