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now because I used to travel in a car with five guitars and all manner of equipment and I’ve decided

I’m going to pare it right down to guitar and a bag. Trains and planes and automobiles and basically
start travelling around more under my own steam, not relying on a car. If I take on gigs and then
they cancel three days before, I’m out all of the money I’ve paid for travel and everything up-front.
I’m hanging fire until things are a little bit more certain.

BiTS: I can’t say I blame you.

HDC: It’s a weird state of affairs and obviously, money is tight and I’d love money not to be a
factor in these things, but it always is. As I say, I’ve had gigs cancelled for later in the year already.
If something comes up and I think it’s worth doing, then I will, but I think I’m going to start getting
back into it properly in the New Year. I’ve already got some things in negotiation, let’s say, for next
year. A couple of big secrets that really are quite big in the gig scene and other things in the
pipeline and they’re all next year. The people that are organising them are still saying things with
the proviso of “COVID permitted”, and that’s for next year.

People are still wary, so it’s going to take a long time, I
think, but we’ll get there eventually.

BiTS: You must still be making recordings, though. You
haven’t stopped doing that, have you?

HDC: No. Tomorrow is August the 6th. It’s another

Bandcamp Friday. I’ve got something done and waiting to
be released tomorrow for people to either download for
free or name your price. I do quite a healthy bit of sales in
these Bandcamp Friday CDs that I do with posters and
badges and stuff. Some people just don’t like downloads
and some people have been collecting every single one for
the last 17 months, basically, nearly. I wasn’t going to

continue and over the last couple of weeks, people have
been getting in touch in asking what I’m doing for August Bandcamp Friday, so I thought if there’s a
demand there and I really enjoy doing it and I’ve got stuff ready to go, then I may as well just go
with it. Yes, I’m basically doing little Bandcamp Friday projects while there’s a demand there, while
I can keep coming up with fresh ideas because I don’t want to keep banging out the same type of

thing every single month. I’ve done proper 1930s resonator slide dust bowl blues type stuff. I’ve
done three EPs of electric cover versions of Howlin’ Wolf and RL Burnside and whatnot. I’ve done
the banjo, old-time-y, zombie apocalypse stuff and I’ve done three 20 minute each instrumental,
electric slide cinematic thingummy-doodle EPs and tomorrow’s is an acoustic-slide cinematic score
for a film that will never be made, that’s all in my head. It’s only short. It’s only about 20 minutes
long. Six songs long. But it just gives me a chance to sit down with a fresh piece of canvas, as it
were, and just let my creative juices flow - let my imagination run wild.

BiTS: With the device for simulating instruments that you were talking about earlier on, you must
have an increasingly large, or at least filled, studio.

HDC: Yes. [Chuckling] The room that I call my studio, let’s put it that way. I don’t tend to call it a
studio - my recording room, if you like. At the moment, I’m counting 18 guitars, an acoustic bass, an
electric bass, a cigar box guitar and three banjos and loads of percussion stacked up and just weird

and wonderful bits and pieces and my computer and my recording equipment and my control desk
and old reel-to-reel four-track cassette recorder and, yes. I can’t move, basically. It’s only a small