It's Christmas Time...
Hi there, it's been a long while! I wanted to talk to you today about a gig I did last week, again for mygood friend Sam Draisey. See, I've been involved again in the production of this year's Christmas Album, and what with Sam promoting it at his open mic at the Rainbow Inn in Coven and I wanted to go and support it myself, by playing my song and generally contributing to the night. As it was over 3 months since my last performance, I was coming at this one with a little trepidation. However, given my track record, this was probably to do with the fact that I hadn't practiced enough; something I avoided mentioning on the night simply because having to apologise for the way you're playing your songs - particularly your own - gets old and lame after the third or fourth time you've heard it. This is pretty much the only gig I've ever done where I've read the majority of my set from a music stand, a fact I'm not particularly proud of but I guess a lot of people do it. So here's what happened:
I opened up with Once In Royal David's City. This is a song I don't remember singing since I was in primary school, singing Christmas Carols off the same tatty carol sheets they used to hand out every year. My last Christmas there was 1996 so I doubt they survive now, and I don't usually go in churches or anything like that so I have no occasion to sing those songs any more. Which is a shame, 'cause I kind of miss doing it. I sang the first verse unaccompanied, and then brought in the guitar after; I had a capo on the 1st fret and played it in E flat so my voice was just about high enough to hit the top notes. The guitar could have done with a bit more rehearsal; the accompaniment for that song was originally done on piano or organ, and while translating it note for note onto guitar is all but impossible, I should at least have paid more attention to the unusual timing of the chord changes, but I managed without any monumental disasters so that was OK.
I then sang what I'm tentatively calling my classic: The First Footprint. This one will always be special to me because it proves a point that I've long tried to stick to while writing songs - write about what you know. This came from Adam Levine from Maroon 5, if you want to know. It was nice to sing it again and since a lot of the people there had heard it there was a nice sense of familiarity about it. It's something of a running joke that I can't seem to play it live without forgetting the words at some point, and tonight was no exception, although at least this time it happened between verses.
After that, I played my contribution to this year's Christmas Album, which funnily enough is called Next Year. I wrote it as a sort of sequel to All I Want For Christmas Is You, relating it to my current situation with Amy, where we're looking forward to moving in together but until then the distance between us pretty much forces us to spend Christmas apart. There was no small amount of Feeder in the melody and chord progressions, but you know what, they're my favourite band so that's inevitable. It went OK, Sam likes the song and I can see myself playing that in years to come which can be no bad thing.
I wrapped it up with another Christmas Carol Silent Night. This is one that's always been a staple Christmas song and there have been some appalling versions of it recorded in the past, so I really tried to capture the essence of what I feel the song is about. When I try to describe it, words escape me, but it is a beautiful song and I think I compensated for the fact that I find it hard to hit the high notes while singing quietly well.
So, not a bad night at all, I was very pleased with how it went.
Have I put a date on returning to gigging yet?
Well, I have and I haven't. To a certain extent it's going to depend on whether or not I'm still in the Midlands by the time I get back into it. If I'm not then I'll be far too busy trying to sort myself out to worry too much about gigging. But I'm looking at maybe April for what I'm pretentiously calling a 'Comeback.' That will mean I've had a year out and hopefully will have achieved what I wanted to achieve from taking it out in the first place.
Time will tell, but until then, see you all soon...
Wednesday 26 December 2012
Monday 3 September 2012
1/9/2012: I held Codfest in my arms...
So hang on, haven't I stopped gigging?
Well, yes, for now. But here I found myself ready to take the stage at Codfest once more! What happened was that I went to Sam's open night at the Hartley Arms on Monday Night, partly for something to do but mostly because I needed a word with Sam about one or two different things and this was as good an opportunity as any. He mentioned right at the end that one of the acoustic acts for the Back Porch stage had pulled out and I offered to do the set for him. Sam gladly accepted, gave me the 2.55 slot and at 2.50 on Saturday after getting lost I managed to get on the car park and hurry on to the stage. Here's how I got on:
I'd specifically chosen a set of songs for this that I thought complimented both my current position of semi-retirement and the fact that I'm fortunate enough to get on stage at quite a big festival (in fact, for this level of gig, Codfest is about as good as it gets.) I opened up with You Held The World In Your Arms by Idlewild, one because it's an absolute belter, and two because my interpretation of it is being given one chance to break out of a very boring lifestyle. Not that my life is boring at the moment, far from it, but it was my first gig in over 4 months so I needed to hit this one with everything I had. What a shame then, that I managed to forget the words to the first verse. In my defence they are near enough the same all the way through with only minor variations but there was a definite feeling of [Brian Griffin sarcasm] "Well, we're off to a good start." That affected my performance for the first couple of minutes but I pulled it together after that and I did see one guy singing along to the chorus so that was pretty good.
I dropped the capo after that for my next song, Storm from the North. Of all the songs I recorded with Sam last year that one's his favourite and I owed him for the gig so I played that one and I'm pleased to say that I've lost none of my attack in the time it's been since I've played it last. I noted in the program, by the way, that Sam described my songs as 'observational.' Well, he knows what this one is all about and the metaphor of the ship fits the situation quite well, and this is something I intend to play up to in future songwriting endeavours!
After that I did Get Out Of My Head, because that's Kayla's favourite. I did it with the a'capello first verse and chorus, which might not have been a wise move given the setting - a festival audience is by their very nature largely unfamiliar and it might have been better to give them the "real" version. However, it's not like I had to worry too much about continuity. Besides, taking the Rammstein approach to it, the recorded version is the best I could make of it at the time but since then I've discovered ways of playing it live that make it all the more enjoyable for me. Given the amount of people who've actually listened to the recording, (2 people on my last Myspace count,) I don't think it's wrong to play it the way I enjoy it as audience expectations are pretty much a secondary consideration!
I've got a bad habit of fiddling with the capo between songs. I knew perfectly well that after the first song I didn't needed the capo after that, and after every song I'd pick it up, put it on the mic stand, get half way to putting it on the guitar before remembering I didn't need it; should not be letting that happen!
Because I played it at the last year and it went quite well, I played Colours of the Wind from the Disney film Pocahontas. Granted I can't sing it quite as well as Judy Kuhn, but I think I did an OK enough job of it. I did notice, though, that it went down better last year when I did it at a later hour; everyone was drunk and wanted to hear songs to sing along to. It was great to play it again though. Intrestingly, what I'd actually intended to do at that point was I'll Make A Man Out Of You from Mulan, but because of my guitar, there was no way I could have done it comfortably without putting the capo on halfway through the song. Barre chords are a pain! However, you can all be rest assured that I can't sing it as well as Donny Osmond either. I haven't got enough teeth.
I finished off with pretty much the most appropriate song I could think of in the circumstances: The Boys of Summer by Don Henley. This is quite a good 'rounding off the summer' song, and being the first day of September I could hardly have picked a better time. It's a nice one to play, not so nice to sing because I can never remember the changing line of the chorus. I know what they all are but I keep forgetting what order they all go in, which resulted in a few stumbles. However, a lot of the audience recognised it and I enjoyed playing it!
So ended my Codfest set. Am I back? No. That was a favour to a friend and I wouldn't like to say that I'm back yet as bar the covers I'm still doing what I was doing when I quit. But it was nice to get on the stage again. Given what Sam was saying about observational songwriting I might try getting in to that again and see if I can get something together that I'd be happy to play on stage. I'd like to drop a stone and a half in weight as well. Until then, it's one-offs like this, or perhaps a gig or two with The Fakes if we can organise it.
So, thanks to Sam and the comittee for organising the festival, biggest and best one yet, couldn't have asked for a better end to the Summer Holidays. See you next year, whether I'm playing or not...
Wednesday 2 May 2012
Heading for the End Part #2: The Rose and Crown in Glory
So we finally reach the end of 2 years and 4 months of tireless gigging. Here's how it all went:
After warming up in the soundcheck to the first bit of All Star by Smash Mouth, I opened my set with Get Out Of My Head. I did the a'capella intro because I think opening a gig like that lends a certain amount of intrigue to proceedings, and given that I was following Neil Corbett, who just for the record is really, REALLY good, I thought I'd better look like I mean it. It did the job and I played it reasonably well; it has certainly served me well over the last year and a half!
Bitterness is of course the song that everybody remembers. I opened it by telling everybody that footage of me playing it now exists on Youtube, and hammered it out my my usual measure of bile and spite. Mitch said that's his favourite of my songs and he loves to hear me play it; I must admit it's probably one of the most enjoyable songs I play live, made all the more so by the small number of times I choose not to.
I then for only the second time brought on a guest, Mitch Jones to sing Hurt by Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash. Should probably have told Mitch which version we were singing because he sang the NIN lyric - you know the bit I mean. But it was a good song, fit my mood perfectly and it was a pleasure to sing with him. We might do it again in the future, who knows?
Then I did something I've been meaning to do for a while and sing A Lonely Night while throwing in the chorus to Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I did open it by dedicating it to RHCP 'for stealing my fucking song,' but in case and Chili Peppers people are reading this or saw it, I WAS ONLY JOKING. I want that on record, as I don't want a lawsuit for defamation! It would have worked well if I remembered the words to it, unfortunately I tripped up on one of the lines so it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The rest of the song went OK though.
