September 2015: Wombourne School of Music, Saving Money and a Year with No Questions Asked!

Well, I missed last month’s post, sorry about that. September was something of a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows for me, and that got in the way of having anything remotely resembling the kind of focus I needed to get my thoughts together regarding what to write in a blog. By the time my head was in a clear enough place to write a blog for August, I was also ill and it was nearly October, so I thought I’d just leave it until then and cover both months. The fact that I’m two weeks late with this is not helping matters.

I’m enjoying teaching for Wombourne School of Music, it’s a great team to be a part of. It’s a lot less intense than I’m used to with Dudley, since almost all of the lessons are one-to-one and are a lot easier to pace for that reason. I also had a good gig with them on the second Sunday into September when I played an acoustic set at their ‘Concert in the Courtyard,’ and accidentally started a band with Andy and the other Matt who teaches there. We jammed out a few songs on guitar, bass and drums and nearly ran away with the whole afternoon! It’s also a much wider range of ages and motivations than I’m used to, because I teach a few adults there as well as some children of a younger age than I would normally deal with in Dudley.

I did a lot of gigs over August and no small number of them in September and I’m starting to wonder now whether it would be worth investing in a small P.A. system and doing some gigs for myself. At the moment they’re mostly open mics, and while I usually enjoy doing them, they’re not usually worth any money (except for my PRS claims and I don’t know what that’s going to look like until my first one comes through, hopefully at the end of the month!) and I think I could be doing more to make it worth my while.

Of course, it’s easy enough to say that I should be doing this because I enjoy doing it; it shouldn’t be about the money. I would challenge that; for one thing teaching guitar is my main source of income so to a certain extent it does have to be about the money! But here’s the thing: I don’t very often spend any of the money I get from music. I save it instead.

So, for example, I get £20 from No Questions Asked from doing the Jam Nights in Wombourne on the last Tuesday of every month. That can by me lunch for a few days – or I could save it. I choose the latter, because I’m saving up for a few things – a deposit on a house, fixing my car when it goes wrong (it might) or even just a rainy day. If I put the money I get off making music to one side and save it, then what I’m doing with the band has some mid-long term value for me. The value is always there, don’t get me wrong. I always enjoy playing live and it’s never a bad thing to meet new musicians and make new contacts. But things either happen from it or they don’t. If I save the one reward I know I will receive, there will always be a point to the gigs I’ve done that I’ve been paid for. How much money have I made from doing this? Well, that’s for me to know. It’s never been enough to sustain a living, but over the last few years, the money I’ve been putting aside has run in to quite a significant amount – and has been at least a part of the reason that I still consider this worth my while after doing this on and off for the last 12 years.

Incidentally, it’s been a year since I started my tenure with No Questions Asked, and while we’re not too busy these days as we still don’t have a confirmed singer, it’s nice to be able to say we’ve kept it together all this time.

May 2015: Gigs with the Revisted, Singing Improvements and a Ukulele...

May was a busy – and as it turns out rather affluent – month for me in terms of gigs and music. Here’s how it all went down:

As I mentioned last month, I did a couple of gigs with The Revisited Covers Band while they look for a new permanent bass player. We played shows in the Rock and Fountain in Shrewsbury, and The Western in Leicester. They were good gigs and we were reasonably well-received, however I don’t enjoy playing in covers bands enough to want to commit to The Revisited on a mid-long term basis. It was fine with NQA as we’re all friends anyway, but with the Revisited, I barely know them; it’s a lot of the same covers I played with the previous band, and many more songs that I haven’t got enough investment in to want to commit to learning. I’ll be available as dep bass player if they need me, if not, it was a reasonable way of getting some gigs, so thanks to the band for the opportunity.

I've actually been forgetting to do this a lot just lately,
here's my #viewfromthestage at the Newhampton
Inn earlier in the month.

I am aware that I’m shooting myself in the foot a little bit here because it sounds like covers bands aren’t really my thing, which is true. I’m at the point now where I need something else to keep me engaged. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I was friends with the lads in NQA anyway, and there was a certain amount of fun and regularity with the gigs that made me want to stay with the band long after we’ve essentially stopped being one. And as I talked about last month, there is a certain creative element in The Fakes where we have to work the songs we play around our own limitations of gear and musicianship in order to play the songs we want to play; jamming those songs is actually really good fun. So, as long as there is something else going on to keep me engaged, I don’t mind being in covers bands – but I wouldn’t want to be in one for its own sake.

I also mentioned last month that I was doing a gig with Ellie Hawthorne. It was in the interlude of a quiz night and it went reasonably well, if a little rushed in terms of setting up. However, it did give me an insight into how well my voice has improved over the last year. We played I See The Light, which if you remember was the song that inspired me to pick up the singing lessons in the first place. And I was hitting all the high notes with little to no strain on my voice. I was up to a high G at one point; I’d never have been able to do that at this time last year. So, thanks to Ellie for inspiring me to take up the lessons, and thanks to Vie for teaching me. It’s working!

