Well, ok what’s been going on… ok, well, I sold everything I owned to a lovely elderly Russian lady for £5. At least that was the agreed amount but she very kindly gave me £10! I felt this was a sign that from here on in, it’s going to be lady luck at my side all the way, as I ventured out once again into the world of the homelessness. Lucky fellow I am though, taking the Dylanesque approach of sofa surfing, I seem to have an endless choice of sofas around the UK and abroad, thanks to my friends and the power of radio. As a teenager it always seemed an exciting prospect, but as a man of my age I am generally just being mistaken for a tramp, as did my father when he passed me by on the road.

I have the two day rule (it becomes a home after two days), a guitar and a very small rucksack, with all I need to take on the world.

The first three weeks has proven to be far more enjoyable than I originally thought. I vowed to take up the life of a monk (by this I mean simplicity) but have found that it is actually very sociable being on the move. I have been playing and writing a lot more but I don’t get the chance to record so much, so I fear new songs and ideas may get lost in the ether.

As I sit at the bus stop scribbling down the latest Headspace blog, I have a feeling this is going to be a very lucky year. Last Monday I met up with Adam to chat about what direction we were going to take the new album now that it has been written and demoed. We decided to discuss this live on Total Rock Radio and although I did my best to explain (after a heavy drinking session down the Crobar in Soho with the Editor of  ‘Prog’ Magazine; Jerry Ewing), Adam still seemed slightly confused that I saw the concept as a love story. The concept I can announce is based on The Kubler-Ross Model for Impending Death: not what most people would feel were groundings for a good love story but what is for me an expression of my love for humanity.

Well whilst on my bus journey around Britain (feels like I am on tour), I have Headspace on my ipod shuffle and I’m updated through Internet cafes with the new additions to the album tracks. Like Lee’s bass part, which on first hearing made my heart stop and losing control of all body functions, my soul orbited the planet only to return right on the one… perfectly in time. Man he is a very special soul.

I also hear Rich is starting to put down the drums this week, so we are truly on our way to building this monster.

But how could I leave this blog without telling you what a wonderful friend Pete has been through out my predicament. He too has taken to the road and left his good lady and home behind, in sympathy. I hope he’s ok I hear it’s been snowing where he is. You don’t just stumble on friends like that, they are sent… with Headspace and lady luck on my side, how can I go wrong?

Thank you to everyone who has offered me a sofa to stay on, I’m collecting addresses… matter of fact I’ll be having another sofa appeal this Friday the 12^th of March 10:00-14:00 GMT on Radio Caroline where I will be playing live on the legendary ‘Barry James show’. He has very kindly got right behind this campaign and has been a tremendous support. Thank you also everyone who voted for me in the Classic Rock presents ‘Prog’ readers pole. It was a wonderful surprise that you thought of me.

This year is going to be a very lucky one - I can just feel it.

24^th Feb 2010

Winter Olympics Special…

So I am sitting in Minneapolis looking out across Gold Medal Park, now a snowfield due to Arctic temperatures, glad to be tucked away in the heated comfort of the hotel. Now don’t get me wrong I know you may be thinking why does he always bang on about the weather? If you are then switch your computer off go and make a cup of tea. I am once again on tour with One Eskimo in the land of the brave and free attempting to learn the geographical position of every town and city in the United States by visiting them and playing music.  Tour started on the East coast in time to catch “Snowmageddon” (yes that is what it was referred to on the TV so it must be true), which just pipped the equally chilling moniker of February Fury. We spent 2 weeks enjoying New York, Woodstock, Akron and Detroit to then sojourn to the warm sunshine of the West coast of LA and “classy” San Diego. Mostly radio and TV promo so far but we have a bunch of US dates opening for Gomez which will be great  (last time I saw them was playing in Perth about 12 years ago) then playing on the Ellen Degeneres show airing March 18^th, and Coachella Festival April 18^th. You can find out all things Eskimo related at www.oneeskimo.com

The big news in the Headspace camp is that we have finished demoing the tracks for our first full-length album. We are really excited about the direction and sound of this album and we are currently finalising arrangements via email (gotta love technology) and Adam has started laying down keyboards already. As ever our schedules have us a million miles from each other but, thanks to laptops and Logic we have managed to get things moving. I will be starting guitars here in the next few days too. We will be updating our website and social network pages soon to reflect some of the themes and ideas that will be reflected in the album, but without giving anything away keep an eye out for news.

