brian-heywood

SEEKING

Band to Join, Rhythm Guitar, Bass Guitar, Keyboard, Fiddle.

ABOUT

A guitarist, vocalist, bandleader, arranger, composer, producer and award winning song writer - Brian has a formidable array of skills and experience. He is just as at home on a big festival stage in outback Western Australia as an indie live music club in the heart of London.

Specialising in edgy roots fusion music, previous work has received comments such as "... aggressive, top notch fiddling set off by periodic guitar explosions." - Tom Nelligan, Dirty Linen Magazine (USA), "Just when it seemed as if newer electric British roots bands were getting thinner on the ground - Very welcome and very good." - fROOTS Magazine (UK) and Steve Barnes Fairbridge Festival Artistic Director (Australia) - "... a rocking band - I was delighted with the audience response."

Brian's original material draws on many sources from progressive, Latin and blues rock of the 70's to Celtic and traditional material.

Brian is an Australian musician who relocated to the UK in the early 80's and is now based in NSW. As well as live performance, he also composes for live and video/film soundtracks as well as production and engineering for recordings in a variety of styles.

Screen name:: brian-heywood
Member since:: Nov 05 2017; Active within 1 week
Level of commitment:: Touring
Years playing music:: 40
Gigs played:: Over 100
Tend to practice:: More than 3 times per week
Available to gig:: 6-7 nights a week

Influences

Beatles, Rolling Stones, Yes, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, JJ Cale, Eagles, Johnny Cash, Jackson Brown, Richard Clapton, Crowded House

Instrument experience:

Rhythm Guitar:: Expert
Bass Guitar:: Expert
Background Singer:: Expert
Vocalist:: Advanced
Vocalist - Tenor:: Advanced
Lead Guitar:: Advanced
Acoustic Guitar:: Advanced

EQUIPMENT

Guitars:
- PRS CE24
- Fender Telecaster
- Godin xtSA
- FRET-King Elise (semi acoustic)
- Hohner GT3
- Washburn Acoustic
- Eko Ranger 12 str
- Ovation Troubadour

Bass Guitars:
- Fender Precision (fretted)
- Fender Precision (fretless)
- Hohner B2 Pro

Amplification:
- Boogie Reverb Rocket with extension cabinet (guitar)
- Boss Nextone Stage (guitar)
- SWR Workingman 10 with extension cabinet (bass)
- Tanglewood T6 (acoustic)

Guitar Synths
- Roland GR-33
- Roland GI-10
- Roland GR-20

Member of the British Musicians' Union as well as APRA, MCPS, the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain and the Australian MEAA.

MUSIC

Thinking about our world

Thinking about our world Genre: Progressive
Too Late (3AM)

