This was an open air gig at the bandstand in the park, hosted by Acoustic Brew. I'm not going to do a track by track on this one, because unfortunately I was let down by losing power to the sound system and I have a feeling my set was a constant stream of feedback - and not the constructive kind. But for the record, the set list was:
We Will Survive (slow intro)
Girl's Names
Walkin' On The Sun
Storm from the North
The First Footprint
Get Out Of My Head
Bitterness
A couple of things though:
I'd borrowed Dale's guitar because mine wasn't coming through very well in the open air environment, and it was the first time I'd done an acoustic gig - or any gig, thinking about it - with a guitar in Eflat tuning. For the most part it worked OK but with some of those capo'd songs, the close proximity of the frets really did make them harder to play accurately. Then again, that also coincided with the first time I've ever played Walkin' On The Sun in the right key! I mention this because when I get my new guitar (hey, a guy can dream) I'm thinking of keeping it in Eflat tuning. I'm not sure how good an idea this is because it's just so I can play things like Smash Mouth, 30 Seconds To Mars etc... I've never actually written anything in Eflat. Though if I ever do get round to doing Crashpoint again it is something I could consider as it fits my voice a little better - in that environment. On the other hand, if I had a guitar permanently in Eflat, chances are I might write something in the tuning!
I also made the exact same mistake I did when I played a similar set up in Stourbridge - not wear fingerless gloves! My fingers were absolutely frozen and honestly I'm surprised I managed to keep the notes as accurate as I did! Fair enough I only do this once a year, but it wouldn't be a bad investment, all things considered.
A nice day, in all. No one went mad for it but no one would in this sort of environment, and as an acoustic act I was basically background noise for a couple of hours out in the park. Glorified busking really. I've had worse days!
Saturday 24 December 2011
23/21/2011: The Holly Bush, Cradley Heath
This was another gig put on by Cal and Joy from Prickly Promotions. They put me on first again and I was left with the unenviable task of opening the night, which in front of a very unfamiliar crowd (which included my Dad and my brother, neither of whom had been to any of my gigs for years) was always going to be a challenge.
So what made me think it was a good idea to open with Storm from the North? It's not exactly my most accessible song and would usually go somewhere around the middle. I've opened with it in the recent past but it works better in front of people who have seen me before and have heard me open with the same 3 songs a number of times. That being said, I played the song well, with the exception of maybe one fluffed chord.
After introducing myself and making the Shrewish Vegan comment, I launched in to Bitterness - the clean version, as there were kids in the audience. It's funny, I spend 9/10 years refusing to write swearing in to my songs, with one or two very notable exceptions (anyone remember Jacobean Tragedy?) and now that I finally do, I come to realise just how constricting it can be with regard to my set list. I don't even bother playing A Lonely Night if there's kids in the audience; it's just too problematical for that. The song went as well as it ever does, though I may need a new capo before too long as I think the spring is going in the one I'm currently using.
Get Out Of My Head was next. I played this one OK and covered up the times I nearly forgot the words with some very slight delays in delivering the vocals, which added to it actually. Not sure if it was the right audience for it - it's the arty kind of song that tends to go down better in front of an older audience than this - but the response had been quite flat up to this point and I was thinking I'd have to rescue the set with a couple of covers at the end, so I wanted to get my heavyweights out first.
At that point I launched in to one song that is always guaranteed to go down well: A Little Respect by Erasure/Wheatus. There were some people in the crowd who knew it, and I saw Cal having a dance while manning the door to the room, but I think the fact that I cheered up made this song work as much as anything else. After all, I don't sound much like the guys from Erasure or Wheatus! Slightly mistimed on some of those chords, which I put down to lack of practice as this was the first time I'd picked up my guitar for about a week.
After asking the audience if they wanted a happy song or a sad song, I got the reply that I'm always going to get to such a question: Happy. I followed it up by joking that it writes off most of my set list, and went in to Never Forget You by the Noisettes. I don't know how many people knew it but it was the best I've ever played that one, either on my own or with the band, and as a set closer I could have picked far worse songs than this.
So tonight was made tough by the unfamiliarity of the audience, and for that reason I'd probably have been better off aiming for a standard set peppered with slightly more than the usual number of covers. Something to keep in mind for next week when I'm playing the Cancer Research afternoon event for Prickly. All things considered though, I think I did a good job. If I'd change anything it would be the position of the stool, as I was constantly having to lean forward on a stool that felt a few pounds away from breaking anyway, and this would have meant an admittedly comical but not entirely welcome fall down the stairs. Thanks to everyone who came, see you all again next week!
So what made me think it was a good idea to open with Storm from the North? It's not exactly my most accessible song and would usually go somewhere around the middle. I've opened with it in the recent past but it works better in front of people who have seen me before and have heard me open with the same 3 songs a number of times. That being said, I played the song well, with the exception of maybe one fluffed chord.
After introducing myself and making the Shrewish Vegan comment, I launched in to Bitterness - the clean version, as there were kids in the audience. It's funny, I spend 9/10 years refusing to write swearing in to my songs, with one or two very notable exceptions (anyone remember Jacobean Tragedy?) and now that I finally do, I come to realise just how constricting it can be with regard to my set list. I don't even bother playing A Lonely Night if there's kids in the audience; it's just too problematical for that. The song went as well as it ever does, though I may need a new capo before too long as I think the spring is going in the one I'm currently using.
Get Out Of My Head was next. I played this one OK and covered up the times I nearly forgot the words with some very slight delays in delivering the vocals, which added to it actually. Not sure if it was the right audience for it - it's the arty kind of song that tends to go down better in front of an older audience than this - but the response had been quite flat up to this point and I was thinking I'd have to rescue the set with a couple of covers at the end, so I wanted to get my heavyweights out first.
At that point I launched in to one song that is always guaranteed to go down well: A Little Respect by Erasure/Wheatus. There were some people in the crowd who knew it, and I saw Cal having a dance while manning the door to the room, but I think the fact that I cheered up made this song work as much as anything else. After all, I don't sound much like the guys from Erasure or Wheatus! Slightly mistimed on some of those chords, which I put down to lack of practice as this was the first time I'd picked up my guitar for about a week.
After asking the audience if they wanted a happy song or a sad song, I got the reply that I'm always going to get to such a question: Happy. I followed it up by joking that it writes off most of my set list, and went in to Never Forget You by the Noisettes. I don't know how many people knew it but it was the best I've ever played that one, either on my own or with the band, and as a set closer I could have picked far worse songs than this.
So tonight was made tough by the unfamiliarity of the audience, and for that reason I'd probably have been better off aiming for a standard set peppered with slightly more than the usual number of covers. Something to keep in mind for next week when I'm playing the Cancer Research afternoon event for Prickly. All things considered though, I think I did a good job. If I'd change anything it would be the position of the stool, as I was constantly having to lean forward on a stool that felt a few pounds away from breaking anyway, and this would have meant an admittedly comical but not entirely welcome fall down the stairs. Thanks to everyone who came, see you all again next week!
Thursday 22 December 2011
17/12/2011: Grand Theft Audio at the Fordhouse Cricket Club
I didn't think to write my set list down for this one. Let's hope I can remember it...
This one came about because someone dropped out of the gig that Grand Theft Audio were doing at the Fordhouse Cricket Club in Wolverhampton, and Sam was kind enough to ask me to fill in. I was only too happy to oblige...
By the precedent of the gig we had done last Wednesday, Storm from the North appeared to be working quite well as the set opener, so I decided to go for it again. I'm not entirely sure but I think this one might have suffered a bit from sound problems; because of circumstances beyond any capacity or desire to control I didn't get a soundcheck and to me it didn't sound all that good. I played it OK as far as I know but it wasn't coming through the foldback monitors very clearly. That being said, it probably sounded nothing like how it comes out the front, and nobody said anything to me afterwards, so it was probably OK.
I introduced Bitterness as 'A reasonably polite version of the song that should be familiar to anyone who's seen me before,' which was about half the people in the room. So one of my biggest guns was fired early... possibly not too good a choice now that I think about it, at the time I reckon I'd have thought that I needed to keep the mood cheery and didn't want to lower the tone by playing a spiteful tirade of abuse, swearing or no, right at the end. (By the way, I chose to do the clean version because there were a significant number of small children in the room.) I played it OK, probably not my best but not bad at all.
Get Out Of My Head was next, but for once this one was pretty nonedescript. I can't really think of anything to say about this one, although thinking about it I've actually gone and relegated it to the mid-set jobbers...
And then I went and mucked it all up AGAIN by forgetting the same lyric in The First Footprint that I did the previous Wednesday at Katies. This was something of a let-down for me, especially since I stopped to think about it. I crawed through the song, thinking that though I'd teased the audience by singing the first line of All I Want For Christmas is You - a song I neither know how to sing nor play - I couldn't helpt thinking I'd have been better off singing that one.
I decided not to go out on a limb and play the slow intro to We Will Survive, as I needed to recover from the last song and it was not the time for experimentation! This one was actually quite worrying as I found myself unable to breathe for those last couple of choruses. Thinking about it, I've got another gig tomorrow - I'll check this one again. If this is something to do with the weight I've gained over the last year then I guess this will be as good an excuse as I need to do some exercise, stop eating crap and drop some of it...
I know the tone of this blog will have come across as quite negative, so let me just say it wasn't actually as bad as all that. I'm picking myself up on things I need to improve but it's not like these little mistakes spoiled the gig for me or the night for anyone else. It actually went OK. That's probably the last gig I'll do for Sam this year so I want to take this opportunity to thank him for all his support this year, I reckon about a third of what I've done couldn't have happened without him so well done, the music scene in Wolverhampton would be a poorer place without him!
This one came about because someone dropped out of the gig that Grand Theft Audio were doing at the Fordhouse Cricket Club in Wolverhampton, and Sam was kind enough to ask me to fill in. I was only too happy to oblige...
By the precedent of the gig we had done last Wednesday, Storm from the North appeared to be working quite well as the set opener, so I decided to go for it again. I'm not entirely sure but I think this one might have suffered a bit from sound problems; because of circumstances beyond any capacity or desire to control I didn't get a soundcheck and to me it didn't sound all that good. I played it OK as far as I know but it wasn't coming through the foldback monitors very clearly. That being said, it probably sounded nothing like how it comes out the front, and nobody said anything to me afterwards, so it was probably OK.
I introduced Bitterness as 'A reasonably polite version of the song that should be familiar to anyone who's seen me before,' which was about half the people in the room. So one of my biggest guns was fired early... possibly not too good a choice now that I think about it, at the time I reckon I'd have thought that I needed to keep the mood cheery and didn't want to lower the tone by playing a spiteful tirade of abuse, swearing or no, right at the end. (By the way, I chose to do the clean version because there were a significant number of small children in the room.) I played it OK, probably not my best but not bad at all.
Get Out Of My Head was next, but for once this one was pretty nonedescript. I can't really think of anything to say about this one, although thinking about it I've actually gone and relegated it to the mid-set jobbers...
And then I went and mucked it all up AGAIN by forgetting the same lyric in The First Footprint that I did the previous Wednesday at Katies. This was something of a let-down for me, especially since I stopped to think about it. I crawed through the song, thinking that though I'd teased the audience by singing the first line of All I Want For Christmas is You - a song I neither know how to sing nor play - I couldn't helpt thinking I'd have been better off singing that one.
I decided not to go out on a limb and play the slow intro to We Will Survive, as I needed to recover from the last song and it was not the time for experimentation! This one was actually quite worrying as I found myself unable to breathe for those last couple of choruses. Thinking about it, I've got another gig tomorrow - I'll check this one again. If this is something to do with the weight I've gained over the last year then I guess this will be as good an excuse as I need to do some exercise, stop eating crap and drop some of it...
I know the tone of this blog will have come across as quite negative, so let me just say it wasn't actually as bad as all that. I'm picking myself up on things I need to improve but it's not like these little mistakes spoiled the gig for me or the night for anyone else. It actually went OK. That's probably the last gig I'll do for Sam this year so I want to take this opportunity to thank him for all his support this year, I reckon about a third of what I've done couldn't have happened without him so well done, the music scene in Wolverhampton would be a poorer place without him!
16/12/2011
Just a quick one...
Aki Maera played a gig at a hall in Penkridge who's name I can't remember at this point. It was the same set list as before; we hadn't had time to rehearse again or iron out the previous identified faults, and the only real difference to the procedings - including all the delays - was the fact that I broke my A string half way through In The Attic. To be honest this was my fault as it had been nearly 2 years since I last changed the things, I should never have allowed that to happen and I know it.
More than that though, the band just weren't feeling it. I guess, with some semblance of sound management, we sounded better than we did at the Wheat Sheaf a couple of weeks before. But we didn't come away from this one feeling anywhere near as good as we did after that. All bands have a bad gig at some point and the onus will be on us to make sure it doesn't happen again, but as I said before, we have got a lot of work to do before we get there...
Aki Maera played a gig at a hall in Penkridge who's name I can't remember at this point. It was the same set list as before; we hadn't had time to rehearse again or iron out the previous identified faults, and the only real difference to the procedings - including all the delays - was the fact that I broke my A string half way through In The Attic. To be honest this was my fault as it had been nearly 2 years since I last changed the things, I should never have allowed that to happen and I know it.
More than that though, the band just weren't feeling it. I guess, with some semblance of sound management, we sounded better than we did at the Wheat Sheaf a couple of weeks before. But we didn't come away from this one feeling anywhere near as good as we did after that. All bands have a bad gig at some point and the onus will be on us to make sure it doesn't happen again, but as I said before, we have got a lot of work to do before we get there...
Thursday 15 December 2011
14/12/2011: Acoustic Brew at Katy Fitzgeralds with Sam Draisey and Elliot Burton
This is part of an experiment between me, Sam and Elliot; we've been putting together some good sets between us over the last few years, and after Codfest, I felt that the next step was to take the show on the road. We're trying to get gigs with some local promoters getting us all playing on the same night, to get people used to the idea that the 3 of us are playing together. We're tentatively calling it 'The Travelling Fools' at the moment. It was a modest audience tonight in Katies, no more than about 6 or 7 people at the most. Nonetheless, I felt the stakes for me were quite high after some truly storming sets from Elliot and Sam. Elliot dispensed with his usual covers in favour of his own material; it really drove home just what a good songwriter he actually is, and Sam was as ever immaculate. His Christmas song, which is called 'Nan's song' and is available to download, by the way, will set familiar memories off with a great many people...
It didn't get off to a flying start for me. Following the other's example I opened with my Christmas song The First Footprint, and proceeded to forget the words halfway through. Stopping to figure it out was a mistake that I really shouldn't be making at this stage, but as I said afterwards, in my defence I only play that song a couple of times a year anyway.
I then went in to Storm from the North. It was originally my intention to open with it because I wanted to experiment by putting it at a different point in the set. (Regular blog readers will know I almost always put it either 5th, or as close to the middle as I can.) I found the low E a little difficult to sing but other than that it went quite well. Elliot said afterwards that this was the song he remembered as having the widest vocal range, and from low E to high C I'm inclined to agree. I forgot he hadn't heard me play this one yet!
Next was Girl's Names. That country lick at the start's getting smoother! That song is quite familiar to me now and I had to make an effort to keep concentrating but I managed it.
I then tried We Will Survive with a 'slow' intro. I'll have to be careful where I'm going with that, I haven't forgotten the Crashpoint days where I'd come up with a fast rock song, then come up with a slower picked version of the same song and Emma would like the slow version better. It worked well enough tonight in front of what was let's face it a very familiar audience, but if people don't know what the song's supposed to sound like in the first place, I doubt it would make much of an impact and would be misleading to the people who then heard the 'real' version.
I realised too late that I'd played We Will Survive too early; and I had to put Get Out Of My Head and A Lonely Night - two songs that move at a very similar pace - together. Not something I would have chosen to do, but I haven't written a set list for near enough a year now so I'm bound to make mistakes like that on occasion. I played A Lonely Night, after refusing to explain what it was about (poor gig attendance) as the small number of people who were there would find it quite patronising. Dale and Sam listened to my lyrics and were amused when they figured it out, and Dale looked surprised, shocked, and not a little entertained by the foul language in the song which for once I was allowed to use. There were times when I was about a tenth of a second away from forgetting the words to it and came in quite late with the vocals, but with that kind of loose vocal style it didn't make much difference.
I tried Get Out Of My Head, I've taken to doing a 'buzzsaw' intro to it which I like, and if an audience has seen me before I think it's probably good for them to be going, 'Oh wow, what's he going to do now?' and then play something familiar. The song went pretty well actually, and my earlier mistake with the order of the songs didn't seem to matter.
