The Monte Dons

As you may know, I’m always keen to collaborate when the opportunity arises. Though I had been in choirs and ran choral groups in my earlier days, my first band project was with Gwailo back in Singapore in the early 90s, with the release of Gecko Sushi. I was featured vocalist on their dance/electronic East meets West sounds.

On relocating to the UK, I joined and fronted greenhaus (think Cocteau Twins meets Massive Attack meets Garbage) for several years in the new millennium, with whom I co-wrote and released a couple of albums, You’re Not Alone and A Fool’s Paradise. This was followed by a short stint with the gothic Eden House, and the “First Light” co-write and performance in their album of collaborations called Half Life. There have also been a few other projects in the interim, some of which formed part of my solo albums. As a result, I’ve had massively fabulous experiences and made some great muso friends.

Latterly, I have had the pleasure of working with Welsh based band project the Monte Dons. They describe their music as full-on Americana, Bluegrass, Folk and Psychedelic Rock. They are made up of a fun bunch of super talented musicians, including the dynamic Anthony Lewis on vocals, Dr. (no less!) Chris Allender on guitars, Paul Gray (Ex Damned) on Bass, Chris Lake on guitars and violin, Geoff Llewellyn on mandolin, harmonica, Dobro and lap-steel (wow, any more??), and Anthony Thickett on drums.

On Saturday 7th June, I played my 3rd live gig/rehearsal with the Monte Dons at the Hereford Courtyard.

Yup, it was a straight plunge in the deep end, as I did not get to rehearse with the full band once, and boy have I been having fun! The band were already on a roll playing full double sets of original materials with a few revamped popular covers. I did a couple of acoustic dry-runs, then hopped on the wagon train that was riding hard and fast, since we are talking upbeat, raucous, foot tapping Americana music!

I’m excited to announce that I’m now officially part of the band and will be sharing vocal duties with Anthony Lewis. I’m so looking forward to many more gigs with the Monte Dons!  Yeee hawwww ! ^^

Here are a couple of photos from our gig in Hereford taken by hubby Peter Martin. Watch this space people! 🙂