I finished off with one of my 'It's all over' songs, Home for Summer by Feeder. This one takes me right back to calling time on Jack's Legacy; it's fitting I think to end my last gig with this one. It worked perfectly.
Well I got some very positive feedback from some people who hadn't seen me before so thanks for that guys; I think as last gigs go, I could have done far worse than this. Thanks to Cal and Joy from Screaming Harlot for putting me on, and to everybody who watched my set.
Now with any rules, there are exceptions. I'm not doing solo gigs any more. I may, however, do some or all of the following:
Because what I don't want to do is come back and do exactly the same thing I was doing when I left...
Goodbye for now!
After warming up in the soundcheck to the first bit of All Star by Smash Mouth, I opened my set with Get Out Of My Head. I did the a'capella intro because I think opening a gig like that lends a certain amount of intrigue to proceedings, and given that I was following Neil Corbett, who just for the record is really, REALLY good, I thought I'd better look like I mean it. It did the job and I played it reasonably well; it has certainly served me well over the last year and a half!
Bitterness is of course the song that everybody remembers. I opened it by telling everybody that footage of me playing it now exists on Youtube, and hammered it out my my usual measure of bile and spite. Mitch said that's his favourite of my songs and he loves to hear me play it; I must admit it's probably one of the most enjoyable songs I play live, made all the more so by the small number of times I choose not to.
I then for only the second time brought on a guest, Mitch Jones to sing Hurt by Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash. Should probably have told Mitch which version we were singing because he sang the NIN lyric - you know the bit I mean. But it was a good song, fit my mood perfectly and it was a pleasure to sing with him. We might do it again in the future, who knows?
Then I did something I've been meaning to do for a while and sing A Lonely Night while throwing in the chorus to Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I did open it by dedicating it to RHCP 'for stealing my fucking song,' but in case and Chili Peppers people are reading this or saw it, I WAS ONLY JOKING. I want that on record, as I don't want a lawsuit for defamation! It would have worked well if I remembered the words to it, unfortunately I tripped up on one of the lines so it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The rest of the song went OK though.
I finished off with one of my 'It's all over' songs, Home for Summer by Feeder. This one takes me right back to calling time on Jack's Legacy; it's fitting I think to end my last gig with this one. It worked perfectly.
Well I got some very positive feedback from some people who hadn't seen me before so thanks for that guys; I think as last gigs go, I could have done far worse than this. Thanks to Cal and Joy from Screaming Harlot for putting me on, and to everybody who watched my set.
Now with any rules, there are exceptions. I'm not doing solo gigs any more. I may, however, do some or all of the following:
- Gigs with The Fakes, or any other band I join,
- Back-up musician for a singer, e.g. Hannah,
- Compere gigs for the St John's Church group (which I haven't been blogging because I'm not actually performing, just compereing)
Because what I don't want to do is come back and do exactly the same thing I was doing when I left...
Goodbye for now!
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Heading for the End part 1: A Stormy Misdirection at the Hartley Arms. 23/4/2012
Hi there.
Not done a blog in a while; I'm afraid being obliged to write down the details of every single show I do can feel a little overwhelming at times, and I don't always get time to do it. I did a gig at Four Ashes a couple of weeks ago for example, and headed down to Amy's straight after. While it would not be literally true that I didn't have time to write a blog while I was there, she certainly wouldn't have thanked me for it. Which is a shame because that show influenced a lot of what it coming here:
I'm going to be taking an indefinite break from playing live. I can think of a few reasons for it but they basically come down to the fact that I've had enough. I gigged every week all of last year, and I've not done much less than that this year so far. Some shows I've enjoyed more than others, and what I've got out of it is refining my set to the point where I can put on a far more convincing show than I ever could before.
What else does that get me? Not a fat lot. I have very rarely been paid for playing a solo gig, (thanks to Sam Draisey for being the only one who has so far,) I couldn't sell a CD to my own mother (she's heard it all!) and usually the only way I can get anybody to come to a gig is if I drive them there myself.
Now I know that perhaps I should be doing more to change that. Burning off some CDs would be a nice start; getting a proper Facebook page, really promoting those gigs, get a decent contract on my phone so I can actually afford to send mass texts to people who might want to come. But the way it's been going so far hasn't put me in particularly high spirits and offering much incentive for me to do that. Plus I've been doing a lot of other stuff as well; I'm more in to my games now than ever before and it's taking up a lot of my time, and in many cases proving a lot more enjoyable. I think I need a few months off, give me some time to miss gigging and actually want to get back to it, during which I need the following things to happen:
I'll pick this up another time, it's probably about now that I should talk about the gig I'm posting this blog for in the first place...
Ok given all this recent development I wasn't intending on being any good tonight, thankfully it was at at the Hartley Arms and in the company of Sam and his friends with whom I enjoy a friendly familiarity to the point where I could get away with it. The first song I did was Fall Back Down by Rancid. I've know the song vaguely for a while, the chords are easy enough. I've only got a basic grasp of the words, but then listening to the record I'm not conviced Tim Armstrong knows it all that well either... Sam recognised it and everybody else seemed to enjoy it so there are worse songs to play!
I then played something I'd barely played before in my life and was a bit risque, Dark Heart Silhouette by Vendetta Red, who I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen that they are the best band you've never heard. That's probably the most offence I've ever caused in one song, with the lyric 'And I watched him take her, beat her and rape her, and he said if you tell anyone I'll have God kill your Mommy...' so I need to be careful where I'm playing that! It seemed to go down OK but no one really knows the band so I was playing it to enterain myself as much as anybody else.
Feeling that I should probably get some of my own material in there I decided to play Bitterness. It went down reasonably well athough I was at that point suffering from the coke and pizza I'd had earlier, and singing so hard I felt like I was going to be sick. I don't know what was worse, that or telling everybody about it afterwards.
I finished up with a false start - and subsequent retry - of Storm from the North. Once I'd got it, it was fine, though I shouldn't let that happen a great many times. Only last Friday I managed to get the giggles half way into it. I was conscious of the fact that Sam was filming this one and I wanted to give as good a performance as I can. If what Sam filmed comes out barely passable, I'll put it on the blog and see where it goes from there.
So I probably won't be at the Hartley Arms again too soon. I might go to the Robin when Sam puts it on but Wheaton Aston is a little far for me to go just to watch. Still, it's been good to me and has given me a nice platform to spring some new material from so I'm grateful for that!
Might see you Thursday, might see you Sunday...
Not done a blog in a while; I'm afraid being obliged to write down the details of every single show I do can feel a little overwhelming at times, and I don't always get time to do it. I did a gig at Four Ashes a couple of weeks ago for example, and headed down to Amy's straight after. While it would not be literally true that I didn't have time to write a blog while I was there, she certainly wouldn't have thanked me for it. Which is a shame because that show influenced a lot of what it coming here:
I'm going to be taking an indefinite break from playing live. I can think of a few reasons for it but they basically come down to the fact that I've had enough. I gigged every week all of last year, and I've not done much less than that this year so far. Some shows I've enjoyed more than others, and what I've got out of it is refining my set to the point where I can put on a far more convincing show than I ever could before.
What else does that get me? Not a fat lot. I have very rarely been paid for playing a solo gig, (thanks to Sam Draisey for being the only one who has so far,) I couldn't sell a CD to my own mother (she's heard it all!) and usually the only way I can get anybody to come to a gig is if I drive them there myself.
Now I know that perhaps I should be doing more to change that. Burning off some CDs would be a nice start; getting a proper Facebook page, really promoting those gigs, get a decent contract on my phone so I can actually afford to send mass texts to people who might want to come. But the way it's been going so far hasn't put me in particularly high spirits and offering much incentive for me to do that. Plus I've been doing a lot of other stuff as well; I'm more in to my games now than ever before and it's taking up a lot of my time, and in many cases proving a lot more enjoyable. I think I need a few months off, give me some time to miss gigging and actually want to get back to it, during which I need the following things to happen:
- Get a proper Facebook music page
- Get a Twitter account to use with the Music page,
- Get some CDs printed off properly with a cover and everything
- Sort my PRS stuff out - I'm nearly there, I just need my birth certificate
- Write some new songs. Seriously, I've been playing most of the regulars for nearly two years now, and apart from the new one that I wrote at the Robin 2 that I've completely forgotten the name of, my most recent one is A Lonely Night and that's about 8 months.
- Get some sort of mailing list system going when I'm doing gigs so I can actually keep in contact with the people I talk to. Fair enough by now that would be some 20 people but it's 20 people I don't have now.
I'll pick this up another time, it's probably about now that I should talk about the gig I'm posting this blog for in the first place...
Ok given all this recent development I wasn't intending on being any good tonight, thankfully it was at at the Hartley Arms and in the company of Sam and his friends with whom I enjoy a friendly familiarity to the point where I could get away with it. The first song I did was Fall Back Down by Rancid. I've know the song vaguely for a while, the chords are easy enough. I've only got a basic grasp of the words, but then listening to the record I'm not conviced Tim Armstrong knows it all that well either... Sam recognised it and everybody else seemed to enjoy it so there are worse songs to play!
