Two more gigs to document, amid a busy week of singing, learning, and performing, in all senses of that most changeling of words.

On Wednesday I cycled up a very big hill, through wind and hail, to sing alongside four wonderful humans in a practice for the recording of a song on Jo Burke’s forthcoming album.

There has been plenty of imposter syndrome, as the other four have all been singing in harmony since I was in short trousers, and it remains humbling that I’ve been picked to contribute. The song is very difficult, with lots of strange rhythmic changes and clashing (or, as Jo puts it, “crunchy”) harmonies.

I’m used to singing in choir, but in those situations there is usually at least one person in my group who knows the tenor part perfectly, allowing me to glob on to them and copy them. And this person is often Saiorse. In this case, I was singing completely on my own, while listening carefully to the other parts, which impacted my own in terms of when to move note and when to end.

It took a few takes but I got close to nailing my part. On a wet and stormy night, in a video game developer’s house just below the Downs, for the first time I felt like something in the vicinity of being a professional singer.

Thursday was the last Highchurches gig of the year. [1]

The show was a disaster, but the band were excellent, despite extreme provocation from awful (if scant) audience members, terrible hosting, and comedians about as funny as serious bum disease.

To the band’s mounting horror, the act before us, a belligerent Scouse Santa, handed out kazoos to the punters, who gamely tooted along to a coarse, stupid version of the 12 Days Of Christmas.

I’d guess the guy was going for the Simpsons rake joke of something starting funny, becoming excruciating, and becoming funny again, but instead it started bad and got worse. At this stage the band was mainly contemplating faking or enacting their own deaths.

Then a tiny note of mercy: the MC confiscated all the kazoos, placing them all on a plastic beer tray. And suddenly, there we were, on stage.

“This is the first gig we’ve done where someone had to confiscate the kazoos off the audience beforehand”.

“And thank fuck for that.”

“So, who’s ready for a jarring shift in tone?”

We started with Even Keel: to my horror, as we started I realised Martha’s banjo – which I was playing – was out of tune. Pretty horrifically out of tune. So I played it as quietly as possible, hoping that the rest of the band wouldn’t notice, as I didn’t want to start again.

After a quick tuning session, we did Hymn for the Ruins, with me maintaining eye contact with the mince-and-corpse obsessed [2], ex-navy front row.

Half way through set closer Harvest Moon I even saw some foot-tapping.

We were brilliant. I think standing up was a big thing; I’m looking forward to more gigs beyond the Westlife stools.

After our set, me, Martha, and Elle did a semi-impromptu wassail – a two part version of Malpas, the end of which you can watch below.

Saturday was Extra Topping, a night I have appeared at several times before – once as Exxon Mobil-sponsored road safety expert Mr Gears, once as 1/3 of Horse Passports, and as several witting and unwitting guest or audience interaction appearances.

This time I was to be 1983’s iteration of David Bowie, singing two duets: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, and Little Drummer Boy, with Leslie performing the role of Leslie and Leslie/Bing Crosby.

Leslie forgot some of the words to the opener, but Little Drummer Boy sounded beautiful.

I was backstage for the rest of the show, which meant it became one long, crazy radio comedy. I particularly enjoyed the audience’s horrified and mob-like reaction to Hans and Hans, the German chocolate boys, and the final Band Aid-style singalong.

Simon for sure runs the best alternative comedy night in Brighton. It’s tough times for small, independent nights at the moment, so if you have any pennies you can cobble together in 2025, forget about mega-gigs and Live At The Apollo. Support your neighbourhood weirdos and see something you’ll never forget (for better or worse).

[1] At some stage I’ll set up a specific link to all our gigs so far, as MJ Hibbert has taught me it’s important to chronicle these kind of things.

[2] Don’t ask. It was a nightmarish fever dream of an evening.