“I’ve just always wanted to be a musician. My parents say I was singing before I could speak.”
Ally Craig from Avant-punk group Bug Prentice is an Oxford-based guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Born with Muscular Dystrophy, Ally is a wheelchair-user, and has a unique way of playing the guitar. Typically, guitars are strapped to be played at the waist. Ally does that, too, but instead the guitar lays flat across his lap, and he presses down on the strings to produce sounds, similar to piano-playing.
But the guitar isn’t the only instrument that Ally can play. He knew that songwriting was his passion from a young age, “so learning an instrument went hand-in-hand with that.” Ally wrote his first few songs at around 9 years old after learning the tenor horn and keyboard. He can also play the bass guitar as well.
Ally joined his first band in secondary school. However, they disbanded after the members were all separated into different universities. Although Ally did not pursue a music degree, he continued to seek out music as a career. And after a few years playing solo gigs, Ally formed Bug Prentice.
“I found it boring and lonely not having collaborators. I love music that surprises me, and it’s a lot harder to be surprised by yourself!”
Ally draws inspiration from many musical influences, including The Beatles, Tim Smith, and Sonic Youth. And after 7 years in the making, his album, The Way It Crumbles, was released in late 2015.
Having toured in various venues in Oxford and across the country, Ally has certainly come across many inaccessible venues. “The number of inaccessible venues in Oxford alone is deeply frustrating to me,” he says. “There are lots of little venues in basements or up steep flight of stairs – awkward to access even if you don’t have mobility problems!” Many of these venues, according to Ally, can be easily made accessible just by adding a ramp and a doorbell ring for assistance. Ally does, however, acknowledge the work of Attitude is Everything, a charity that has been working towards making music more accessible for both musicians and audiences with disabilities.
Over the years, Ally has found a way to transform his passion into his career, and hopes that future potential musicians with disabilities can strive to do the same as well.
“If you want to be creative, you can find a way. Use any instruments, technology, or bric-a-brac available to you. If you can’t play an instrument in the conventional way, try an unconventional way. Experiment. Collaborate with like-minded people. If you’re just starting out, it might (probably will) sound bad. But do it anyway, for the sheer enjoyment of doing it. And the more you do it, the better you’ll get.”
And one day, it may very well be you on the stage playing to a crowd of adoring fans.
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