Freewheelin' once again

last week, the Enfield Advertiser ran my little feature on my mate Dion last week, the atricle has been spruced up by the editor a little (as is his want), and we also saw the return of the exceptionally bad headline!!

and since it's not very often i'm playing catch-up with the paper, here is the feature in it's former glory

The Freewheelin' Troubadour
or as the paper tilted it
Troubadour pulls power wheelies...
(groan)

a man with interests very close to my own heart has been following his dreams and desires to creatively produce works for anyone willing to pay attention to them.


The Freewheelin' Troubadour's latest venture has been publishing a collection of poetry accompanied by visuals contributed by a select number of artists.


made available for free, "Freewheelin’ in Monument Valley & the American Offerings" can be downloaded as a pdf, with a limited number of books also circulating, thanks to the genorisity of those that donated towards the costs of publication.

the project was helped to fruition with a fundraising gig in august, and the finished article was celebrated with another night of music and poetry in october, both gigs curated by and featuring readings from the Troubadour himself, held at The Victoria in Mile End.


Originally hailing from Enfield himself, by his 20s Dion Power had been displaced in Cheshunt where he began conversing in the musical circles that were enriching the current Hertford scene, eventually finding himself managing bands and DJing.


When The Freewheelin' Troubadour persona originally surfaced it was of a poetic soul, and his prose was featured on his own myspace blogs.


but owing his adopted namesake to Bob Dylan and surrounded by local musicians, such as The Knaves and The Black Tricks, it would not be long before these ideas were realised musically and a sole CD  entitled '10 minutes of darkness' was composed alongside a number of borrowed band members and was distributed in 2007, before a similar vision found form in late 2008 when the Freewheelin Troubadour began fronting his own band that sadly proved to be shortlived.


What followed was a soul searching road trip across america that found creativity reaching new heights via an amassed sense of freedom and an abbundunce of new found inspirations, and it is the poems from these few months that make up the short collection, "Freewheelin’ in Monument Valley & the American Offerings".


His return to London began with a search for somewhere to live, continued with looking for willing collaborators, and with the book now launched, The Freewheelin Troubadour is still searching for means and ventures to make his voice heard, whether it is through spoken word readings, organising gigs or an upcoming documentary that will be a testament to everything achieved so far.

to download your own copy of the book, head to to the funpowder plot

and as an extra treat, here is also a rarity for you, my own remix of The Night That I Die, the original of which was on the 2007 CD '10 minutes of darkness'

The Freewheelin' Troubadour - The Night That I Die (Hunchbakk Remix)

my father's son

(my grandad's wall)

last week was the second week in a row that i had ventured out of the house in a sleeveless top in my neverending quest to defeat this stupid t-shirt sun tan.

i spent a day out and about wandering around with my Dad, it started as a walk from mine to his which usualy takes 15 minutes but instead the whole journey took somewhere around 4 hours or so, possibly more.

we set off after a slice of watermelon each and as i'd already shown him a couple of houses that i'd seen on the market i thought we might as well take in a couple of detours so he could see a couple more that i may or may not have been interested in.

and so a quick walk turned into a longer walk which turned into a trip down memory lane for the both of us as we cut through wastelands and fields, A-road neighbouring forests and dirt tracks, chatting the whole way, about places my Dad used to take me and my brother when we were younger, and places that my Dad had been when he was younger.

we contemplated past times and good times and ended up walking in a very non-direct way to Cheshunt where my Dad grew up. we stopped at the corner of the graveyard my grandparents are buried in and from there my dad pointed out the resting place of a school caretaker he once helped out when he was a child.

we went where things used to be, we found the back garden wall that my grandad had built and some friendly neighbourhood types chatted with us and helped fill in some of the blanks in my Dad's memory.


the time spent together is so much more than i could ever realy sum up in this meandering blog post and meant a hell of a lot more to me than i ever realised it could, but like last months wedding it reminds you who your family realy are and when you put so much focus on looking forward it's sometimes good to look back.