I ended with Bitterness, after dedicating it to the Wharf Bar, where I sat for three and a half hours last Saturday and didn't get to play. As you can imagine, this put me in a foul mood, and I might have another song out of that if I can sort some music out to it. I was very impressed tonight when I started stomping in the quiet bit and everybody else started stomping along with me, and imitated the 'bang bang bang' bit on the tables! That's probably the best I've ever ended a show, and Sam told me afterwards it was the best he'd ever seen me!
Overall I'm very pleased with how I played, it was once again an example of a time where I've played to a small but appreciative audience and really enjoyed the experience.
With the set lists, by the way, perhaps in the future I might be able to organise my set a little better if I, you know, write one. But the most I usually play is 7 songs, and it only really helps if I've got a band with me who need to know what they're supposed to be doing. So at present, I'll stick to what I'm doing...
See you a week on Friday at the Holly Bush in Cradley Heath!
It didn't get off to a flying start for me. Following the other's example I opened with my Christmas song The First Footprint, and proceeded to forget the words halfway through. Stopping to figure it out was a mistake that I really shouldn't be making at this stage, but as I said afterwards, in my defence I only play that song a couple of times a year anyway.
I then went in to Storm from the North. It was originally my intention to open with it because I wanted to experiment by putting it at a different point in the set. (Regular blog readers will know I almost always put it either 5th, or as close to the middle as I can.) I found the low E a little difficult to sing but other than that it went quite well. Elliot said afterwards that this was the song he remembered as having the widest vocal range, and from low E to high C I'm inclined to agree. I forgot he hadn't heard me play this one yet!
Next was Girl's Names. That country lick at the start's getting smoother! That song is quite familiar to me now and I had to make an effort to keep concentrating but I managed it.
I then tried We Will Survive with a 'slow' intro. I'll have to be careful where I'm going with that, I haven't forgotten the Crashpoint days where I'd come up with a fast rock song, then come up with a slower picked version of the same song and Emma would like the slow version better. It worked well enough tonight in front of what was let's face it a very familiar audience, but if people don't know what the song's supposed to sound like in the first place, I doubt it would make much of an impact and would be misleading to the people who then heard the 'real' version.
I realised too late that I'd played We Will Survive too early; and I had to put Get Out Of My Head and A Lonely Night - two songs that move at a very similar pace - together. Not something I would have chosen to do, but I haven't written a set list for near enough a year now so I'm bound to make mistakes like that on occasion. I played A Lonely Night, after refusing to explain what it was about (poor gig attendance) as the small number of people who were there would find it quite patronising. Dale and Sam listened to my lyrics and were amused when they figured it out, and Dale looked surprised, shocked, and not a little entertained by the foul language in the song which for once I was allowed to use. There were times when I was about a tenth of a second away from forgetting the words to it and came in quite late with the vocals, but with that kind of loose vocal style it didn't make much difference.
I tried Get Out Of My Head, I've taken to doing a 'buzzsaw' intro to it which I like, and if an audience has seen me before I think it's probably good for them to be going, 'Oh wow, what's he going to do now?' and then play something familiar. The song went pretty well actually, and my earlier mistake with the order of the songs didn't seem to matter.
I ended with Bitterness, after dedicating it to the Wharf Bar, where I sat for three and a half hours last Saturday and didn't get to play. As you can imagine, this put me in a foul mood, and I might have another song out of that if I can sort some music out to it. I was very impressed tonight when I started stomping in the quiet bit and everybody else started stomping along with me, and imitated the 'bang bang bang' bit on the tables! That's probably the best I've ever ended a show, and Sam told me afterwards it was the best he'd ever seen me!
Overall I'm very pleased with how I played, it was once again an example of a time where I've played to a small but appreciative audience and really enjoyed the experience.
With the set lists, by the way, perhaps in the future I might be able to organise my set a little better if I, you know, write one. But the most I usually play is 7 songs, and it only really helps if I've got a band with me who need to know what they're supposed to be doing. So at present, I'll stick to what I'm doing...
See you a week on Friday at the Holly Bush in Cradley Heath!
Thursday 8 December 2011
6/12/2011: Open Mic at the Hartley Arms
The open mic at the Hartley Arms that Sam runs has now been moved to Mondays for various reasons, most of which pertaining to the pub's domino team. Since then, the turnout has been modest, at best. That doesn't mean we can't have a laugh with it though...
As I did the last time I did an open mic with Sam, I decided to do a set of mainly covers. I told the people in the pub that I reckoned that some of my covers need a bit of practice; no time like the present. I began with Linger by The Cranberries, where I was once again reminded of how silly I feel singing the 7 syllables in the word 'finger.' I played it OK but to make that song work I really need to get that A6 chord in the right place. One to keep in mind for next time I'm playing with a girl singer though!
Next I did a Christmas song, The Power of Love, after a not-so-quick scramble to tune my guitar up. I fudged the E11 chord a couple of times, and I know I'm missing some chords because I'm pretty sure there's a Bm in there somewhere and I didn't play it once. It's also a little too high for me to sing, but that didn't stop me trying!
I followed that up with my one original song for the evening - The First Footprint, which I wrote for the Christmas album last year. Given the fact that it's been near enough that long since I last played it, I was surprised that I remembered all the words, though I did mess up a couple of chords. I certainly enjoy playing it more than my new one, which I haven't learned properly yet and doesn't really capture that same Christmassy spirit...
I explained to the audience that despite my intentions to enjoy Christmas last year when I wrote that song, I found it very difficult owing to the onion in my basement, and spilling oil over the engine of my car. Realising that I was moaning far too much, I decided to cheer up a little bit with A Little Respect, the one cover I do that I can play near enough perfectly because I play it so much. Need to be careful with those Bflats, other than that I'm there.
When I went up for my second set, I began by playing a song that I hadn't played for years and certainly never played live, Let Robeson Sing by the Manic Street Preachers. It's one of the ones I learned to play when I was just starting to learn to play guitar, and for that reason I think has stuck with me since then; I'm still getting most of it right including the words. Not bad, not bad!
I then reduced the volume to barely even a whisper and played Mad World, closer to the Gary Jules version as much as anything else. I have to be careful when I'm doing this, and I certainly don't do it much, but in this case it really worked because the room went quiet and you could hear a pin drop. I'll certainly break this one out again for a suitably morbid gig!
Then I decided to play some Feeder, settling on Yesterday Went Too Soon, which I'm enjoying playing more than High at the moment. I should probably learn some of the songs of their more recent albums to cover their later career; people barely recognise Feeder songs anyway so it's not as though it will make much difference to the impact of the show. In any case, Yesterday proved a little too high for my voice tonight, and I could feel it breaking in some places. Still love playing it though!
I finished off with probably my favourite Stone Roses tune, She Bangs The Drums. That one always goes down well no matter who I play it to, which says something given what a 'scene' band the Stone Roses were. One I think I shall keep and do again in the future.
Not a bad show, all in all, though it was a case of experimenting with some different songs to a small but familiar audience. It's certainly been useful for finding out what covers work and what don't, so I know which to break out in the future!
As I did the last time I did an open mic with Sam, I decided to do a set of mainly covers. I told the people in the pub that I reckoned that some of my covers need a bit of practice; no time like the present. I began with Linger by The Cranberries, where I was once again reminded of how silly I feel singing the 7 syllables in the word 'finger.' I played it OK but to make that song work I really need to get that A6 chord in the right place. One to keep in mind for next time I'm playing with a girl singer though!
Next I did a Christmas song, The Power of Love, after a not-so-quick scramble to tune my guitar up. I fudged the E11 chord a couple of times, and I know I'm missing some chords because I'm pretty sure there's a Bm in there somewhere and I didn't play it once. It's also a little too high for me to sing, but that didn't stop me trying!
I followed that up with my one original song for the evening - The First Footprint, which I wrote for the Christmas album last year. Given the fact that it's been near enough that long since I last played it, I was surprised that I remembered all the words, though I did mess up a couple of chords. I certainly enjoy playing it more than my new one, which I haven't learned properly yet and doesn't really capture that same Christmassy spirit...
I explained to the audience that despite my intentions to enjoy Christmas last year when I wrote that song, I found it very difficult owing to the onion in my basement, and spilling oil over the engine of my car. Realising that I was moaning far too much, I decided to cheer up a little bit with A Little Respect, the one cover I do that I can play near enough perfectly because I play it so much. Need to be careful with those Bflats, other than that I'm there.
When I went up for my second set, I began by playing a song that I hadn't played for years and certainly never played live, Let Robeson Sing by the Manic Street Preachers. It's one of the ones I learned to play when I was just starting to learn to play guitar, and for that reason I think has stuck with me since then; I'm still getting most of it right including the words. Not bad, not bad!
I then reduced the volume to barely even a whisper and played Mad World, closer to the Gary Jules version as much as anything else. I have to be careful when I'm doing this, and I certainly don't do it much, but in this case it really worked because the room went quiet and you could hear a pin drop. I'll certainly break this one out again for a suitably morbid gig!
Then I decided to play some Feeder, settling on Yesterday Went Too Soon, which I'm enjoying playing more than High at the moment. I should probably learn some of the songs of their more recent albums to cover their later career; people barely recognise Feeder songs anyway so it's not as though it will make much difference to the impact of the show. In any case, Yesterday proved a little too high for my voice tonight, and I could feel it breaking in some places. Still love playing it though!
I finished off with probably my favourite Stone Roses tune, She Bangs The Drums. That one always goes down well no matter who I play it to, which says something given what a 'scene' band the Stone Roses were. One I think I shall keep and do again in the future.
Not a bad show, all in all, though it was a case of experimenting with some different songs to a small but familiar audience. It's certainly been useful for finding out what covers work and what don't, so I know which to break out in the future!
30/11/2011: Aki Maera: The Wheatsheaf, Walsall
Aki Maera's first gig. This one had been a long time coming... and I also forgot to blog it. Now, I didn't really analyse the band's performance, only my own, so this time I'm just going to write out the set list and comment on the whole thing. The songs we played were:
Valkyries
In the Attic
Blissful Moment
Until Then
Shy
Drifted
Rise
Monday It's Too Late (encore)
We had some quite positive feedback from this, given that it was our first gig, and to be fair we played the songs pretty tightly. There were mistakes, there always are, and there were definitely some points where Cj was running out of steam on those drums and playing the songs a lot slower than we rehearsed, but this is all part of the learning curve. Marcus and Ian did very well indeed, considering neither of them had played a gig before. And the promoters seemed to enjoy it as well.
However someone who wishes to remain anonymous (I don't know who it is) provided us with some constructive feedback. Our biggest issue at the moment is the transition between songs; we use 3 different tunings in the band and having to change them between 4 out of the 8 songs we played deprived the set of any momentum. The way around it is basically to arrange the set more efficiently; some songs are better grouped together than others. It will blunt the impact of the set somewhat, because with the exception of Monday It's Too Late (this was an unplanned addition) that was the best order the songs could have gone in. But unless we can get a guitar tech to help us out, plus another 2 guitars for Marcus, we should try to rearrange the set. Constantly having to retune our guitars is more trouble than it's worth.
The other problem was our levels were out. Well, it's all very well people saying that after the gig when we can't do anything about it, but we were never going to notice during the show. Cj hadn't got a monitor, we could barely hear anything but ourselves, and even if we could, we know enough about playing live to know that the sound we get on the stage is nothing like how it sounds at the front of the house. One of the promoters needed to tell us that our levels were out and how to put them right; there was nothing really we could have done about it.
There were also apparently some less-than-kind comments about Marcus' voice. I haven't read them. I'm not going to worry too much about this, though. For one thing, I've seen a marked improvement in the whole band and particularly his voice over the last couple of months. For another, someone signed Kings of Leon and that guy's got a very rough voice. So if it's going to get better like it has been doing, and doesn't really matter too much anyway, then there's no problem!
We have no more gigs booked yet and I don't know when we're practicing next so watch this space...
Valkyries
In the Attic
Blissful Moment
Until Then
Shy
Drifted
Rise
Monday It's Too Late (encore)
We had some quite positive feedback from this, given that it was our first gig, and to be fair we played the songs pretty tightly. There were mistakes, there always are, and there were definitely some points where Cj was running out of steam on those drums and playing the songs a lot slower than we rehearsed, but this is all part of the learning curve. Marcus and Ian did very well indeed, considering neither of them had played a gig before. And the promoters seemed to enjoy it as well.
However someone who wishes to remain anonymous (I don't know who it is) provided us with some constructive feedback. Our biggest issue at the moment is the transition between songs; we use 3 different tunings in the band and having to change them between 4 out of the 8 songs we played deprived the set of any momentum. The way around it is basically to arrange the set more efficiently; some songs are better grouped together than others. It will blunt the impact of the set somewhat, because with the exception of Monday It's Too Late (this was an unplanned addition) that was the best order the songs could have gone in. But unless we can get a guitar tech to help us out, plus another 2 guitars for Marcus, we should try to rearrange the set. Constantly having to retune our guitars is more trouble than it's worth.
The other problem was our levels were out. Well, it's all very well people saying that after the gig when we can't do anything about it, but we were never going to notice during the show. Cj hadn't got a monitor, we could barely hear anything but ourselves, and even if we could, we know enough about playing live to know that the sound we get on the stage is nothing like how it sounds at the front of the house. One of the promoters needed to tell us that our levels were out and how to put them right; there was nothing really we could have done about it.
There were also apparently some less-than-kind comments about Marcus' voice. I haven't read them. I'm not going to worry too much about this, though. For one thing, I've seen a marked improvement in the whole band and particularly his voice over the last couple of months. For another, someone signed Kings of Leon and that guy's got a very rough voice. So if it's going to get better like it has been doing, and doesn't really matter too much anyway, then there's no problem!
We have no more gigs booked yet and I don't know when we're practicing next so watch this space...
3/12/2011: The Fakes: The Blue Brick, Brierly Hill
What's this, you say? 3 Fakes gigs in one year? Are you sure?
Yes, I am, although to be fair this was our first 'full' gig in over two years, the previous 2 gigs were at the Baseline and we can play for a lot longer than time constraints usually allow with those guys. Long-term blog readers will remember we completely bombed the last time we did a gig, and I won't lie there has been talk of "If we do a gig that shit again, let's call it a day." I won't go into the reasons why that gig went the way it did, but suffice to say the stakes were quite high for this one.
And we very nearly had to pull it! During the soundcheck it became apparent that our PA was cutting out every 2-3 minutes. We reckon it was because a capacitator had blown in the circuitry; how that could have happened on a PA that I think we've only used 3 times so far I don't know, but it had certainly been a long time since we last used it. Thankfully we knew someone in Wall Heath we could hire a PA mixer from and we went through that. Close call though.
What was different about this gig is that we had our own sound engineer (we usually do it ourselves) called Ryan helping us out. What he was basically doing all the way through the gig, fair play to him, was boosting the vocals when we needed them, so if he could see either me or Matt was about to sing he'd turn up our mics and back down again afterwards to stop them feeding back. The result, we were reliably informed by Bob Drew, was the best vocal mix we'd ever had. The same could not be said for the guitars, though. Ryan had told me to turn mine down, which from where he was standing was probably the right thing to do as I was overpowering the other instruments. However the sound was not carrying across the whole room, which meant for the first half of the gig no one could hear my guitar solos. I turned it up again for the next half of the show, but there was a huge variation of volume I needed for some of the songs and it's a difficult call to make. Seemed to work OK though, everyone enjoyed it...
Highlights? I think that was the best I ever played She Bangs The Drums, and I really like that song anyway so it was good to see people enjoy it. Steve running off the stage to go to the toilet before playing I Wanna Be Adored was amusing, if nothing else. Fire by Kasabian was a good one as well, I think I got an overall better sound by stroking the strings gently with my fingers. Probably shouldn't rule out the whammy bar though. And the gig overall felt better than the last one we did, we really enjoyed it and can't wait to be there again!
Development points: With the levels, I'm just going to have to be really aware of what I'm doing with the lead guitar. The easy option is to buy a boost pedal, but to be honest I'd only really use it in the Fakes (There's rarely a need to boost my sound in the 82s, and I play bass in Aki Maera) and that's a lot of money to spend on a pedal just to use on a few songs in a covers band that at the most does 3 gigs a year. I'd like to get some new songs rolling out for the next gig but that's going to be a little tricky. Things are going to slow down for The Fakes now in terms of rehearsals because Drewey's going to be working away for the next couple of months, and we'll only really have Friday to rehearse - if we can all make it. That's by no means a guarantee, given that I'm off to see Amy every couple of weeks, or she comes up to me, and Steve's shifts not being conducive to a regular practicing pattern! But I'll see what I can do with getting them to play some new songs, or at least some songs we've never played live before. We should get Acquiesce by Oasis out by next gig, I think.
Looking forward to it, whatever happens!
Yes, I am, although to be fair this was our first 'full' gig in over two years, the previous 2 gigs were at the Baseline and we can play for a lot longer than time constraints usually allow with those guys. Long-term blog readers will remember we completely bombed the last time we did a gig, and I won't lie there has been talk of "If we do a gig that shit again, let's call it a day." I won't go into the reasons why that gig went the way it did, but suffice to say the stakes were quite high for this one.
