My Touring & Travels have so far (fortunately!) taken me to USA (New York, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Los Angeles), AFRICA (Kenya), CANADA, FRANCE, BELGUIM, HOLLAND, GERMANY, AUSTRIA, ITALY, LUXEMBOURG, DENMARK, CZECH-REPUBLIC, HUNGARY, GREECE, IRELAND, WALES & SCOTLAND, Hopefully with many more to be added along the way!!!
Being with my Wife & best friend! Sarah, who keeps me strong and keeps me going and supports my crazy life!
Spending as much time as I can with my other two best friends, my children (Evie & Ollie) Who inspire me in every way.
And...(If my insane diary lets me!)
Catching Up With Frinds, Watching Football (Getting to Old Trafford as many times as I can in a season!), Going to see shows in London.
Music
Everyone says everything but in truth we all have our favorites!
I like most music as long as is played and not processed! Especially....
ROCK, METAL, SKA, REGGAE, SKA-PUNK, FUNK, JAZZ, CLASSICAL, BLUES, SOUL, FOLK, etc etc.
Movies
Live with Martin Barre & John O'Hara (of Jethro Tull) Playing Tull songs - To Cry You A Song & Teacher, DEC 08.
UK Bass Day 2008 with TM Stevens (as 2nd Bass!)
Live with Swans in Flight – Exeter UK, Jan 2009
Live appearance with JOSS STONE, during the December 08 Martin Barre / Jethro Tull tour.
Live at the NEC Birmingham with SWANS IN FLIGHT, featuring guest appearence from MARCO MENDOZA (Thin Lizzy / Whitesnake) & T.M. STEVENS (James Brown / Pretenders / Steve Vai)
Squid58 - 'Dave n Mary' Live in Holland
Squid58 - 'Dont Go Away' Live in Germany
Heroes
My best friends....
"Life is full of stuff...probably" & "The impossible always happens" - MICK CLARE
"Its better to regret the things you did do than the things you didnt" - TIM 'Twosteps' ATKINSON
"Life is not a rehearsal" & "Always secure an exit" - TONY THOMAS
"I many not have lived that long, but, that doesnt mean i dont know how to live!" & "Silence never felt so good" - DAN CRISP
"How you say....Ecks Mayonaises!" - DOM WALSHE
"The things that dont kill us, will make us stronger" - DAVID WILLIAMS
"Failure starts by failing to begin" & "Sometimes in life we just have to grasp the nettle" - RUSSELL CRISP
"Life is never black and white" & "We dont live in boxes" - DAVID ROSE
"Your not a real dunker unless you get your fingers wet" - ROBIN GUY
About me: Endorsed by HARTKE Bass Amps & WARWICK Basses - Checkout, Warwick.de / Artists / International
PERSONAL PROFILE...
Professional & Experienced Musician endorsed by Warwick Basses (Germany) & Hartke Bass Amps (USA)
For those without full myspace access who wish to contact me (music related) please email me at,
alanbray1000@yahoo.co.uk.
For an insight to what I am doing now and who im currently writing, playing, recording & touring with, please take a look at the following websites.....
MARTIN BARRE (JETHRO TULL), www.martinbarre.com
SWANS IN FLIGHT, www.swansinflight.com
DAN CRISP, www.dancrispmusic.com
SQUID58, www.myspace.com/squid58
CONSPIRATORS, www.myspace.com/ukconspirators
Also for those of you who do not have a myspace profile, I have put a short biog about each of my projects below. I hope you enjoy my profile and thanks for looking,
All the best,
ALAN BRAY
CURRENT PROJECTS...
MARTIN BARRE, Jethro Tull – www.martinbarre.com
I met Martin in 2006 when working with rock band, State of Fury, we recorded at Press House Studio's in Devon UK (Martin's house at the time) and met & jammed with Martin which led to a run of gigs in 2006 as an acoustic trio - Martin Barre, Dan Crisp & Alan Bray. In 2008 we teamed up with Robin Guy on Drums for the Manson's 25th anniversary guitar show as a prelude to a very successful tour in December 2008 where we were also joined by fellow JETHRO TULL member, John O'Hara on Keys & Accordian. The highlight of the tour was a special guest appearance with JOSS STONE at Mama Stone's music venue in Devon. More dates planned for 2009 TBC's to follow...