Too Late (3AM) Track number: 1 Year: 2016 Album: Travelling Hopefully Genre: Progressive
Too Late (3am) is my second solo single release and is a dark and moody look and getting out of a tight spot, but with a hopeful outcome... Brian is an Australian musician who relocated to the UK in the early 80's and is now based back in Melbourne. A guitarist, vocalist, bandleader, arranger, composer, producer and award winning song writer - Brian has a formidable array of skills and experience. He is just as at home on a big festival stage in outback Western Australia as an indie live music club in the heart of London. Specialising in edgy roots music, previous work has received comments such as "... aggressive, top notch fiddling set off by periodic guitar explosions." - Tom Nelligan, Dirty Linen Magazine (USA), "Just when it seemed as if newer electric roots bands were getting thinner on the ground - Very welcome and very good." - fROOTS Magazine (UK) and Steve Barnes Fairbridge Festival Artistic Director (Australia) - "... a rocking band - I was delighted with the audience response."
Blues turn to Green
Blues turn to GreenThis song was written by guitarist Graham Goffee and recorded as a demo for our band - Innocent Bystander, probably when I was based in St Albans. The drums are almost certainly MIDI, performed live using the Simmons SDS 9 plugged into a Roland PAD-8 controller using sounds from an Akai ROM based sample replay percussion module. Apart from Graham on vocals & guitar and myself on bass I'm not sure who the other players were, probably Graeme Harrison on drums.
Curtain Call
Curtain CallI wrote this song some time around the late 80's and it was used in the original 'Thinking about our lives..." show that was performed at the Market Theatre in Hitchin in 1999. I later reused the chord sequence to set an Australian folk song (Jim Jones at Botany Bay) which appeared on the WoodworX album - Two Short PlanX [http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/woodworx]. This version uses the WoodworX backing with the original lyric and is used in the current show "Thinking about our world..." [http://www.thinkingaboutourworld.co.uk] The players are; Brian Heywood - vocals and guitars Peter Anderson - Accordion Tom Fairbairn - fiddle Stefan Brown - bass guitar David Hicks - kit drums And the instrumental track was recorded at Hugh MacDonald's studio in Melbourne (engineered by Hugh) with the vocal overdub recorded at The Point in Dunstable.
LNB and Finnish Polkas
LNB and Finnish PolkasA demo recording of a polka set I arranged a few years ago. The track was mainly recorded live in my rehearsal room with a few over dubs. The players are; Brian Heywood - guitar/synths Tom Fairbairn - fiddle Trevor James - low whistle and bodrahn Andrew King - bass guitar Donna Whitlock - kit drums
Casualty
CasualtyThis song is my take on the first world war and was probably one of the ones originally recorded at the Great Western Radio studio in Wootton Bassett as part of a 'live' session by The Cluster of Nuts Band for broadcast by GWR sometime in the mid-1980s. In WW1 approximately 5% of the population of the UK, Australia and New Zealand were killed or wounded in the fighting and the incompetent tactics of the British Army meant that junior officers had an average life expectancy of about a week on the front line (which is a line in the song). The band is; Chris Nelson - lead vocals Dave Good - guitar, backing vocals Jim Shorter - keyboards Brian Heywood - bass guitar, backing vocals Graeme Harrison - drums [words and music (c) Brian Heywood] While the UK had a general call-up (i.e. conscription) for the British Army, all the Australians were volunteers.
Dusk 'till Dawn
Dusk 'till DawnThis instrumental is based on a dance tune called "The Horses' Branle" from a collection called Orchésographie by Thionot Arbeau (pseudonym and anagram of 'Jehan Tabourot') dated 1588. A branle (pronounced 'brawl') is a French social dance. This tune is part of the English Country Dance repertoire and is often used for a variation on the Montarde Branle (also from Arbeau), though played with a dotted, or bourrée rhythm . This track was recorded while I was still living at St Albans so must be from the mid 1980s. The flute part is played by Sarah Hack, the electric guitar solo at the end is by Dave Good and the full on drums in the last section is performed by Graeme Harrison on a Simmons SDS-9 drum kit MIDI'd through a Roland PAD-8 to an Akai sample replay module. All the other instruments are played by me. I later used the name for the Nightwatch album of the same name though this track didn't appear on it.
Thinking about our world...
Thinking about our world...This is the title song for a show I have developed with Poet Bob Harding-Jones. "Thinking about our world..." provides a setting for the poetry and music to give an insight into the world in which we live in at the start of the 21st century. It is not about threatening and frightening people, but rather helping to think about the way we live and the effect it has on the world around us. In short, it's about the choices we all have. You can find out more from the website; - http://www.thinkingaboutourworld.co.uk
John Lee
John LeeThis is a song from a project to recreate the Fairport Convention 'Folk Rock Opera' - Babbcombe Lee. the project never got off the ground but I was quite pleased with this demo track. You can find out more about the history John Lee (The man they couldn't hang) at; - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Babbacombe_Lee Drums and tambourine were performed by Sam McEvoy and everything else was by me.
The Ballad of Hiram Cater