And we very nearly had to pull it! During the soundcheck it became apparent that our PA was cutting out every 2-3 minutes. We reckon it was because a capacitator had blown in the circuitry; how that could have happened on a PA that I think we've only used 3 times so far I don't know, but it had certainly been a long time since we last used it. Thankfully we knew someone in Wall Heath we could hire a PA mixer from and we went through that. Close call though.
What was different about this gig is that we had our own sound engineer (we usually do it ourselves) called Ryan helping us out. What he was basically doing all the way through the gig, fair play to him, was boosting the vocals when we needed them, so if he could see either me or Matt was about to sing he'd turn up our mics and back down again afterwards to stop them feeding back. The result, we were reliably informed by Bob Drew, was the best vocal mix we'd ever had. The same could not be said for the guitars, though. Ryan had told me to turn mine down, which from where he was standing was probably the right thing to do as I was overpowering the other instruments. However the sound was not carrying across the whole room, which meant for the first half of the gig no one could hear my guitar solos. I turned it up again for the next half of the show, but there was a huge variation of volume I needed for some of the songs and it's a difficult call to make. Seemed to work OK though, everyone enjoyed it...
Highlights? I think that was the best I ever played She Bangs The Drums, and I really like that song anyway so it was good to see people enjoy it. Steve running off the stage to go to the toilet before playing I Wanna Be Adored was amusing, if nothing else. Fire by Kasabian was a good one as well, I think I got an overall better sound by stroking the strings gently with my fingers. Probably shouldn't rule out the whammy bar though. And the gig overall felt better than the last one we did, we really enjoyed it and can't wait to be there again!
Development points: With the levels, I'm just going to have to be really aware of what I'm doing with the lead guitar. The easy option is to buy a boost pedal, but to be honest I'd only really use it in the Fakes (There's rarely a need to boost my sound in the 82s, and I play bass in Aki Maera) and that's a lot of money to spend on a pedal just to use on a few songs in a covers band that at the most does 3 gigs a year. I'd like to get some new songs rolling out for the next gig but that's going to be a little tricky. Things are going to slow down for The Fakes now in terms of rehearsals because Drewey's going to be working away for the next couple of months, and we'll only really have Friday to rehearse - if we can all make it. That's by no means a guarantee, given that I'm off to see Amy every couple of weeks, or she comes up to me, and Steve's shifts not being conducive to a regular practicing pattern! But I'll see what I can do with getting them to play some new songs, or at least some songs we've never played live before. We should get Acquiesce by Oasis out by next gig, I think.
Looking forward to it, whatever happens!
Wednesday 30 November 2011
26/11/2011: Coven Beer Festival, Coven Memorial Hall
Now I know what you're thinking: What the hell am I doing in a Beer festival?
How this came about is that Sam was doing an open mic for the day there. It transpired that not all that many people turned up for the open mic (probably too busy with their Christmas Shopping) so when Sam texted me at 1.30 asking people to come then I was happy to oblige. I got there around about 3 and found that Sam had been more or less playing on his own for an hour and a half, with a short set from Baden to break things up a little bit. So, I took the quite impressive stage, and began:
Because of what was happening, I decided to do a set of mostly covers. I began with an old favourite, High by Feeder. Again I suffered from not concentrating; it's not a hard song to play and for that reason I tend to keep playing the wrong chords; I probably get away with it to a certain extent because the Gsus chords cloud the sound anyway but I shouldn't really be doing that at this stage. It went down to a kind of passive indifference, as is so often the case with Feeder songs, but they rarely go down badly.
Followed that up with the song that I now know is called Never Forget You by the Noisettes. This went absolutely fine until the key change and then I kept fluffing up the chords once again. I do get a bit confused with this one; as I've said before I do this song in the 82s and we do it in a different key to the original to fit the vocal style a little better. Fine, except sometimes it's hard to remember which version of the song I'm actually playing and I end up making a complete mess of it from time to time, in both the band and the solo. The answer? Practice more...
Wanting to play one of my own songs but not wishing to let down the cheery atmosphere I then went on to play We Will Survive. I played it ok, I think, and it was the best reaction I could have expected given the environment. I felt exhausted though. Need to work on my fitness, I shouldn't be knackered after three songs!
Back to the covers for the next one, which was A Little Respect. This is where it started to work a bit better for me, because I could see some people singing along and getting in to it a little more than they were before, the difference obviously was I was playing something they actually know. This was probably the best song I played for the afternoon, I sang it fine and didn't mess up the guitar playing at all.
Sam was kind enough to give me another couple of songs so I went with another of my own, Bitterness. I always wanted to play this one anyway, but I've been taken to task before now for playing that one next to We Will Survive, and I had plans to end the gig so I needed to make sure I had enough songs to play it before I did! This went well; needed to edit out the swearing as it was a family event, but that's cool, and with a more energetic song I felt able to put a lot more into the performance.
Finally wrapped it up with On A Day Like This by Elbow. This was only the second time I've played that song live; it's a bit of a gamble because people need to sing along to the last part, otherwise it doesn't really work. Last time I tried it, it really didn't. But this time it did; some people were singing along with it and made it work! Trouble is it's been that song since I played it I forgot the sequece of vocal variations in the song, but never mind, we got there in the end.
So, not a bad one, and certainly quite good for an impromptu show like that. I think I need to practice some of those covers more if I'm going to take them out live though, those earlier songs were a bit sloppy.
Gig with Aki Maera tonight, Wheatsheaf in Walsall. Starts at 8! I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, but we'd appreciate your support if you could make it!
How this came about is that Sam was doing an open mic for the day there. It transpired that not all that many people turned up for the open mic (probably too busy with their Christmas Shopping) so when Sam texted me at 1.30 asking people to come then I was happy to oblige. I got there around about 3 and found that Sam had been more or less playing on his own for an hour and a half, with a short set from Baden to break things up a little bit. So, I took the quite impressive stage, and began:
Because of what was happening, I decided to do a set of mostly covers. I began with an old favourite, High by Feeder. Again I suffered from not concentrating; it's not a hard song to play and for that reason I tend to keep playing the wrong chords; I probably get away with it to a certain extent because the Gsus chords cloud the sound anyway but I shouldn't really be doing that at this stage. It went down to a kind of passive indifference, as is so often the case with Feeder songs, but they rarely go down badly.
Followed that up with the song that I now know is called Never Forget You by the Noisettes. This went absolutely fine until the key change and then I kept fluffing up the chords once again. I do get a bit confused with this one; as I've said before I do this song in the 82s and we do it in a different key to the original to fit the vocal style a little better. Fine, except sometimes it's hard to remember which version of the song I'm actually playing and I end up making a complete mess of it from time to time, in both the band and the solo. The answer? Practice more...
Wanting to play one of my own songs but not wishing to let down the cheery atmosphere I then went on to play We Will Survive. I played it ok, I think, and it was the best reaction I could have expected given the environment. I felt exhausted though. Need to work on my fitness, I shouldn't be knackered after three songs!
Back to the covers for the next one, which was A Little Respect. This is where it started to work a bit better for me, because I could see some people singing along and getting in to it a little more than they were before, the difference obviously was I was playing something they actually know. This was probably the best song I played for the afternoon, I sang it fine and didn't mess up the guitar playing at all.
Sam was kind enough to give me another couple of songs so I went with another of my own, Bitterness. I always wanted to play this one anyway, but I've been taken to task before now for playing that one next to We Will Survive, and I had plans to end the gig so I needed to make sure I had enough songs to play it before I did! This went well; needed to edit out the swearing as it was a family event, but that's cool, and with a more energetic song I felt able to put a lot more into the performance.
Finally wrapped it up with On A Day Like This by Elbow. This was only the second time I've played that song live; it's a bit of a gamble because people need to sing along to the last part, otherwise it doesn't really work. Last time I tried it, it really didn't. But this time it did; some people were singing along with it and made it work! Trouble is it's been that song since I played it I forgot the sequece of vocal variations in the song, but never mind, we got there in the end.
So, not a bad one, and certainly quite good for an impromptu show like that. I think I need to practice some of those covers more if I'm going to take them out live though, those earlier songs were a bit sloppy.
Gig with Aki Maera tonight, Wheatsheaf in Walsall. Starts at 8! I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, but we'd appreciate your support if you could make it!
Wednesday 23 November 2011
November Gigs
Once again I find myself behind in my blogs, and I've got a whole months worth of gigs to talk about and another two to go. Trying to blog them all individually would of course be more work than fun, apart from anything else some of it was weeks ago and I literally can't remember what happened, so I'm just going to give a quick run down of each one:
5/11/11: The Royal Oak, Amblecote: Another Prickly gig, thanks to Joy for booking me for this one! My guitar actually doesn't sound too bad through an amp. Didn't play so well, unfortunately. I think probably I was distracted with the thought of the fireworks display that I was going to afterwards, and I was on first which would never be my, ahem, 'first' choice. It wasn't bad... but by no stretch of the imagination was it my best one. I said to Amy afterwards, I think I was mistaken in my assumtion that I can play a reasonable show (I did Katies a couple of weeks before,) not play my guitar for a week and a half and expect to be able to play just as good a show when I get it out again. Something to remember for the future, though it will be a while before my next scheduled acoustic gig.
6/11/11: 82s at Just Kroozin Fundraising Event, Four Ashes: Nearly forgot about this one! This was the time where we were trying out our new bass player West. He seems to fit the bill OK and having the keyboards there does fill out the sound quite a bit. We played OK, as ever I did make some mistakes but I was rather more concerned about being upstaged by Almost Easy who were on before! Terrific fundrasing event to raise money for research into Lukemeia, so I was glad to have been a part of it, though it was freezing cold!
12/11/11: The Wharf Bar, Walsall: Regular readers of my blog will know that it is a rare time indeed when I speak kindly of The Wharf Bar. There's never usually anyone there, the whole place smells of sick (which comes from the canal, by the way; it's not actually their fault) and the only people to watch me tend to be the other bands who are either leaving the venue or counting down the minutes until it's their turn to go on. Quite often, the best I can say about it is that at least they do still book me for gigs. So imagine how pleased I was when not only were the modest audience actually listening to me and, as they told me afterwards, enjoying it, but I actually found myself enjoying it as well! That was certainly the best I'd ever played at the Wharf Bar, I've got another one there on the 10th so I'm actually looking forward to it. That's almost unheard of!
16/11/11: 82s: Cover Band Showcase in Cannock: We have - not a deal - but a good working relationship with some booking agents in the area, who invited us to play this showcase to several booking agents who may or may not want us for gigs in the future. We got all our big guns out, which were Word Up, Trick Me and Sound of the Underground. Quite far removed from what we orignally put the band together to do, and I think there is a concern that it's not representative of the set, so you may see some changes with this in the future.
22/11/11 Recording Christmas Song with Sam Draisey: Sam's putting together another Christmas album of original material and I went up today to record mine. I hadn't rehearsed it nearly enough and I know it, the guitar took a few goes, but my vocals I did pretty much in one take. I don't know whether I like the song or not; it's hardly full of Chirstmas Cheer and lyrically it's very lazy, there isn't a single line I haven't copied off someone, not least of whom myself! Still, it will hopefully work for the album, and it will be interesting to see what the other guys come up with this time.
So, there you have it! Aki Maera's first gig is coming up next Wednesday, which will be... interesting. See you all there!
5/11/11: The Royal Oak, Amblecote: Another Prickly gig, thanks to Joy for booking me for this one! My guitar actually doesn't sound too bad through an amp. Didn't play so well, unfortunately. I think probably I was distracted with the thought of the fireworks display that I was going to afterwards, and I was on first which would never be my, ahem, 'first' choice. It wasn't bad... but by no stretch of the imagination was it my best one. I said to Amy afterwards, I think I was mistaken in my assumtion that I can play a reasonable show (I did Katies a couple of weeks before,) not play my guitar for a week and a half and expect to be able to play just as good a show when I get it out again. Something to remember for the future, though it will be a while before my next scheduled acoustic gig.
6/11/11: 82s at Just Kroozin Fundraising Event, Four Ashes: Nearly forgot about this one! This was the time where we were trying out our new bass player West. He seems to fit the bill OK and having the keyboards there does fill out the sound quite a bit. We played OK, as ever I did make some mistakes but I was rather more concerned about being upstaged by Almost Easy who were on before! Terrific fundrasing event to raise money for research into Lukemeia, so I was glad to have been a part of it, though it was freezing cold!
12/11/11: The Wharf Bar, Walsall: Regular readers of my blog will know that it is a rare time indeed when I speak kindly of The Wharf Bar. There's never usually anyone there, the whole place smells of sick (which comes from the canal, by the way; it's not actually their fault) and the only people to watch me tend to be the other bands who are either leaving the venue or counting down the minutes until it's their turn to go on. Quite often, the best I can say about it is that at least they do still book me for gigs. So imagine how pleased I was when not only were the modest audience actually listening to me and, as they told me afterwards, enjoying it, but I actually found myself enjoying it as well! That was certainly the best I'd ever played at the Wharf Bar, I've got another one there on the 10th so I'm actually looking forward to it. That's almost unheard of!
16/11/11: 82s: Cover Band Showcase in Cannock: We have - not a deal - but a good working relationship with some booking agents in the area, who invited us to play this showcase to several booking agents who may or may not want us for gigs in the future. We got all our big guns out, which were Word Up, Trick Me and Sound of the Underground. Quite far removed from what we orignally put the band together to do, and I think there is a concern that it's not representative of the set, so you may see some changes with this in the future.
22/11/11 Recording Christmas Song with Sam Draisey: Sam's putting together another Christmas album of original material and I went up today to record mine. I hadn't rehearsed it nearly enough and I know it, the guitar took a few goes, but my vocals I did pretty much in one take. I don't know whether I like the song or not; it's hardly full of Chirstmas Cheer and lyrically it's very lazy, there isn't a single line I haven't copied off someone, not least of whom myself! Still, it will hopefully work for the album, and it will be interesting to see what the other guys come up with this time.
So, there you have it! Aki Maera's first gig is coming up next Wednesday, which will be... interesting. See you all there!
Friday 11 November 2011
Crashpoint to Reform?
Can't sleep, and this is on my mind so...
Earlier this evening Cj who I'm now in Aki Maera with text me to say some mutual friends had enjoyed the Crashpoint stuff and that it was a shame we weren't still together. I wholly agreed with this. When I was at the Just Kroozin fundraising event with Natasha and the 82s last week (blog to come later) and saw a storming set from the band Almost Easy, I considered the music I was playing (Good indie rock from the Fakes with a not-so-busy gigging schedule, quite restrained soul music in the 82s and bass in Aki Maera and who the hell knows what Post Hardcore actually sounds like anyway) and found myself missing the days when I could take the stage with an electric guitar and play rock songs that I'd had a hand in writing. So yeah, I'd quite like the band to still be together as well.
Quick history for the uninitiated - I put Crashpoint together with Cj in late 2007, still hurting from Jack's Legacy and my experience with The Dastards having sucked all the fun out of playing bass. Band members came and went until shortly after our first gig we settled on what became the definitive lineup of me on guitar, Emma on vocals, Jay on bass and Cj on drums. Musically, not the best lineup, and we were never as good as JL was, but it was the most stable lineup and did the most gigs. We recorded a reasonable-sounding demo and kept a steady momentum going on the live circuit for most of 2009. Then Jay and Emma dropped out for their own reasons, we struggled on for a bit with some different people but as it was going nowhere and neither Cj or I could afford to keep the band going indefinitely for its own sake, in May 2010 we sadly stepped down and added Crashpoint to the list of the also-rans.
Since then, amongst everything else we've done, I've tried various different things with Cj and Aki Maera has lasted by far the longest. Now on Facebook Cj's on about putting Crashpoint back together for one final show to go out with a bang. I'm against this, for the following reasons:
1) We've already done our farewell show. That was in February 2010. I made it clear a number of times during the show that this would be our last one, until we could get ourselves sorted out, and we never did. I drove home that night knowing perfectly well it was all over and crying my eyes out to The Poet and The Pendulum. Losing Crashpoint didn't hurt as bad, or for as long, as losing Jack's Legacy - we were nowhere near as good, and I was certainly not as close to the individual members - but putting myself through that again will for me be at best a waste of time that I don't really have, and at worst a desperate attempt to recapture something I lost nearly two years ago which will hardly be conducive to a great self-esteem.
2) Even if that first point didn't apply, we could barely get anyone to come to our shows when we were a band. Who's going to come to see us now, when we haven't been active on the live circuit for nearly two years? I for one find it very difficult to get people to come to gigs, (usually the only way I manage it is if I drive them there myself,) any new 'fans' will be disappointed that there will be no continuity in the band, and everybody else has presumably either forgotten about Crashpoint or weren't there for us the first time, and simply won't care if we do a reunion show.
