Before, After & Later

"Many of you have already read or heard me talk about my plans to release a collection of songs that I wrote and recorded between 1983 and 1993. I’ve now selected half of them for release, and if there’s a demand, the rest of the songs will be released in a second volume sometime later. All the songs were recorded without the intention of playing them to anybody. Not record companies, friends, family, or even girlfriends. They remained my secret audio diary until 2022!

When they did ‘escape’ to a few people, the feedback was overwhelming. I was truly not prepared for such a great response. Everyone was so positive and saying lovely things about these songs, so I thought why not, if everyone I’ve played them to say how great they are, then maybe some of you will too.

Although I never thought these songs would be heard by anyone, I always strived to make them sound as finished and complete as possible. All songs were recorded on either a Teac 4-track or Tascam Portastudio and all have full instrumentation. A couple of songs feature Andy Scott on backing vocals, percussion and guitar, but everything else you hear was played and sung by yours truly. A song that we’ve been playing live in recent months, ‘Here I Go’, is included, as are two others that we’re playing for the first time at the ‘Xmas Reimagined’ gig. You never know, a few more might creep into the Wasted Youth set at some point in the future.

The quality of the recordings is surprisingly good, and much more cohesive than you’d expect from a bunch of songs written and recorded at different times over ten years.
The songs were written about whatever I was going through at the time; drug addiction, alcoholism, sadness, loss, depression, love…you know, all the usual stuff that happens to lots of people (albeit in varying degrees). While there’s some dark humour throughout and some positivity in the later material, there’s no denying that melancholia rules the show. These songs are snapshots, if you like, of the chaos that was my car-crash of a life in the 1980’s.

So, here’s ‘Before, After & Later’ for those of you that are interested, or at least curious in some way. This is not a new or ‘lost’ Wasted Youth album, ‘though I’m sure you’ll hear many common themes and reference points throughout, both musically and lyrically.

*Before you decide to buy this CD, please remember these are lo-fi recordings and should not be compared to high-quality, modern, digital stuff. There’s some tape noise, a few drop-outs here and there, and the odd bass rumble, but this all adds to the humanness and warmth of this analog album!

Finally, I never for a moment expected anyone to hear these songs so here you are, a collection of personal, intimate, sad and…well, have a listen and you tell me."

Tracklist

‘Someone, Somewhere’ written in 1983 and recorded in 1987
‘Penny Short’ written in 1987 and recorded in 1989
‘The Same Divide’ written in 1985 and recorded in 1987
‘Hope’ written in 1992 and recorded in 1992
‘Am I Crazy’ written in 1988 and recorded in 1989.
‘The Story of my Life’ written in 1988 and recorded in 1989
‘Hey, Venus’ written in 1983 and recorded in 1987*
‘Watch Them Run Away’ written in 1987 and recorded in 1993*
‘Baby Elvis’ written in 1988 and recorded in 1989
‘I’m In Love Again’ written in 1987 and recorded in 1989
‘Here I Go’ written in 1986 and recorded in 1993
‘Thank You’ written in 1988 and recorded in 1988
‘Naked Emotions’ written in 1980 and recorded in 2022 by Wasted Youth