Big news in the Anchorhead and Haken camps, sees my very good friend and awesome musician Charlie Griffiths marry his long time partner Fiona. As ever the life of a musician I was on the other side of the planet and couldn’t be there, really sorry guys, but much love to both of you. Check out Haken’s new album Aquarius coming out soon it is awesome trust me http://www.myspace.com/hakenmusic

Adam and Damian can be heard on Total Rock Radio 1^st March at 8pm please tune in to hear all about how the new album came to be and probably a lot of other stuff too http://www.totalrock.com/events.php

Well as I listen to the birds chirping at the outro of Dream Theater’s Count of Tuscany it would seem apt to sign off. Don’t forget to search and add headspacetheband on facebook too or not…

I’m off to pee in the snow.

Hey everyone

Rich here with another update.

Had a couple of sessions this week (that’s right, recording sessions. There are still a few around) for an artist called SHENA. Jim Winchester was producing along with Glen Skinner. Glen has worked with the greats (as far as drummers are concerned) and engineered on albums with YES, TOTO and other fantastic bands. Was a real pleasure!

Also had another session with Peter Cox and Richard Drummie around at my studio and put some drums on a track called ‘Skin Deep’.  All sounding very good if I say so myself!

Getting together with Adam soon to start thinking about drums for the proper album recording. Looking forward to it seeing as we were all in the same room once already this year - Lets make it a couple of days and actually f**cking play a show!! (Oh, and record the album).All for now. Keep checking the youtube channel, facebook page and back here regular!

Cheers, R.

Waving goodbye, tears and handkerchiefs are what you would have seen at Heathrow last week as Pete left for 3 months of an American tour with One Eskimo.
Headspace weren’t there to see him off, so the people that were actually there waving and crying must have been there seeing someone else off…

Lee and I have been rehearsing at Bush Studios in Shepard’s Bush, London for a week with an artist called Stacey Jackson who was running a charity event at the Tabernacle club in Nottinghill Gate in aid of Music for Youth. We had a great week alongside some other great musicians, Milton McDonald (some may remember him from working with Jon Anderson and touring guitar with ABWH) and Alex Toff on drums.

The Tabernacle club is within the walls of what looks like an old Roman Catholic church and I can only imagine just how much grief from it receives from it’s neighbours when it has music events!

More footage has been uploaded on to the youtube channel from the studio progress, albeit, not much recording….

www.youtube.com/headspacetheband

And don’t forget to add us on your facebook now!

AW

Happy New year everybody!

I’ve been a bit out of the loop for a while recently what with the wedding and honeymoon. We had a great time in Edinburgh and it was made all the more special by finally ,after 2 years, having all the HEADSPACE members in the same room!!We also raised over £1000 when myself and the wife jumped in the sea on new years day in aid of Cancer Research UK. We did our vows straight after we came out.Many thanks to the chaps and everyone who passed on their good wishes and donated to this brilliant charity.So, back to the grindstone after 3 weeks in Thailand….this country is too cold I’ve decided.Onwards with fine tuning drum parts for the album demo’s and then spending some time with ‘Fingers’ Rinaldi to look at kit sounds we want to get. I always find that having a second pair of ears for drum sounds is important (I also dont think I have a choice!). Sometimes you’re too close to your part of a project and need a second opinion (or third or fourth with everybody sticking their oar in).The other HEADSPACE limbs have been hard at it finishing vocal parts and arrangements  so we’re on course for spring deadline.We’ll keep you up to date with EVERYTHING…….and I mean EVERYTHING (that we can legally print) over the next few weeks.Rich (Mrs).

Well, the year is disappearing quickly now! Pete and I have finished the demos of the concept album at my studio here in a very snowy North Buckinghamshire village. Damian is coming here next week to finalise the lyrics and melodies, then it’s full steam ahead with the album tracking. We’ll post videos on the our you tube channel as and when we do them!

I will be interviewed on Paperlatte radio on 23rd Jan at 8pm Dutch time for a live interview and play of the EP on Sunday 23rd January www.brto.nl

It repeats on these following stations www.omroeptholen.nl  SLOS FM www.slos.nlWebstreams available on the sites of the mentioned radiostations.

Information about Paperlate  www.paperlate.nl

More news next week and hopefully some more video too.

AW

9^th January 2010

Happy New Year, the Big Freeze and Men in Skirts…

Well Happy New Year to all, wishing everyone a fantastic 2010. We have managed to cram a lot into the final gasps of 2009 and kick off 2010 with a bang.

For those of you not in the UK you may not be aware of the dawn of the ice age so let me be the first to warn you…there is an ice age apparently localised to the UK which is nice for those of you not here. To make sure that we are not merely scaremongering and jumping on the seemingly endless coverage through traditional media routes we felt it was our duty as purveyors of weather (as both my and Damian’s last blogs will attest to) we should travel the length of the country to see this phenomenon for ourselves. This expedition was not taken lightly at Headspace HQ and our fearless drummer Richard Brook thought he should mark the occasion by getting married at the Northern most point of the journey to his lovely lady Jo. We commended the proposal and set off from London early on the 1^st day of the year. Yes to be clear that is the day after New Year’s Eve.