I then played something I'd barely played before in my life and was a bit risque, Dark Heart Silhouette by Vendetta Red, who I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen that they are the best band you've never heard. That's probably the most offence I've ever caused in one song, with the lyric 'And I watched him take her, beat her and rape her, and he said if you tell anyone I'll have God kill your Mommy...' so I need to be careful where I'm playing that! It seemed to go down OK but no one really knows the band so I was playing it to enterain myself as much as anybody else.
Feeling that I should probably get some of my own material in there I decided to play Bitterness. It went down reasonably well athough I was at that point suffering from the coke and pizza I'd had earlier, and singing so hard I felt like I was going to be sick. I don't know what was worse, that or telling everybody about it afterwards.
I finished up with a false start - and subsequent retry - of Storm from the North. Once I'd got it, it was fine, though I shouldn't let that happen a great many times. Only last Friday I managed to get the giggles half way into it. I was conscious of the fact that Sam was filming this one and I wanted to give as good a performance as I can. If what Sam filmed comes out barely passable, I'll put it on the blog and see where it goes from there.
So I probably won't be at the Hartley Arms again too soon. I might go to the Robin when Sam puts it on but Wheaton Aston is a little far for me to go just to watch. Still, it's been good to me and has given me a nice platform to spring some new material from so I'm grateful for that!
Might see you Thursday, might see you Sunday...
Monday 26 March 2012
New Songs or Old Classics? Gigs at the Rose and Crown and the Robin 2, March 2012
This is the first gig I've done for a while with the guys from Screaming Harlot - formerly Prickly Promotions - and I wanted to make it count. It was an unfamiliar audience to a degree, though Sam and Elliot were there making it a Travelling Fools gig as much as anything else, and it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere to be honest.
I've noticed a worrying precedent - unless I write my set list down straight away, I pretty much forget what I've played of a night. I remember they were all originals, I deliberately chose not to put any covers in this time. I remember forgetting the words to Get Out Of My Head, and then remembering them just in time. I remember playing A Lonely Night, and the whole thing held together quite well, but other than that not one of my more memorable shows.
I also did Sam's Open Mic at the Robin 2 the following Tuesday. I do remember what I played here, though this had more to do with the fact that it was almost completely different from usual. The set was:
Right Where It Belongs (Nine Inch Nails)
Prisoner of my Mind
The Edge Of My Universe
Bitterness
Now I know what you're thinking - What's The Edge Of My Universe? That's a new one... yes, you're quite right, that's my latest song. In fact I wrote it when I got to the Robin 2; I disappeared into the 'Noddy's Bar' bit at the back and wrote it there. I had to read of the words and I'll need to work on the delivery of those lines a little bit, but other than that it worked quite well!
I also got told by someone who saw me play there the last time that my 'wit' that I have on stage is really good and I should keep on doing it. That's nice to know, it's actually quite difficult to guauge if people find me funny or not!
So, my gigs are more memorable if I put new songs in there? Well, we know what to do...
I've noticed a worrying precedent - unless I write my set list down straight away, I pretty much forget what I've played of a night. I remember they were all originals, I deliberately chose not to put any covers in this time. I remember forgetting the words to Get Out Of My Head, and then remembering them just in time. I remember playing A Lonely Night, and the whole thing held together quite well, but other than that not one of my more memorable shows.
I also did Sam's Open Mic at the Robin 2 the following Tuesday. I do remember what I played here, though this had more to do with the fact that it was almost completely different from usual. The set was:
Right Where It Belongs (Nine Inch Nails)
Prisoner of my Mind
The Edge Of My Universe
Bitterness
Now I know what you're thinking - What's The Edge Of My Universe? That's a new one... yes, you're quite right, that's my latest song. In fact I wrote it when I got to the Robin 2; I disappeared into the 'Noddy's Bar' bit at the back and wrote it there. I had to read of the words and I'll need to work on the delivery of those lines a little bit, but other than that it worked quite well!
I also got told by someone who saw me play there the last time that my 'wit' that I have on stage is really good and I should keep on doing it. That's nice to know, it's actually quite difficult to guauge if people find me funny or not!
So, my gigs are more memorable if I put new songs in there? Well, we know what to do...
Monday 12 March 2012
A run of gigs in Feb/March
Once again I've done it where I've done loads of gigs and haven't blogged them. And since I've forgotten almost everything that's happened since the first one, I'll write them up as one entry...
23/2/2012: The Quality Hotel
This was a charity gig for the St John's Church Preservation Group. Here, I played some of my songs and a couple of covers for good measure. I think the set list was probably Get Out Of My Head, A Little Respect, We Will Survive for the first set and Storm From The North, Do The Strand and Bitterness for the second. Not sure what the audience made of my spiteful aggression, if I'm honest! I do remember messing up rather badly in Do The Strand, forgetting the words is something I really shouldn't be doing and indicative of the fact that I hadn't really practiced enough. A Little Respect was probably the best song in terms of audience reception. Given that it was a family event and I had to keep the language to a minimum, it blunted Bitterness's usual fury, and I didn't even try to play A Lonely Night. I compered for some of the night as well and it went quite well. It was a nice night, and I was very pleased to have been a part of it, but I can play better than that...
27/2/2012: The Hartley Arms
It was a very quiet night again at the Hartley Arms; just me, Sam and this other fellow called Sam to play the entire night. I did a longer set therefore than I would usually do, although I can't quite remember what I played. I was tired that night! I played Believe at some point I know I did Into The West for the first time there, and it seemed to go down quite well although for how loud the rest of my set is, it's quite hard to know where to put it!
7/3/2012: Katy Fitzgeralds
This was another emergency booking from Sam, with what turned out to be a disappointingly small audience. Fair enough I was on first, but there were 5 people in the room when I started playing, and by the time I'd finished there were two people left. And that was the next act and his Dad. Conseqently my energy suffered; there's no point coming out all guns blazing when there's nothing to shoot at. I think this is the first time for a long time that I've done a full gig at Katies and not played Bitterness; instead of that I played a softer version of We Will Survive which, for Alex Young and his Dad, is a privilage because that's probably the only time I will ever play it.
8/3/2012: Newhampton Arts Centre
This was a new venture for me, brought on by George who runs some open mics with Dan Skillern. Georges plan for this open mic is potentially quite huge so I had a feeling that the stakes were slightly higher than usual tonight; I thought I'd better make it a good one.
Kicking off as usual with Get Out Of My Head, I opened my set with a steady performance, if a little predictable. New venue it may have been, but most of the people there were at the Four Ashes a few weeks before or had seen me before anyway, so it wasn't exactly a surprise to hear me play this song first. If it was, I didn't feel it. The novelty, then, was hearing me fluff up one of the chords. We're off to a good start...
I had a feeling my set was going to be shorter than it was so I played Storm From The North next, telling the 'Crashpoint' story as I went in to it. I'm not sure I need to do that anymore as the song seems to have taken a life of its own, and I think I played it quite well, though I did decide to experiment by leaving the gaps between the separate sections of the songs just a little bit too long.
The song I really wanted to get out there tonight was A Lonely Night; George is talking about doing some recording in the future and this is the one regular song in my set that I haven't yet recorded, so I wanted him to hear it to find out what it was like. I'm not sure what he thought of all the swearing but I played the song steadily enough. I need to calm down when I'm kicking it off though; I come on a little strong on the opening chords which doesn't do wonders for the dynamic of the song.
I did the fast version of We Will Survive, after making the Battle Royale reference (incidentally, I'm reading the book at the moment; it's good stuff!) I think picking up the pace a bit helped, but usually by now at an open mic I'd be thinking about wrapping it up and I think the audience was of the same mind; some of them wanted their turn, some of them were fed up. It was probably good then, that I played one of my faster songs to try and kick it up the derrier!
And then for some reason I turned around and played Into The West again, offering 10 points the first person to tell me what film it was from. Nobody got it, although Dan told me afterwards he thought it was Lord of the Rings and couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it before. Then again I don't sound much like Annie Lennox! I think building up the pace in the previous song and dropping it straight back down again with this song wasn't one of my better ideas, but I'll know not to do it again and pick a more opportune moment to put that song in my set in future.
I wanted to go out with a bang so I ended with Bitterness, and you really got a feel for the sound in the room when the 'Bang Bang Bang' bit was carrying across the hall! The song will surprise no one who's heard me before but they seemed to like it, and I could have picked worse songs to end the gig with.
It probably sounds, from the way I've been writing, that I was none too pleased with how this all went down. It's true that I've been feeling a little flat on the gigging front, perhaps I'm running out of steam, I don't know. I know I've done better than this in the past, and after that run of good gigs at the start of the year it seems like it's all going a bit downhill now. Still, not to worry, I keep on doing it and hopefully something will come of it, and now that I'm aware of this maybe I'll be able to pick up a bit more pace for my next few gigs.
