Alan on Guitar and Vocals with Mark Prescott on Violin playing Live on Jamie Owen's BBC Wales Radio Show 30/06/2013

Goodbye, Live at the BeeB

Little Bird, great song for an Ad Campaign

Little Bird (radio Edit)

Disappear    by Alan Coles

Easy Dreams

Dragons rugby song written and performed by Alan Coles, www.colesmusic.com

01 Dragons (Play with Heart)

This is my James Bond film theme, (well, every self respecting Songwriter's got to have a go haven't they?) 

James Bond: Lightning

Just my little pop at Xfactor and it's clones, Keep Music Live, it's good to see musicians and bands names 'up in chalk' outside venues.

Up In Chalk

Clouds and trees....a song I wrote looking out of the front window. From the 'Play something we know' album

Clouds and Trees

Little Bird by Alan Coles

Here's a song I wrote for 'The Dags' first album-' Hold that thought',  It's probably dated a little but it is quite a fun song, come to think of it I actually wrote it about 10 years before that when I was a bassist trying to write songs on the bass which is a lot harder than on the guitar.

What it is to be Drunk

One Trick Pony

I was born in Newport Gwent and have lived there all my life and went to St Joseph's High School where I first found a love for music as a bassist in our school band “Witsend', at that time I began to write songs and I realised that to create a song from out of nothing was an absolute thrill. 
 After I left school the band finished but I kept up the songwriting and recording. 
 My main influences I'd have to say are The Finn Brothers and Rush, although it doesn't always show within my writing and that's probably a good thing because you have to follow your own route. Of course The Beatles had an effect too I've always loved 'Help', that song had a big effect.
 I write mostly on the acoustic guitar and 90% of the songs that I play Live are on the guitar but I've also written some on the Ukulele too and two of them I'll be playing at the BBC studio.
 Performing really is just a vehicle to get the songs to a listening ear, I've been aware that unless I can play the songs Live then I might not be able to get people to listen to them. I've found that if  you are solely a recording artist it's almost impossible for an unknown songwriter to get anyone to hear your songs.
 After I got married I formed a band called The Dags with my cousin Nicky, uncle John and Mike Hopkins, I wrote three albums for that band, then decided to play solo.
 I wrote and recorded my debut solo album : 'Play Something we know' in 2010, I asked a lot of the friends that I'd met around the local Valleys music scene to guest on it, it was recorded at Mike's 'Towpath' Studio in Panteg.
 I play live at Festivals, Acoustic Folk Clubs, The 'Millennium Centre' a couple of times, Pubs and basically where ever people are prepared to listen to a guy playing original songs. Believe it or not there aren't that many places to play! But if you want me to play, I will come! 
 I've recently been interviewed by Phil Steele on the BBC Radio Wales Scrum 5 program because I wrote and recorded a song for the Newport Gwent Dragons Rugby Club, it's up on my website.
 My website is at www.colesmusic.com and the album is available on Itunes and all the usual places including Spillers and Diverse Record shops.
 I have been busy lately writing a book about Performing Songwriters called 'The Song is King', in which I've been chronicling some of the songwriters around Wales at the moment, It's turning out to be a very interesting project.
 In the future I'd like to keep writing and playing, and maybe get more breaks! (Wouldn't we all) Perhaps even play on Jools Holland's show one day. 
 I also want to create a Central Archive for Welsh Songwriters to be able to store their songs for the future. Wales has a wealth of Songwriting talent out there and unless it gets logged somewhere it will be lost forever. A lot of my songwriting friends keep their songs very much uncatalogued, some don't even know where they are, so it makes sense to have a place to store them. We store books in Libraries and paintings in Galleries, we should be collecting and protecting the songs which are as valid an art form as the other two.
But that's another project.

Alan Coles

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