Watching Pual Simon on BBC4 tonight reminded me that I had done his song live, out of solidarity, a few months later. I played a few gig s at Lanchester Poly and Warwick Uni that year 
1986-10-08 Coventry Polytechnic Students Union   
1986-12-17 Coventry Polytechnic Students Union   
1987-07-01 Coventry Warwick University Students Union   
1987-10-03 Coventry Polytechnic Students Union   
1987-10-08 Coventry University of Warwick Students Union B  
1988-11-25 Coventry Warwick University Students Union 
Not sure which this was from, but although the voice is low in the mix it went down well

Boy in the Bubble (cover)

Sun May 2 Kenny's Castaway, Bleeker Street, NYC.
After the year in Detroit, my visa was up. The following Spring I came back for two weeks on visa waiver to see if I could convert promises of of IT contract work. I couldn't and that killed off the dream of being half geek, half muso. While in NYC I went to Bleeker St with Denise and she got me onto some of the venerable stages. This was one of three songs I got an NTSC video of. I went to my first Multimedia tradeshow that week, and started to dream up a CD-I, which eventually led to doing the Multimedia MSc that September. CD-I was over before even Peter Gabriel released Xplora1 a year later, but I learned a lot about bleeding edge technology that would come in handy over the next four years. While tidying up folders I came across this twenty year old .WAV dub from the video, of a slightly more relaxed and measured version than the one from Nashville that I released on Moon on White Lake. I have a ton of portstudioed and videoed live recordings from 93-94, and, aged 36 and playing every spare hour of the day, I was sounding better. One of these days I'll digitise any tapes that have not dissolved in old age (like me!)

Best Of You (Kennys Castaway 930502)

Till I Can Gain Control Again (Cover)

lyrics are on http://tgmcewan.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/song-2014-cake-making-blues/

Cakemaking Blues

This is a rough and ready demo of a song that I wrote and played at an open mic session that was part of the Southern Fried Festival in Perth, Scotland in July 2014. The words are correct at https://tgmcewan.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/song-2012-2014-promises/ unlike a few vocal fluffs in the recording! All offers of help with a proper recording, or constructive criticisms, gleefully welcomed


Promises (demo 2015 Jan 30th)

The Joiner is an enigmatic figure travelling with a wagon full of wood pulled by an ass along dirt roads. He fixes stuff but we don't know what. He's tried to get away from the baggage that binds him, but wherever he goes the past catches up. Lyrics are at https://tgmcewan.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/song-2013-step-by-step/ although two verses were recently added

Step After Step (The Joiner) - demo

Work in progress from the garden shed. A song about a wood-chopper awaiting the return of his mistress, I think. A few gremlins in the shed with crackles and stuff but reasonably there, for a second pass.

Promises

Chopping Wood

2017 The Moon Only Brings Bad News

A second stage demo of a song about a hill, a joiner, and an ass pulling a heavy load

2017 Step After Step V1

Sketch of a song written during the excellent Glasgow Songwriting Festival course. Karine Polwart gave us a basic chord sequence (I IV I IV V IV I I) and asked us to write a three line verse or two. I got carried away, as we were in the echoey space that was the Calder St Baths main swimming pool, and found two different middle eights. Since I can't yet decide between them, both are here. We were asked to write about decay/autumn. I also see this as the birth of renewal. Many thanks to Karine and my classmates for the encouragement.
Lyrics:
When nothing good is remaining,
And everything is decaying
It’s a reminder, it’s the time to begin
When no-one hears your crying
And all your dreams are dying
Feel the shiver, it’s time to forgive and begin
It’s not just the end of the season
It’s about learning to seek out what you can believe in
When you feel the temperatures dip
And the high noon starts to slip
Fingers burnt, it’s time that you learned to begin.
It’s not just the change in the light
It’s about learning to know to when to pick a new fight
When shadows start to lengthen
It’s time to stop pretending
One door closes, another shows you where to begin
It’s not just the end of the season
It’s not just the change in the light
Find out what you can believe in
Know when to pick a new fight
When everything is decaying
And there’s nothing good remaining
It’s a reminder, it’s the time to begin
words and music by T.G. McEwan (c) 2017 Heads Together Music

Begin

"Promises" will be Tom's 7th album. The songs were unveiled at four shows at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the AMC @ ST Brides venue, and the album will be ready when it's ready! Tom played around a thousand university gigs in the 1980s and 90s, before starting a wild ceilidh band (Captain Swing) for a few years. After neurosurgery in 2001 he was unable to play gigs for many years, but recently returned to music. Previous albums include:
Messages (1981)
Live in Paris (1984)
Real Men Bake Quiche (1986)
The Cause (1988, then compiled into double album Root & Pulse, 1989)
Moon on White Like (1993)
Tangle (1995, pre-released under the title Ethnic Cleansing, 1994).

In addition Tom has released many EPs including two 7" EPs Down At the Fiddlers (1982) After The Festival (1983), as well as cassette EPs Notes (1981), Live in Pompeii and Bristol (1982), Grey Paris (1983), Triumph (1991). Tom also organised the Edinburgh Songwriters Showcase compilation CD, Gallery (1994), which features two of his songs.

TG McEwan