23/2/2012: The Quality Hotel
This was a charity gig for the St John's Church Preservation Group. Here, I played some of my songs and a couple of covers for good measure. I think the set list was probably Get Out Of My Head, A Little Respect, We Will Survive for the first set and Storm From The North, Do The Strand and Bitterness for the second. Not sure what the audience made of my spiteful aggression, if I'm honest! I do remember messing up rather badly in Do The Strand, forgetting the words is something I really shouldn't be doing and indicative of the fact that I hadn't really practiced enough. A Little Respect was probably the best song in terms of audience reception. Given that it was a family event and I had to keep the language to a minimum, it blunted Bitterness's usual fury, and I didn't even try to play A Lonely Night. I compered for some of the night as well and it went quite well. It was a nice night, and I was very pleased to have been a part of it, but I can play better than that...
27/2/2012: The Hartley Arms
It was a very quiet night again at the Hartley Arms; just me, Sam and this other fellow called Sam to play the entire night. I did a longer set therefore than I would usually do, although I can't quite remember what I played. I was tired that night! I played Believe at some point I know I did Into The West for the first time there, and it seemed to go down quite well although for how loud the rest of my set is, it's quite hard to know where to put it!
7/3/2012: Katy Fitzgeralds
This was another emergency booking from Sam, with what turned out to be a disappointingly small audience. Fair enough I was on first, but there were 5 people in the room when I started playing, and by the time I'd finished there were two people left. And that was the next act and his Dad. Conseqently my energy suffered; there's no point coming out all guns blazing when there's nothing to shoot at. I think this is the first time for a long time that I've done a full gig at Katies and not played Bitterness; instead of that I played a softer version of We Will Survive which, for Alex Young and his Dad, is a privilage because that's probably the only time I will ever play it.
8/3/2012: Newhampton Arts Centre
This was a new venture for me, brought on by George who runs some open mics with Dan Skillern. Georges plan for this open mic is potentially quite huge so I had a feeling that the stakes were slightly higher than usual tonight; I thought I'd better make it a good one.
Kicking off as usual with Get Out Of My Head, I opened my set with a steady performance, if a little predictable. New venue it may have been, but most of the people there were at the Four Ashes a few weeks before or had seen me before anyway, so it wasn't exactly a surprise to hear me play this song first. If it was, I didn't feel it. The novelty, then, was hearing me fluff up one of the chords. We're off to a good start...
I had a feeling my set was going to be shorter than it was so I played Storm From The North next, telling the 'Crashpoint' story as I went in to it. I'm not sure I need to do that anymore as the song seems to have taken a life of its own, and I think I played it quite well, though I did decide to experiment by leaving the gaps between the separate sections of the songs just a little bit too long.
The song I really wanted to get out there tonight was A Lonely Night; George is talking about doing some recording in the future and this is the one regular song in my set that I haven't yet recorded, so I wanted him to hear it to find out what it was like. I'm not sure what he thought of all the swearing but I played the song steadily enough. I need to calm down when I'm kicking it off though; I come on a little strong on the opening chords which doesn't do wonders for the dynamic of the song.
I did the fast version of We Will Survive, after making the Battle Royale reference (incidentally, I'm reading the book at the moment; it's good stuff!) I think picking up the pace a bit helped, but usually by now at an open mic I'd be thinking about wrapping it up and I think the audience was of the same mind; some of them wanted their turn, some of them were fed up. It was probably good then, that I played one of my faster songs to try and kick it up the derrier!
And then for some reason I turned around and played Into The West again, offering 10 points the first person to tell me what film it was from. Nobody got it, although Dan told me afterwards he thought it was Lord of the Rings and couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it before. Then again I don't sound much like Annie Lennox! I think building up the pace in the previous song and dropping it straight back down again with this song wasn't one of my better ideas, but I'll know not to do it again and pick a more opportune moment to put that song in my set in future.
I wanted to go out with a bang so I ended with Bitterness, and you really got a feel for the sound in the room when the 'Bang Bang Bang' bit was carrying across the hall! The song will surprise no one who's heard me before but they seemed to like it, and I could have picked worse songs to end the gig with.
It probably sounds, from the way I've been writing, that I was none too pleased with how this all went down. It's true that I've been feeling a little flat on the gigging front, perhaps I'm running out of steam, I don't know. I know I've done better than this in the past, and after that run of good gigs at the start of the year it seems like it's all going a bit downhill now. Still, not to worry, I keep on doing it and hopefully something will come of it, and now that I'm aware of this maybe I'll be able to pick up a bit more pace for my next few gigs.
Saturday 25 February 2012
Because The Night belongs to the Robin 2... That was terrible. 22/2/2012
So there I was minding my own business when Sam put out a call to arms for everybody he knows to come down to the Robin 2 once again for his open mic night. Well, I can't turn down an offer like that...
I got four songs this time, rather than three, so I began with Get Out Of My Head. This didn't go too badly at all, I made one daft mistake with the chords playing Em when it should have been E, but if that's the worst thing I did all gig then I'm not doing too badly at all. The rest of it was note perfect, and I'm beginning to appreciate the value of this song as a 'warm-up' piece, if I haven't been playing any substantial amount of guitar all day it's useful to play this one before all the fast strumming of my other songs kick in.
Sam had earlier told me that he'd compiled a CD of songs that he'd recorded from the sessions he'd done, and that the song he'd used from my session was Storm from the North, so naturally I felt compelled to play it! One of the regulars from the Woodman who hadn't seen me for a while said that it was the first time he'd actually been able to listen to the lyrics, and that he thought it was really good and that was the best he'd ever seen me. Well, as far as compliments go, that's about as good as it gets, so thanks! I do enjoy playing that one actually, the different verse structures makes it a bit different from my usual songs and feels less like I'm going through the motions. Impossible to think that about a song when you write it, but I think I struck gold with that one!
Then I had a go at Because The Night by Patti Smith, preceded by an explaination to having to drop £800 on reparing my car over the last few weeks which was loosely relevant to Bruce Springsteen, who sings about cars, and also did a version of Because The Night so it's a long way round but I did move in the direction of relevance in the end. I'm playing this a lot better these days, though I still have to concentrate. It's another of the songs I do that's popular but not covered all that often, so when people hear it they think 'Wow, I haven't heard this for ages!' and if they grew up with that style of music - which in many cases they did - then so much the better. This one's a keeper!
I ended of course with Bitterness, expecting and in fact fully intending to break my G-string along the way, much to the amusement of the crowd. It's always the G string for some reason. What's actually happening is that the brass winding around the string is coming off at around about the second fret of my guitar. Any day now... The string survived, and I put the ever-increasing amount of venom into that song to make the required amount of impact.
All in all, I think I did quite well here! A really good night and I enjoyed it, tired though I was!
I got four songs this time, rather than three, so I began with Get Out Of My Head. This didn't go too badly at all, I made one daft mistake with the chords playing Em when it should have been E, but if that's the worst thing I did all gig then I'm not doing too badly at all. The rest of it was note perfect, and I'm beginning to appreciate the value of this song as a 'warm-up' piece, if I haven't been playing any substantial amount of guitar all day it's useful to play this one before all the fast strumming of my other songs kick in.
Sam had earlier told me that he'd compiled a CD of songs that he'd recorded from the sessions he'd done, and that the song he'd used from my session was Storm from the North, so naturally I felt compelled to play it! One of the regulars from the Woodman who hadn't seen me for a while said that it was the first time he'd actually been able to listen to the lyrics, and that he thought it was really good and that was the best he'd ever seen me. Well, as far as compliments go, that's about as good as it gets, so thanks! I do enjoy playing that one actually, the different verse structures makes it a bit different from my usual songs and feels less like I'm going through the motions. Impossible to think that about a song when you write it, but I think I struck gold with that one!
Then I had a go at Because The Night by Patti Smith, preceded by an explaination to having to drop £800 on reparing my car over the last few weeks which was loosely relevant to Bruce Springsteen, who sings about cars, and also did a version of Because The Night so it's a long way round but I did move in the direction of relevance in the end. I'm playing this a lot better these days, though I still have to concentrate. It's another of the songs I do that's popular but not covered all that often, so when people hear it they think 'Wow, I haven't heard this for ages!' and if they grew up with that style of music - which in many cases they did - then so much the better. This one's a keeper!
I ended of course with Bitterness, expecting and in fact fully intending to break my G-string along the way, much to the amusement of the crowd. It's always the G string for some reason. What's actually happening is that the brass winding around the string is coming off at around about the second fret of my guitar. Any day now... The string survived, and I put the ever-increasing amount of venom into that song to make the required amount of impact.
All in all, I think I did quite well here! A really good night and I enjoyed it, tired though I was!
Thursday 9 February 2012
Classic Set at Katies, 8/2/2012
This was a turn-up for the books that came to me in the middle of the day, and gave me another chance to flex my singing muscles in front of what turned out to be quite a substantial crowd at Katies tonight!
I began with something I hadn't done in a while and started the show with the Get Out Of My Head and Bitterness combo. I'd forgotten how well those two songs played together worked! The former was as good as it needed to be and my performances of Bitterness are getting ever-more visceral; all in all not a bad start.
