Acoustic Rock Week - Orpheus Centre

The last week, July 23rd to 29th has been amazing. I went to volunteer at the Orpheus Centre in Godstone, Surrey with fellow muso's Jon, Jo, Russ & Sam. The Orpheus Centre is an institution set up by Richard Stilgoe (composer of Phantom of the Opera, Cats & a few more) which helps disabled young adults to develop confidence and independence through performing arts. Our main objectives were to help the aprentices and students on the course realise the music they wanted to write, and to make copious amount of tea & toast, morning, noon and night!


This has been my first experience of helping those less fortunate than myself & I can't help but be amazed at how much these guys get out of a course like this. There's been cheers & tears for the most part of the week but to see the emotions after the concert was a real experience.


Acoustic Rock Week was held together by Head Tutor, Russ. Cheers again Russ for a sterling effort all week long. To use Alex's words, you struck the perfect balance between the songs sounding good, and us all looking ridiculous! Not content with leading our group of misfits to stardom, Russ was also instrumental in the staging of the Flip-flop-flop-flip-flip-off. Here's Russ in preparation for the synchronised flop-flipping tournament.


We managed to write a song with each of the apprentices who joined us for the short course. The weather conditions inspired most of the subject matter & the students were feeling the summer vibe. "Too Damn Hot" and "The BBQ Song" grooved jazzily around the gardens, "The White Hat", "Cowboy And My Father" and "Smile" grew straight out of America's southern roots and into the barn where we spent hours rehearsing for Friday night's show.

The concert was a great success and all the students had their chance in the spotlight. Other 'special moments' included Jon & Jo's cossack dancing (although folky Jon reminded me more of a morris-man), Sam & myself chicken-strutting in cowboy hats & nipple-pinging braces and the end-of-night, air-guitarist, ever-so-slightly camp, pelvic-thrusting dance troopers during "I Live For Rock & Roll".