To change tack for a moment I thought best to mention my previous travel endeavours over the last few weeks had taken me from driving a 15 passenger van through a snowstorm in Oregon and Washington to catastrophic Euro-star failures (culminating in a 6 hour wait frozen with all the doors open at King’s Cross station) hoping to travel to Paris for Xmas. I thought “3 times a lady” and wanted to make it all right by proving that surely things weren’t that bad on the roads in Britain…

Now back to our meteorological mission Northward, 1^st stop on the way was to pick up none other than Mr Damian Wilson, then on further North to the land of the Wakeman’s . With my trusty Mondeo Maude now holding 60% of Headspace we suddenly realised that when we reach the summit of Edinburgh we would meet up with the remaining 2 members and do something that has not been done since Christmas 2007…All be in the same room together at the same time.

Now mother nature was kind enough on the outbound section of our journey, just a little snow on our way into Scotland. At which point Mr and the now Mrs Brook (Hurrah!) felt it the best time to jump into the North Sea. Sounds silly, because well, it is, but true none the less. Around 9 hours after I set off that morning we arrived in the frost bitten Edinburgh, I’m sure Rich’s 2^nd and 3^rd Adams apple had not yet retreated further south to more familiar territory, but under the serenity of chainsaw sleep breathing and the opulence of room share we settled into our accommodation for the night. Well until I had enough of the snoring and got another room (thanks kindly to the understanding staff at the hotel).

We awoke the next morning to heavy snow and the inimitable Lee “Pimmy” Pomeroy who took us out for a lovely breakfast where a young local lass cooked us eggs which we found out were the first she ever made, amazing. We thought at this stage best to secure a gift for Rich and his lovely bride and head off to the Caledonian. Only to get a lovely glimpse of Rich and his pride (or shame) in a kilt, not the drummers first choice of attire but it was his big day so we let it slide, actually I say let it slide but we did just tease him about it all night.

Let me offer a huge congratulations to Mr and Mrs Brook. Jo looked amazing and even Rich scrubbed up nicely (if you like that sort of thing). Have a great time in Hong Kong, look forward to seeing you when you get back.

Now at this stage of the journey drinking had ensued and I feel it best to point you in the direction of our youtube channel to see the celebrations in first person

http://www.youtube.com/headspacetheband

Director extraordinaire Adam Wakeman on the trusty iphone cam there, lovely stuff.

To cut a long story long, we had a brilliant night even managed to butcher some cover tunes all playing together for the first time in ages. A suspension-less cab ride back to the hotel and it was up nice and early to brave the ice drive through Scotland back to the balmy arctic temperatures of England. 12 hours later I arrived home after managing to drive through just about every dangerous driving condition known to man other than a plague of locusts or fire. One particularly hairy moment involved a brilliant sow motion slide of about 50 yards only to pull up 1 foot shy of another car.

Much was learned on this trip…

1) Rich and Jo are now married

2) Maude the Ford Mondeo kicks arse

3) West Morland Tebay services on the M6 is the best of Britain.

4) Adam loves his Iphone

5) Headspace have nearly completed writing their debut concept album.

6) Its very cold in the UK at the moment

7) Watch out for Adam’s feature in the new Metal Cookbook this year…seriously.

Never sit opposite another man who is wearing a kilt…I am still having nightmares.

We are very much looking forward to releasing our album this year, although its been tough for us to get together all at the same time we have really been busy getting this together and are very proud of how it is sounding. I am just finishing some guitar parts on the final track and then we can sort arrangements and begin tracking in the next week or so. Look forward to some more music related video (or not) in the coming weeks.

Happy New Year

First of all a huge Happy Christmas to everyone from us guys and management of Headspace.

I would also like to say hi to all the people that came along to the Wakeman Xmas extravaganza at Marlborough college on Saturday and Sunday the 19th & 20th December.

The 2 nights, rather confusingly titled “Sadly, the Queen couldn’t make it” has become somewhat of a regular event with Rick Wakeman’s fan club Xmas dinner on the Sunday which this year raised money for Children’s Cancer charities.

I played a few pieces with Dad, and on the Sunday night, I played and sang “Hallilulia” with my sister Jemma singing some harmonies. I was also joined on stage by my 4 year old daughter Skyla (who is less familiar with it as a Lenard Cohen song, and more familiar with it as a song from the movie Shrek) who also sang the chorus’s with me. It was a beautiful moment that I can’t really put into words, but it made at least 2 grown men (that I know of) cry!

I played a couple of TV shows with Will Young in the weeks leading up to Xmas; Cheryl Cole’s show and Graham Norton, both of which were good fun - although the organisation at Cheryl Cole’s tv show was shocking and we were left in a dressing room for about 8 hours without so much as a glass of water. You’ve got to love TV  -  anyone who thinks it’s all showbiz air kisses and champagne, think again….

