Hi everyone

Sorry it’s been such a long time since I updated this. I’ve been very busy! Now, I’m playing as part of a duo called Dulcinea with my talented singer-songwriter friend Ali Powers. We’ve been working very hard for a few months now, pulling together the name, a biography, photos, CD artwork, flyers, booking gigs, recording songs, and practising our set. We’re both really excited about it!

This Friday we’re heading to Leeds to busk, try to promote out gig at The Verve on 28th May, and hopefully sell a few of our EPs (which you can buy by clicking here and saying ‘I want a Dulcinea CD!’). Leeds will be our next gig, and the day after on Friday 29th, we’ll be playing Creative Blocks in Derby, at The Big Blue Coffee Company.

We set up a myspace page so you can listen to the songs we’ve done so far and have a look at our pictures. In the meantime, visit my picture page to see a few extra pictures. All the Dulcinea gigs are on my gigs page so take a looky!

Looking forward to playing for you all soon!

Alex

Hello

Thanks to everyone who came to The Loggerheads on Saturday! It was a brilliant night, and I’m really pleased there was a good turn-out there to enjoy it with us! To those of you who couldn’t make it, you missed a treat! I performed a solo set, as well as my first set as part of a new duo I’ve formed with Ali Powers. We’re currently working on a band name and on how we are going to present ourselves, as well as tweaking our set, ahead of the gigs we’re booking for the next few months. Watch this space!

I’ll leave you with a cool little quote from T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia):

“All men dream, but not all equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake to find it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the the day are dangerous, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, and make things happen.’

Hope y’all well.

Alex :o)

Hi everyone,

The Loggerheads gig has been changed, and will now take place next Saturday instead. Sorry for the inconvenience to those of you who’d made plans to come, but hope you can make it next week instead!

Saturday 14th March at The Loggerheads, Nottingham
Alex Bowen solo set
Alex Bowen and Ali Powers duo set

See the gig page for how to get to the venue, and other acts billed for that night.

Have a lovely week, and see you all next weekend!

Alex

Howdy folks. Hope you’re all well and have enjoyed the snow. I went sledging and built a snowman the ‘proper’ way for the first time ever - by rolling it. We didn’t have a carrot for the nose, but made do with a big pebble, coal for the eyes, and more pebbles as buttons down its front. It was a lot of fun.

Tonight I’ve been making something for someone. As I sit here typing, I keep stopping to peel the PVA glue off my hands and fingers. I can’t understand why it’s so satisfying, but it is. I’m remembering how boys at Primary School would deliberately paste their hands and later attempt to convince me and my girly friends that they were actually peeling off their skin. I never took the bait because boys are silly and girls are clever.

So, exciting times on the gig front. Edinburgh, Nottingham and Derby are dates on the calendar at the moment. And I’m almost certain I’m playing the Isle of Wight’s jazz festival in April With Ali Powers too. On a lesser note, I’m thinking of tootling on down to Jee-Jar-Jee’s (was Buddha Bar) in Derby on Tuesday, to take advantage of the open mic night, grand piano (I adore grand pianos with an absolute passion), and fact that it’s hosted by a friend of mine Paul Herron. I think we might do a couple of tunes together.

I’ve been offered a few interesting bits of work at the moment, ranging from a bit of recording for a Uni student, the notation of a composition (written by someone else) for children, in readiness for it being published, sessional work for a musician I know who’s going on tour soon, as well as an absolute mass of new piano and music theory students. All good for me. Funnily enough, I thought that when I had lots of free time, I’d be able to be more creative: I’d have time to dwell and reflect, to make and to do. But now I’m quite busy again I’m feeling much more spark to do even more…

‘Energy begets energy’ is apparently a quotation from Sarah Bernhardt (1844 -1923), a ‘world famous tragedienne’ of whom, I must confess I’ve heard nothing until now. Hmm. I’m starting to sound a little academic. Must be my recent heavy dosage of Radio 4!

Hope you’re all well. Come and see me play some time. That’d be lovely. :o)

Hello

I’d like to welcome anyone who’s found my website through the Mercedes Benz mixed tape thing. Apparently, I’ve had people from as far as Japan and Argentina viewing my site so far. Woo! For those of you who didn’t know, my track ‘Into the Sea’ is available for free download on The Mercedes Benz website as of today (follow the ‘mp3 download’ link), and from 6th January, I will be ‘introduced’ on the site. I don’t exactly know what that means, but I shall find out!

