Shoes And Socks Off stops being a thing

The time has come for me to shut this thing down. As much as I love it, I’ve now have to go out into the desert and dig a hole…

Ever since the first show, Shoes and Socks Off has been a bit of a pain in the arse. Bloody thing. The restrictions I place on it, and the fact that pretty much all the songs are about one very personal subject, make it’s functioning depend too heavily on me maintaining a certain level of ‘mope’, and in all honesty I don’t have the stones to maintain said mope any longer.
I’m not sure if it was at all cathartic or even much good, but it was certainly necessary, so I’m grateful to those who backed me up over the last 4 years.
I’m proud of what was achieved and blown away at the level at which a select few people have connected with the songs and shown their love and support. If you came to a gig, put on a show, bought a record or let me sleep on your floor, thank you.

Final Shoes and Socks Off dates:

September
15 – Southsea Festival

Mega Front-Man Tour with Someone Died (someonedied.tumblr.com) (Alan Welsh/Tangled Hair/Colour)
16 – The Lamb – Devizes
17 – The Pav-Tav – Brighton
18 – The Grey Horse – Kingston
19 – Nation of Shopkeepers – Leeds
20 – The Bell – Manchester
21 – The Pilgrim – Liverpool
22 – The Chameleon Arts Café – Nottingham
24 – The Old Blue Last – London (with Ross Secondsmile)

The final show falls on the world famous Meet Me In St. Louis Day, not only that, but it will mark four years to the day since the first Shoes and Socks Off album was recorded. Neat.

I’m working on a whole bunch of new stuff. There will be one last SASO release. Four new songs on a ‘pay what you like’ download-only EP called As We Get Closer The Room Gets Smaller. This is a sort of ‘post-script’ to Miles of Mad Water, and ties the whole project off in a satisfying ‘full circle’ kind of way. That’ll be out shortly.

Down in Brighton, Adam Crisp (Entrepreneurs) just finished mixing the new Love Among The Mannequins EP (loveamongthemannequins.tumblr.com) (it sounds SO good!). That’ll be out soon, and we’re about halfway through writing the follow-up to our LP, Radial Images.

I recently finished recording the debut album of a very skilled songwriter who goes by the name of Chalk (stalkchalk.tumblr.com). The album is quite honestly stunning. I’ll make a fuss about it once we have found someone to release it.

Just finishing an album by Lunchtime Sardine Club (thelunchtimesardineclub.bandcamp.com). Very rad music by a good friend, who kept super quiet about his talent until now.

Finally, I’m really excited about my new project, Bermuda Ern (www.bermudaern.co.uk). We have written an album which should be out before the end of the year, if we can find someone to release it. It’s all beats, noise and lounge, and it’s the most expressive fun I have had musically in a long, long time. I’ve missed the ringing ears. Think I’ll focus on this for a while.

Everyone around me seems to be settling down and getting jobs. Most of the dudes I’ve toured/worked/played with have done a lot of growing up since SASO began. I’ve shared so many good times with too many folks to thank them all here, so I’ll just briefly acknowledge the smack-pack and be done with it:
Endless thank you’s to Nev Bartos, Shoulders, Dreamboat, Dirty Otter, the Brummies, Snaever, James Bryant, Alex Polakowski, Rhys Baker, Euragh!, Ellis Gardiner, Langley, King Among Men, Rico, Heather Steele, MTBRD, ACDSleeve, Arran Gregory, Shark, Al Petersen, Steven Stride, Jonny Fucking Baker, Oli Newton, NickyB, Nitkowski, Tall Ships, Delta/Alaska, Tubelord, Tangled Hair, Mossy Motown, Mrs BSM, Sam, Jay, Mench, Stef & his Tascam, Pip, Pop & Associates, and Aïcha.

So that’s it. This all feels real positive. Laters.