3) To be fair Cj has picked up on this one already - we're not going to get the definitive lineup back together now. Emma left the band because the strain the style of music was putting on her voice was causing her some damage, and she's busy with In Between Seas now so I can't imagine her wanting to do it again. Jay's busy working as a chef. That just leaves me and Cj, and while we were the only two members of the band to be involved right from the start to the end, we couldn't manage it on our own.
Could we ever get back together and do Crashpoint again as a band? It could be done, I think. We'd need to find a new bass player - one that we can get on with, actually wants to do the band, and can play bass, you'd be surprised how hard they are to find - and that would be the bare minimum. Possibly we'd need a lead guitarist. I wouldn't waste my time looking for a singer when I can sing most of the songs myself anyway. And I'd love to write songs again in that environment (Marcus writes the songs for Aki Maera, and the one song we play that I wrote we did at the end of Crashpoint so it's not like I've written anything new in a band setting since then) and perform them with the same kind of energy that I've been sorely missing these last couple of years.
Unfortunately, I can't see that happening either. Aki Maera's got it's first gig coming up at the end of the month and we've been working very hard over the last few months to make sure it goes OK, we're not going to abandon it now for our old band. It's very easy to get disillusioned with finding band members (of all the people who contacted us off websites for the positions available in Aki Maera, Ian was the only one who got as far as meeting us and lasted more than about a week) and it's not a process I'm keen to repeat now that we've finally got the lineup sorted out. And I honestly have not got time to put Crashpoint back together and do it alongside all my other bands. Maybe, if Marcus ever decided to pull the plug on Aki Maera, we'd have time to give it another go. But we know perfectly well he's not even close to doing any such thing, and quite rightly so for all the work that's gone in to it.
So overall, I think it's a no. And to be honest, I was happier with the dream of rocking out on stage with my either of my old bands than contemplating the practicalities of actually going through with it. But it was interesting to think about for a while.
Got gig blogs coming up, and another gig at the Wharf later today - see some of you there. Maybe.
Earlier this evening Cj who I'm now in Aki Maera with text me to say some mutual friends had enjoyed the Crashpoint stuff and that it was a shame we weren't still together. I wholly agreed with this. When I was at the Just Kroozin fundraising event with Natasha and the 82s last week (blog to come later) and saw a storming set from the band Almost Easy, I considered the music I was playing (Good indie rock from the Fakes with a not-so-busy gigging schedule, quite restrained soul music in the 82s and bass in Aki Maera and who the hell knows what Post Hardcore actually sounds like anyway) and found myself missing the days when I could take the stage with an electric guitar and play rock songs that I'd had a hand in writing. So yeah, I'd quite like the band to still be together as well.
Quick history for the uninitiated - I put Crashpoint together with Cj in late 2007, still hurting from Jack's Legacy and my experience with The Dastards having sucked all the fun out of playing bass. Band members came and went until shortly after our first gig we settled on what became the definitive lineup of me on guitar, Emma on vocals, Jay on bass and Cj on drums. Musically, not the best lineup, and we were never as good as JL was, but it was the most stable lineup and did the most gigs. We recorded a reasonable-sounding demo and kept a steady momentum going on the live circuit for most of 2009. Then Jay and Emma dropped out for their own reasons, we struggled on for a bit with some different people but as it was going nowhere and neither Cj or I could afford to keep the band going indefinitely for its own sake, in May 2010 we sadly stepped down and added Crashpoint to the list of the also-rans.
Since then, amongst everything else we've done, I've tried various different things with Cj and Aki Maera has lasted by far the longest. Now on Facebook Cj's on about putting Crashpoint back together for one final show to go out with a bang. I'm against this, for the following reasons:
1) We've already done our farewell show. That was in February 2010. I made it clear a number of times during the show that this would be our last one, until we could get ourselves sorted out, and we never did. I drove home that night knowing perfectly well it was all over and crying my eyes out to The Poet and The Pendulum. Losing Crashpoint didn't hurt as bad, or for as long, as losing Jack's Legacy - we were nowhere near as good, and I was certainly not as close to the individual members - but putting myself through that again will for me be at best a waste of time that I don't really have, and at worst a desperate attempt to recapture something I lost nearly two years ago which will hardly be conducive to a great self-esteem.
2) Even if that first point didn't apply, we could barely get anyone to come to our shows when we were a band. Who's going to come to see us now, when we haven't been active on the live circuit for nearly two years? I for one find it very difficult to get people to come to gigs, (usually the only way I manage it is if I drive them there myself,) any new 'fans' will be disappointed that there will be no continuity in the band, and everybody else has presumably either forgotten about Crashpoint or weren't there for us the first time, and simply won't care if we do a reunion show.
3) To be fair Cj has picked up on this one already - we're not going to get the definitive lineup back together now. Emma left the band because the strain the style of music was putting on her voice was causing her some damage, and she's busy with In Between Seas now so I can't imagine her wanting to do it again. Jay's busy working as a chef. That just leaves me and Cj, and while we were the only two members of the band to be involved right from the start to the end, we couldn't manage it on our own.
Could we ever get back together and do Crashpoint again as a band? It could be done, I think. We'd need to find a new bass player - one that we can get on with, actually wants to do the band, and can play bass, you'd be surprised how hard they are to find - and that would be the bare minimum. Possibly we'd need a lead guitarist. I wouldn't waste my time looking for a singer when I can sing most of the songs myself anyway. And I'd love to write songs again in that environment (Marcus writes the songs for Aki Maera, and the one song we play that I wrote we did at the end of Crashpoint so it's not like I've written anything new in a band setting since then) and perform them with the same kind of energy that I've been sorely missing these last couple of years.
Unfortunately, I can't see that happening either. Aki Maera's got it's first gig coming up at the end of the month and we've been working very hard over the last few months to make sure it goes OK, we're not going to abandon it now for our old band. It's very easy to get disillusioned with finding band members (of all the people who contacted us off websites for the positions available in Aki Maera, Ian was the only one who got as far as meeting us and lasted more than about a week) and it's not a process I'm keen to repeat now that we've finally got the lineup sorted out. And I honestly have not got time to put Crashpoint back together and do it alongside all my other bands. Maybe, if Marcus ever decided to pull the plug on Aki Maera, we'd have time to give it another go. But we know perfectly well he's not even close to doing any such thing, and quite rightly so for all the work that's gone in to it.
So overall, I think it's a no. And to be honest, I was happier with the dream of rocking out on stage with my either of my old bands than contemplating the practicalities of actually going through with it. But it was interesting to think about for a while.
Got gig blogs coming up, and another gig at the Wharf later today - see some of you there. Maybe.
Saturday 29 October 2011
24/10/2011: Gig at Katy Fitzgeralds
I was booked to play Katies once again within a couple of days of the gig, and I really wanted to demo my new song A Lonely Night, so I was more than happy to do the show. As there was only me and Sam Tilley there that night I had longer than the usual set, and I was the first on that night so I had the task of entertaining the crowd and setting the tone for the gig. Most of the people who had come specifically for the gig were there for Sam but for Katies that was just about the right number of people there to feel comfortable and guauge how good a show you're playing.
I started off with a cover of Yesterday Went Too Soon by Feeder; not a song that I think I've ever played live before. Mixed bag with this, I made the mistake I make every single time that I play this song, which is start singing it low then realise it's too low and then start singing it high. The line 'But I'm missing yesterday...' ends with a very long top E note, which is about as high as I can go, and my voice started to break a couple of times. Perhaps this one would have been better employed mid-set when I'd warmed up my voice a little bit? None of the crowd recognised the song; it's not one of Feeder's better known songs to the layman but it's a beautiful song and the crowd really did appear to enjoy it. As an opening statement of intent, I could have done far worse.
I then carried on with Get Out Of My Head. This one went down as well as it ever does and I don't think there were any mistakes when I was playing it, although as I know the song a lot better now having had the song over a year, it means I'm concentrating a lot less. Not a major problem, but sometimes I forget to take the appropriate amount of breath and wonder why I'm running out of breath halfway through a line. Something I need to take care of!
Commenting on the fact that I've got new strings on my guitar and they sound awesome, I went in to We Will Survive. One thing I really want to do with this one - and to be fair I'm asking a lot out of an acoustic show - is to get people clapping on the 'We're still here and we're still standing' bit. Not that easy when your hands are tied to a guitar, I won't lie to you. But I try anyway by stamping my foot on the floor. So far it hasn't worked, but I'll keep trying! Other than that, the song went really well. I'm actually quite surprised about how well I'm playing these days!
Then I had a go at my new song, A Lonely Night, after once again telling the story of how it came about, because a lot of the people who go in Katies are musicians themselves and would probably appreciate the sentiment of feeling a little peeved because no one has come to their gig. This one was quite interesting to play because of the words to it. Obviously I need to get them all right, and word for word, this didn't happen. But I managed to cover the lines I couldn't exactly remember with words that fit just as well. The result is a performance that's equally as convincing either way, and actually a lot of the final edits for my songs were done by playing them live and playing the version that feels most comfortable to play, rather than the ones I've written down. Get Out Of My Head and Storm From The North were two such songs, I might talk about that another time. For now, the song went down very well, and Sam told me she really liked it because she likes songs with a lot of lyrics in them. Might need to tone the swearing down in future though...
Storm from the North was next, and I played that with my usual bravado and swagger. I had a bit of a problem hitting the low notes at the start, and I really needed to concentrate on that in order to do it, that's something to be aware of in future. I noticed when I was recording it last week I had some trouble remembering what chords to play in the chorus and I ended up playing the wrong chords on more than one occasion; this has happened live as well but thankfully did not happen tonight. Nothing like a recording drill to really give you an idea of what your own song sounds like.
Then I gave them Chapter One. A bit of a massive slowdown given the song that I'd just played, but this far in to the gig I reckoned it was just what it needed. As to how it went down, I'm not so sure. It didn't go down badly... but I think people are used to hearing fast rock songs off me now, so as soon as I start to play anything that sounds like it ought to be played on acoustic guitar, I become as run-of-the-mill as the next guy with a guitar who writes songs. I lose my edge; the thing that sets me apart from the crowd. But do you know what, I don't care; I wrote that song for a very personal reason and as long as I enjoy playing it I'm going to keep playing it live.
Followed that up with Girl's Names; a bit of a return to pace here I think. Not much else to say about it, but I'm becoming more confident in playing this one all the way through without messing up the 12/8 bit. Bearing in mind that, of all the songs that I play live that I also recorded, this is probably the one that I play the least, I think that's no bad thing.
I then did something that I've never done before and played Motorcycle Emptiness by the Manic Street Preachers. I think they've put a new album out so there's interest in the band again, and I wondered how well this one would go down. It's not one I've played live before because I think the key part of that song is the lead guitar and the song loses something without it, I played it because I wanted to so something I've never really done before. I played it reasonably well considering I hadn't rehearsed it, though I wonder how well the open two strings/power chord combo really sounded. I don't think I'll be doing this one again too soon, not without the lead guitar at least.
Finally, I wrapped the whole escapade up with Bitterness; a little predictable but I can think of far worse songs to be remembered by! This one is getting really tight now including the fast strums, so I'm pleased, and it's always good to get a nice big cheer at the end. What was also nice to see was that more or less the same number of people who were at the start of the gig were there at the end; not common at any gig I play really so this was a refreshing change.
All in all a good gig, and if I managed every gig like that I'd be happy. I've got another one coming up next Saturday at the Royal Oak in Stourbridge, thanks to the Prickly guys for putting me on there, and on Sunday I've got a charity show I think with Natasha and the 82s on Sunday at the Four Ashes Pub, just North of Coven. Hope the weather's a bit better than it was last time, but we'll be in to November by then so this is hardly a guarantee! See you then!
I started off with a cover of Yesterday Went Too Soon by Feeder; not a song that I think I've ever played live before. Mixed bag with this, I made the mistake I make every single time that I play this song, which is start singing it low then realise it's too low and then start singing it high. The line 'But I'm missing yesterday...' ends with a very long top E note, which is about as high as I can go, and my voice started to break a couple of times. Perhaps this one would have been better employed mid-set when I'd warmed up my voice a little bit? None of the crowd recognised the song; it's not one of Feeder's better known songs to the layman but it's a beautiful song and the crowd really did appear to enjoy it. As an opening statement of intent, I could have done far worse.
I then carried on with Get Out Of My Head. This one went down as well as it ever does and I don't think there were any mistakes when I was playing it, although as I know the song a lot better now having had the song over a year, it means I'm concentrating a lot less. Not a major problem, but sometimes I forget to take the appropriate amount of breath and wonder why I'm running out of breath halfway through a line. Something I need to take care of!
Commenting on the fact that I've got new strings on my guitar and they sound awesome, I went in to We Will Survive. One thing I really want to do with this one - and to be fair I'm asking a lot out of an acoustic show - is to get people clapping on the 'We're still here and we're still standing' bit. Not that easy when your hands are tied to a guitar, I won't lie to you. But I try anyway by stamping my foot on the floor. So far it hasn't worked, but I'll keep trying! Other than that, the song went really well. I'm actually quite surprised about how well I'm playing these days!
Then I had a go at my new song, A Lonely Night, after once again telling the story of how it came about, because a lot of the people who go in Katies are musicians themselves and would probably appreciate the sentiment of feeling a little peeved because no one has come to their gig. This one was quite interesting to play because of the words to it. Obviously I need to get them all right, and word for word, this didn't happen. But I managed to cover the lines I couldn't exactly remember with words that fit just as well. The result is a performance that's equally as convincing either way, and actually a lot of the final edits for my songs were done by playing them live and playing the version that feels most comfortable to play, rather than the ones I've written down. Get Out Of My Head and Storm From The North were two such songs, I might talk about that another time. For now, the song went down very well, and Sam told me she really liked it because she likes songs with a lot of lyrics in them. Might need to tone the swearing down in future though...
Storm from the North was next, and I played that with my usual bravado and swagger. I had a bit of a problem hitting the low notes at the start, and I really needed to concentrate on that in order to do it, that's something to be aware of in future. I noticed when I was recording it last week I had some trouble remembering what chords to play in the chorus and I ended up playing the wrong chords on more than one occasion; this has happened live as well but thankfully did not happen tonight. Nothing like a recording drill to really give you an idea of what your own song sounds like.
Then I gave them Chapter One. A bit of a massive slowdown given the song that I'd just played, but this far in to the gig I reckoned it was just what it needed. As to how it went down, I'm not so sure. It didn't go down badly... but I think people are used to hearing fast rock songs off me now, so as soon as I start to play anything that sounds like it ought to be played on acoustic guitar, I become as run-of-the-mill as the next guy with a guitar who writes songs. I lose my edge; the thing that sets me apart from the crowd. But do you know what, I don't care; I wrote that song for a very personal reason and as long as I enjoy playing it I'm going to keep playing it live.
Followed that up with Girl's Names; a bit of a return to pace here I think. Not much else to say about it, but I'm becoming more confident in playing this one all the way through without messing up the 12/8 bit. Bearing in mind that, of all the songs that I play live that I also recorded, this is probably the one that I play the least, I think that's no bad thing.
I then did something that I've never done before and played Motorcycle Emptiness by the Manic Street Preachers. I think they've put a new album out so there's interest in the band again, and I wondered how well this one would go down. It's not one I've played live before because I think the key part of that song is the lead guitar and the song loses something without it, I played it because I wanted to so something I've never really done before. I played it reasonably well considering I hadn't rehearsed it, though I wonder how well the open two strings/power chord combo really sounded. I don't think I'll be doing this one again too soon, not without the lead guitar at least.
Finally, I wrapped the whole escapade up with Bitterness; a little predictable but I can think of far worse songs to be remembered by! This one is getting really tight now including the fast strums, so I'm pleased, and it's always good to get a nice big cheer at the end. What was also nice to see was that more or less the same number of people who were at the start of the gig were there at the end; not common at any gig I play really so this was a refreshing change.
All in all a good gig, and if I managed every gig like that I'd be happy. I've got another one coming up next Saturday at the Royal Oak in Stourbridge, thanks to the Prickly guys for putting me on there, and on Sunday I've got a charity show I think with Natasha and the 82s on Sunday at the Four Ashes Pub, just North of Coven. Hope the weather's a bit better than it was last time, but we'll be in to November by then so this is hardly a guarantee! See you then!
Tuesday 18 October 2011
18/10/2011 Recording: Bitterness EP
I think this is going to be my 'gig' for the week. Now that I've spent this evening not doing anything at all it feels like a bit of a cop-out, but the fact of the matter is that the only night this week where I can hit an open/jam night is tomorrow, and I need to be up very early on Thursday.