Feeling a need for a change in mood but not wanting to reduce the pace by very much, I then went ahead and played A Little Respect. I definitely clocked some people singing along to it this time! Funny how one well-chosen 80s classic can become such an intergral part of my set-list. Nitpicking now, but the Bflat bit with the guitar solo in there could use a little tidying up, it's rare that I don't hit the A string with that so either need to play it as a barre chord or be very careful where I'm strumming.
Naturally I was exhausted by then, so I kept the opening refrain of Storm from the North going for as long as I could get away with. It's funny, thinking about it now, how the classic set seems to be coming back around on itself and I'm putting this song back in the middle once again. There was some definite attetion going through the whole show, so all I had to do was keep it up...
I more or less managed it with A Lonely Night, which is new enough not to have become part of the 'classic' set yet. However I did stop concentrating in the second verse and sang half of the first by mistake; stupid and I shouldn't have let it happen but I doubt anybody would notice. As far as I knew, it was only Dave and Sam who had heard it before!
I then played my second cover of the evening, My Girl by whoever wrote it (I'm most familiar with the Otis Redding version, believe it or not...) This turned out to be rather a poor choice of song, as rather than remain engaged, most of the people in the room disappeared out the back for a cigarrette. So I probably won't play it at Katies again, though I won't write it off comepletely; I'm sure in the right spirit and in front of the right audience it would go down as well as you would expect a song of that calibre!
I finished off, of course, with We Will Survive. Again with the classic intro ressurected! It felt really good to be playing the old set again, which is saying something because it became quite stagant towards the middle of last year.
I remember when I was in Crashpoint, and we'd lost Jay out the band, and Emma for some reason was trying to slow the whole pace of the music down to something far slower and more methodical than the raw fury we'd been making our staple sound up to that point. I reckon that if we'd ever have done We Will Survive in the band, (not entirely implausible, as I wrote it just as the band was coming together,) Emma would have gone for the slower version. It's nice to do something a bit different every now and then - but I'm not forgetting what my songs originally sounded like! Funnily enough, the fact that I rarely play to the same audience twice these days makes me think that doing slight variations in my own songs is more for my entertainment as much as anybody elses, but it worked!
It's probably also the first time I've played a full gig at Katies for, like, ever and not played Girl's Names. Probably just as well. I don't want to play a song like that just because I feel compelled to. In fact that would probably be conducive to me playing something completely different!
Might be checking out a new open night tomorrow, see you soon!
Matt
I began with something I hadn't done in a while and started the show with the Get Out Of My Head and Bitterness combo. I'd forgotten how well those two songs played together worked! The former was as good as it needed to be and my performances of Bitterness are getting ever-more visceral; all in all not a bad start.
Feeling a need for a change in mood but not wanting to reduce the pace by very much, I then went ahead and played A Little Respect. I definitely clocked some people singing along to it this time! Funny how one well-chosen 80s classic can become such an intergral part of my set-list. Nitpicking now, but the Bflat bit with the guitar solo in there could use a little tidying up, it's rare that I don't hit the A string with that so either need to play it as a barre chord or be very careful where I'm strumming.
Naturally I was exhausted by then, so I kept the opening refrain of Storm from the North going for as long as I could get away with. It's funny, thinking about it now, how the classic set seems to be coming back around on itself and I'm putting this song back in the middle once again. There was some definite attetion going through the whole show, so all I had to do was keep it up...
I more or less managed it with A Lonely Night, which is new enough not to have become part of the 'classic' set yet. However I did stop concentrating in the second verse and sang half of the first by mistake; stupid and I shouldn't have let it happen but I doubt anybody would notice. As far as I knew, it was only Dave and Sam who had heard it before!
I then played my second cover of the evening, My Girl by whoever wrote it (I'm most familiar with the Otis Redding version, believe it or not...) This turned out to be rather a poor choice of song, as rather than remain engaged, most of the people in the room disappeared out the back for a cigarrette. So I probably won't play it at Katies again, though I won't write it off comepletely; I'm sure in the right spirit and in front of the right audience it would go down as well as you would expect a song of that calibre!
I finished off, of course, with We Will Survive. Again with the classic intro ressurected! It felt really good to be playing the old set again, which is saying something because it became quite stagant towards the middle of last year.
I remember when I was in Crashpoint, and we'd lost Jay out the band, and Emma for some reason was trying to slow the whole pace of the music down to something far slower and more methodical than the raw fury we'd been making our staple sound up to that point. I reckon that if we'd ever have done We Will Survive in the band, (not entirely implausible, as I wrote it just as the band was coming together,) Emma would have gone for the slower version. It's nice to do something a bit different every now and then - but I'm not forgetting what my songs originally sounded like! Funnily enough, the fact that I rarely play to the same audience twice these days makes me think that doing slight variations in my own songs is more for my entertainment as much as anybody elses, but it worked!
It's probably also the first time I've played a full gig at Katies for, like, ever and not played Girl's Names. Probably just as well. I don't want to play a song like that just because I feel compelled to. In fact that would probably be conducive to me playing something completely different!
Might be checking out a new open night tomorrow, see you soon!
Matt
Monday 6 February 2012
New Covers for January!
Didn't have a gig last week, for the first time since the summer. It gave me the opportunity to take a bit of a break and write a new song, though it will need some rehearsal before I play it live!
My new year's resolution for 2012 was to learn a new song every week. Reason for this is I'm really looking to increase the range of covers I can play, cater to all audiences, use the skills I've gained over the last couple of years to complement the songs I choose to play, and hopefully learn some new skills as well. So launching straight into open nights in the new year, I began...
I actually learned 2 in the first week. Patti Smith: Because The Night is a throwback to the Perception days, and I always liked the song so I decided to learn it. For some reason with this one I've found the lyrics really hard to get, but in front of the right audience it goes down well. I don't think it was a mistake to play it at the Maverick!
The other was Roxy Music: Do The Strand. This is one of the ones I learned when I was learning songs for the Roxy Music tribute act, Roxy Magic. Interestingly, I've tried to learn Oh Yeah before now, on several occasions... but as much as I like the song on the record, it's not all that interesting to play. Do The Strand, on the other hand, was a welcome challenge - there's a lot going on, and I had to work out what I was going to do with 6 strings and still be faithful to the song. I think I do alright! The lyrics are a little tough to remember but I've had a good run of playing this live so far so I reckon it's a keeper.
I was not in a good mood when I decided to learn Marilyn Manson: Coma Black. For that reason I haven't played it all that much since the week I learned it. As will all Marilyn Manson songs, it's murder on the throat! But as I've been listening to him for 12 years now, and that song for most of those years, I basically knew it already, and it was just a case of reminding myself of the chord sequences and a couple of the lyrics. Whether I'll ever play it live is anyone's guess.
I've been wanting to learn some Within Temptation since seeing them live, and I picked my favourite song off their most recent album: Sinead. It's got quite a bombastic disco-stomp chorus that can't really be done on an acoustic guitar, but the chords are not actually that hard. Not much of Within Temptation is to be honest; they're great musicians but the structure of the songs themselves is usually quite straightforward.
I decided to be lazy for the last week in January and learned another Within Temptation song: Shot In The Dark. This was even easier than Sinead to be honest, because the chords were even more straightforward. I've enjoyed playing it but I don't know where I'm going to be playing either of these songs live to be perfectly honest; Within Temptation are not exactly a commonly known band amongst the acoustic fraternity so I'll have to pick my spots carefully here.
So - another few songs added to my repertoire! Actually in the song that I've most recently written you can hear the Within Temptation influence. So the effect it's having on my songwriting is tangible so far.
Time will tell where I go with it...
My new year's resolution for 2012 was to learn a new song every week. Reason for this is I'm really looking to increase the range of covers I can play, cater to all audiences, use the skills I've gained over the last couple of years to complement the songs I choose to play, and hopefully learn some new skills as well. So launching straight into open nights in the new year, I began...
I actually learned 2 in the first week. Patti Smith: Because The Night is a throwback to the Perception days, and I always liked the song so I decided to learn it. For some reason with this one I've found the lyrics really hard to get, but in front of the right audience it goes down well. I don't think it was a mistake to play it at the Maverick!
The other was Roxy Music: Do The Strand. This is one of the ones I learned when I was learning songs for the Roxy Music tribute act, Roxy Magic. Interestingly, I've tried to learn Oh Yeah before now, on several occasions... but as much as I like the song on the record, it's not all that interesting to play. Do The Strand, on the other hand, was a welcome challenge - there's a lot going on, and I had to work out what I was going to do with 6 strings and still be faithful to the song. I think I do alright! The lyrics are a little tough to remember but I've had a good run of playing this live so far so I reckon it's a keeper.
I was not in a good mood when I decided to learn Marilyn Manson: Coma Black. For that reason I haven't played it all that much since the week I learned it. As will all Marilyn Manson songs, it's murder on the throat! But as I've been listening to him for 12 years now, and that song for most of those years, I basically knew it already, and it was just a case of reminding myself of the chord sequences and a couple of the lyrics. Whether I'll ever play it live is anyone's guess.
