A very warm welcome to Episode 3 of S40time, and I imagine by the time you’re reading this, you’ll be gearing up for your Christmas and Winter Celebrations.
Episode three traces the epic journey of one of the area’s best known, and loved musicians - Damon Downs. You may have been lucky enough to have witnessed his virtuoso axe-wielding skills in local band, Towards The Sun, yet Damon has released an incredible 11 solo albums. With another album set for release early in 2021, S40time bagged another exclusive with a three song acoustic live set recorded at The Olde House, which had the S40time production team awestruck!
I’m pleased to announce that you can catch up with this and every episode of S40time (for free) with the launch of our brand new shiny website:
You’ll be able to discover our vision for the local music scene, explore what we’re all about, and have early access to what’s coming next.
I’m currently working with David McPhie (Some Kinda Mushroom), who you may remember from the Pilot Episode (Getting Joe Cocker his record deal), who will now have his very own spin-off series called 'The Man In The Hat - In Conversation with..'. I teamed up with Cosmic Monocle, a very cool graphics and animation company, and put together some super-slick intro music and iconic pictures of Chesterfield, which will hopefully get people really excited for the interviews that David and I shot with some of the town’s best loved characters over the summer.
The first interview of the new series will be with Chesterfield band, Shape of The Rain, who played with Pink Floyd when they visited town in the 60’s, and recounted stories of recording at legendary studios like Rockfield (Oasis, Queen, Stone Roses) in Wales, and London's, Abbey Road. Look out for this episode sometime in December.
On its heels are shows with John Cuttriss, talking about his books on The Carlton Club and Aquarius on Whittington Moor, Jazz Legends, AL Needham and Denny Lawson, Jonathan Rowlands (Bakewell Festival) and folk supremo Hannah James.
He’s not doing all the work, though! I’ve shot a couple more episodes since I last wrote (again, thanks to The Olde House for allowing us to use their function room).
When he’s not instructing you how to safely throw an actual axe at The Snake Room on Whittington Moor, Nick Barker from Grassmoor has drummed for some of the World’s great metal bands including Testament, Brujeria and most famously starred in the BBC Documentary “Living with the Enemy” with death metal band - Cradle of Filth. Like most musicians, Nick’s had most of his livelihood cancelled for the foreseeable future, and speaks passionately about a fall from grace which saw him rocking crowds of 250k in South America and drum sponsorship deals, to having to sell his equipment just to get by.
Another thing we can certainly look forward to this Christmas, though, is one of the best Christmas songs of recent years, penned by local hitmaker, Danny Burton. 'Merry Christmas, One and All' is the Christmas song that The Beatles and Bowie never wrote together, (with excellent backing vocals from yours truly!) and highlights the plight of those who are without friends, family and creature comforts at this time of year. With all proceeds being donated to breast cancer and homeless charities, I urge you to get behind this really catchy and uplifting festive tune, which you’re sure to be singing all over the festive period.
Please help us out by subscribing to S40time on Youtube, and joining in with the banter on all our social media platforms, and have yourselves a delightful Christmas and New Year.
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Words: Aaron Brown