ANSWERING  AN  AD ?

If you're reading this page,  you've either answered an ad in the Loot or you've navigated here from one of the other pages on the site because you're interested in having a go at singing one of the songs I'm working on.    In either case,  thanks for taking a look !

If you want to find out more about me and my background,  and some infomation about my tastes in music,  go to the About Me page,  where you'll find the potted autobiography.    Unless you particularly want to know who I owe thanks to for a variety of things from giving birth to me to writing lyrics for me,  you might want to skip the Acknowledgements page.    For specific information about the bands I've been in,  including lineups,  the kind of music we played etc.,  click on the Bands link.    To listen to some of my home-grown material and find out a bit about the background to the songs themselves,  click on the All My Own Work link,  and if you want to read the lyrics to any of those,  click on Lyrics.    If you'd like to find out more about the covers project I'm currently working on,  click on the Covered Up link,  which will take you to a page where you can find out which covers I'm doing and why I chose those particular songs.    There are also links on that page that allow you not only to listen to the songs as performed by the original artists,  but in some cases to listen to my version as well  ( in the cases where I've recorded and mixed the song to a degree that's listenable ).    Finally,  if you want to tell me what you think about the material,  the website,  or just life,  the universe and everything,  click on the Feedback link.    By the time you've worked your way through that little lot,  you'll know pretty much all there is to know about me,  the music I've written and the covers project  -  but I suggest that you read the rest of this page before going through the others.

I should firstly explain that at the present time,  I have no budget out of which to pay people for their time and effort.    That is to say,  at this point,  no-one is offering me large sums of money for any of this material  ( by the by,  if there's anyone reading this who's in a position to do so,  please feel free to contact me ! ).    There's no day-job lurking in the background either  -  I gave that up back in Spring 2002  -  so the only "reward" I can offer to anyone who's interested is a copy of the finished article,  so that at the very least you can use it as a demo for your own purposes.    On the plus side,  you do get a pretty professional-sounding demo recorded free of charge ... !    I've been very fortunate insofar as the ex-members of the last band I was in have been kind enough to help out on a number of the songs I've done,  and also I've found people from advertising in Loot who have been generous enough to give up their time to sing on some of the tracks,  purely for the experience and the above-mentioned demo.    If you are potentially one of those people,  read on  :  however,  if you feel unable to commit to anything that doesn't have a financial reward at the end of it  -  and I totally respect that position  -  you might want to save yourself the trouble of reading the rest of this page.    By all means check out the rest of the site anyway,  though,  and let me know what you think via the Feedback page.    All opinions are welcome,  good or bad,  regardless of whether or not you actually want to be involved.

Aside from the question of money,  the first thing people usually ask me,  quite reasonably,  is where I'm based.    Interestingly,  I've had people from as far as a hundred miles away who wouldn't bat an eyelid at the journey,  and also people from less than ten miles away who felt it was too far to travel.    Each to their own  :  in any event,  I'm based in Rush Green,  which is just outside Romford in Essex.    For anyone contemplating doing the journey on public transport,  the nearest station is Romford on the overground line to Liverpool Street,  or Dagenham East on the underground District Line.    If you're reading this from anywhere outside the United Kingdom,  you might want to give some serious thought as to how you're going to do the journey ... !

So,  what exactly am I looking for?    Well,  as you'll have gathered by now,  I'm in the process of recording some of my own material and some covers.    If,  by this point,  you've already looked at the All My Own Work and / or Covered Up pages,  you'll have seen that the songs are in various stages of completion,  and you'll also have noticed that there are notes next to each song explaining exactly what I am looking for in each individual case.    However,  because those pages contain all the songs I'm working on or have worked on,  from those I haven't started on yet to those that are finished articles,  you might find it a bit like hard work trying to weed out which ones are which.    For that reason,  I've created this page,  which lists only the songs for which I'm still looking for vocalists,  and tells you exactly what I'm looking for in each specific instance.    By all means use the All My Own Work and Covered Up pages to see what sort of thing I've done so far,  but if you just want to find out what I'm looking for right now,  this page might save you some time.

First and foremost,  I'm looking for people who can actually sing  -  which might sound obvious,  but if you imagine that everyone who replies to an advert for singers can necessarily sing,  take a look at over 95% of the people who audition for Pop Idol and X Factor!    For this reason,  before going any further,  I do ask that if you're interested,  you send me a demo.    It doesn't have to be anything fancy  -  a simple tape cassette or a CD,  it doesn't matter about the quality of the recording as long as it's good enough for me to hear your voice.    I realise only too well that not everyone can afford to have a demo recorded in a studio,  so even if you just sing into a tape recorder,  that's fine,  just so long as I can hear you.    I've even had people singing down the phone to me before,  and on more than one occasion been very impressed with the results  -  so even if you don't have a professional demo ready to send,  don't be put off  :  we'll overcome the problem somehow.

If you're interested,  the first thing to do is complete the form below and hit the  "submit"  button.    Feel free to complete as much or as little of the form as you like  -  none of it is compulsory  -  but obviously the more you tell me about yourself,  the better picture I get of you.