Still, enough of that, on with the recording! I was as surprised by this as anyone when Sam Draisey messaged me on Facebook yesterday asking me if we were still on for recording tomorrow; I thought we'd pushed it back 'til November but I figured what the hell; I didn't think there was much to be gained from not doing it today. So I arrived at Sams this morning and we began:
The 5 songs I wanted to put on this CD were Bitterness, Get Out Of My Head, Girl's Names, Storm from the North and We Will Survive. I'd changed my guitar strings, and after a not-so-quick scramble to get another sound card plugged in to the computer (the one Sam was using was crackling for some reason) we went on with the recording. I was surprised at how many times I managed to mess up the most basic things like chords, and I also noticed something that I've heard a lot about in studio write-ups about how the 2nd or 3rd take is about as good as it usually gets; any after that and you stop concentrating and start messing things up. That was the case with me, though thankfully it didn't come up too often, and it wasn't too hard to 'drop in' on the bits where I'd really got it wrong. My playing was OK, not the best I've ever played, Bitterness in particular I've played more accurately live before than I managed on the CD, but it did what I needed it to do. Perhaps, if I'd had a week in a studio, I'd have gone for more accuracy, but to be honest my gig write-ups are festooned with admissions of mistakes, so leaving them in was actually probably a better representation of the artist it showcases!
Then it was time to record the vocals. I haven't got the most inspiring voice in the world and I know it, and I suspect that if I were to play back that Jack's Legacy demo I did way back in early 2006 I would find that nothing's really changed about it. But at least if I'm doing my own thing then it's on my own terms! I actually became more and more comfortable with it as it went on, when I managed to convince myself that it's OK to get in to it, close your eyes and pretend that there's nothing else in the world but you and the song. Once I'd broken that barrier, it was plain sailing, and I even managed to do some songs in one take. As ever, with more time I'd have gone in to a bit more depth, but for what came of it, this was as good as it was ever going to get.
It was nice working with Sam as the atmosphere was far more relaxed. You book a studio for a certain number of hours and you know that the clock is ticking from the moment you enter the studio, and that puts a lot of pressure on you to get it right, especially when you're working with an engineer that you've never met and has no idea what you want to sound like. Whereas I've known Sam for a year now and he knows what game I play with the acoustic guitar, he knows what I like to sound like, and also he's not far from home either so we could take as long as we needed. If I did need to come back and do something on another day, then that option was there. It made for an atmosphere far more conducive to a good performance out of me.
I won't be posting the songs up on the internet yet because a mixing error caused the first half a second of Bitterness to be chopped off, Sam's going to sort that out and send me the file, other than that it sounds every bit as good as I have a right to expect for what it is. It's something I should have done a long time ago and I'm glad I've finally done it as I can get this round to promoters now and hopefully get a few more gigs. I might even try and make a bit of money out of it if I can!
See y'all next time
Still, enough of that, on with the recording! I was as surprised by this as anyone when Sam Draisey messaged me on Facebook yesterday asking me if we were still on for recording tomorrow; I thought we'd pushed it back 'til November but I figured what the hell; I didn't think there was much to be gained from not doing it today. So I arrived at Sams this morning and we began:
The 5 songs I wanted to put on this CD were Bitterness, Get Out Of My Head, Girl's Names, Storm from the North and We Will Survive. I'd changed my guitar strings, and after a not-so-quick scramble to get another sound card plugged in to the computer (the one Sam was using was crackling for some reason) we went on with the recording. I was surprised at how many times I managed to mess up the most basic things like chords, and I also noticed something that I've heard a lot about in studio write-ups about how the 2nd or 3rd take is about as good as it usually gets; any after that and you stop concentrating and start messing things up. That was the case with me, though thankfully it didn't come up too often, and it wasn't too hard to 'drop in' on the bits where I'd really got it wrong. My playing was OK, not the best I've ever played, Bitterness in particular I've played more accurately live before than I managed on the CD, but it did what I needed it to do. Perhaps, if I'd had a week in a studio, I'd have gone for more accuracy, but to be honest my gig write-ups are festooned with admissions of mistakes, so leaving them in was actually probably a better representation of the artist it showcases!
Then it was time to record the vocals. I haven't got the most inspiring voice in the world and I know it, and I suspect that if I were to play back that Jack's Legacy demo I did way back in early 2006 I would find that nothing's really changed about it. But at least if I'm doing my own thing then it's on my own terms! I actually became more and more comfortable with it as it went on, when I managed to convince myself that it's OK to get in to it, close your eyes and pretend that there's nothing else in the world but you and the song. Once I'd broken that barrier, it was plain sailing, and I even managed to do some songs in one take. As ever, with more time I'd have gone in to a bit more depth, but for what came of it, this was as good as it was ever going to get.
It was nice working with Sam as the atmosphere was far more relaxed. You book a studio for a certain number of hours and you know that the clock is ticking from the moment you enter the studio, and that puts a lot of pressure on you to get it right, especially when you're working with an engineer that you've never met and has no idea what you want to sound like. Whereas I've known Sam for a year now and he knows what game I play with the acoustic guitar, he knows what I like to sound like, and also he's not far from home either so we could take as long as we needed. If I did need to come back and do something on another day, then that option was there. It made for an atmosphere far more conducive to a good performance out of me.
I won't be posting the songs up on the internet yet because a mixing error caused the first half a second of Bitterness to be chopped off, Sam's going to sort that out and send me the file, other than that it sounds every bit as good as I have a right to expect for what it is. It's something I should have done a long time ago and I'm glad I've finally done it as I can get this round to promoters now and hopefully get a few more gigs. I might even try and make a bit of money out of it if I can!
See y'all next time
Saturday 15 October 2011
12/10/2011: Open Mic Night at the Hartley Arms
It's been far too long since I was last here, and to be honest I only remembered it was because Sam texted me in the day saying so. It's one of those nice times where you think you're not going to get a gig in this week, and then it turns out that you do. And Sam's open nights are always good fun.
On this particular occasion, however, I'd hurt my right arm. Not quite sure how I did this, I think I've pulled a muscle in there or something, but whatever the reason anything heavier than a glass of water and my forearm would scream in protest. So none of my usual pyrotechnics tonight, then. I kicked off with Get Out Of My Head; I'm familiar enough with the place in order to get away with that and it worked quite well I think, considering how long it's been since I last played it. (At least a couple of weeks ago.)
After explaining about my arm and fogging the heckler who told me it was due to wanking, I then went on to play Chapter One. I think I played it ok but for some reason I was really struggling with the fingerpicking, it wasn't coming as naturally to me as it usually does. Not that it comes naturally anyway, I'm far more used to playing with a plectrum, but it was a struggle to do it. Probably because I don't practice it enough; it's rare that I find the time to do that these days! I didn't make any mistakes, except once in the second verse, so all it took was a bit of concentration. And I do have to remind people that the song is over, probably due to its stop-start nature; I wouldn't normally do it at a gig like this to be honest but given the circumstances was probably the best choice.
A bit of a risk for the next one: I played a new song, A Lonely Night, after warning the crowd about the bad language and relating it's subject matter to Sam's gig with The Replicas that would have gone on last (friday) night but had to be cancelled because they hadn't sold enough tickets. A risk because I'd only recently learned all the words, and we all know what happens when I try to do a song I don't know well enough... thankfully I needn't have worried, I sang the song as near to perfect as it was ever going to get for trying it out in a live environment for the first time, and the Chili Peppers style vocal delivery was a bit of a new step for me which Sam thought was 'class.' Couldn't receive a higher compliment mate, thanks!
I then went ahead and did some covers. I chose High by Feeder, as the song I pay when I'm not allowed to play Oasis songs* which was kind of ironic as the lads at the table to my left were convinced I was playing Wonderwall. Trouble is that song is so easy for me to play now I stop concentrating and fluff the chords; I shouldn't be playing a D of any kind in that song! Other than that it seemed to go OK, though I think it might be worth knowing more than one Oasis song for next time...
I finished up with A Little Respect at the request for a fast 80s song. If that didn't mess up my arm even worse, I don't know what will. But it went as well as it ever does, and as a way to wrap up a light-hearted set like this one I could pick far worse.
The quality of the rest of the night was consistently good fun all the way through and I'm always pleased to be a part of it. Still need to get me, Sam and Elliot playing some gigs together, time to email Acoustic Brew and see if we can't sort something out...
*This came from a gig I did nearly 4 years ago with Phil, sometimes known as Fatbwoi, where I was expressley forbidden to play anything by Oasis. He hates them. Ever since then I've used the Feeder song as my replacement, I could do with learning some more songs by those guys as well...
On this particular occasion, however, I'd hurt my right arm. Not quite sure how I did this, I think I've pulled a muscle in there or something, but whatever the reason anything heavier than a glass of water and my forearm would scream in protest. So none of my usual pyrotechnics tonight, then. I kicked off with Get Out Of My Head; I'm familiar enough with the place in order to get away with that and it worked quite well I think, considering how long it's been since I last played it. (At least a couple of weeks ago.)
After explaining about my arm and fogging the heckler who told me it was due to wanking, I then went on to play Chapter One. I think I played it ok but for some reason I was really struggling with the fingerpicking, it wasn't coming as naturally to me as it usually does. Not that it comes naturally anyway, I'm far more used to playing with a plectrum, but it was a struggle to do it. Probably because I don't practice it enough; it's rare that I find the time to do that these days! I didn't make any mistakes, except once in the second verse, so all it took was a bit of concentration. And I do have to remind people that the song is over, probably due to its stop-start nature; I wouldn't normally do it at a gig like this to be honest but given the circumstances was probably the best choice.
A bit of a risk for the next one: I played a new song, A Lonely Night, after warning the crowd about the bad language and relating it's subject matter to Sam's gig with The Replicas that would have gone on last (friday) night but had to be cancelled because they hadn't sold enough tickets. A risk because I'd only recently learned all the words, and we all know what happens when I try to do a song I don't know well enough... thankfully I needn't have worried, I sang the song as near to perfect as it was ever going to get for trying it out in a live environment for the first time, and the Chili Peppers style vocal delivery was a bit of a new step for me which Sam thought was 'class.' Couldn't receive a higher compliment mate, thanks!
I then went ahead and did some covers. I chose High by Feeder, as the song I pay when I'm not allowed to play Oasis songs* which was kind of ironic as the lads at the table to my left were convinced I was playing Wonderwall. Trouble is that song is so easy for me to play now I stop concentrating and fluff the chords; I shouldn't be playing a D of any kind in that song! Other than that it seemed to go OK, though I think it might be worth knowing more than one Oasis song for next time...
I finished up with A Little Respect at the request for a fast 80s song. If that didn't mess up my arm even worse, I don't know what will. But it went as well as it ever does, and as a way to wrap up a light-hearted set like this one I could pick far worse.
The quality of the rest of the night was consistently good fun all the way through and I'm always pleased to be a part of it. Still need to get me, Sam and Elliot playing some gigs together, time to email Acoustic Brew and see if we can't sort something out...
*This came from a gig I did nearly 4 years ago with Phil, sometimes known as Fatbwoi, where I was expressley forbidden to play anything by Oasis. He hates them. Ever since then I've used the Feeder song as my replacement, I could do with learning some more songs by those guys as well...
Friday 14 October 2011
8/10/2011: The Brierly Hill Project at Stourbridge Cricket Club
I’d got started on this one through Hannah who I used to be in Perception with. The band may be gone, but the spirit still remains…
We began with Scars by Papa Roach, which we played quite well in spite of the fact that I was in mortal terror that Hannah would put some Dudley colloquialisms into the lyrics and give me the giggles. Thankfully this didn’t happen, and we played it very well. Hannah seems to regard this as her signature tune, and I think she could pick far worse songs than this.
We thought we were only going to get two songs for this one so we played another song we did in Perception; Because The Night by Patti Smith. I’m really starting to enjoy this one and it might find its way in to my set in the not too distant future. I think this was the best one we played in terms of accuracy, and there were plenty of people in the audience who knew the song. (And if you choose to interpret that remark as ‘Plenty of people in the audience old enough to remember when that song was released, well, that’s up to you I suppose.) It’s a good one!
And then we discovered we were allowed 3 songs after all, so we played the other one that we’d rehearsed, which was Love Me Tender, the Norah Jones version (or at least as near as I could get to that, having not really heard that or any version of the song enough times to feel justified in emulating it.) The song actually fits Hannah’s voice quite well and it sounded really good; I had a very positive feeling about our performance when we had finished it.
I had the same... not a problem, but a little niggle all the way through the show – Hannah was reading from her words on a music stand. I don’t know what that meant for her performance, but what it meant for me is that I kept looking over to it, and reading the version of the chords that Hannah had got written down, which if I’m honest weren’t all that accurate. So because of that I played the wrong chord a couple of times. But hey, if that’s the worst mistake I ever make at a gig I think I’ll have done quite well, and none of it spoiled the night; it was really good fun and I’m looking forward to the next one.
6/10/2011: Jam Night at the Samson and Lion
Some of you may recall that I came to this jam night ages ago back in April and had a go playing some covers in front of a modest but very appreciative (and by appreciative, I largely mean drunk) audience. I didn’t return, not because I didn’t want to, but because it was on a Thursday and I joined the Roleplaying club not too long after that. Since then, the night has changed hands from Kev on the keyboards who apparently quit, to my old friend Richard Sadler who’s taken it upon himself to set up a jam night in the pub, and for the opening night he needed a drummer. Enter yours truly…
I’ve said it before but not for nothing: I don’t claim to be a drummer. I do, however, have a pair of sticks and some idea of what to do with them. My kit will need something like £600 spending on it before it will be even close to playable, and since I only paid £250 for it in the first place (actually my Dad did,) I can’t see that happening too soon. Rich said he had an electric drum kit I could use, and I thought that wouldn’t be too bad; I’ve used them before and got on reasonably well. I got to the pub to find what I can only describe as ‘Rock Band Drums.’ There were 4 pads I could hit with a stick; a kick, a snare, a hi-hat, and a crash. So I had all the ground covered, and away we went.
The classic rock stuff that Rich likes to play is rarely all that complicated on the drums, which is probably as well, as I needed to keep it simple. Obviously there were the limitations of the drum kit, but there was also the fact that the top range (cymbal sounds) wasn’t cutting through the mix very well so all anyone could hear were the kick and the snare. Nonetheless I think I did a solid job of keeping it going for about half of the night, and the band appreciated it. It wasn’t ideal, but it was far better than nothing and everybody knew it. I think we did quite well.
Rich was also kind enough to let me have a go playing a small acoustic set…
Purely because I sound checked with a C chord and could think of nothing better, I had a go at playing Laid by James. Not a song I play very often because I don’t honestly think I’m that good at the necessary falsetto, but considering how long it had been since I’d last played it acoustically (we do it in The Fakes, where I use my pedals and the volume control on my Strat to make an approximation of string sounds) I played it quite well. Not sure how well it went down, or how many people recognised it, but not a bad start.
Despite the nature of the night, I would have felt it was lost opportunity if I didn’t play at least one of my original songs, so I had a go at We Will Survive. I’m getting more familiar with the sound of my own voice now, and at this point of the show I noticed that either the microphone or the PA we were putting it through wasn’t brilliant and there was some distortion on my voice. I doubt, therefore, that anyone would understand what I was singing, and with that on my mind it was trickier to put the usual kind of energy in to the performance. But I got through it all the way without making any mistakes, and that’s not nothing.
I then did Always Remember Me again, and I think there were some people in the room who recognised the song because I could see them singing, or at least mouthing, along. I must remember to ask anybody I see doing that whether that song works or not, considering the song was as far as I know originally sung by a black woman in a contemporary soul band, a far cry from my voice which sounds like a very large nail being rubbed against a very small plank of wood… maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but I play it live a lot now so it would be good to find out which.
At a request from the crowd for some Oasis, I went in to the only one of their songs I both know how to play and know all the words to: Stop Crying Your Heart Out. Again, I don’t sound anything like Liam Gallagher, but Oasis are the ultimate pub band and you can never go wrong with playing some of their songs in one. Rich was kind enough to join me on backing vocals; I was genuinely pleased to see this happen as that I think is what it’s all about. So guys, if you ever see me paying this and you know the guitar part to it, by all means join in! And especially if you know the harmonic bit at the end, which I do but forgot when it was time for me to play it..,
I finished off with Storm From The North. I think this was testing the water as much as anything else, because it was vastly different from my other song, and I probably wanted to see how well it went down. Whether by the style of the music or whether because, 5 songs in to a set, people were starting to get used to me I don’t know, but it seemed to go down better than my other original song tonight. Without being sure of the reasons there’s only so much I can take from it, but it’s an interesting observation if nothing else.
I’m back with the Role players now so it’s unlikely that I’ll come back to the jam night in the near future. But if it’s still going when I get a night off then maybe… Cheers Rich, and well done for putting it on. I can’t think of a single musician who wouldn’t thank you for giving them somewhere else to play.
