The bands of which I have been a full time member have sometimes played original music, sometimes covers and sometimes a mixture of the two.

The first two bands I was in played entirely original material. The next two played mainly original material with the occasional cover.

By the time I had been playing for about five years I was an adult and earning money had become a priority, so my attention turned to performing covers. Three of my next five bands still performed some original material as well as covers, but since 1995 I have been a member of another eight bands, all of which have performed covers, with no original material at all.
This split of having been in seven bands that have performed original material and ten that have not is not one that particularly pleases me, as writing is a side of music that I enjoy so much.

During the many years of performing covers and not writing with my bands I have continued to come up with ideas, though they have never progressed beyond tunes in my head, scribbled notes, or maybe the odd poor-quality four-track demo.

In 2004, after a lot of encouragement from my wife Anna and a chance conversation about writing original material with a friend’s father, I decided that I would gather together all these ideas, blow the dust off them and record them.

It took several years to demo enough songs that I was happy ('ish') with, then several more to record them, include lots of friends & family on the recordings, then mix everything.

In April 2010, an album of 15 original songs, 'You Couldn't Make it Up!' was completed.

As well as myself providing lead and harmony vocals, guitars, bass guitar and a few other badly played instruments, 22 other people eventually performed vocals, drums, keyboards, guitars, bass guitars, double bass, cello, fiddle, saxophones, flutes and harmonica on the 15 tracks included, all of which are self written and recorded.

If anybody wants a copy (£5 each), please contact me and we can get it sorted out.
Copies are also available from 'Diverse Music', Charles Street, Newport - although due to the overheads etc of shop sales, they will be priced slightly higher.
Thanks.

Nick Brown - Guitar Tuition, Newport, South Wales.