I've been wanting to learn some Within Temptation since seeing them live, and I picked my favourite song off their most recent album: Sinead. It's got quite a bombastic disco-stomp chorus that can't really be done on an acoustic guitar, but the chords are not actually that hard. Not much of Within Temptation is to be honest; they're great musicians but the structure of the songs themselves is usually quite straightforward.
I decided to be lazy for the last week in January and learned another Within Temptation song: Shot In The Dark. This was even easier than Sinead to be honest, because the chords were even more straightforward. I've enjoyed playing it but I don't know where I'm going to be playing either of these songs live to be perfectly honest; Within Temptation are not exactly a commonly known band amongst the acoustic fraternity so I'll have to pick my spots carefully here.
So - another few songs added to my repertoire! Actually in the song that I've most recently written you can hear the Within Temptation influence. So the effect it's having on my songwriting is tangible so far.
Time will tell where I go with it...
Thursday 26 January 2012
The Monday Night Blues at Katy Fitzgeralds, 23/1/2012
I had a feeling that the open mic tonight was pretty much the only way I was going to get a gig in this week, and I'm always happy to oblige so I went down to Katies wondering what to play. I've pretty much got a regular set going now, even if I don't always play them in the same order, so tonight what I thought I would do is get out some of the miserable songs that I often leave out of my set these days, and give them another run:
I kicked off with Believe, still not quite 'believing' that I'm still playing a song I wrote over 5 years ago now. I still remember the words, and I still play all the chords right, probably because it's basically Hurt (Johnny Cash version) crossed with Dark Light by HIM. But it's familiar enough that I can play it without necessarily concentrating on what I am doing. I found myself thinking about the two very specific people that I wrote it about, and how their lives have moved on since then, and what they would be thinking if they knew I was singing about a part of their lives that, to my knowledge, is no longer relevant to either of them...
I didn't play Dear Mr Manager quite so well. It has been a very long time since I last played this one at all, and even though I didn't make any glaring errors when I was playing it, I can play it better than I did and I know it. Still, at least it was better than the time I had to stop to remember what the words were...
On the cards for a while has been a duet between me and Dale singing Wide Open Space by Mansun. I hadn't rehearsed this at all and neither had Dale; illness had put Dale off singing anything for a while and I certainly hadn't played it since the summer, that I can remember. We don't even play it in the Fakes anymore. Consequently I forgot some of the words in the chorus, and what the chords were in the instrumental section. But LC reckoned it sounded good with the two of us singing together. It actually worked quite well; Dale's got a far higher singing voice than his dulcet tones suggest so it was his high voice in unisen with my low one.
I ended with a song that I've actually played quite a lot recently, A Lonely Night. There were significantly more people there tonight than there were the last time I played Katies! I'm there and thereabouts with the accuracy of the song these days, and tonight was no exception. But there was no light relief in the set tonight and by then the downbeat nature of my songs was getting a little old, so this didn't go down quite as well as it might have.
Then again I was never going to change the world with this. The whole point was to play songs that I don't often play, and the two that I played went as well as could be expected so I'm not displeased with anything that went on tonight! The duet with Dale was good as well, maybe I should think about more collaborations? Perhaps with the Staffordshire Sound guys, I've long wondered what might happen if I wrote a song with Sam, or Jamie wrote a song with Elliot...
A Lonely Night
I kicked off with Believe, still not quite 'believing' that I'm still playing a song I wrote over 5 years ago now. I still remember the words, and I still play all the chords right, probably because it's basically Hurt (Johnny Cash version) crossed with Dark Light by HIM. But it's familiar enough that I can play it without necessarily concentrating on what I am doing. I found myself thinking about the two very specific people that I wrote it about, and how their lives have moved on since then, and what they would be thinking if they knew I was singing about a part of their lives that, to my knowledge, is no longer relevant to either of them...
I didn't play Dear Mr Manager quite so well. It has been a very long time since I last played this one at all, and even though I didn't make any glaring errors when I was playing it, I can play it better than I did and I know it. Still, at least it was better than the time I had to stop to remember what the words were...
On the cards for a while has been a duet between me and Dale singing Wide Open Space by Mansun. I hadn't rehearsed this at all and neither had Dale; illness had put Dale off singing anything for a while and I certainly hadn't played it since the summer, that I can remember. We don't even play it in the Fakes anymore. Consequently I forgot some of the words in the chorus, and what the chords were in the instrumental section. But LC reckoned it sounded good with the two of us singing together. It actually worked quite well; Dale's got a far higher singing voice than his dulcet tones suggest so it was his high voice in unisen with my low one.
I ended with a song that I've actually played quite a lot recently, A Lonely Night. There were significantly more people there tonight than there were the last time I played Katies! I'm there and thereabouts with the accuracy of the song these days, and tonight was no exception. But there was no light relief in the set tonight and by then the downbeat nature of my songs was getting a little old, so this didn't go down quite as well as it might have.
Then again I was never going to change the world with this. The whole point was to play songs that I don't often play, and the two that I played went as well as could be expected so I'm not displeased with anything that went on tonight! The duet with Dale was good as well, maybe I should think about more collaborations? Perhaps with the Staffordshire Sound guys, I've long wondered what might happen if I wrote a song with Sam, or Jamie wrote a song with Elliot...
A Lonely Night
Friday 20 January 2012
There's A New Sensation... in Bilston. 17/1/2012: Open Mic at the Robin 2
This is Sam Draisey's latest venture, bringing his ever-brilliant Open Mic nights to Bilston. It felt very different to the ones he's done before in various different places, not least because the Robin 2 is huge. The sound system was really good; never before had I actually been happy with the sound I was getting out of the monitors! (I have this thing about not complaining about my sound, because it probably doesn't sound anything like that at the front, and telling a sound engineer 'can you make the monitors sound any less shit?' probably won't go down well at all.) But with such an eclectic mix of personality and styles tonight, it was all about the songs...
The first of mine was Storm from the North. I picked this one because I'd actually gone on quite late and I had seen that the audience took music and themselves seriously enough to appreciate a track like this. Sam also got a video of it for your enjoyment! I think I did quite well, although if you look at the start where I was about to start the song and I didn't... it wasn't because I'd forgotten the words, it's because I literally couldn't remember what I was doing. I don't know, it's a sort of mental state where I completely blank out and think about nothing but I'm still capable of idly jamming on guitar. It's probably not something I should try again when I'm on a stage, especially not one of this prestiege!
Next was a cover of Do The Strand by Roxy Music. This went very well, I'm getting better at playing it. That guitar part is exhausting and that top F is a little higher than I can comfortably reach, but I'm building up the stamina now, it all comes with practice! I need to be careful who I play this song to, though. If the audience is old enough to remember Roxy Music, they'll be like 'Oh yeah, Roxy Music! I haven't heard this for ages!' and really enjoy it. If they're not old enough, but mature enough to appreciate the style, or at least the challenge of a song that let's face it pisses all over any semblance of song structure, they'll enjoy it as well. Thankfully, the room tonight appeared to consist of both of those things. But I wouldn't necessarily play it at a Prickly gig. Except perhaps in a sound check.
To finish off I played A Lonely Night, giving what I described as a rare performance of the un-edited version of it. This one went well, in fact I think tonight was the least I've messed any gig up for quite a long time now. This is one of those times where the audience helped by being attentive; pretty nearly everyone had been on by then and some people had left, but the people who remained behind were as interested in everybody elses performance as they were in their own, which is really pleasing to see. When I got off the stage, one of the guys who'd been on before told me they really like my lyrics. Well, compared to my contemporaries, I'm not much of a guitar player, and I rely on the quality of my songs to carry the gig, so thanks, you couldn't give me a higher compliment.
All in all tonight went very well. The next one won't be for a while but it's nice to come home from my second gig in a row where the feedback that I've given myself has been mostly positive. Compare that to where I was this time last year and I've not done too badly, have I?
See you next time.
The first of mine was Storm from the North. I picked this one because I'd actually gone on quite late and I had seen that the audience took music and themselves seriously enough to appreciate a track like this. Sam also got a video of it for your enjoyment! I think I did quite well, although if you look at the start where I was about to start the song and I didn't... it wasn't because I'd forgotten the words, it's because I literally couldn't remember what I was doing. I don't know, it's a sort of mental state where I completely blank out and think about nothing but I'm still capable of idly jamming on guitar. It's probably not something I should try again when I'm on a stage, especially not one of this prestiege!
Next was a cover of Do The Strand by Roxy Music. This went very well, I'm getting better at playing it. That guitar part is exhausting and that top F is a little higher than I can comfortably reach, but I'm building up the stamina now, it all comes with practice! I need to be careful who I play this song to, though. If the audience is old enough to remember Roxy Music, they'll be like 'Oh yeah, Roxy Music! I haven't heard this for ages!' and really enjoy it. If they're not old enough, but mature enough to appreciate the style, or at least the challenge of a song that let's face it pisses all over any semblance of song structure, they'll enjoy it as well. Thankfully, the room tonight appeared to consist of both of those things. But I wouldn't necessarily play it at a Prickly gig. Except perhaps in a sound check.
