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.
Tuesday 27 September 2011
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!
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