As i child i liked to find electrical equipment, speakers, headphones, microphones or anthing of that sort and cut the wires with a pair of scissors. Im not sure why i used to do this but i think it was because i wanted to use them or understand them…so i would take them apart. Once my childish mind realised doing that stopped them from actually working i took a different approach…
I scraped through childhood mostly unharmed and started to play guitar from an early age. Grew dreadlocks and went to uni. Cut off dreadlocks when i graduated from an Art Degree at UWCN. Did a PGCE (teaching qualification) and realised id rather be creative than talking about it (no disrespect to any teachers, just wasn’t for me).
Me and a friend entered a film competition in 2005 and came 2nd winning a canon XM2 (Which at the time was pretty awesome). This started my glorious rise through the media industry. Within 5 years i had regularly worked for Jaguar, West Midlands Police, and Arts council (London and Birmingham) as a filmmaker, editor and sometimes in a producer role.
Throughout my career i’ve continued to play music and art when i could fit it in. I spent years playing with an extremely talented brazilian guy, Moyses Dos Santos who’s a regular player on the London jazz circuit.
Following that i have performed regularly with original compositions in a jazz fusion band called ‘Colonel Fabien’, albeit with an ever-changing line up other than a consistent co writer Craig Francis. The music is incredibly complex and takes most of the rehearsals to remember the continually changing sections, which sounds rather good when you get it right.
A side project emerged with respected drummer Matthew Rheeston in a daring experimental rock duo called ‘Kitty Hands’. The most raw and expressive project i have ever done that often involved a lot of noise, shouting improv slurs and cleaning the blood of the neck of my guitar.
Currently im playing in another direction altogether in a Country Jazz fusion band called ‘The Beau Jangles’ with probably the best Dobro player in the Midlands albeit, all of England! Due to the fact that there quite possibly arnt any other Dobro players…I jest, as you will clearly see Robin Sidwell (shred) his hillbilly kentucky fried fingers to the background of swinging jazz.
contact:
email:jameseastope@gmail.com
Tel: 07956436449