From Spielberg to Saint Etienne: Jimmy Pinch to play one-off hometown show
Ahead of deeply personal new album, Totnes guitarist, singer-songwriter and renowned local luthier Jimmy Pinch will play a full-band hometown show at The Barrelhouse Ballroom this September, previewing a lively, pacey new roots-rock album shaped by slide guitar, sharp storytelling and a lifetime spent inside the world of guitars.
Most local musicians worth their salt know Jimmy Pinch as the man behind Castle Guitars and Pinchy’s Guitar Garage, the much-loved Totnes workshop that has spent the past two decades repairing, upcycling and restoring instruments for discerning players across the South West and beyond. But Jimmy’s backstory stretches far beyond the workbench. As a 16-year-old, he lied about his age to get gigs on the notoriously tough Northern working men’s club circuit.
“A master of the guitar” – Will Hodgkinson, The Times
At 18, he moved to London and bluffed his way into the animation industry, learning the craft from the inside and spending seven years working his way up, including work on Steven Spielberg’s cult animated film Balto. At 26, he walked away from the movie industry to chase music full-time. A spell on the exploding 90s indie scene saw him tour with Saint Etienne, the critically adored indie-pop institution whose blend of club culture, melancholy and cinematic cool helped define British pop, before moving to Totnes to raise his daughter.
“I’m such a guitar geek that a guitar shop grew around me,” says Jimmy. “I needed to be there for my daughter, but I wanted to maintain a foothold in the music world. It worked out OK, and my daughter is now a psychology lecturer at the University of Exeter.”
His return to writing original music came about entirely by chance. After helping a busker on Totnes High Street produce an EP, one of Jimmy’s songs was picked up by indie film director Marc Banks, who heard it by chance in a Brighton pub. The song, She Felt Cool, later soundtracked a pivotal scene in the award-winning cult film Pictures of Lily. That success inspired Jimmy to try his hand at instrumental film music. He sent a horror-soundtrack piece entitled Magus to BBC Introducing, expecting nothing to come of it. Broadcaster Tom Robinson put it to a public vote and, to Jimmy’s amazement, he won. “I thought, they’ll never play this,” says Jimmy. “It sounds like I’m trying to scare you off.”
Jimmy’s mesmerising guitar work has also found a huge online audience through the popular YouTube sailing channel Sailing La Vagabonde, where viewers came to recognise his dark, steely style from, among other things, footage of sharks.
That long and unlikely road now leads to Symptoms Of A Lean Condition, a lively, pacey collection of original roots-rock songs released across digital platforms on 9 September. Jimmy spent two years writing the record, selecting its nine tracks from around 60 songs. It moves from wit, swagger and irresistible guitar hooks into darker, more reflective territory, drawing candidly on his own experiences of love and life. “It’s a very personal album, based on my own experiences of love and life,” says Jimmy. “I chose the best songs from 60. Mostly it’s upbeat, but at the end it gets downbeat. It’s almost too personal – there may be people who are upset about what I’ve sung. I’m not saying who.”
Jimmy will preview songs from the album at The Barrelhouse Ballroom, accompanied by local musical heavyweights Will Tyler on drums and Georgia on bass. The hometown show lands six days before the album’s official release. Expect roots rock, wailing slide guitar, gripping stories, swampy riffs and powerful, emotionally charged playing from a man who has spent a lifetime in the craft, from the tour bus to the workshop and now, finally, back where he belongs: on stage.
LISTEN: Preview Symptoms Of A Lean Condition on Bandcamp
TICKETS: Jimmy Pinch plays The Barrelhouse Ballroom, Totnes, on Thursday 3 September 2026 at 7.30pm. Book tickets here.