Ozzy’s new album is being mixed in the new year and it looks like my 6 co writes are on there which is great news. There were rumours in a UK magazine that the 2 year world tour starts in June so that means we’ll be coming to a city near you, wherever that is!

Damian’s been busy in Holland. The show was in Tilburgs 013 venue. There was an orchestra and a great band made up of musicians he has worked with over the years. The turn out was great especially due to the heavy snow conditions and it was filmed.
There was a great line up too, such as Jorn Lande , Christina Scabbia ,, Simon Simons and Charlotte Wessels. here’s a link to the event:

http://christmasmetalsymphony.net/

Pete is now back from his 2 month US tour with One Eskimo and is currently (most probably)  still in a queue at Kings Cross station trying to get on a eurostar train to Paris for Christmas. Lee is snowed in somewhere in Sussex and Rich is pulling his hair out with wedding preparations. We are all excited at the prospect of us all being in the same room together as a band and who knows, might even get to have a play…..

That leaves us wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ! Album recording starts 2nd week in Jan and we’re all very excited…. watch this space……

It’s 4 am in the morning and it has suddenly occurred to me that it is my turn to do the blog; something I have to say isn’t one of my strong points.

There is snow on the ground in London and the council have done there best to prepare for it. The path ways have been cleared away and have already formed into the perfect ice rink; great for any commuter who might have the pre-sight to bring their skates or a death trap for anyone who doesn’t have the balancing skills of a tight rope walker.

So it is in this environment that I think back on what has occurred this last month, it is also another chance for me to listen to the demos of the headspace album as I run along the tow path of the Grand Union Canal, snow beneath my feet, like a duvet under my step. The guys in the band are all away doing their thing but we are coming together over the New Year and I am looking forward to it. The album sounds great; it is very focussed with strong melodies souring over complex instrumental parts. I think a lot of people are going to love it, particularly if they have followed the bands from our past. It is progressive through and through and as with all good prog, a concept album.

So I leave any moment for Heathrow, today I am flying out to Amsterdam, performing in Tilburgs 013 at the Christmas Metal Symphony. Looking forward to it being a good chance to catch up with a few friends and hopefully you, if you are not there then I take this opportunity now to wish you the best Christmas!

Damian

11th Dec 2009

Raining in California

Yes it’s true, Santa (not in the yuletide sense) Monica beach is grey and wet so that means more reason to stay inside and write some prog. Working on the last piece at the moment and emailing parts across the globe, I guess really in the grand scheme of things we have it a lot easier than our progressive predecessors when it comes to technology. Although the flip side of that would be the more difficult state of the music industry on a financial level, oh well every silver lining…I think ultimately with so much technology we are in state of higher creativity with the tools at our disposal, being able to record and send things around to each other, with such manic schedules, allows us to create music that if we waited until we were all together would not be written at all.

Tour with One Eskimo has been going strong in the US, driven over 7000 miles in the last few weeks and I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed (goldilocks?). Been getting some great radio play and have done some nice live sessions out here for KCRW, MTV and World Café. Also, got to work with Les Camacho who worked as the live engineer on the last Pink Floyd tour, great guy and had some great tales of Floyd, gotta love that.

All in all the schedule has been pretty hectic out here, but progress on the new album has been coming along nicely, armed with my trusty macbook pro and an apogee duet there’s not much that can’t be done in the van, although slightly awkward to play guitar around corners, best to keep recording to straight stretches of interstate…that sounds like a quote for sound on sound.

Adam and Damian are hitting the Wakeman studios next week for some vocal recording, tracks have been rough demoed so far and this album is sounding great on a lot of different levels.  I arrive back in the UK the day after they get done, so looking forward to hearing what they come up with. Without giving too much away, there are a lot of layers to the story line and with plenty of emails flying back and forth things are shaping up nicely. Saying that, there is plenty to do so bare with us we will get this done very soon.

People can catch Lee being festive with It Bites on 20^th Dec 2009 for their Christmas special in Reading, and some more touring in March 2010. Master of thumping Rich Brook can be seen at a florist in South London organising for his upcoming wedding debut as the groom. Congrats Rich, looking forward to seeing your first dance, which will probably be in an odd time signature.

As for me it’s off to San Francisco tomorrow, then Portland, Spokane and finally Seattle. Most info of the tour can be found on www.oneeskimo.com

Tune in on the radio KXLY studio blue session Tues 15th Dec at midday in Spokane and KMTT mountain music lounge Wed 16th in Seattle.

Also been enjoying listening to the new Transatlantic album The Whirlwind, great sounding album full of cool stuff.

See you on the road…or Rich’s wedding