Month: May 2016

Work In Progress

Leave a comment

Hello readers and visitors of this blog (we really should come up with a collective noun for Croydon Tourist Office Supporters…) Bryce here again.

Epicentre Nights came out nearly two years ago.  Since our last performance at the Bike Shed Theatre for the Spokes Amaze gig supporting performance poet Tony Walsh, Croydon Tourist Office mostly took some time off.

We have thrown each other some ideas over that time, but we all had other things going on.  Recently, the wheels have been turning again and there are quite a few recordings in the works.

Our plan right now is to release a 4 or 5 song EP over the summer as we continue to work on the other recordings that will go on the second album.

Studio recordings of fan favourites like Post Office Mice and Croydon Tourist Office (the song) are likely to appear on the EP, as well as a few that you’ve never heard before.

For those of you reading this blog, we would like to do something special for you!

As you know, we have written so many things over the years that we have sometimes asked the audience to give us a topic, and we will play a song on that topic from our back catalogue of ideas.  It’s always a lucky coincidence when this happens. Like, when two members of the audience called out at our first gig for a song about mice and for a song about the post office, and we already happened to have a song called Post Office Mice ready to go.

So…  Add a comment below (or on our Facebook page or Twitter) about a topic you would like to see Croydon Tourist Office address at on our next album, and we will have a look through our archives.

We look forward to your requests.

Origin Stories

Leave a comment

Hey everyone! Bryce here.  If you are reading this, I guess that means you’re interested in Croydon Tourist Office and want to know more.

I moved England from California in 2003 and moved to Devon as soon as I could.  Looking around for musicians in the area, I was told to check out the jam nights.  Having been in many bands in California where jamming was an important aspect to writing music, I thought I would check it out.  Quickly I discovered that most jam nights tended to be a group of musicians coming together to play covers of 80s songs.

This was not the sort of jam night I was used to, so as soon as I could, I started hosting evenings for musicians where the purpose was to create new music.  This music could turn into new material for bands or singer-songwriters, or music that might only last for the moment.  Having recorded music since I was 12, I made it a point in these sessions to always record them so the music, no matter how fleeting, would always be archived.

I met Robert Garnham at the Blue Walnut in Torquay while performing some of my spoken word material.  Seeing Robert perform, I knew there was a connection.

In 2010, I opened my own venue: the Epicentre Book Cafe.  It was a vegetarian cafe, second hand bookshop, and performing arts venue.  We ran workshops, open mic nights, events, artist meetups and more.  On the 14th of June, 2011 I relaunched the music nights at Epicentre, micing up the cafe and inviting musicians. Robert arrived and the sessions began, recording late into the night and capturing many original compositions.

I met John Samuel at an Epicentre Artist Meetup meeting. He was brought along by our mutual friend Maddo Painting, who I had met at an open mic night some years before.  I met Max Coulson one day when he turned up to one of Epicentre’s open mic nights and wowed us all with his combination of punk, hip-hop, and surreal stand-up comedy.

John began collaborating with Robert and they debuted the song ‘It Wasn’t Magic’ at one of Epicentre’s open mic nights. The are many of these collaborations which will be available on forth-coming releases.

At one music night, John, Robert, and Max were all there. Suddenly, everything that we had been doing with the music nights so far all jelled. It made sense that the four of us were a unit.  That night Robert regaled us with a story about a visit to Croydon, and the name of the collective came to us.  There was no question we were Croydon Tourist Office.

Between 2011 and 2014, we wrote many tracks, performed a few gigs, and then realised that we had recorded enough tracks that worked together to put out our first album.

Epicentre closed down in the summer of 2013, and as all recordings were made at the venue, so we decided to name the album Epicentre Nights in tribute.  There are many more recordings in the archives and even more in the works, so it won’t be long before we release more recordings upon the world.

Stay tuned.