One afternoon in Benidorm in 1998, Simon Taylor saw something that quietly changed the direction of his life.
He was nineteen, on holiday with his girlfriend, when he came across a flamenco guitarist teaching a pupil in a small courtyard.
There was nothing resembling a grand musical epiphany about the setting. No stage. No festival crowd. Just a guitarist, a student and a young man who stopped long enough to become completely absorbed by what he was watching.
“The scene enraptured me and had a profound effect. I probably made my mind up at that very moment that I wanted to learn to play guitar.”
A couple of months later, for his twentieth birthday, his girlfriend’s father gave him his first guitar.
More than a quarter of a century later, that instrument’s descendants have taken Simon through flamenco, Brazilian music, rock, pop, ambient textures, electronic rhythms and into a new band whose sound he describes, with pleasing understatement, as “fairly funky on the whole.”
On Sunday 25 October, that journey brings him to North Shields, where Simon will play a 30-minute original solo set as part of PLAY THE MARKET, our growing live music programme at the I Love North Shields Vintage Market.
And perhaps appropriately, he’s bringing the nylon-string guitar.
THE GUITAR CAME FIRST
That encounter in Spain left its fingerprints on Simon’s music.
Flamenco became an early influence, followed by Brazilian music, and the nylon-string guitar remains at the centre of his solo performances.
But trying to put Simon Taylor neatly into a genre becomes difficult fairly quickly.
“Expect a mixture of rock, pop and Latin influences with an emphasis on eclecticism. I write in a variety of different genres, which reflects my broad tastes in music.”
Eclecticism can sometimes be shorthand for a musician who hasn’t decided what they want to sound like.
In Simon’s case, it feels more like the opposite.
After years of listening, writing and playing, he’s comfortable enough to let different musical worlds collide.
His latest single makes that particularly clear.
“I SMELL A RAT”
If you’re going to listen to one Simon Taylor track before the Vintage Market, he wants it to be his latest release, “I Smell A Rat.”
Not because it’s the easiest summary of his catalogue.
Quite the opposite.
The track mixes drum ‘n’ bass rhythms with ambient pop, pushing away from some of the more retro elements of his previous work.
But its significance goes beyond production.
“It was also written during some of the most tumultuous days of my life.”
Four years separated those experiences from Simon finally returning to them in the studio.
Recorded with musicians and producers at Blank Studios in Newcastle, the resulting track became less a snapshot of a difficult moment than something viewed from the other side of it.
“I am both proud and happy that I got through the experiences that informed this song to come back four years later and tell the tale through this recording.”
There’s something quietly powerful in that distinction.
Writing a song while you’re inside an experience is one thing. Returning years later, with enough distance to shape it into something other people can hear, is another.
For Simon, “I Smell A Rat” represents both survival and movement: a newer sound, but also evidence of having made it somewhere beyond the circumstances that produced it.
ALWAYS LISTENING
Ask Simon what he’s listening to now and the answer moves almost as widely as his own music.
He’s recently discovered French duo Paradis, whose album Recto Verso has been on near-constant rotation.
“They have a lush synth-pop sound and I’ve been listening to their album Recto Verso non-stop for the last couple of days.”
Closer to home, his ear moves towards jazzier territory, including Swannek and the John Pope Quintet.
But then the pop instincts reappear.
Simon points to Melanie Baker, Lizzie Esau and Cortney Dixon as North East artists whose talent and career journeys have impressed him.
Latin guitar. Brazilian music. Rock. Pop. Jazz. Drum ‘n’ bass. Ambient music. French synth-pop.
The thread running through Simon Taylor’s music might simply be curiosity.
DISCOVERING NORTH SHIELDS — LATE
And then there’s North Shields.
Simon admits he’s arrived at the discovery later than he probably should have.
“The Loading Bay looks a really cool place to play in a town that I have discovered embarrassingly late in life is full of such.”
We’ll forgive him.
Because The Loading Bay feels like exactly the sort of place where this music belongs.
It’s not a conventional concert venue. It’s the rawer, industrial downstairs space at Salt Market Social — part market floor, part social space and, increasingly, somewhere we’re hoping people will discover musicians they might not otherwise have encountered.
Simon is planning to use his half hour to give the audience a glimpse of where his music is heading next.
“I’m going to try and make my set as upbeat as possible so that people can get a vague notion of how my new band sounds, which is to say fairly funky on the whole.”
That sounds rather good to us.
PLAY THE MARKET
Live music is becoming an increasingly important part of our Vintage Market Sundays.
We’re working with LLIVELY Music to bring musicians into the market throughout the day — not as background noise, but as another reason to stop, listen and discover something.
A different act every 30 minutes.
Vintage upstairs and downstairs.
Food. Drinks. Records. Clothes. Antiques. Collectables.
And somewhere amongst all of that, a musician with a nylon-string guitar whose story began when he happened to walk past a flamenco lesson in a Spanish courtyard 28 years ago.
That’s exactly the kind of collision we like.
Simon Taylor plays the I Love North Shields Vintage Market on Sunday 25 October, with his 30-minute set scheduled for 11:20am–11:50am.
Come down early.
You might discover something you weren’t looking for.
That applies to the music as much as the vintage.
LISTEN TO SIMON TAYLOR
Follow Simon on Instagram @simontaylorsound and Facebook.
Listen to his music on Spotify or explore his releases on Bandcamp.
I LOVE NORTH SHIELDS VINTAGE MARKET — AUTUMN EDITION
Sunday 25 October 2026
Vintage Market: 10am–4pm
Food, drinks & live music until 7pm
Salt Market Social · North Shields Fish Quay
50+ independent traders · Two floors · Free entry
Come for the vintage. Stay for the social.
