mostly david ephgrave

It was nice to sing through the songs from my show today to exercise that part of my brain (and voice) again. A pleasant byproduct of Edinburgh last month - though surely it was longer ago? - was I was singing every day, which meant my voice was in good shape; I may have lost my hearing by the last week, but I could still hit the notes, though whether they were in tune I couldn’t pass comment. I don’t know why I forget it so easily but I’m always happier when I look after my voice; it’s a simple thing, but it’s very important to me. It’s nice to not have to stretch to sound good and to feel you have command of your abilities. That’s why touring with Buddy was good at first, as singing and playing regularly kept you match-fit; you had the luxury of a band to play with, plus the intrigue of a new town and venue to keep things interesting. It’s even better when you work on your own stuff as singing through a few songs feels like opening a window wide to let the fresh air in. That’...

Despite being a busy one for me - relatively speaking - today’s show was hard work as, try as I might, I couldn’t seem to get them on board. It wasn’t that they weren’t enjoying it, but they barely vocalized it, which wasn’t helped by the fact they were spread out across the room with no sense of cohesion. There were some nice moments - my favourite being when it sounded like someone’s watch fell off their wrist, which I pointed out by working it into the punchline I was delivering mid-sentence - but it's ultimately hard work when you’re throwing your all into it to be confronted by near silence. I was particularly pleased with how the songs sounded; probably due to a combination of my voice feeling rested from Monday’s day off and my guitar still sounding bright from its recent restringing. It’s been enjoyable to play so often and to reconnect with some of the music I’ve written. It's a shame I had to drop ‘It’s For You’ to give the show r...

This morning, for the first time in a good few years really, I got my acoustic out and sang a few of my old songs - and get this: it felt great. It’s mad that I’ve not done it for so long, when music was what defined me for so many years; there was a time when all I wanted to be was a songwriter and musician, recording with my band or on my own, yet somewhere down the line, my priorities changed and I moved on to different things. I’d still sing and play - the various actor / muso gigs I did made sure of that - but the actively creating musician inside me was obscured, which is a huge shame really. I’m not sure what it was that made me do it today, though a combination of the music I listened to while getting ready and the fact that Mark Morriss played at Mostly Comedy last week (thus inadvertently reminding me of what I used to do) saw me extricate my jumbo acoustic from its dusty lair* and run through my old repertoire. It was not without pain - the tips of the fingers o...