To finish off I played A Lonely Night, giving what I described as a rare performance of the un-edited version of it. This one went well, in fact I think tonight was the least I've messed any gig up for quite a long time now. This is one of those times where the audience helped by being attentive; pretty nearly everyone had been on by then and some people had left, but the people who remained behind were as interested in everybody elses performance as they were in their own, which is really pleasing to see. When I got off the stage, one of the guys who'd been on before told me they really like my lyrics. Well, compared to my contemporaries, I'm not much of a guitar player, and I rely on the quality of my songs to carry the gig, so thanks, you couldn't give me a higher compliment.
All in all tonight went very well. The next one won't be for a while but it's nice to come home from my second gig in a row where the feedback that I've given myself has been mostly positive. Compare that to where I was this time last year and I've not done too badly, have I?
See you next time.
Wednesday 11 January 2012
Kicking up a Storm from the North at Katies, 11/1/2012
I was getting rather despondant about the fact that I wasn't going to get a gig in this week, despite the different New Year's Resolution for this year removing any obligation to do so. So imagine how pleased I was when I checked the messages on my phone and found Sam had asked me to play tonight. It meant I had to cancel a games night with Dave, but I actually really wanted to play this one, so I was more than pleased to be there and was reasonably relaxed through the whole thing, which made all the difference.
I kicked off with Storm from the North, which is actually going down quite well these days as my opening number. The changing times would lend itself better for a mid-set song, which to be fair is where I normally put it, but as an opening statement of intent I could do far worse than this.
Next came Girl's Names, which I play every time I'm at Katies, and is also on the demo so I wasn't going to make any exceptions tonight! It all seems to be flowing together with that song now, the country lick I do at the start isn't always as accurate as it might be but actually playing it is almost effortless, which is not a bad position to be in. I could have done without forgetting the words at the start but all it meant was I had to keep the intro going for a little longer.
And here came my only major mistake of the night: Because The Night by Patti Smith. It was going really really well - I was making all the use I could of the varying dynamic of my guitar and voice - until I got to the middle part where I forgot the words. I tried to make a bit of a joke about it by asking the audience if they knew what the words were, it didn't really work but I just said 'fuck it' and skipped to the last chorus. I admit it was rather embarrasing.
Back to my own material where I belong: We Will Survive with the slow intro. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep getting away with this, because the last few times I've played it with this intro have been at Acoustic Brew shows and it's probably getting old now. But I like doing it so if I play this song anywhere else with a reasonably familiar audience I'll do it again.
Then after a furious struggle to try to remember what the song was called, I went in to Get Out Of My Head. It's wierd because with the gigs I've been doing lately, it's been quite some time since I've played this one and I had to concentrate to remember what the words were in the second verse; not something I imagined for how long I usually play it! I think I need to get a more established practice routine.
As it was a slightly longer than usual gig I decided to play Chapter One. Namedropping Perry Barr rarely has the required effect; I'm going for sympathy, I tend to get incredulity. But apart from once where I played the wrong chord, the song went very well. I picked the right time at the gig, I think, to reduce the volume almost to a whisper; I had everyone's attention by then and you could have heard a pin drop in the room.
My second cover of the night was Do The Strand by Roxy Music. This was a bit of a funny one; Sam liked it but I think my audience was a little too young to remember Roxy Music. The reaction I got from them when I finished playing the song said to me 'What the hell was that?!' but in the good kind of way. I guess it's a bit more of a challenge to listen to than my usual quite standard song structures. I forgot the words to this one as well, but thankfully it was the bit just after the instrumental section so to cover it up I kept it going until such time as I could remember what they were.
I introduced my relatively new song as A Lonely Night, it's nice to be able to play this one in an environment where I can get away with it! I'm developing the performance with this song to the point where I can inject some of my usual swagger into it, which helps with the delivery! Which is good, because as Dave noticed that yes in fact I did near enough copy the tune off Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I need to inject as much of my own personality into this as possible.
I finished off, of course, with what was quite possibly my best ever performance of Bitterness. It had been a great gig up to that point and I had the audience attentive and listening, my voice was warmed up and was as good as it was going to get, my hands were warmed up so I had no problem with the fast strums, it all worked very well indeed. I came away from this one feeling a lot better than I had at some of my more recent shows!
I'll put that down as one of my better ones, I think. The music seems to be working and the slightly longer set did me a favour as I could develop my set a little bit, rather than getting all my big guns out and making sure I've used them by the time I leave the stage. It went well, and I'm looking forward to the next one! No plans for another gig as yet though.
I kicked off with Storm from the North, which is actually going down quite well these days as my opening number. The changing times would lend itself better for a mid-set song, which to be fair is where I normally put it, but as an opening statement of intent I could do far worse than this.
Next came Girl's Names, which I play every time I'm at Katies, and is also on the demo so I wasn't going to make any exceptions tonight! It all seems to be flowing together with that song now, the country lick I do at the start isn't always as accurate as it might be but actually playing it is almost effortless, which is not a bad position to be in. I could have done without forgetting the words at the start but all it meant was I had to keep the intro going for a little longer.
And here came my only major mistake of the night: Because The Night by Patti Smith. It was going really really well - I was making all the use I could of the varying dynamic of my guitar and voice - until I got to the middle part where I forgot the words. I tried to make a bit of a joke about it by asking the audience if they knew what the words were, it didn't really work but I just said 'fuck it' and skipped to the last chorus. I admit it was rather embarrasing.
Back to my own material where I belong: We Will Survive with the slow intro. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep getting away with this, because the last few times I've played it with this intro have been at Acoustic Brew shows and it's probably getting old now. But I like doing it so if I play this song anywhere else with a reasonably familiar audience I'll do it again.
Then after a furious struggle to try to remember what the song was called, I went in to Get Out Of My Head. It's wierd because with the gigs I've been doing lately, it's been quite some time since I've played this one and I had to concentrate to remember what the words were in the second verse; not something I imagined for how long I usually play it! I think I need to get a more established practice routine.
As it was a slightly longer than usual gig I decided to play Chapter One. Namedropping Perry Barr rarely has the required effect; I'm going for sympathy, I tend to get incredulity. But apart from once where I played the wrong chord, the song went very well. I picked the right time at the gig, I think, to reduce the volume almost to a whisper; I had everyone's attention by then and you could have heard a pin drop in the room.
My second cover of the night was Do The Strand by Roxy Music. This was a bit of a funny one; Sam liked it but I think my audience was a little too young to remember Roxy Music. The reaction I got from them when I finished playing the song said to me 'What the hell was that?!' but in the good kind of way. I guess it's a bit more of a challenge to listen to than my usual quite standard song structures. I forgot the words to this one as well, but thankfully it was the bit just after the instrumental section so to cover it up I kept it going until such time as I could remember what they were.
I introduced my relatively new song as A Lonely Night, it's nice to be able to play this one in an environment where I can get away with it! I'm developing the performance with this song to the point where I can inject some of my usual swagger into it, which helps with the delivery! Which is good, because as Dave noticed that yes in fact I did near enough copy the tune off Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I need to inject as much of my own personality into this as possible.
I finished off, of course, with what was quite possibly my best ever performance of Bitterness. It had been a great gig up to that point and I had the audience attentive and listening, my voice was warmed up and was as good as it was going to get, my hands were warmed up so I had no problem with the fast strums, it all worked very well indeed. I came away from this one feeling a lot better than I had at some of my more recent shows!
I'll put that down as one of my better ones, I think. The music seems to be working and the slightly longer set did me a favour as I could develop my set a little bit, rather than getting all my big guns out and making sure I've used them by the time I leave the stage. It went well, and I'm looking forward to the next one! No plans for another gig as yet though.
Saturday 7 January 2012
4/1/2011: A Band of (almost) Strangers at the Maverick
Happy New Year...
So what happened with this one then? I've not spoken all that kindly of the Maverick in the past. I'll confide the reasons why to almost anyone in person, but since the remark is quite spiteful, when I'm online I tend to explain it away as being the only venue I've played so far where I've actually felt out of my depth. However, with no gig booked this week, not returning from Amy's until Tuesday and Sam having moved the Hartley Arms open mic to Mondays, this was basically the only option left that I was aware of. With starting off at DPA again, and work to do for Coady Consultants, this was not the time to start looking for a new gig. So, I spent the preceding week trying to learn some old covers, including Because The Night and Do The Strand, more on that later, to play at a venue that appreciates it's old rock.
I got there to find an old friend, Pete, and a couple of other people. He was looking forward to going up and having a jam and asked me if I'd like to come up and play with him, and I agreed after finding out he loved Because The Night and reasoning that we should be able to come up with another couple of songs to play. When our turn came around, we put a band together of myself on guitar and vocals, Pete on the drums, Steve on bass, my DPA colleague Al on eletric mandolin and Josh on guitar (a young guy with a Les Paul, and also the only member of the 'band' I'd never met before.) Having to teach them all the songs we eventually played was not a trivial task, but...