Secondly, the shop is now live so Clicky! And buy my nice little Ep. It’s not expensive and it’s really good! Postage is 75p to the UK and to anywhere else, I shall have to see how much it costs.

Finally, last week’s gig at Big Blue, Derby was great. I really loved playing again after such a long break from performing, and it was great to see so many faces, old and new. So thanks for coming… if you did! I am planning to take my music travelling over the next few months. So, if you live outside of my home town Derby, and would like me to play near you, why not ask me? I’ve not decided where I’ll play yet! Any suggestion is a good one!

Take care,

Alex

My mp3 player seems to be misbehaving again. If you can’t hear the songs properly, try myspace.

Just to let you know I’m putting together a three-track sampler EP thing for people to buy at my gigs and on this site, so you’ve got some of my music to listen to whilst I’m working on my album. It features the following tracks:

* ‘Anonymous Bb Song’ (which I refuse to give a title to now!)
* ‘Can’t Come Down’ - this is a piano version; I’m hoping to put the same song on my album, but it will be with lots of other instruments too
* ‘Icicle’ which I’ve played live but never put on CD before

I’m hoping to get my shop up and running soon, but, for the meanwhile, use this little jobby to pay by paypal, or contact me to pay by cheque.

I’m charging £2.50 for the CD, because i’ve put a lot of time and work into it, and because I think paypal take a cut! If you’re paying by cheque it costs £2.00, instead. Either way (whether you pay by paypal or cheque), postage is 75p!

If you buy it at a gig, such as the one TOMORROW, you can just pay a flat £2!

Hope that’s all clear as crystal!

See you at Big Blue, 8pm tomorrow!

Greetings (but not season’s ones yet. It’s only the 7th)….

Well, Mercedes-Benz have decided to use my song Into the Sea on their ‘mix tape’, which means that, for ten weeks, as of December 16th,  my song will feature on their website for anyone to download as they may, FOR FREE. So I’m hoping to perhaps get a new batch of people visiting my site as a result of that! If, by any chance you are one of such people who followed a link on mercedes-benz.tv, I’d just like to say hello…. *waves*.

As part of the M.B. thing, I was told I needed to provide a selection of decent promo pictures of myself and, only having a handful from Candice’s shoot earlier in the year, I was panicking at the thought of the looming deadline. That is, until a friend of mine, Ali Powers, and another friend of his, James Corbett, helped me out. Thanks guys! James took some fabulous pictures in his studio on Friargate, then Ali edited them for several hours, to produce some really lovely pieces of work which I am very pleased with, never mind slightly flattered to feature in!

The pics are on my pics page. Funny, that.

Sorry guys and gals. The mp3 player is playing up at the moment. Free free to try it, but if you can’t get it working, you can temporarily use that dreadful webshite which is MYSPACE (www.myspace.com/alexbowenmusic). I’m afraid the mp3s are compressed so much on there, to allow them to fit so much on, that you won’t quite hear the tunes at their best, but it’s better than nothing, and I hope to get my player fixed soon!

Nights are drawing in. Central heating’s on. A lot of people I know seem quite worn out, skint, and perhaps a bit low on energy lately… Well, how about a spell of dreaming and make-believe or, to put it another way, hope? I’m feeling a little maternal/caring/optimistic lately (yepyep, it’s a rare one! ha!) so, here’s a tip: have a think about your life, and your work/play balance… It’s so easy to lose track of what really matters, so don’t! There. Alex’s words of wisdom (or not) over!

Personally, I’ve had quite an introspective and self-nurturing kind of year, sitting at home writing music, learning how to record and do various other bits and bobs, and generally hatching plans in between working like a minion to try to fund my crazy ambitions! Now, and increasingly so, I feel it is the time for me to slowly (and cautiously!) lift the moss-covered pebble under which I’ve been hiding, and share my shiny new secrets.

A gig. Friday 12th December. 8pm. Big Blue Coffee Company, Derby. I’m aiming for a cosy, fairy-lit, sit-on-the-floor, tea-and-cakes evening. Don’t worry. For those of you who are slightly less lightweight than me, there WILL be hard liquor too! Look at my gigs page for details of the line up.

I’m really looking forward to playing, and it’ll be lovely to see you all. If my preparation all goes to plan, I should be selling a ’sketches’ CD: three or four tracks which won’t be on the album, just to whet your appetite ;o)

Until then, I shall be practising night and day and day and night and everything in between until I remember how to do IT, again. It’s been a while!

Take care, m’loverlies and hope to see you soon!

xxx