1. Letdown (T.Johnstone/D.Morrison) 2. Airport Breakfast (T.Johnstone) 3. Long Way (T.Johnstone) 4. Pretty Eyes (T.Johnstone) 5. Hold Me Now (T.Bailey/ A. Currie/J.Leeway) 6. Somewhere Inbetween (T.Johnstone) 7. Think I'd Best Forget You (one last time) (T.Johnstone) 8. Coming Down (T.Johnstone) 9. Stay (T.Johnstone) 10. The Space Between Us (T.Johnstone) Produced and performed by Tam Johnstone. Recorded and mixed at home and Airfield studios, North Cornwall. Mastered by Jo Partridge. Available to buy from... Hear it...here! The making of ' Local Honey' 'Local Honey' began as a distraction for me, a means of getting through a difficult time. I'd recently moved to Brighton, partly to escape the chaos of London (where I'd grown up) but also to try to patch up a relationship that, after five years, had fallen apart (you know who you are, schnookky lumps!) Well, unfortunately, things didn't work out the way I'd hoped they might and this album is what came out of that situation. I honestly don't recall being motivated by the idea of securing some sort of 'Holy Grail' recording contract. I just wanted to get some stuff out of my system because I really felt like I was going mad. It was as though I'd lost a piece of myself. I figured making a record might be positive way to do get through that and so, in between endless cups of tea and ciggies, that's what I did. So, to say I was obsessed with making this album is an understatement! The original version of 'Local Honey' was frantically thrown together one bizarre, dark and sleepless week in May 2000. I remember completing the running order just as dawn was breaking and I walked down to Brighton beach with my mini disc player and headphones, sat on the stones and listened to the whole thing. The sense of pride and relief was immense - it was like a release of so much crap that had been stored inside of me. When I played it to Dave Morrison (friend and then-flat mate), he strongly suggested I send copies to Tim Hall at Vital distribution and music journalist/manager, Karen Shook. They responded almost immediately, happy to help get the record into the right hands and, after some gentle persuasion, Karen became my manager. Labels reacted positively to 'Local Honey', which led to me hastily assembling a live band for a series of showcases, Superior Quality being the most positive and enthusiastic label. Although Karen and I met with Neil at the label several times, I was holding out for a deal that would allow me to pay a band. I sometimes think I should have stopped stalling and just gone for it but something didn't feel right. By early 2001 I had parted company with Karen who was managing several other artists as well as writing for several publications. It's a decision I've come to regret since Karen was always incredibly encouraging, supportive and generous towards me but at the time I felt it was the right thing to do. Around this time, I began a brief but bizarre friendship with Chas Smash of Madness who was setting up a label at the time. Tim Hall called me, prior to a TGS gig at the Garage: "Chas loves 'Local Honey' and he wants to sign the band. He's coming down to the gig tonight!" The first time I saw Chas was with Madness -who I loved- at the Camden Palace when I was about 14 years old. The second time was in the audience at the Garage. He made a beeline for me after the gig, grabbing my arm and sinisterly whispering, "I'm going to make you a star" in my ear. "Come back to my office" he insisted, "and let me show you my reality". I was excited yet... terrified. What was this "reality" and why did he want me to see it? Anyway, the band and I ended up having a great night with him. He bought us dinner at the Marathon (or 'Stabathon'), got us pissed and regaled us with Madness road stories, bursts of trumpet and blasts of unreleased Big Kids and The La's songs. We met and talked a few more times after that night and eventually he presented me with a contract. Unfortunately, the contract raised a few eyebrows when I showed it to a couple of music business lawyers. What Chas was proposing was definitely not enough to keep a band going, let alone myself so we ended up not taking things any further. It was frustrating because he had such a fire and enthusiasm but it all seemed very unfocused and up in the air to me. Various other labels and publishers showed varying degrees of enthusiasm but no one with as much passion. Even John Eydmann -my manager at the time- went AWOL because no one was interested in The General Store anymore (I haven't seen or heard from him since - was this The Curse of The General Store???) I resumed work on 'Local Honey' in October 2001, patching up vocals and remixing. These final days spent on the project were the probably hardest of the whole thing. In the months that followed the initial recording of 'Local Honey', I'd become more and more dissatisfied with it and I wasn't sure if I had the enthusiasm to finish it and be happy with the outcome. I would go back and forth to it, adding more overdubs and re-doing vocals until it was eventually mastered in October. At last, after much procrastinating -and no small amount of help and advice from my uncle, Jo- it was finished and somehow I managed to let go of this obsession of mine that was my first album. And a good thing too, judging by the great reviews and encouraging emails I've received so far. That said, it's slightly unnerving to discover that so many of you enjoy music born out of someone else's misfortune!! Hmm. Album review by Tom Sheriff (The Gilded Palace of Sin) "Seemingly designed, incredible coincidences have played an uncannily large part in my