We began with Because The Night. Of all the ones we did, this one probably went down the best because of the time in which it was realeased, and probably the one we played the best as well! I've not long learned the song so I don't know if I got all the lyrics right, but to be honest it was hard enough making sure all the band knew what they were doing without worrying about what I was doing. Pete knowing the song helped as well, Steve was following the chords well and I imagine Josh was following Steve because he was stood behind me and wouldn't have been able to see what I was doing. Al... Well, Al I know as a drummer. When he plays stringed instruments, it's either the mandolin (I've never played one but I'm told they're tuned similarly to the violin,) or slide guitar in open tuning. He seems to have refined his technique on both of those instruments to the point where you can just say 'it's in B minor,' and he'll come up with something convincing, and this was no exception. Well done.
After some discussion we elected to play Losing My Religion by REM next. This one actually has a mandolin part, however I didn't help the band by playing it in the wrong key. I was halfway through the song before I realised it should have been in A minor, not E minor. I'm not sure how, if at all, it affected my delivery of the song, because I didn't struggle with the singing and I knew all the words, but if any of the band new it, it would very likely have confused them! But the punters seemed to recognise it and appreciate it.
Then I fell back on the one song I do that never fails to please, A Little Respect. Pete seemed to know it, but I reckon Steve and the others needed to listen to what I was doing to make any sense - not an easy thing to do since my guitar was plugged in to the PA, and there was no foldback monitors meaning that it was hard to hear what the PA was doing on stage. They actually did really well all things considered.
So, for all my trepidations about playing The Maverick, tonight wasn't too bad at all. Pete suggested to me afterwards, and not for the first time, that he and I should do a band. The idea of putting together a band to play my songs live is something I'd quite like to do, however I barely have time for the 3 bands that I'm in so it's not going to happen yet. I'm not ruling it out, and if what is happening with the other bands allows time for me to put the project together I might consider it, but right now I'll stick with the acoustic gigs as this is something I can handle myself without any need for other musicians.
See you next week...
So what happened with this one then? I've not spoken all that kindly of the Maverick in the past. I'll confide the reasons why to almost anyone in person, but since the remark is quite spiteful, when I'm online I tend to explain it away as being the only venue I've played so far where I've actually felt out of my depth. However, with no gig booked this week, not returning from Amy's until Tuesday and Sam having moved the Hartley Arms open mic to Mondays, this was basically the only option left that I was aware of. With starting off at DPA again, and work to do for Coady Consultants, this was not the time to start looking for a new gig. So, I spent the preceding week trying to learn some old covers, including Because The Night and Do The Strand, more on that later, to play at a venue that appreciates it's old rock.
I got there to find an old friend, Pete, and a couple of other people. He was looking forward to going up and having a jam and asked me if I'd like to come up and play with him, and I agreed after finding out he loved Because The Night and reasoning that we should be able to come up with another couple of songs to play. When our turn came around, we put a band together of myself on guitar and vocals, Pete on the drums, Steve on bass, my DPA colleague Al on eletric mandolin and Josh on guitar (a young guy with a Les Paul, and also the only member of the 'band' I'd never met before.) Having to teach them all the songs we eventually played was not a trivial task, but...
We began with Because The Night. Of all the ones we did, this one probably went down the best because of the time in which it was realeased, and probably the one we played the best as well! I've not long learned the song so I don't know if I got all the lyrics right, but to be honest it was hard enough making sure all the band knew what they were doing without worrying about what I was doing. Pete knowing the song helped as well, Steve was following the chords well and I imagine Josh was following Steve because he was stood behind me and wouldn't have been able to see what I was doing. Al... Well, Al I know as a drummer. When he plays stringed instruments, it's either the mandolin (I've never played one but I'm told they're tuned similarly to the violin,) or slide guitar in open tuning. He seems to have refined his technique on both of those instruments to the point where you can just say 'it's in B minor,' and he'll come up with something convincing, and this was no exception. Well done.
After some discussion we elected to play Losing My Religion by REM next. This one actually has a mandolin part, however I didn't help the band by playing it in the wrong key. I was halfway through the song before I realised it should have been in A minor, not E minor. I'm not sure how, if at all, it affected my delivery of the song, because I didn't struggle with the singing and I knew all the words, but if any of the band new it, it would very likely have confused them! But the punters seemed to recognise it and appreciate it.
Then I fell back on the one song I do that never fails to please, A Little Respect. Pete seemed to know it, but I reckon Steve and the others needed to listen to what I was doing to make any sense - not an easy thing to do since my guitar was plugged in to the PA, and there was no foldback monitors meaning that it was hard to hear what the PA was doing on stage. They actually did really well all things considered.
So, for all my trepidations about playing The Maverick, tonight wasn't too bad at all. Pete suggested to me afterwards, and not for the first time, that he and I should do a band. The idea of putting together a band to play my songs live is something I'd quite like to do, however I barely have time for the 3 bands that I'm in so it's not going to happen yet. I'm not ruling it out, and if what is happening with the other bands allows time for me to put the project together I might consider it, but right now I'll stick with the acoustic gigs as this is something I can handle myself without any need for other musicians.
See you next week...
Tuesday 3 January 2012
The last 2 gigs of 2011
Hi there ladies and gents,
Important milestone for me, this. As the Facebookers among you will have all seen, my New Year's Resolution for last year was to play a gig every week. And Dec 30th, 2011, I played the last 2 gigs that saw me play a gig every single week of 2011, apart from the 2 weeks I was on holiday. If you don't believe me, read the rest of my blogs!
The first of the gigs was actually quite special. This was a fundraising event for Cancer Research, put on by Prickly Music Promotions at the Royal Oak in Amblecote. I opened the event, (right up until the last moment this was subject to change, but anyway,) and played 5 songs, as is usual with Prickly gigs. The set list was:
REM: Man on the Moon
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody
Amy MacDonald: Let's Start A Band
My Chemical Romance: Cancer
Elbow: On A Day Like This
In the spirit of the event I decided to do the set entirely made of covers. Some worked better than others, but the highlight of the set was most definitely Cancer. There weren't many people at the event at this point but I expect they had all either been affected by cancer, or someone with cancer, at some point, or had heard my story of how that song strikes a particularly poignant nerve with me. I probably won't play it again, certainly not in any other environment, but it served it's purpose for what I needed it to do.
Then I scurried over to the Rose and Crown in Wordsley to open for Recollection, thanks for giving me the gig guys! I played a set largely comprised of covers, though I did throw a couple of my own songs in there as well. The set was:
REM: Man on the Moon
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody
Bitterness
Amy MacDonald: Let's Start A Band
Feeder: Yesterday Went Too Soon
A Lonely Night
Erasure/Wheatus: A Little Respect
Storm from the North
It went OK, I managed to get through the gig without messing up too badly. I do think, though, that I need to be a little more careful with what covers I'm playing in an environment like that. I started out OK but when I started playing the more contemporary songs like Feeder and Amy MacDonald the audience - who specifically asked me for things like Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple - basically lost interest.
However, that ties in to my New Year's Resolution for 2012: Learn a New Song Every Week! Looking forward to the next few gigs... see you soon! And Happy New Year!
Important milestone for me, this. As the Facebookers among you will have all seen, my New Year's Resolution for last year was to play a gig every week. And Dec 30th, 2011, I played the last 2 gigs that saw me play a gig every single week of 2011, apart from the 2 weeks I was on holiday. If you don't believe me, read the rest of my blogs!
The first of the gigs was actually quite special. This was a fundraising event for Cancer Research, put on by Prickly Music Promotions at the Royal Oak in Amblecote. I opened the event, (right up until the last moment this was subject to change, but anyway,) and played 5 songs, as is usual with Prickly gigs. The set list was:
REM: Man on the Moon
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody
Amy MacDonald: Let's Start A Band
My Chemical Romance: Cancer
Elbow: On A Day Like This
In the spirit of the event I decided to do the set entirely made of covers. Some worked better than others, but the highlight of the set was most definitely Cancer. There weren't many people at the event at this point but I expect they had all either been affected by cancer, or someone with cancer, at some point, or had heard my story of how that song strikes a particularly poignant nerve with me. I probably won't play it again, certainly not in any other environment, but it served it's purpose for what I needed it to do.
Then I scurried over to the Rose and Crown in Wordsley to open for Recollection, thanks for giving me the gig guys! I played a set largely comprised of covers, though I did throw a couple of my own songs in there as well. The set was:
REM: Man on the Moon
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody
Bitterness
Amy MacDonald: Let's Start A Band
Feeder: Yesterday Went Too Soon
A Lonely Night
Erasure/Wheatus: A Little Respect
Storm from the North
It went OK, I managed to get through the gig without messing up too badly. I do think, though, that I need to be a little more careful with what covers I'm playing in an environment like that. I started out OK but when I started playing the more contemporary songs like Feeder and Amy MacDonald the audience - who specifically asked me for things like Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple - basically lost interest.
However, that ties in to my New Year's Resolution for 2012: Learn a New Song Every Week! Looking forward to the next few gigs... see you soon! And Happy New Year!
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