Wednesday 5 October 2011
29/9/2011: Open Mic at The Woodman
Because I've joined the Roleplay Club in Blackheath that takes up most of my Thursdays, I haven't been able to come down to the Woodman for a while. That's a shame because I've really enjoyed playing the open nights there in the past, and I've made some good friends out of it! However, I took a couple of nights off Roleplay and decided to make the journey up to Bilbrook to see what happened:
Coming up on the end of the month when no one's got any money, there wasn't all that many people there, and those that were I knew most of them at least by sight. However, they haven't heard me play Always Remember Me yet, so I thought I'd give them that. I played it slightly better tonight, and I think it went down OK, though I'm not sure how to guauge how well-known that song is in an environment like that.
One song that did seem to go down well at the Woodman when I played there in the past was Dear Mr Manager, so I gave that another go. The quiet and morbid nature of the song, along with it's apparent popularity, meant that it was deathly quiet in the pub while I was playing. A high complement indeed, and it is nice to get through it without making any mistakes...
At this point I found myself quite incapable of remembering what I was doing or why, so I launched in to Bitterness. This goes down as well as it ever does but - and I really do take no pleasure at all from saying this - is getting to be a bit old hat now; the one that I feel obliged to play at every gig I do. Of all the songs I did tonight, this one was the most predictable, if the best played.
I gave the Foggy Dew a run through as well. This is a song that I like to play but haven't played too many times in recent months, simply because I've not found the right atmosphere to do it in (Katies is the best bet, but even that depends on the age and demographic of the audience.) For that reason I think I fluffed up a couple of chords, though none of the lyrics; mistakes I would have preferred not to have made but I doubt it did too much damage.
I recognised that there weren't all that many of us playing tonight so I asked Sam if it was OK if I could do one more. At his request, I played Storm From The North, which thinking about it I don't think I've actually played at the Woodman before. It's a flattering feeling to have one of your own songs requested! Sam described it as 'The Crashpoint Song' and it took me a few seconds to realise which one he meant. I thought I would be clever and try to put a Crashpoint song in the middle of it, I injected a bit of Keep Your Distance to ramp it down to the quiet bit, and fell flat on my face as I forgot the words. To my own song, not Emma's lyrics...
Later on I went up and did another few songs. I tried Buck Rogers by Feeder but I find this very difficult to do on acoustic because of the barre chords involved. I'm fine on electric but the performance of this one suffered for that.
Then I played a song I hadn't played for literally years: Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead. It was a good feeling to hear cries of 'Tune!' as I hit the opening chords. This song I really made an effort to learn how to play when I was 17, and I still remember all the words and chords which makes it quite something, even if Radiohead aren't a band I make a habit of listening to.
I finished up with Halelujah, closer to the Jeff Buckley version but I'm not quite that good! I was as surprised as anyone that I managed to make it all the way through without forgetting any of the words, and I was reliably informed by Sam afterwards that considering he hates that song with a passion, it was one of the most pallatable versions he'd heard. That's not nothing!
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable night at The Woodman. It will be a long time before I come to another one but it's nice to know that it's a musical venture that has remained reasonably solid for Sam over the last year or so...
Coming up on the end of the month when no one's got any money, there wasn't all that many people there, and those that were I knew most of them at least by sight. However, they haven't heard me play Always Remember Me yet, so I thought I'd give them that. I played it slightly better tonight, and I think it went down OK, though I'm not sure how to guauge how well-known that song is in an environment like that.
One song that did seem to go down well at the Woodman when I played there in the past was Dear Mr Manager, so I gave that another go. The quiet and morbid nature of the song, along with it's apparent popularity, meant that it was deathly quiet in the pub while I was playing. A high complement indeed, and it is nice to get through it without making any mistakes...
At this point I found myself quite incapable of remembering what I was doing or why, so I launched in to Bitterness. This goes down as well as it ever does but - and I really do take no pleasure at all from saying this - is getting to be a bit old hat now; the one that I feel obliged to play at every gig I do. Of all the songs I did tonight, this one was the most predictable, if the best played.
I gave the Foggy Dew a run through as well. This is a song that I like to play but haven't played too many times in recent months, simply because I've not found the right atmosphere to do it in (Katies is the best bet, but even that depends on the age and demographic of the audience.) For that reason I think I fluffed up a couple of chords, though none of the lyrics; mistakes I would have preferred not to have made but I doubt it did too much damage.
I recognised that there weren't all that many of us playing tonight so I asked Sam if it was OK if I could do one more. At his request, I played Storm From The North, which thinking about it I don't think I've actually played at the Woodman before. It's a flattering feeling to have one of your own songs requested! Sam described it as 'The Crashpoint Song' and it took me a few seconds to realise which one he meant. I thought I would be clever and try to put a Crashpoint song in the middle of it, I injected a bit of Keep Your Distance to ramp it down to the quiet bit, and fell flat on my face as I forgot the words. To my own song, not Emma's lyrics...
Later on I went up and did another few songs. I tried Buck Rogers by Feeder but I find this very difficult to do on acoustic because of the barre chords involved. I'm fine on electric but the performance of this one suffered for that.
Then I played a song I hadn't played for literally years: Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead. It was a good feeling to hear cries of 'Tune!' as I hit the opening chords. This song I really made an effort to learn how to play when I was 17, and I still remember all the words and chords which makes it quite something, even if Radiohead aren't a band I make a habit of listening to.
I finished up with Halelujah, closer to the Jeff Buckley version but I'm not quite that good! I was as surprised as anyone that I managed to make it all the way through without forgetting any of the words, and I was reliably informed by Sam afterwards that considering he hates that song with a passion, it was one of the most pallatable versions he'd heard. That's not nothing!
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable night at The Woodman. It will be a long time before I come to another one but it's nice to know that it's a musical venture that has remained reasonably solid for Sam over the last year or so...
24/9/2011: Royal Oak with Mezzotonic
Fallen behind a lot with this, and the problem with writing gig blogs a week and a half after I've done them means I can't remember what the hell I actually played. But hey, here goes...
I do seem to remember varying my opening songs with this one, kicking off I think with Girl's Names and Get Out Of My Head. The knock-on effect of both this and the fact that I wasn't really concentrating on my set list was to have consequences later, but for the moment this seemed to be a solid performance.
Next came the song that I'm pretty sure now is called Always Remember Me. I've been playing this quite a bit lately and people seem to like it, I'm not sure how fond I am of my guitar playing on this one as I tend to either rush the verses or not articulate all the sounds in the chorus when I know I can do better. That's something to practice, but to be perfectly honest I'd rather get my own material down to a T...
The rest of the gig went by in something of a haze, except that I remained on the stage for longer than my usual 7 songs. At one point I did High by Feeder while a Commodores video was showing on the screen above, made a snide comment about Lionel Ritchie's haircut beggaring belief (It was 3 Times A Lady if you want to have a look) and forgetting the words, which shouldn't really have happened but comical observations are something I have been trying to do lately and the lads from Mezzotonic, who's gig it was, at least found it funny...
Of course, I ended up using all my mid-paced songs up and putting my 3 fastest ones towards the end, which would have just been dull. While this did result in a rare and not-altogether-welcome outing of Prisoner of my Mind, it shouldn't really have happened and added to the idea that tonight I just wasn't concentrating. Next time I do a full gig (I've got a couple booked for the Wharf Bar,) I will have to think about that a bit more; I don't want to fall flat on my face for not being bothered to write a set-list!
Kudos to Mezzotonic, though. The gig itself suffered from a poor turnout - the night started with about 15 people in the room, half of which walked out just before I went on, and the rest of them walked out just before the band went on. It's never easy to play a gig when there are less people in the audience than there are in the band, but it meant the band got to try some material and covers that they wouldn't normally play, and I felt quite privelidged to see that. There were some other lads who showed up at one point, but there was football on in the other room, so, you know...
I do seem to remember varying my opening songs with this one, kicking off I think with Girl's Names and Get Out Of My Head. The knock-on effect of both this and the fact that I wasn't really concentrating on my set list was to have consequences later, but for the moment this seemed to be a solid performance.
Next came the song that I'm pretty sure now is called Always Remember Me. I've been playing this quite a bit lately and people seem to like it, I'm not sure how fond I am of my guitar playing on this one as I tend to either rush the verses or not articulate all the sounds in the chorus when I know I can do better. That's something to practice, but to be perfectly honest I'd rather get my own material down to a T...
The rest of the gig went by in something of a haze, except that I remained on the stage for longer than my usual 7 songs. At one point I did High by Feeder while a Commodores video was showing on the screen above, made a snide comment about Lionel Ritchie's haircut beggaring belief (It was 3 Times A Lady if you want to have a look) and forgetting the words, which shouldn't really have happened but comical observations are something I have been trying to do lately and the lads from Mezzotonic, who's gig it was, at least found it funny...
Of course, I ended up using all my mid-paced songs up and putting my 3 fastest ones towards the end, which would have just been dull. While this did result in a rare and not-altogether-welcome outing of Prisoner of my Mind, it shouldn't really have happened and added to the idea that tonight I just wasn't concentrating. Next time I do a full gig (I've got a couple booked for the Wharf Bar,) I will have to think about that a bit more; I don't want to fall flat on my face for not being bothered to write a set-list!
Kudos to Mezzotonic, though. The gig itself suffered from a poor turnout - the night started with about 15 people in the room, half of which walked out just before I went on, and the rest of them walked out just before the band went on. It's never easy to play a gig when there are less people in the audience than there are in the band, but it meant the band got to try some material and covers that they wouldn't normally play, and I felt quite privelidged to see that. There were some other lads who showed up at one point, but there was football on in the other room, so, you know...
Tuesday 27 September 2011
23/9/2011: Victoria Inn
Well here's me thinking I wasn't going to get a gig in this week and somehow I find myself doing 2. Here's how the first of them went:
This was an emergency booking I picked up quite by chance on Facebook last Friday, from Prickly Promotions. I've actually got a lot of time for these guys, they're one of the few promoters I've come across so far who have been able to get their mind around the idea that promotion is their job as well as the bands. And it seems to be working well because there was a brilliant turnout for tonight; there were around 40 people in the room tonight which for the Victoria Inn is near enough full. And I hadn't brought anybody, Luke Huntley hadn't brought anybody, Tom Lloyd brought 2 people... and there were only another 2 acts on! So they're doing OK. Cal told me it's getting pretty popular now, unfortunately they seem to be plagued with pull-outs...
Anyway, on to the show. I didn't intend to surprise anybody tonight - I didn't think I was going to get a gig in, after all - and started off with the Bitterness/Get Out Of My Head Combo. Pretty much the same as I did the last time I played there, but with almost a completely different audience (apart from Tiffany, who remembered me) it worked as well as it ever did. I've done enough gigs now to make those songs bang on perfect when I play them, which is a nice position to be in.
It was then time for the mid-set cover, and I had intended to play either Let's Start a Band or that one by the Noisettes I can never remember the name of. However I was really trying to engage with the crowd this time rather than playing songs, and when Tiffany heard I could play A Little Respect she requested that one. Not a bad choice, it's almost impossible not to enjoy it and that was the part of the show that the people who spoke to me afterwards remembered. Learning that one way back in 2007 was probably one of the best decisions I made that year!
Storm from the North was next, interjected with the Metallica bit. I rarely do that, but I think before I do it again anywhere I'd better learn how to play it, because the kids in the schools I was teaching at last year can play that song better than I can and I really did mess it up a lot. I think I fluffed some lyrics in that one as well and I really ought to know better; I need to concentrate!
I finished up with We Will Survive, which I'm really enjoying playing live, no matter what the audience thinks of it. (Rarely unkind, for the record.) I think that's a nice energetic one to play and now that I'm not worrying about getting it wrong (it still happens, I just don't worry about it!) it gets the right combination of chemicals going around in my bloodstream so that I can leave the stage wishing I was still there, which is never a bad thing. Now if I could just get the audience to feel the same way...
Not necessarily my best but as ever far from my worst, and it's always a pleasure to play for Prickly. Long may it continue.
This was an emergency booking I picked up quite by chance on Facebook last Friday, from Prickly Promotions. I've actually got a lot of time for these guys, they're one of the few promoters I've come across so far who have been able to get their mind around the idea that promotion is their job as well as the bands. And it seems to be working well because there was a brilliant turnout for tonight; there were around 40 people in the room tonight which for the Victoria Inn is near enough full. And I hadn't brought anybody, Luke Huntley hadn't brought anybody, Tom Lloyd brought 2 people... and there were only another 2 acts on! So they're doing OK. Cal told me it's getting pretty popular now, unfortunately they seem to be plagued with pull-outs...
Anyway, on to the show. I didn't intend to surprise anybody tonight - I didn't think I was going to get a gig in, after all - and started off with the Bitterness/Get Out Of My Head Combo. Pretty much the same as I did the last time I played there, but with almost a completely different audience (apart from Tiffany, who remembered me) it worked as well as it ever did. I've done enough gigs now to make those songs bang on perfect when I play them, which is a nice position to be in.
It was then time for the mid-set cover, and I had intended to play either Let's Start a Band or that one by the Noisettes I can never remember the name of. However I was really trying to engage with the crowd this time rather than playing songs, and when Tiffany heard I could play A Little Respect she requested that one. Not a bad choice, it's almost impossible not to enjoy it and that was the part of the show that the people who spoke to me afterwards remembered. Learning that one way back in 2007 was probably one of the best decisions I made that year!
Storm from the North was next, interjected with the Metallica bit. I rarely do that, but I think before I do it again anywhere I'd better learn how to play it, because the kids in the schools I was teaching at last year can play that song better than I can and I really did mess it up a lot. I think I fluffed some lyrics in that one as well and I really ought to know better; I need to concentrate!
I finished up with We Will Survive, which I'm really enjoying playing live, no matter what the audience thinks of it. (Rarely unkind, for the record.) I think that's a nice energetic one to play and now that I'm not worrying about getting it wrong (it still happens, I just don't worry about it!) it gets the right combination of chemicals going around in my bloodstream so that I can leave the stage wishing I was still there, which is never a bad thing. Now if I could just get the audience to feel the same way...
Not necessarily my best but as ever far from my worst, and it's always a pleasure to play for Prickly. Long may it continue.
Thursday 15 September 2011
14/9/2011: Katy Fitzgeralds
To quote the Honda advert, "Isn't it nice when things just... work?"
I was opening the gig tonight and there was a very strong line-up with an appreciative audience; I felt just about the right amount of pressure to deliver the goods with this one. It might seem strange therefore that I started the gig with Believe, but there was a reason for it. I basically hadn't played guitar much at all that day and my hand wasn't warmed up; starting off with Bitterness or We Will Survive would have been a recipe for disaster and I knew it. I thought it better to start with a relatively sedate one for me, although that last chorus seems to soar and I was really feeling it tonight. I guess I haven't opened with that one before, or if I had then it hasn't been for a while, so there would have been less of a feeling of going through the motions than there may otherwise have been.
THEN I was ready to play Bitterness. I think I've got that song down to a fine art now, from the fast strums right down to the positioning of my mouth to the microphone for the quiet to loud bits. It was probably one of the more memorable moments of the set and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it.
Get Out Of My Head was next. This one is another one that I'm playing very well these days; I don't know if it went down quite as well as Bitterness - a lot of the guys in the audience were quite young - but the subtleties of that song make it a very enjoyable one to play. Thinking about it, it's also the only one I currently play that relies on a riff rather than a chord sequence to carry the verse, not often in acoustic music does that happen. Not music that I listen to anyway. It's something I'd quite like to develop, and I'm well on my way to doing so with another song that's in the pipeline which hopefully people will hear soon.
Next I tried a song by the Noisettes; not sure what it's called, it's either Never Forget You or Always Remember Me, but I play it in the 82s and I really like it. It actually went down really well, a lot of the guys in the audience recognised the song and they can't have heard it live often; I don't hear it played by many - if any - of my contemporaries. There's some bits that need ironing out, namely the strumming pattern in the second verse; I could feel myself rushing it but I couldn't do anything about it without stopping, but it didn't spoil what I would otherwise consider to be quite a convincing delivery.
For some reason whenever I do a 7-song gig these days, Storm From The North is always the 5th one. Actually I know exactly what the reason is; it's the mid-set epic and therefore needs to be in the middle of the set. I don't know if that's becoming a little predictable now that I've been playing it for a few months, and especially at Katies where I play a lot, but I honestly can't think of a better place to put it. I played it well, I think, and the audience is familiar enough not to clap too soon!
I was torn then between playing Girls Names and Chapter One. I went with Girl's Names because it's faster; I was having a really good gig by now and I wanted to keep up the pace. I'm struggling a lot less with the 12/8 bit; fewer are the times when I mess up the chords and I'm used to singing it now to the point where I can make it sound good (if you haven't heard the song, that part is quite low and I find it difficult to project my voice.) It went down as well as it ever does, it's familiar at Katies so I do play it quite a bit.
