bio
Back in England after a year of gigging in Canada, John is the fully engaged electric guitar player of the Lesley Young Duo when he’s not busy obsessing on his own disturbed and mystically strange concepts of music. His freelance writing work, including Torontoscope, a ‘hip’ weekly astrology column for Toronto Star’s eye weekly, was a sort of path to his lyric writing, which he takes VERY seriously. “Wanna hear me recite Shakespeare? No? John Donne? No? Reggie Perrin, then?” Recording and touring professionally with award-winning songwriter Lesley Young has been his path to music (he was also helped by a bunch of music lessons, including a few years at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto).
He’s also compiled and edited the Canadian Astrology Collection, an acclaimed collection of essays and birth data for astrological research. John reads and writes to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Welsh and German, translates poems for Adrien Dougere, a talented young writer and painter in France, loves the Sci Fi and Horror genres, venerates Baudelaire, Phillip K. Dick and Bertolt Brecht, and digs Britrock, Krautrock and Anatolian Rock.
John’s also associate-produced Lesley Young’s recordings and now plays electric guitar to her lovely acoustic. He adds a lot of surprising and fattening stuff to her spiritually pure and harmonically lovely songs. Such as retro trem fuzz guitar, sensitive tinkly and swirly overdubs, punk and psychedelic groove energy, and some clear nods to Robert Fripp and Phil Manzanera (bows, even).
Songs from Lesley’s album Inside, co-produced and mixed by John and Lesley, have placed in several international songwriting competitions. They have toured extensively in Canada, the US and Europe. Stayed tuned for Winter 2012 schedule . . .