SWANS IN FLIGHT – www.swansinflight.com
Over the last few years I have recorded various sessions with producer Mark Tucker, In February 2008 Mark asked if I would be the bassist for the live gigs for 'Swans In Flight', A studio album & project which Mark co-wrote with Hugo Montgomery Swan, also engineered, produced and performed extensively on this album featuring guest appearances from: James LoMenzo (Black Label Society/Megadeth), Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), Robin Guy (Bruce Dickinson, GMT, Faith No More), Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy/Whitesnake), Kip Winger (Alice Cooper/Winger), Phil Johnston (The Robert Plant Band).
In the Spring of 2008 we embarked on a series of live shows, including The Acoustic Festival of Britain, Excel London, Birmingham NEC, UK Bass Day Manchester & Earls Court London. 2009 Also promises to be a great year as Swans in Flight live again teams up with TM Stevens & Marco Mendoza for more UK & European Dates incl, The London International Music Show, Music Live (NEC) Plus a 7 date UK Tour starting September 21st (Exeter Pheonix, Britsol 02 Academy, Birmingham Asylum, Newcastle 02 Academy, Manchester Academy 3, Brighton Concorde2 & London Uni). Info for European to follow...
DAN CRISP – www.dancrispmusic.com
I first met Dan in 2004, at the time I was doing regular session work and a partner in the Cornwall based artist development project ‘Upbeat’. Shortly after meeting Dan, we began working on a session project ‘GenericaDemo’ performing Dan’s original songs in a professional studio environment working with industry renowned Producers & Engineers, Malcolm Toft, Chris Grey & Tim Powell-Morris.
Since 2004 Dan has developed into an accomplished singer - song writer and session musician working along side me with Martin Barre. Along side this, Dan has established a strong reputation locally as a singer songwriter for the depth of his song writing and his unique engaging voice. In 2007 I worked closely with Dan and producer Mark Tucker to produce Dan’s debut acoustic album – DAN CRISP - ‘Far From Here’, released in August 2008. For more information visit www.dancrispmusic.com
Squid58 is a great project for me and the others in the band, we are all great friends and although the band is signed to reputable UK label 'DoTheDog' and is serious (on one level), it really is a great fun with none of the usual Band Pressures! I spent 4 years in Ska’d for Life with Dom & Tim from 1996 – 2000 and we enjoyed a lot of success, especially in Europe, great gigs to crouds of up to 8000 people during our Summer tour in 1997 promoting our debut album release Sober which charted well in the European airplay charts at the time. After the break up of Ska’d for Life, Tim still had an album of unused material which we wanted to record as a keepsake, we asked Mick Clare (Former and original Hotknives songwriter & frontman - A legend for anyone who knows anything about SKA) to sing on the tracks, 3 rehearsals later we decided to think about doing some gigs, within a month we were booked to headline Grover records ‘Easter Ska Jam in 2006, and it took off from there, almost by accident and yet after 10 gigs in 8 countries to date - we still haven’t played a UK gig!.....
Hey hows you? cheers for being a friend hope you like the tunes, just wanted to mention iam touring all over the UK from september for a year, traveling all over got the first 4 months up and adding more and more to it, the first 3 months is for Busking For Cancer :) in Aid for cancer research, all the shows are free so would be awesome to see you at a show supporting wat im touring for, check out our dates and if we arnt playing in your area then please do let us know cause it is for a FULL year so we wanna get everywhere and anywhere :) also recording new stuff this weekend so new songs will be up :) anyways hoping ur having a good start to the summer.
You rocked last might!Lovin' the Pokey Hole Club! Shame you had to leave, we had a right good giggle at the hotel and Pete joined us for brekkie in the morning, bless him!Can't wait till the next one at Catton Hall...yippee!
Alan, I didn't have a chance to say Hi! on Monday at the Phoenix, but I just wanted to say how much I love how much energy you and Robin put into the groove.
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