Artists
Andy Patterson
Biography
Andy’s first foray into the world of music was back in the days when people still called him Andrew.
At the age of 8 he was plucked from the classroom of a North East England primary school, as a reward for passing a listening test which hinged upon guessing the number of instruments he could hear in a piece of music. He began on the cornet (small trumpet), soon realising that the electric six string was much cooler. After much begging, he got one as a Christmas present aged 10 and a half. Fast forward 8 years and the boy (still Andrew) is about to leave for university down south. The years of schooling have brought him much in the way of knowledge and certificates, a brief dalliance in am-dram (less said about that the better) and a ‘mediocre’ talent across a number of instruments (head of music c1999 – thanks…).
He journeyed south, where he has stayed ever since, to begin a degree in Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister). He earns the degree and acquires a beer belly and a nickname (Andy). Countless performances as one part of the duo FINe and dANDY with Fin Barnes, along with the hosting of an open mic night on the university campus, are the musical highlights-along with singing and playing banjo and singing in a trad. jazz ensemble with a fellow Geordie on sousaphone. Graduation brings a BMus(Hons)(Tonmeister) title (as yet unused) and the realisation that a job is required, his first job being a trip to Versailles to record a small gig organised to combat world poverty (LIVE8).
He has since worked on archiving projects for a few household names, along with recording monthly gigs at an iconic London Eaterie for the wireless. He has co-produced 2 albums with Colin Vearncombe at his studio in Ireland, has performed engineering duties for Scottish hitmaker Gerry Rafferty and is an ‘expert’ listener for a commercial research organisation. He also has links to the world of film music where he performs technical surgery on equipment for Hollywood composers .
Abubilla came about through an introduction made by a fellow Tonmeister (cheers Davros – still owe you a pint). He loves the music/pizza combination that Abubilla offers.
Latest Blog... View more blogs from Andy Patterson
Don’t believe what you see on the television
Written by Andy Patterson
Guitarist Jon Gomm was catapulted into the minds of millions of Twitter users last week when Stephen Fry tweeted about a video of his performance on Youtube. This is the video that Britain’s favourite polymath tweeted about:
It was just after this tweet that Jon got a phone call from the producers of TV show ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. They asked ‘Would Jon like to come on to the show to try out?’. Jon’s manager takes up the story:
‘I happen to know for a fact that the open auditions took place months ago and there are anxious hopefuls all over the country waiting for their phones to ring to see if they’ve made it to the TV stage of the audition process. In the meantime, producers are calling musicians who have shown zero interest in appearing on the show to invite them to take part and groom them for victory. As a long time loather of all reality/talent shows I told them where to shove it in no uncertain terms. These programmes are exploitative bollocks. Don’t believe the bullshit people. Simon Cowell can kiss my ass’
There’s a bigger message to learn here though – as Lefsetz reports in another of his posts, Jon Gomm has been playing up to 200 gigs a year – sleeping on friends floors and sofas all over the country and the world. He has done his time, and it is now starting to pay off. I can’t imagine that views on YouTube pay much in the way of direct income (a friend of mine reports that 10 million (yes million) views on YouTube paid him £12), but it has raised his profile and his talent.
So, good luck to him, and well done for believing and keeping the faith. It would have been easy to say yes to BGT – to take the easy out and entry onto the Fame merry – go – round.
Nice one.
Find the original Lefsetz post here: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/02/15/e-mail-of-the-day-41/