A new LOW (geddit?) in rock photography at ‘Let’s Play Bowie: Hunky Dory’ at The Donkey 5.1.19

Getting to rehearse and sing with this beautiful band has been a shining light in a dark few days for me.

It’s one thing getting great players another getting great people but this was a real ensemble, just a joy to sing with, Andy Price and Tony Robinson creating orchestral keyboard magic, Malcolm D’Sa and Chris Denalu spot on with the drums and bass, Natasha Pattinson’s violin just soaring into the stratosphere, Andy Wales - he never fails! A guitarist other guitarist bow down to.. and Gaz Birtles who made it all possible - when he sings or plays his sax you feel the love for Bowie!

The Donkey is a chaotic place when sold out, but the atmosphere is fantastic and this audience was mega-fantastic. I’ve never shook so many hands and been hugged so much as this night.

Nile Barrow kicked us off with ‘Changes’,a young man for a young man’s song.. and I followed with ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ proclaiming the new generation, the new world. Gaz then sang ‘Eight Line Poem’,’Life On Mars’ abs ‘Kooks’ - no matter how many times I hear ‘Mars’ I never tire of it and I think it’s one of the greatest songs ever written and Gary gave his all to it.

I was back on with the mystical ‘Quicksand’, a Song I deeply identify with, one of Bowie’s most occult statements. After Gaz did the joyous ‘Fill Your Heart’ Andy Sharman was ‘Andy Warhol’ - on this and ‘Queen Bitch’ Leicester’s legendary art rocker did not disappoint.

‘Song For Bob Dylan’ I loved tackling, it’s a bit of an overlooked Bowie song but a hell of a live number to do. Leaving ‘The Bewley Brothers’, just perfect for Simon Gilroy with Andy and Gaz.

All this and a set of superb choices by Simon and The Serious Moonlights - ‘I’m Afraid Of Americans’,’Valentines Day’ and a swaggering ‘Fame’, relentless drums by Nick Murphy!

To top it all Wellard Willy represented the guitar dominated rockier end of the ‘Ziggy’ era - I can never forget the fun we had doing ‘Diamond Dogs’ together at the Simon Says Festival In 2017.

I can’t imagine a ‘Let’s Play Ed Sheeran’ in 45 years time. Mick Ronson gave Bowie 1,000% and David himself was ultra-inspired, ‘Hunky Dory’ is his Beatles album to me, yet he was to totally turn it around with ‘Ziggy’ and then his Thin White Duke and Berlin eras. He owned the 70s.

I felt sad afterwards because this package could tour it’s that good. I also felt sad over the loss of Bowie himself. It still hurts 2 years later and I think it always will. He was such a part of our lives and still sounds way ahead of most everything, always was, always will be..

Terrible photos, nigh on impossible conditions to take them lol..

Botheration presents ‘Driven By Love, Driven By Hate’.

Available from this site signed by Kevin...

...and from Bandcamp (where it is also available as a digital download)

https://kevinhewick.bandcamp.com

Cover and 12 page lyric booklet designed by Jim Tetlow and featuring the beautiful photography of Asuka Sawada throughout.

Recorded by Adam Ellis at Deadline Studios and featuring wonderful musical contributions by him and Autumn D. Leader, Mark Haynes, David Conrad Dhonau, Arian Sadr,Jonathan Read, PJ Baker, Chris Conway, Simon Si Ball, Kevin John Ellis, Kate Ellis and Naomi Armitage.

17 songs, 79.22 long, recorded between December 2016 and September 2017. There are 4 movements like the 4 sides of a double LP.

1. A spiritual retreat away from the burdens of the world - but the heart will always carry it’s weight..

2. Political turmoil, the manipulations of the fake news media, the working class from where I came and the aristocratic elites who leech off us and the battle of Brexit that neither side can win.

3. A reverse image of 1. Remorse and guilt and then the myth of the great open road and escape into the mythical Americana culture that fed the fantasies of my generation, we are all the uneasy riders of the easy riding dream.

4. If Van Morrison can do it with ‘Cyprus Avenue’ I can with Eyres Monsell and Glen Parva. People and places, ghosts, and dog walking and cat walking into a dream of innocence and selflessness. The album starts with desiring the desirelessness of a Buddhist monk and ends with turning back into a little boy with a kitty and a doggy in the woods..

Don’t ask me how I did it, all albums are difficult, this one was made as my personal sky fell in but somehow however bad it gets you can always get a lyric and a tune out of me, music really is deep in my very being, a life affirming universal force that has to come out somehow despite the often self inflicted turmoil I live in. Artist in pain is an old riff but us artists do play it. There is also hope and beauty and I/we play that too. Somehow these things always head toward the light rather than toward the darkness.

This is where I badly need you folks.. All sales help to fund the next album and to build up the body of work that I began with ‘All Was Numbered’ and then The Heat Of Molten Diamonds’ and ‘Touching Stones, Tasting Rain’ and this new album. I have never gone for crowd funding. You can just buy this or any other Kevin Hewick album and ‘crowd fund’ me x

I need you to share and post your feelings about it and spread the word about it because there is no big PR machine behind it, it’s self released and there are no pluggers and no certainties, and there is no Jools Holland Later and no sign of Top Of The Pops or a John Peel session either..

In the chaos of making this collection, and in the chaos of the life events around it I have not been too good at managing the mailout side of things. I owe many apologies and will try to get the house in order. Please bear with me on that, thank you to those who already have been bearing with me!

Launching the new album - Driven By Love, Driven By Hate. A free gig at The Criterion, Leicester. Sat Nov 11th. Special guest: Autumn Dawn Treader.