I wrapped it up with We Will Survive, and I seem to be getting far more precise with this one as well. It's come from all this gigging, I'm sure; sometimes it's the only time I play guitar these days but as the stakes are always higher on the stage than they are in my bedroom, no matter how good the gig is, I'm under a lot of pressure to get it right when I do play it. That kind of experience have really put some of these songs at another level which after all this time I am very pleased with! And fortunately so were my audience.
Well, blowing my own trumpet a little bit here but I think I set the bar quite high for what was to follow! I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards telling me how much they enjoyed the show which is always a nice feeling. I wouldn't normally do this on this blog, but big well done to Georgia and Will, who followed me, and Sam, who wrapped up the gig very well indeed with a sing-along chorus. It really was a great night and a fine reminder of why I play live.
I was opening the gig tonight and there was a very strong line-up with an appreciative audience; I felt just about the right amount of pressure to deliver the goods with this one. It might seem strange therefore that I started the gig with Believe, but there was a reason for it. I basically hadn't played guitar much at all that day and my hand wasn't warmed up; starting off with Bitterness or We Will Survive would have been a recipe for disaster and I knew it. I thought it better to start with a relatively sedate one for me, although that last chorus seems to soar and I was really feeling it tonight. I guess I haven't opened with that one before, or if I had then it hasn't been for a while, so there would have been less of a feeling of going through the motions than there may otherwise have been.
THEN I was ready to play Bitterness. I think I've got that song down to a fine art now, from the fast strums right down to the positioning of my mouth to the microphone for the quiet to loud bits. It was probably one of the more memorable moments of the set and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it.
Get Out Of My Head was next. This one is another one that I'm playing very well these days; I don't know if it went down quite as well as Bitterness - a lot of the guys in the audience were quite young - but the subtleties of that song make it a very enjoyable one to play. Thinking about it, it's also the only one I currently play that relies on a riff rather than a chord sequence to carry the verse, not often in acoustic music does that happen. Not music that I listen to anyway. It's something I'd quite like to develop, and I'm well on my way to doing so with another song that's in the pipeline which hopefully people will hear soon.
Next I tried a song by the Noisettes; not sure what it's called, it's either Never Forget You or Always Remember Me, but I play it in the 82s and I really like it. It actually went down really well, a lot of the guys in the audience recognised the song and they can't have heard it live often; I don't hear it played by many - if any - of my contemporaries. There's some bits that need ironing out, namely the strumming pattern in the second verse; I could feel myself rushing it but I couldn't do anything about it without stopping, but it didn't spoil what I would otherwise consider to be quite a convincing delivery.
For some reason whenever I do a 7-song gig these days, Storm From The North is always the 5th one. Actually I know exactly what the reason is; it's the mid-set epic and therefore needs to be in the middle of the set. I don't know if that's becoming a little predictable now that I've been playing it for a few months, and especially at Katies where I play a lot, but I honestly can't think of a better place to put it. I played it well, I think, and the audience is familiar enough not to clap too soon!
I was torn then between playing Girls Names and Chapter One. I went with Girl's Names because it's faster; I was having a really good gig by now and I wanted to keep up the pace. I'm struggling a lot less with the 12/8 bit; fewer are the times when I mess up the chords and I'm used to singing it now to the point where I can make it sound good (if you haven't heard the song, that part is quite low and I find it difficult to project my voice.) It went down as well as it ever does, it's familiar at Katies so I do play it quite a bit.
I wrapped it up with We Will Survive, and I seem to be getting far more precise with this one as well. It's come from all this gigging, I'm sure; sometimes it's the only time I play guitar these days but as the stakes are always higher on the stage than they are in my bedroom, no matter how good the gig is, I'm under a lot of pressure to get it right when I do play it. That kind of experience have really put some of these songs at another level which after all this time I am very pleased with! And fortunately so were my audience.
Well, blowing my own trumpet a little bit here but I think I set the bar quite high for what was to follow! I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards telling me how much they enjoyed the show which is always a nice feeling. I wouldn't normally do this on this blog, but big well done to Georgia and Will, who followed me, and Sam, who wrapped up the gig very well indeed with a sing-along chorus. It really was a great night and a fine reminder of why I play live.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
Gigs from 26/8 to 5/9
So this is by far the busiest I have ever been with gigging. I count it 10 in 11 days, and to be perfectly honest blogging up a track-by-track review of all of them would be far more work than it would be fun, even if I could remember what we played! So what I'm going to do instead is give a brief run-down of what they were, where they were, and how it all went down...
26/8/2011
It all started on what I can only describe as a soggy afternoon at the Pulse Festival, just North of Coven, with Natasha and the 82s. This was a relatively short set for us, only 10 songs. I was suffering from having not long changed my guitar strings, and it kept going out of tune in the weeks running up to it and had only just began to settle; not helped by the fact that I hit the thing rather hard! The highlights of the set were definitely Word Up and Sound of the Underground, where I pump up the gain and really let loose on the guitar. The mistakes were there and we knew it, but it was our first gig so we weren't going to be too hard on ourselves.
27/8/2011
The following day I was at The Malt Shovel in Great Barr, playing a Summer Jam festival organised by the Kiesters Brown who I'd met in Stafford a few months before. Lots of summer festivals! There was a distinctly 'British' feel to this one, i.e. it was pouring it down with rain. The festival also suffered from a few pull-outs, so there was quite a bit of time between bands which meant I didn't get to see them all and unfortunately I missed the Kiesters. My set went OK, not the most inspired I've ever felt while playing a gig but my song order was by then becoming quite predictable. That being said, it's the best feeling in the world to see your own lyrics being sung back to you while you're playing, and as a lot of the guys with the Kiesters had seen the video of me that we did in Stafford Uni, a lot of the guys knew my songs already! On the downside, I've really got to stop tapping my foot while I'm doing A Little Respect. It hurts after a while!
28/8/2011
After band practice with Aki Maera we went down to Katies to play their summer festival, and despite it happening in the upstairs bar because the downstairs area was flooded, I actually had a really good time with this one. I almost reversed my setlist, instead opening with Girl's Names (I can play it well enough now to put on a far more convincing performance) and enjoyed it a lot more for all that. Also Dale recorded me singing Wide Open Space, and Amy recorded me singing Girl's Names, so there might be a couple of you-tube videos and a duet with Dale in the runnings before too long...
31/8/2011
That was supposed to be it until Friday but it turns out Emma wanted to book me for the Sunflower Lounge again due to another pull-out. I remember feeling very morose for this one because my mouth was in searing pain, and I adjusted my setlist to put all my miserable songs in there. It actually worked quite well because there was some semblance of consistency in my set, and it was nice to play Dear Mr Manager again; I don't often play it but it fit the bill for tonight. I asked the audience at the end whether they wanted a fast song or a slow song to finish off, somebody said 'fast' and I brought it to a close with Bitterness, a good decision because it always goes down well, Mitch liked it and so did the other guy who played that night!
2/9/2011
Another 82s gig, this one was at the Sneyd Inn and was pretty much our first full gig. It went OK, we were playing the songs better than we did the Friday before. There were booking agents there who were giving us some very useful feedback, for which I am grateful, but there are other things to sort out. For a start, if Rich and Sue are going to do a Name That Tune thing before we start the song, it would really help if they tell me and Jarv first, because if your own band doesn't know what you're playing it doesn't bode well for anybody else. But there were a few people there who really enjoyed what we were doing so if nothing else, I know we're playing the right songs very well. Hopefully there'll be a keyboard player pretty soon as well...
3/9/2011
A quick note about Open Mic UK: I was scheduled to audition, and if I pretend that the reason I didn't was for anything other than I didn't get up early enough I'd just be kidding myself. But, given that I had a slot booked at Codfest for 3.20pm, I'd parked my car at completely the wrong end of the NEC and I didn't really owe those guys anything (quite the other way round in fact, given that I had to pay to enter,) I ended up walking out.
So, Codfest. Easily the best of the summer festivals I played for all these two weeks. Sam and his friends had really done a good job getting it all sorted out, and the festival was the most enjoyable day I'd had for a long long time. My set was good; no one is going to go mental for an acoustic set but it was easily the largest number of people I'd ever played to in one gig, and the amount of them who came up to me afterwards and said they'd really enjoyed it was astounding; something I'm really not used to on that scale! I also did a couple of slots at the 'Busk Stop,' singing Disney songs of all things and getting other people up to sing with me, which was a very nice feeling indeed. At the end of the day it had all been one massive party; all the artists were good, everyone knew each other and got on reasonably well so there was no trouble, it was a whole music scene inside one field and one very large group of people that appreciated it. Long may it continue, and well done to everybody involved.
4/9/2011
This gig I was supporting Gwyn Ashton at The Foundry in Dudley. Nice to do a home-town show at last! For me at least there was a feeling of What Goes Around Comes Around, as Gwyn had jammed on bass with Jack's Legacy years ago at The Broadway while they were waiting for me to turn up, and five years later I'm supporting him. I'm also seeing a lot of Emma in In Between Seas, which is hardly surprising as we know the same promoters. It was a good gig all in all, I was probably the least technically able of all the guitarists who played that night but none of them deliver their songs with quite as much venom as I do with Bitterness, once I'd played that the gig was mine for the 20 minutes or so I had left. Only drawback really was the fact that I'd shouted myself hoarse at Codfest the previous day, and it came across in my singing. Oh, and by the way, if you get a chance to go and see Gwyn Ashton play, for God's sake do it. He is incredible.
5/9/2011
I wrapped it up with a trip to Katies with the intention of doing Wide Open Space with Dale. He wasn't there, but it's surprising how much of the Katies crowd I have a friendly familiarity with now. All things considered singing Man That You Fear by Marilyn Manson wasn't one of my better moves as it really hurt my throat, but I also gave them Bitterness and We Will Survive, and the guys I spoke to afterwards reckon it sounded pretty good.
So there you have it. Busy busy, but let's be honest, this is what I wanted all along, being able to gig every night. It'll probably slow down a bit now the summer is behind us, but hey, I'll keep doing gigs every week, and there's talk of a recording coming up soon as well so we'll see how that goes, it's about time I got a CD out!
26/8/2011
It all started on what I can only describe as a soggy afternoon at the Pulse Festival, just North of Coven, with Natasha and the 82s. This was a relatively short set for us, only 10 songs. I was suffering from having not long changed my guitar strings, and it kept going out of tune in the weeks running up to it and had only just began to settle; not helped by the fact that I hit the thing rather hard! The highlights of the set were definitely Word Up and Sound of the Underground, where I pump up the gain and really let loose on the guitar. The mistakes were there and we knew it, but it was our first gig so we weren't going to be too hard on ourselves.
27/8/2011
The following day I was at The Malt Shovel in Great Barr, playing a Summer Jam festival organised by the Kiesters Brown who I'd met in Stafford a few months before. Lots of summer festivals! There was a distinctly 'British' feel to this one, i.e. it was pouring it down with rain. The festival also suffered from a few pull-outs, so there was quite a bit of time between bands which meant I didn't get to see them all and unfortunately I missed the Kiesters. My set went OK, not the most inspired I've ever felt while playing a gig but my song order was by then becoming quite predictable. That being said, it's the best feeling in the world to see your own lyrics being sung back to you while you're playing, and as a lot of the guys with the Kiesters had seen the video of me that we did in Stafford Uni, a lot of the guys knew my songs already! On the downside, I've really got to stop tapping my foot while I'm doing A Little Respect. It hurts after a while!
28/8/2011
After band practice with Aki Maera we went down to Katies to play their summer festival, and despite it happening in the upstairs bar because the downstairs area was flooded, I actually had a really good time with this one. I almost reversed my setlist, instead opening with Girl's Names (I can play it well enough now to put on a far more convincing performance) and enjoyed it a lot more for all that. Also Dale recorded me singing Wide Open Space, and Amy recorded me singing Girl's Names, so there might be a couple of you-tube videos and a duet with Dale in the runnings before too long...
31/8/2011
That was supposed to be it until Friday but it turns out Emma wanted to book me for the Sunflower Lounge again due to another pull-out. I remember feeling very morose for this one because my mouth was in searing pain, and I adjusted my setlist to put all my miserable songs in there. It actually worked quite well because there was some semblance of consistency in my set, and it was nice to play Dear Mr Manager again; I don't often play it but it fit the bill for tonight. I asked the audience at the end whether they wanted a fast song or a slow song to finish off, somebody said 'fast' and I brought it to a close with Bitterness, a good decision because it always goes down well, Mitch liked it and so did the other guy who played that night!
2/9/2011
Another 82s gig, this one was at the Sneyd Inn and was pretty much our first full gig. It went OK, we were playing the songs better than we did the Friday before. There were booking agents there who were giving us some very useful feedback, for which I am grateful, but there are other things to sort out. For a start, if Rich and Sue are going to do a Name That Tune thing before we start the song, it would really help if they tell me and Jarv first, because if your own band doesn't know what you're playing it doesn't bode well for anybody else. But there were a few people there who really enjoyed what we were doing so if nothing else, I know we're playing the right songs very well. Hopefully there'll be a keyboard player pretty soon as well...
3/9/2011
A quick note about Open Mic UK: I was scheduled to audition, and if I pretend that the reason I didn't was for anything other than I didn't get up early enough I'd just be kidding myself. But, given that I had a slot booked at Codfest for 3.20pm, I'd parked my car at completely the wrong end of the NEC and I didn't really owe those guys anything (quite the other way round in fact, given that I had to pay to enter,) I ended up walking out.
So, Codfest. Easily the best of the summer festivals I played for all these two weeks. Sam and his friends had really done a good job getting it all sorted out, and the festival was the most enjoyable day I'd had for a long long time. My set was good; no one is going to go mental for an acoustic set but it was easily the largest number of people I'd ever played to in one gig, and the amount of them who came up to me afterwards and said they'd really enjoyed it was astounding; something I'm really not used to on that scale! I also did a couple of slots at the 'Busk Stop,' singing Disney songs of all things and getting other people up to sing with me, which was a very nice feeling indeed. At the end of the day it had all been one massive party; all the artists were good, everyone knew each other and got on reasonably well so there was no trouble, it was a whole music scene inside one field and one very large group of people that appreciated it. Long may it continue, and well done to everybody involved.
4/9/2011
This gig I was supporting Gwyn Ashton at The Foundry in Dudley. Nice to do a home-town show at last! For me at least there was a feeling of What Goes Around Comes Around, as Gwyn had jammed on bass with Jack's Legacy years ago at The Broadway while they were waiting for me to turn up, and five years later I'm supporting him. I'm also seeing a lot of Emma in In Between Seas, which is hardly surprising as we know the same promoters. It was a good gig all in all, I was probably the least technically able of all the guitarists who played that night but none of them deliver their songs with quite as much venom as I do with Bitterness, once I'd played that the gig was mine for the 20 minutes or so I had left. Only drawback really was the fact that I'd shouted myself hoarse at Codfest the previous day, and it came across in my singing. Oh, and by the way, if you get a chance to go and see Gwyn Ashton play, for God's sake do it. He is incredible.
5/9/2011
I wrapped it up with a trip to Katies with the intention of doing Wide Open Space with Dale. He wasn't there, but it's surprising how much of the Katies crowd I have a friendly familiarity with now. All things considered singing Man That You Fear by Marilyn Manson wasn't one of my better moves as it really hurt my throat, but I also gave them Bitterness and We Will Survive, and the guys I spoke to afterwards reckon it sounded pretty good.
So there you have it. Busy busy, but let's be honest, this is what I wanted all along, being able to gig every night. It'll probably slow down a bit now the summer is behind us, but hey, I'll keep doing gigs every week, and there's talk of a recording coming up soon as well so we'll see how that goes, it's about time I got a CD out!
Wednesday 24 August 2011
24/8/2011: The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham
So for the second time this month, I find myself playing a new venue. I’d been to the Sunflower Lounge before to watch Pan and the Poets, and I was aware of the fact that the venue does take itself seriously, but even without this, the stakes are always higher if it’s a new gig. I was therefore wondering for a long time what to play; whether to play my faster songs which would fit about half of the audience, or my arty ones that would fit the venue. In the end I just decided to play whatever the hell I felt like, and fell back on almost exactly the same set list I played in Cradley Heath last week. If it ain’t broke…
Kicking of with Bitterness was probably the best decision I made all night. The guy who was on before me was quiet all the way through his set so suddenly bursting on to the stage with this one was probably just what the audience needed at that point. I did hear the sound guy having fun with the mixer – my pickup has never been the favourite of sound engineers, and for what it’s worth the sound was great for the rest of the night – but apart from that it all went very well. I got the roar at the end of the song exactly right, and it’s nice to be in an environment where I might get away with it.
