Hello one and all, and a belated Happy New Year to you! Welcome to the first ‘A Dave in The Life’ of 2024. I hope the new year is treating you well so far?
Some of you have been asking me when I would next write on here (thank you for caring); well, it’s been a busy couple of months, but here it is! This one’s for you. I think going forward I will abandon my original aim to post once a month as, quite honestly, sometimes I just don’t have anything new to tell you. So instead I’ll just wait until I have some interesting news to talk about. New year, new me. Deal? Great.
Now then, without further ado, let me fill you in on what’s been happening.
January, in very ‘un-January’ style, has been really busy and easily the most fun one I’ve had in years. I started the month by recording brass for a very exciting project (which I can’t talk about yet) and then went singing in a monastery with old school friends for a weekend. I’ve also started working on my music with a new live band, as well as rehearsing with the Novo Amor band (which I’ll talk about below), and today submitting my first proper tax return as a self-employed musician (just in time).
Aside from music and work, I treated myself to a little post-christmas present, a new skateboard, in an attempt to rekindle my teenage love of the sport and to prove to myself that I’m not yet too old to pick it back up. Early ventures to my local skatepark have been cautious but successful and, far from embarassing and/or injuring myself, I’m regaining confidence and remembering why I enjoyed it so much. It’s not exactly a resolution or a new hobby, but it’s something wholesome that’s definitely made the start of a new year a bit more fun.
Anyway, last time I wrote here I was about to go on tour in Asia so I suppose I should tell you about that?
ASIA ROUND-UP
From the middle of November until a week before Christmas last year, I was on tour again with Novo Amor, this time in Asia. We had an amazing time travelling and playing shows around China for two and a half weeks, then we played Clockenflap festival in Hong Kong, spent a week performing in Australia, then played two final shows in Singapore on our way home. Over the course of 30 days, we played 16 shows in 14 cities, and took 9 flights and so many buses, vans, taxis, and trains across 2 continents. It was pretty crazy really, and extremely exhausting, but an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience. Sadly I (and everyone else on the tour) got a cold just before Hong Kong which slightly reduced my capacity for fun in the second half of the trip, but it was great nonetheless.
I felt so fortunate and grateful to visit to these beautiful countries and play shows in so many great cities, eating weird and wonderful foods and experiencing so many new things. A truly unforgettable experience. Thank you so much to all of you who came to our shows and have said so many nice things to me about them! It was a real pleasure to play for you and I hope I’ll get to do it again.
Which leads me nicely onto more fun things happening in the Novo-verse…
NOVO NEWS
There’s plenty of exciting things happening in Novo Amor HQ at the moment. A couple of weeks ago Ali released his first new music in two years. A double single: ‘Land Where I Land’, and ‘Years On’ which features me on trombone. I recorded my parts at Ali’s house around this time last year and it’s great to finally hear it out in the wild, one Year(s) On.
There’s lots more new music yet to come, as well as lots of live dates! I spent all of last week in Wales rehearsing new music with the band ahead of several tours we’ll be doing throughout the year. We start with two weeks in Asia at the end of February, then touring the UK and Europe in April. The full list of dates and ticket links can be found on the Novo Amor website.
2023 WRAPPED
In January 2020 I started a little experiment. I kept a log in my phone’s notes app of everything I read, watched, listened to, etc. I wanted to find out how much of these things I consumed in an average year but, of course, 2020 was in no way average. The resulting log for that year was very different to what I was expecting, and as I then continued this log-keeping in the following years it accidentally became a way of tracking how my habits changed as I adjusted to post-pandemic life. I started watching less TV and Netflix, started going back to the cinema, watching live music again, and so on.
2023 was the fourth year in a row that I kept one of these logs and I thought I’d share my highlights with you. So, here is my personal 2023 wrapped:
- I hit a personal goal to read 12 books last year and my favourites were:
Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain
Richard Yates - Disturbing The Peace
Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These
- I watched 27 new films in 2023 and my favourite was probably The Whale. Four of these films were documentaries, my favourite of which was Searching For Sugar Man
- I listened to 60 new albums for the first time in full. My 10 favourites were:
Haley Blais - Wisecrack (my album of the year)
Alvvays - Blue Rev
feeble little horse - Hayday
The National - First Two Pages of Frankenstein
Langkamer - The Noon and Midnight Manual
Hamish Hawk - Angel Numbers
Explosions In The Sky - End
blink-182 - One More Time...
King Creosote - I DES
LYR - Call In The Crash Team
- I played 44 shows last year with: Novo Amor (24), Ellie James (2), one as Dave Huntriss, and 17 with a function band over summer. I’m excited to be playing a lot more shows in 2024
- I attended 64 live concerts and festivals. My favourite gig was Blink 182 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, and my favourite festival was Green Man in Wales.
VOILA
And there you have it; an extra long installment to start the year right and make up for a quiet couple of months. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading through this and will stick around for the next one, whenever it may come. There’s lots of exciting things lined up for me this year and I can’t wait to share them with you. Oh, and of course, the cultural highlights for this year begin below. See you in the next issue.
Until then, take care.
DJH.
CULTURAL HIGHLIGHTS (2024)
Currently reading:
Tabitha Lasley - Sea State
Last book I finished:
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
Albums I’ve enjoyed:
Horse Jumper of Love - Heartbreak Rules
LYR - An Unnatural History
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Cheekface - Too Much To Ask
Burial - Untrue
Katy Kirby - Blue Raspberry
TV I’ve enjoyed:
Squid Game: The Challenge
The Traitors - series 2 (too good, the final almost killed me)
Films I’ve enjoyed:
The Alpinist (documentary)