The Ballad of Hiram CaterHiram Cater was a character out of the 1978 novel by James A Michener - Chesapeake. Like many of his novels it has a very broad brush of history - in this case based on the east coast of the USA in the bay of the same name. Set in a fictional town (Patamoke) on the border between the northern (free) states and the southern (slave) states, the novel explores the history, economics and personal ramifications of the post slavery era. The song dips into Hiram's - and his sister Luta Mae's - story during the period of the Civil Right's Movement. Sort of a fictional 'true' story. This is not the first song on this subject I've recorded - check out "The Reverend Sharpton" on the Tear Down the Barriers album which is also inspired by this period - from a different perspective. Although the song was inspired by an American story, there are a number of resonances with the riots that shook South London in the summer of 2011. Vocals and guitars are by me with backing vocals from Dawn Webb. This song was a semi-finalist in "The Song of the Year" contest (http://tinyurl.com/Hiram-Cater)
February11 (a man is freed)
February11 (a man is freed)On February 11 1990, Nelson Mandela was released after spending almost 30 years in various South African prisons - mainly the high security facility at Robben Island - for fighting the Boer dominated Apartheid regime. At the end of his statement at the infamous Rivonia Trial in 1964, he said; "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." This song is a collaboration between Graham Goffee, who wrote the music and myself who wrote the words - apart from the chant section in the middle, which was Graham's suggestion (woza moya - come o' spirit) which has a reference to the ANC anthem (Nkosi sikelel) which was later incorporated into the South African national anthem. This song is dedicated to one of the greatest human being on the planet, who helped bring South Africa out of the post colonial era without the customary blood bath... The idea behind the lyric is that the spirit of Mandela would never be free until this rainbow revolution is seen around the world. As Syria, the riots in London, the Moscow demonstrations and the occupy Wall Street protests show, there is still a long way to go.
Bankers' Blues
Bankers' BluesI wrote this song in 1995 when 'Rogue Trader' Nick Leeson caused Barings Bank (aka the Queen's bank ) to go bust when he lost over £800 million trading on the Singapore stock exchange - a figure that was more than twice the bank's trading capital. It's still pretty topical as the recent banking 'crisis' has shown. It's interesting to point out that the two countries that didn't remove regulation from their banking systems - Australia and Canada - have ridden out the finnancial storms pretty well. Meanwhile in the UK the old adage of "punish the innocent and promote the guilty" still holds sway as the Guardian points out in... - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/30/bankers-paid-too-much-says-rbs-chairman So no lessons learned - no change there then.
L'Envoi
L'EnvoiThis is the first Rudyard Kipling poem I set to music sometime back in the 1980's. I think that this poem captures nicely the feelings of the restless soul. The traveller who can't settle down but still needs a center to come home to. There is something about the lryic quality of late 19th century poets that makes them ideal for setting to music, though they usually have to be ferociously to make them suitable for the more concise format demanded by the song form. I wrote the setting for this poem in the early 80's but this demo must have been recorded in the late 80's in my studio in St Albans. Since then I've put more poems written by Kipling and Henry Lawson to music, some of which appeared on the WoodworX CD (Two Short PlanX - available from www.poke.ltd.uk/records/shop.htm). All instruments and vocals on this track by B Heywood
Fatal Shore
Fatal ShoreSomething for Australia Day 2012... This is an original song that was inspired of the folk song Moreton Bay (Brisbane Water) but from a different perspective. Sort of a response I guess. This demo was recorded in my studio in Dunstable, with me playing all instruments and singing.
First Light
First LightThis is an Instrumenal that I composed and recorded sometime last century. The track features low whistle and border pipes by Trevor James. All other instruments and programming are by Brian Heywood.
Johnny, Be Good
Johnny, Be GoodThis is a demo I recorded back sometime in the early nineties. The lyrics are a collabouration between Ruth Whiddon and myself and the melody was written by Jim Shorter, originally as a dance tune. Lead vocal - Graham Goffee Lead guitar - Dave Good Electronic drums - Graeme Harrison Keyboards, bass and backing vocals - Brian Heywood
Something New
Something NewAppropriate title for a new year - my version of John Mayall's 'Something New" - possibly the first blues song I ever learned. I recorded this back in 1996.
Rhythm of the Road
Rhythm of the RoadA reflective number that I wrote after catching the wrong train. One of the many songs I've written about travelling.... Currently is being used in the "Thinking about our world..." show with poet Bob Hardiing-Jones.
Moll in the Wadd
Moll in the Wadd
Two Brothers
Two BrothersThis is my version of the Pete Morton song 'Two Brothers'. Pete has a way cutting to the nub of any situation with his song writing. This one is his take on the Isreal / Palastine situation and, while it might not please the appologists on either side, it is a masterful, and eminently common sense, view of the situation. Nice one Pete..
40 Days of Rain
40 Days of Rain
Between The Wars
Between The WarsThis is my arrangement of a song written by Billy Bragg about the times between the wars when hope and solidarity are the alternative to the hate and fear that the war mongers instil. War is a/the major way that the 1% control and cull the aspirations and the activists of the 99% and cement their control of the riches of this green planet...
Turn The Key
Turn The KeyA little ditty about LAK (life after kids)...