DAVID DOWDESWELL-ALLAWAY

My musical life began with a boingy upright piano at the age of 4 upon which I’d knock out such tunes as ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘In an English Country Garden’.  There were attempts to cultivate this early talent via the good auspices of the Mrs. Weed and Evans, however, the repertoire that I was presented with failed to inspire me. After struggling through Grade 1 I abandoned all efforts at learning about them dots ‘n’ wotsits and got straight into copying things that I heard and liked including improvisations a la Chick Corea, Tony Banks riffs, and, of course, Tubular Bells. These days I rarely play piano through lack of space to have one.

My early guitar playing was even more disheartening after being told by my oversized teacher, Mrs. Oakes, that “You’ll never be able to play the guitar”. Fortunately I didn’t believe her and I re-strung my classical guitar with a set of Ernie Ball Super Slinky strings and enjoyed getting to grips with AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and of course, Tubular Bells. Oddly enough, the neck bent beyond hope and I dabbled with an electric guitar, realised that there was more to Carlos Santana than a few choice solos and returned to acoustic. I spent years riffing and just noodling around the fretboard without really knowing what I was up to. A few lessons, a few handy chord books, and then, in 2001, my first song popped out, fully formed, and called ‘Edward Mtumbwe’. I’ve written quite a few songs since then, mostly autobiographical in some way, and often with that deliciously sharp edge that exists between nostalgia and melancholy joy.

As for the drums, I remember hitting cushions with knitting needles from around the age of 7. I didn’t get to hit an actual drum until my late teenage years, and then only rarely since, as a lefty my coordination was entirely the wrong shape. My first ever gigging experience was on drums, borrowed with great thanks from David Beckett, the original drummer with Airbridge. That was 1982 and I was playing with the Logarithms and we covered a good range of Yardbirds, Rolling Stones, The Jam, and Elvis Costello numbers over 2 party gigs. I need to fast forward to 2004 before I hit a drum again. I formed a band with friends at Lancaster University and we were called ‘C.31’ which was our office number. We gigged 5 times, twice in a University bar, once at a party, once at the Yorkshire House in Lancaster, and once at an end-of-year event at Lancaster University to a crowd of 500. That was a fast and furious career that was my first excursion into collaborative song writing.  After C.31 the guitarist, Neil Lent (also of the ‘A Band’) and I joined up with a mathematical physicist called Dave Burton and we became ‘Dead Man’s Porn’. We never gigged, but we enjoyed playing for 2 years which allowed me to start the long and fascinating journey of learning to drum and sing at the same time.

I moved back to Norfolk in 2009 after 24 years away and found, to my great joy, that Lorenzo and Sean were still playing music together and needed a drummer. Since then, I’ve blossomed as a performer, seem to have become comfortable with singing whilst playing guitar and drums, and feeling like a musician fortunate to play with two very talented old friends.