February: A Quick Run of Gigs and the Search for a New Singer

In February I managed to condense most of what I did musically into the last two weeks. After doing nothing for the first two, and for most of January, I seem to remember doing five gigs in one week if you count the Open Mics.

Two of them were with No Questions Asked; one was our last gig with Mike on vocals, and the other was a constantly-changing plan of how we’re going to manage without him. Rich Sadler’s helping us out until April, and I’m happy with that as it’s always a pleasure to work with him. But if we don’t get a singer by then I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen.

Not that we haven’t been trying. We’ve been auditioning people over the last couple of weeks, most notably at a jam night that we do at the Old Bush in Wombourne. We had a few people come through that, sadly the one we were really happy with later told us that she couldn’t commit to it. Some other people have contacted Dave and have been trying, but to be honest I’d rather put off saying anything else about this until there is something to say. In the meantime, I’ll keep playing with NQA as long as they need me.

The others were solo gigs. Some of them happened on the same day as the NQA gigs, as I sometimes support the band with some acoustic songs. When I do this, I generally play covers; we’re being paid for it and that’s what’s expected of us. The other gigs were a learning experience:

The first was an open mic at Katy Fitzgeralds. I deliberately played three new songs: The Cold Side of my Bed, Give Myself Some Time and Denial, Revisited by The Offspring. They are all very much break-up songs. I wasn’t happy with my performance of The Cold Side of my Bed, as I kept forgetting the words. The other two were a little better but I found that these songs packed together made for very poor pacing, so I don’t think I’ll be doing that particular run of songs again. Still, that’s the whole point of Open Mics; try this sort of thing out where the stakes aren’t as high!

Then I had a gig at the Grain Store in Wolverhampton. This was hosted by Sam Draisey, and as it was a both a new gig and a full one, I brought out my A-game for this and played what I thought were my strongest songs. I think I did well; the standard of the night was overall very high, though I was told later by some friends that I should have more confidence in my own material! (I tend to do a 2:1 ratio of covers and originals.) That’s something I’m going to be keeping in mind in the coming weeks.

The next one was a cold night at the open mic at the Plough in Trysull. I started out playing a melancholic set consisting of some of my slower songs including two of the new ones. I had… questions raised about my cheeriness during that, and when it became clear that absolutely no one else was going to turn up, I got up again and played a much lighter set. I enjoyed that one a lot more, funnily enough. Who knew?

Finally, towards the end of the month, I played The Stile in Whitmore Reans. I’d never even been to that part of Wolverhampton before, but I rose to the challenge and once again brought out my A-game. Sadly I didn’t bring out my guitar, since the bridge pin on the bottom E had popped out and nothing short of superglue will get them back in again. Bash was kind enough to let me borrow his, and I think I played well in spite of it!

I’m trying to keep the momentum up with gigs, and I think I need to be taking the idea of a new recording and also Youtube videos more seriously. I could be doing a lot more than I am to promote myself, I’ll consider it for next month. I’ll let you know how it goes.