Followed that up with Get Out Of My Head. I was conscious of the fact that Sam Tilley, who had gone on first, was a fan of Maroon 5, who inspired most of the music for this song. He didn’t say anything but it appeared to go down well; a lot of the guys in there were quite attentive and I can’t fault them for that.
For the first time for quite a while I’d actually managed to get some people to come to a gig, in this case Hannah and John who used to be in Perception with me,* and Mark who does That’s Sound recording. For my two former bandmates, neither of whom I’d seen for months, I played my rendition of Let’s Start A Band, a song we used to cover. I fluffed up a chord at one point but other than that it went OK and there was at least one other person in the crowd who knew what I was playing because I saw her singing along. A good one to remember! Thanks very much to the three of you for coming, I appreciate it.
I gave Chapter One another go next. My ‘Does anyone come from Perry Barr?’ spiel seemed to work, although that’s probably because I was prepared for the fact that actually probably none of them came from Perry Barr and scripted my response accordingly. I wouldn’t necessarily do it in, say, Northumberland, but around the Midlands it just might work. I played the song a lot better than I did last week, I did fluff up the words again but I was able to cover up my mistakes far more effectively so I’m pleased; I’d be happy to play it again live. I think maybe the song is a little too quiet for an environment where I have to plug my guitar in; tonight for example the sound on my guitar had to be right down for the heavier moments which means that when I was playing quietly the guitar would have been almost inaudible. But that won’t necessarily always be the case; I’m in the market for a new guitar after all!
I then followed it through by playing the same chords in to Storm From The North. One very careless blunder while I was playing this: It was going very well indeed. No sooner had this thought entered my head than the plectrum started to slip out of my hand. Thankfully I rescued it – but that could have been interesting! I had a feeling, this being a new gig, that I’d get clapped over the last quiet bit, but this time when it happened I just let the audience get on with it and came back in when they’d quietened down. That was far more effective than mentioning it during the song, though I did make a point of thanking them for applauding twice for one song once I’d finished.
I wrapped it up with We Will Survive, which I think is one way I can make absolutely sure that whatever else happens, I will go out with a bang. The thought entered my head as I was playing that it’s been a while since I last changed the strings on my guitar, and I can consider myself very lucky to still have all six at this point. I need to keep an eye on it because I’m very busy in the coming weeks.
So this one was certainly one of my better gigs in recent months. There were people there who were playing better than I did; doing all sorts of things with open tunings that I wouldn’t even try at this stage, and singing better as well. But that still didn’t stop a rather proud feeling of setting the bar quite high for the act that was to follow…
I’ve got a gig with the 82s at Pulse Festival in Four Ashes on Friday, so if you want to see what all the fuss is about I’d say that would be a pretty good place to do it.
*Perception never officially broke up, but it will be a long time, if ever, before we play together as a band again. It’s a shame, but I think we were reluctant to admit that we just weren’t moving in the same direction musically, and sort of necessarily let it die over the past few months.
Sunday 21 August 2011
19/8/2011: The Victoria Inn, Cradley Heath
All quiet on the gig front due to Holidays and such, but I'm back...
This was to be my first gig supported by PricklyMusic P Romotions (I know;) and as I'd never played the place before nor had I done a solo gig for a while, I was in 'New Gig' mode...
I was on first, a position I wouldn't normally take out of choice but it gives me the rest of the night to kick back and relax. As it was a new gig, I started with Bitterness, and I saw quite a few people sit up and listen to the whole 'rock star with acoustic guitar' thing that I have going on. It was as I was singing the line 'With long red hair and wild eyes that could tear my soul apart,' that for the first time since I've been playing this song I happened to notice a young lady in the audience... with long red hair. Laughter ensued from that particular group, who turned out to be one of the bands that was on later, but I made a point of saying in the musical interlude to the song that it was extremely unlikely that she was the person the song refers to. Other than that, it went quite well.
As ever, I followed it up with Get Out Of My Head, which now that I had the attention of the audience was met with the kind of appreciation that I think this song deserves. I didn't play it all that well, I fluffed up a couple of chords and dropped my plectrum, so I had to finish the song with my fingers, but again, the crowd seemed to like it.
I then road-tested my new song Chapter One, after announcing that it refers to moving out of Perry Barr. I think it is a good song and it went down quite well, though probably not as well as it would have done had I picked a faster song to keep up the momentum. I also fluffed the words to the first chorus; I was halfway through singing the wrong line before I realised I couldn't do anything about it; the mistake must have been noticeable even to an unfamiliar crowd, but at least I made it all the way to the end of the song which is more than I've managed on some other occasions I've chosen to showcase a new song! I was also reliably informed by Aaron from Pheonix Rising that the PA cut out halfway through the song - I didn't notice, but it wouldn't have helped that I was making a deliberate effort to keep quiet. (Oh, and Aaron, if you're reading this - sorry if I've spelled your name wrong; there's about 20 different spellings of the name so I just had to pick one and hope for the best.)
Followed that up with a much better performance of Storm From The North. Interestingly, given my last Katies blog, I came surprisingly close to Emma hearing that song for the first time tonight - In Between Seas were actually on later, but because they also had a gig in Birmingham on the same night they didn't arrive until just before they went on. I imagine when that eventually happens, the ensuing discussion will be very interesting. But for tonight, all that happened was the same thing that happens every time I play the song in a new place, which is that people start clapping just before the last 'quiet bit.' At least I spared them Nothing Else Matters, though I was seriously considering it at one point...
I finished up with We Will Survive. I think I'm going to have to stop putting the Battle Royale reference before it; I know what I mean but it always feels really clunky to explain. That was probably my best song of the night, an opinion shared by Cal from Prickly; looks like I've got the first and last songs sorted out, it's just the rest of the set I need to figure out now!
So, an enjoyable return to acoustic gigging. My next one is at the Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham next Wednesday, see you there!
This was to be my first gig supported by PricklyMusic P Romotions (I know;) and as I'd never played the place before nor had I done a solo gig for a while, I was in 'New Gig' mode...
I was on first, a position I wouldn't normally take out of choice but it gives me the rest of the night to kick back and relax. As it was a new gig, I started with Bitterness, and I saw quite a few people sit up and listen to the whole 'rock star with acoustic guitar' thing that I have going on. It was as I was singing the line 'With long red hair and wild eyes that could tear my soul apart,' that for the first time since I've been playing this song I happened to notice a young lady in the audience... with long red hair. Laughter ensued from that particular group, who turned out to be one of the bands that was on later, but I made a point of saying in the musical interlude to the song that it was extremely unlikely that she was the person the song refers to. Other than that, it went quite well.
As ever, I followed it up with Get Out Of My Head, which now that I had the attention of the audience was met with the kind of appreciation that I think this song deserves. I didn't play it all that well, I fluffed up a couple of chords and dropped my plectrum, so I had to finish the song with my fingers, but again, the crowd seemed to like it.
I then road-tested my new song Chapter One, after announcing that it refers to moving out of Perry Barr. I think it is a good song and it went down quite well, though probably not as well as it would have done had I picked a faster song to keep up the momentum. I also fluffed the words to the first chorus; I was halfway through singing the wrong line before I realised I couldn't do anything about it; the mistake must have been noticeable even to an unfamiliar crowd, but at least I made it all the way to the end of the song which is more than I've managed on some other occasions I've chosen to showcase a new song! I was also reliably informed by Aaron from Pheonix Rising that the PA cut out halfway through the song - I didn't notice, but it wouldn't have helped that I was making a deliberate effort to keep quiet. (Oh, and Aaron, if you're reading this - sorry if I've spelled your name wrong; there's about 20 different spellings of the name so I just had to pick one and hope for the best.)
Followed that up with a much better performance of Storm From The North. Interestingly, given my last Katies blog, I came surprisingly close to Emma hearing that song for the first time tonight - In Between Seas were actually on later, but because they also had a gig in Birmingham on the same night they didn't arrive until just before they went on. I imagine when that eventually happens, the ensuing discussion will be very interesting. But for tonight, all that happened was the same thing that happens every time I play the song in a new place, which is that people start clapping just before the last 'quiet bit.' At least I spared them Nothing Else Matters, though I was seriously considering it at one point...
I finished up with We Will Survive. I think I'm going to have to stop putting the Battle Royale reference before it; I know what I mean but it always feels really clunky to explain. That was probably my best song of the night, an opinion shared by Cal from Prickly; looks like I've got the first and last songs sorted out, it's just the rest of the set I need to figure out now!
So, an enjoyable return to acoustic gigging. My next one is at the Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham next Wednesday, see you there!
Friday 19 August 2011
The Fakes: 29/7/2011 The Earl of Dudley Arms
Two gigs with the Fakes in the space of a few months is rare to the point where I actually think it’s unprecedented, nonetheless we were delighted to have the chance to play the Baseline at the Earl of Dudley Arms in July once again. It had gone well last time, we learned from our mistakes, and we were ready to give this gig a really good go. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way…
Being honest, this wasn’t one of our better ones. The problem was we went on far too late; we were last on a bill of 4 acts, and things were taking a long time to work through, so by the time we took the stage, the alcohol had been flowing, we were tired, and to be quite frank we weren’t concentrating. It didn’t start off too bad, our usual combo of set openers worked quite well and even though it wasn’t the best we’d played them, it was good enough. The problems began, I think, when I left the stage to go to the toilet. Reason I did this was because the rest of the band were playing Come As You Are, which I don’t actually play on. (I turn up late for near enough every band practice so the lads usually play this one while they wait for me.) By the time I’d come back, it had all one to pieces, we were making mistakes in the songs that we knew far better than to make, and it generally wasn’t working very well at all. I don’t know if leaving the stage had anything to do with it but by this precedent it’s not something I wish to repeat.
Not that there was nothing good about the show; the audience enjoyed it and the one person who was causing problems got thrown out just before we went on so I was able to be a lot more relaxed. The biggest thing I was pleased about, though, was the fact that we called it a day when we did. The original plan was to go back on stage after we’d finished our main set and do another 6 songs, but we decided not to. We finished once again with Dakota by Stereophonics, which to be fair we always play well no matter how badly the rest of the show went. We got off the stage, and the gig felt like it was over; there was no reason to go back on. Compare this to last time, where we over-extended our welcome by at least a few songs, and I think that was a mature decision and a noticeable progression from last time.
So, not so great this time. But in the Fakes we’ll never let something like that get us down, we’ll get back into the practice room next Monday, have a run through some songs, and look forward to the next gig, whenever that may be. There’s no plans for another Fakes gig yet, however I’m playing tonight at the Victoria Inn
See you soon.
Thursday 21 July 2011
20/7/2011: Katie Fitzgeralds Acoustic Brew
Here's a turn up for the books: I'm writing up a gig literally a day after I've done it, rather than the usual 7...
So I think it was last Tuesday I was emergency-booked for Katies again, and as I had band practice with Aki Maera that night I had to ask for the late slot. Turns out I needn't have worried as they were running late anyway but I got to play a show to the few remaining people left in the bar...
I began with Get Out Of My Head. Even though I'm playing that well now, and tonight was no exception, I ended up making mistakes with the chords in the most stupid places in the world. I reckon it's because I wasn't concentrating, which isn't surprising as I usually open with this song so if there's anywhere in the set that I'm 'going through the motions' it's here. Nonetheless, I don't think it went down too badly at all.
I then went on to Girl's Names. I really didn't feel like following it up with Bitterness, so I changed the set around a little bit. I've started putting a little country-style lick in the intro, which I noticed one person in the audience nodding along to so this was probably one of my better ideas. I played it well, I've never thought this is my most inspiring song but it usually does go down well here, once again tonight was no exception. So far, so good...
Storm From The North was next. Apart from one fluff of the chords at one point, I played this very well indeed, it's getting better and better... I started off by revealing that the song was actually inspired by Emma who used to be in Crashpoint, who I understand now plays a few acoustic shows on her own in and around the town, including Katies. I speculated to the audience afterwards whether Sam would put me on the same night as Emma and wonder if I'd play it. Hell, I don't know the answer to that question at this point; ask me again if it comes up.
Mark had his graduation on Tuesday, and the moment where a young and recently disabled man walked - with some assistance - from one side of the stage to the other to get his degree and shake hands with the Chancellor was truly inspiring. I wanted to dedicate a song to the guy, and the only song I could think of that was in the slightest bit appropriate was Trail Of Broken Hearts by DragonForce. It was actually quite nice how people who were preparing to leave stayed to watch for this one, then left. I played it OK, I could have done without fluffing up so many of the lyrics but it hardly matters with DragonForce as they're all near enough the same anyway; it was an impromptu decision to play it and it seemed to work.
Things were going a bit quiet now so I followed suit with Right Where It Belongs by Nine Inch Nails. This went down with passive indifference but I wasn't exactly trying to change the world with it if I'm perfectly honest, it did what I needed it to do which was basically a musical interlude with vocals.
I then had a go at asking what little of the audience remained (which ironically enough was a larger number of people than I'm used to playing to) what they wanted to hear, a fast song? A slow song? Somebody at the bar shouted 'Reggae!' and I ended up playing 7 Nation Army with Ska chords... I actually do this with some of the bands and it works really well with the 82s, less so with The Fakes. It worked for a while with the acoustic guitar but I found out too late I haven't really got the stamina to make it all the way through. My acoustic guitar isn't the easiest in the world to play and my fingers were excruciating by the time I'd finished. I also need to play that chorus a lot more accurately. But the crowd seemed to like it and I saw a few people dancing to it which for an acoustic gig is mega!
I finished up with a super-quick adrenaline inspired rendition of Bitterness! I played it well and those fast strums are getting ever more accurate, but I ought to know better than to let myself get carried away like that.
So, while not the best I've ever played, this was one of the most enjoyable gigs I've played so far this year. Bring on the next one!
So I think it was last Tuesday I was emergency-booked for Katies again, and as I had band practice with Aki Maera that night I had to ask for the late slot. Turns out I needn't have worried as they were running late anyway but I got to play a show to the few remaining people left in the bar...
I began with Get Out Of My Head. Even though I'm playing that well now, and tonight was no exception, I ended up making mistakes with the chords in the most stupid places in the world. I reckon it's because I wasn't concentrating, which isn't surprising as I usually open with this song so if there's anywhere in the set that I'm 'going through the motions' it's here. Nonetheless, I don't think it went down too badly at all.
I then went on to Girl's Names. I really didn't feel like following it up with Bitterness, so I changed the set around a little bit. I've started putting a little country-style lick in the intro, which I noticed one person in the audience nodding along to so this was probably one of my better ideas. I played it well, I've never thought this is my most inspiring song but it usually does go down well here, once again tonight was no exception. So far, so good...
Storm From The North was next. Apart from one fluff of the chords at one point, I played this very well indeed, it's getting better and better... I started off by revealing that the song was actually inspired by Emma who used to be in Crashpoint, who I understand now plays a few acoustic shows on her own in and around the town, including Katies. I speculated to the audience afterwards whether Sam would put me on the same night as Emma and wonder if I'd play it. Hell, I don't know the answer to that question at this point; ask me again if it comes up.
Mark had his graduation on Tuesday, and the moment where a young and recently disabled man walked - with some assistance - from one side of the stage to the other to get his degree and shake hands with the Chancellor was truly inspiring. I wanted to dedicate a song to the guy, and the only song I could think of that was in the slightest bit appropriate was Trail Of Broken Hearts by DragonForce. It was actually quite nice how people who were preparing to leave stayed to watch for this one, then left. I played it OK, I could have done without fluffing up so many of the lyrics but it hardly matters with DragonForce as they're all near enough the same anyway; it was an impromptu decision to play it and it seemed to work.
Things were going a bit quiet now so I followed suit with Right Where It Belongs by Nine Inch Nails. This went down with passive indifference but I wasn't exactly trying to change the world with it if I'm perfectly honest, it did what I needed it to do which was basically a musical interlude with vocals.
I then had a go at asking what little of the audience remained (which ironically enough was a larger number of people than I'm used to playing to) what they wanted to hear, a fast song? A slow song? Somebody at the bar shouted 'Reggae!' and I ended up playing 7 Nation Army with Ska chords... I actually do this with some of the bands and it works really well with the 82s, less so with The Fakes. It worked for a while with the acoustic guitar but I found out too late I haven't really got the stamina to make it all the way through. My acoustic guitar isn't the easiest in the world to play and my fingers were excruciating by the time I'd finished. I also need to play that chorus a lot more accurately. But the crowd seemed to like it and I saw a few people dancing to it which for an acoustic gig is mega!
I finished up with a super-quick adrenaline inspired rendition of Bitterness! I played it well and those fast strums are getting ever more accurate, but I ought to know better than to let myself get carried away like that.
So, while not the best I've ever played, this was one of the most enjoyable gigs I've played so far this year. Bring on the next one!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)