When I moved to London, which is a story so complex and difficult that I shall tell it at a different time, I left behind ThirtyOne, which by this stage had begun to disintegrate. My departure signalled a painful end to what had been an extremely promising band, and my confidence was not what you’d describe as high.

Though I’d spent my life in bands and would continue to do so, the desire to be out front being the main man had left me, and I longed for a less precious role in my musical proceedings. Michael, with whom I had played for many years before, advised me that Henry, the bassist of his band, Conundrum In Deed, was leaving, and did I fancy the gig? I thought about it for a few seconds before saying yes, tooling myself up with a cheap bass, and learning their album, Gentlemen, which was in the process of being completed.

Aside from being the context in which I met Tom, who would later be part of the Strange Deeds triumvirate, Conundrum was my first gig on bass since The Paperback Throne, which was also the first band in which I sang harmony. Henry was a superb bassist, an eager, nimble young man who had grown up listening to prog almost exclusively, and whose raw talent had supped at the fountain of Chris Squire. Taking up his weaving Rickenbacker lines on my somewhat-less-subtle Stingray was a task, and it was to my own amazement that I could get anywhere near them.

I sang backing on this record, taking up full bass and second vocal duties on the next, Travelling House, though I sadly do not have a link to that.

Despite the extremely poor split of the band that occurred after this, and the subsequent ill feeling, I am able to stand outside of it, and see it as a record that did not belong to its’ time, being pitched somewhat further back than the period in which it was recorded. Nevertheless, of my time in Conundrum In Deed I am proud, though I truly wish it had ended differently.

A meal in itself.

When my parents first moved to Somerset, I took the opportunity to drive my mother’s terrible Suzuki Jimny to Exeter, to see what it was like, and to check out Manson’s guitar store, about which I had heard much. At the time, which was around 2003, Glasgow had Sound Control, McCormacks, Merchant City Music, and CC Music as its principle guitar stores, and as Manson’s was in the exotic south west I felt I must check it out.

On the noticeboard, there was an advert for a singer, and as I had, at the time, planned to stay in the South West, I thought I’d give the number a ring. I spoke to some guy, where I discovered that my zeal for getting into bands didn’t match my ability to drive the best part of an hour and a half each way for practice, and the conversation came to a close.

Two years later, I had moved back to Glasgow, met the lady who would become my wife, been to Canada and moved back to the South West, to Exeter, where I once again found myself stood in front of the noticeboard, in front of the same advert. Though I’d forgotten all about calling it the first time, especially as two years had passed and I wouldn’t have associated it with the previous advert, I rang that number and spoke to the same guy. This time, we met in the Kings Arms, where I felt intimidated by the three large men who would shake my hand. The irony that the member who wasn’t there was 6’7″ is not lost on me.

Three years down the line, I found myself screaming my way through yet another set with this very band, having recorded a record called The Great Wide Hope. Released on Bored Stiff Records by Andy Dicker from Codex Alimentarius, it would go on to be special in Exeter, but nowhere else. We were extremely proud of it, and as it heralded my return to proper live performance following the extremely painful dissolution of my former band, Cat Kills Six, it was something of a crucial landmark.

It is presented below as both a show of what once was, and a sorrowful monolith, as the second record, The Widening, was never recorded, and is unlikely to be.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was playing with my chaps Michael and Tom in Strange Deeds. During recent discussions between Michael and myself, a record that we had made came back into my head.

This record was Strange Deeds’ The Memorandum, a record that, like all Deeds material, was completely improvised, and back to back. It contains six tracks of guitar playing I couldn’t have done on purpose if I tried, and indeed we both reflected on how remarkable this was. It’s one thing to sit down for weeks, maybe months at a time and carefully craft a predominantly instrumental record, but to bang the whole thing out in less than three hours with no arrangement or planning still feels like an achievement.

The musical relationship between Michael and I deserves its own post, something I will tend to in the coming weeks. These records, however, stand outside of us as musicians, in the sense that they existed only then, during those hours in Crown Lane and Muswell Hill studios in London, where we would pitch up with two Zoom hand held recorders, have a chat, then start playing. Whatever happened, after our practice time was up, we had a record.

Naturally, some of it was a bit guff, especially in the beginning as we found our feet. But, centred around Tom’s drums – without which we would have floundered, truthfully – we created a series of releases that were one take each, with no discussion before or during.

Of all the bands in which I have participated, and there are a few, Strange Deeds is the one of which I am most proud. We did one show, which was also improvised, at the Finsbury Arms, and released 8 records that were seldom heard outside of the three of us, but doing it just for the sake of doing it was the whole point. When I met Tom, Michael and I were playing in Conundrum In Deed, who were already completing their first album, and with whom we would do a second. He was a jazz trained drummer and pianist, a very quiet man, despite being built like a tank, and never played the drums harder than he had to. Without this detail, our recordings would have suffered immensely, especially as they were so primitive in nature.

Here it is then, The Memorandum, with some of the best track names we had going. There’s a lot of left turns, but for a record that willed itself into life on the spot, I’ve never topped it.

My name is John Tron Davidson, and I am a musician, writer, radio presenter and bloke.

In the last 30 years I have performed in choirs, bands, as a solo performer in both the acoustic, electric, and noise fields, hosted open mics, sold headstones, presented radio broadcasts, written reviews, collected dragons, travelled the world and done my laundry.

Right now I present The Way Of Things  on Phonic FM with my buddy Dragon, every friday from 4-6pm, which is ace. I play guitar and sing for Light City Mission and The Lifted Chalice, as well as rapping in Asshole Butler.

On this blog you will find all my collected works, from as many bands as I’ve recorded with, along with reviews I’ve written, both for myself and Fortitude Magazine, as well as essays on topics like mental illness, something about which I am deeply passionate.

If you want to get in touch, please do so at johntrondavidson@gmail.com.

Enjoy.