life. Chance meetings with someone one year would have a bearing on something five years on. One such encounter has lineage to my now regularly chatting breezily away on the phone with Davey Johnstone, guitarist with Elton John. The reason for this is that I share a flat with his son, Tam. It may seem suspicious that someone as close to Tam be writing this, music scribe or otherwise. It really doesn’t matter that I was present throughout the events that have lead to the recording of his debut album, ‘Local Honey’– just listen to it and you’ll see my words borne out. It happens to all but the eternally lonely – the huge break-up. It happened to Tam and Julie. Unable to focus on much, he would launch into work immediately: a heart-ripping Country record. When I heard it in it’s entirety for the first time, I was beside myself. The two of me couldn’t cope with the facts that it was ALL Tam, it was THAT good, done in ten days and in his bedroom, to boot. If you enjoy twangy, melancholy ‘70’s West Coast drenched Country-Pop, as I do, you will go an extremely long way to find much better than ‘Local Honey’. The chirruping of crickets, an accordion wheeze and the sweetest voice – Farewell my love / I can’t explain over gently strummed acoustic guitars, and we are immediately in classic Neil Young territory on opener ‘Letdown’. Harmonies soar on the blissful chorus, and the introduction of a banjo midway, is inspired. Lyrically, thematically, the tone is set here. The dissection of the wreckage of heartbreak, the bearing of guilt and the impossible desire for perfect love with the lost soul mate are themes most horrid in life, even if relating others’ love your songs about them. ‘Airport Breakfast’ is the only diversion from the flight plan, dealing as it does with Tam’s near pathological fear of flying. Set in an airport terminal just prior to boarding, this sprightly mop-topped beauty induces both chuckles and admiration in that he’s found a riff that Roger McGuinn missed. With hardly a breath, we’re straight into ‘Long Way’, probably my choice cut. As choruses go, this is sensational, and we’re into it mere seconds after the beautiful opening. Underpinned with fuzzed-up electric, this is songwriting at it’s very finest, and if it finally gets the release it deserves, will make Tam very famous. A live stormer with a killer false ending, your hair will stand on end at his impassioned performance. One to play cranked up. ‘Latitude’ is Lennon-esque dream-pop, with cavernous space and keyboard bubbling as heard on the records 10CC made when they were any good. "It’s la-a-atitude /That’s keeping me from you" croons Tam, and off you drift into clouds of strings. Next is, quite seriously, one of those epochal pop events. There are few examples I can think of here and now where a previously recorded song, in this case a huge and familiar hit, has been taken, reconstructed, and claimed by the new performer(s), creating what will now always be know as the definitive version. A classic example of this is Robert Wyatt’s recording of ‘Shipbuilding’. In Countryfying The Thompson Twins’ ‘Hold Me Now’, Tam has added ‘interpreter’ to his CV. Spellbinding, the jaws of all that have heard this have smashed heavily on many kinds of flooring surface, including lino. Slowed waaayy down and achingly performed, Tam’s voice cracks on lyrics that take on a deeper, darker meaning in light of ‘Local Honey’s inspiration. Brilliant. With lyrical and sonic nods to Rod, ‘Somewhere Inbetween’ matches much of his classic ‘70’s balladry. Cascading piano and a salty organ add glisten to a simple acoustic arrangement; a tale of resignation at love that has become routine. The destroyer jealousy surfaces in the exquisite ‘Think I’d Best Forget You (One Last Time)’. Mandolin, acoustic guitar, handclaps and a delightfully restrained Karl Wallinger impression from Tam hide trouble behind their prettiness. If it can be called the weakest track, then ‘Coming Down’ is it. Immaculately performed, the lyrics are obtuse and throw you off the track a tad. I think the chief reason for criticism is that the melody thus far has been so lip-bitingly gorgeous, that this broodier track seems out of its depth. Next up is The General Store song you are most likely to have heard in recorded form, and even then more by chance than anything, as it has only appeared on a cover- mounted CD with a limited run of the excellent ‘Comes with a Smile’ magazine. ‘Stay’ is a delicate and spacey Hawaiian blues, dealing once more with the confusion and endless nights of reasoning, post-relationship meltdown. Tam is distraught at what he feels he is solely responsible for killing, to such an extent that Even the sun / Has turned away / It blackens my heart / Darkens my days. Utterly beautiful, impossibly pretty, ‘Stay’ is another live killer. Buckets are, and will continue to be wept. Closer, ‘The Space Between Us’ features the sounds of an unruly playground, slide guitar slinking across the mix in all directions, heartbeats, and another sublime and breathy vocal from young Tam. And that’s it. It’s over. Not so long back, BBC 1 devoted an evening to Elton John. There was a candid interview with Parky, and then a screening of the Madison Square Garden show that was turned around into the fastest live album release ever, so it is claimed. That night in New York City, the CD played over the PA prior to the show was ‘Local Honey’. Thousands will have heard it, and a great deal of those thousands will still be wondering what it was, and where they can find it. You will soon join them." FYI: The track, 'Latitude' was left off the album and replaced by 'Pretty Eyes.'