I’ve also started to play the Ukulele…

Now, I’m not fond of the Ukulele sound at all. I prefer deep and powerful sounds to high scratchy ones; probably one of the reasons I developed an intense dislike of indie music circa last decade. However, I attended a staff meeting with DPA at the early part of the month, where we were joined by our colleagues from Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, and there was a representative from Birmingham there as well. During the day, data on the popularity of the instrument was brought to our attention, and I’m pretty sure all the other music services are running Uke groups. When I found out later in the month that a student that I will hopefully be taking on next year wants to play Ukulele, I decided that DPA can ill afford to ignore the demand and bought a Ukulele from Stourbridge. I will teach myself to play it over the summer, and hopefully teach others to play it when I return to work in September.

However, I did find myself thinking that now that I have a Ukulele, what if I did like it? What would that sound like? So that’s something I’m going to develop over the next few months.

See you all again in July!

April 2015: New Gigs, NQA's Last Gig and Developing Songs with The Fakes

This month I’ve had much of my time taken up with quite an intense, whirlwind relationship with somebody. Sadly, it didn’t work out in the end, but we’re all still friends and I managed to fit some music around it as well.

The Old Crown, with one of the I think 20 people I know
called Dave sticking his head round the corner.

I had a couple of new gigs: The first was at The Old Crown in Digbeth. I don’t know what it is about playing in Birmingham, or maybe it was because I had some friends coming who hadn’t seen me before, but it made me feel like the stakes were slightly higher that night. I pulled out all the stops and I think I played very well, I certainly made enough of an impression for a re-booking in June. I did take one piece of advice from one of the friends who had come to see me: I’d played Yesterday Went Too Soon by Feeder, because Feeder are the best band in the world and everybody should listen to them. My friend told me that I was really struggling to hit the high notes on that one, and I had to admit she was right. Since then, I’ve played it with the capo on the second fret rather than the third, and it does feel better. (By the way, I know it’s actually on the fifth fret with the guitar tuned down to D, but as it the capo makes the tuning irrelevant anyway I decided long ago that I couldn’t be arsed to re-tune.)

The other one was The Fox and Anchor in Coven. After driving straight past it and checking my phone for the location, I found it to be a pleasant and friendly place to play, and it does food as well. I wasn’t feeling my best that night but I was glad I was able to come out and perform as it always puts me in a good mood when I do well at a gig. I didn’t do anything I hadn’t done before – it was only arranged that afternoon – but I enjoyed it and it was a good ending to what was for me not a very good weekend.

If we're going to go out, it might as well be to a Hen party.
Wait...

No Questions Asked played what will almost certainly be our last gig at The New Wellington in Brierley Hill, with Rich Sadler on vocals, guitar and bass. It was a good night, we played well and had a really good time. I think I timed my view from the stage picture well, as at one point we were joined by a hen party. Another song later and they’d all have disappeared! I’m still technically with the band but all we’re doing at the moment is a jam night on the last Tuesday of every month. Fred, Luke and Dave are keeping busy with various other projects, and Rich is playing in his band The Rollers.

It’s not very often that The Fakes do anything that I’ll shout about on this blog, but I’m actually quite liking the way the band is developing at the moment. There are certain songs that we would like to do, but because of the limits of the instruments and the capability of the band, we can’t actually do them anything like how they sound on the record. For example, we went through several Kasabian songs before we started doing Fire, and that quickly became one of our favourite songs to play. I play the keyboard melodies on my guitar using as many effects as possible, and we capture the essence of the song while injecting it with the attitude of the band. Given that many covers bands won’t touch Kasabian because they haven’t got a keyboard player, I think we can count that as an achievement.

This time, we’ve managed to re-imagine The Chain by Fleetwood Mac. This didn’t start out too well, and I added the peculiar tuning and finger-picking lick at the start to the ever-growing list of things I can’t be arsed with. But when the rest of the band went out for a cigarette, I tried it again using what I thought was a Rage Against The Machine-style single-note riff, but Steve reckons sounds more bluesey than anything else. This worked, and gave the song a new lease of life. We’re still working through the backing vocals, but it’s done the band a lot of favours, as we’re working through a lot more new songs now than we have done for years. We might not always be able to replicate the records, but we now have the confidence to work around it. Let’s hope we get to play them live soon!

I’ve got a few things coming up next month including depping on the bass for The Revisited Covers Band, and playing a show with my old friend Ellie Hawthorne. Always looking forward to it!

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.
 

January 2015: Break-ups, cancellations, and we've got to find a new singer from somewhere.

It’s funny how the worst situations can bring out the best in people. Although, I guess, it pays to look at it positively.

On New Years Eve, my girlfriend and I broke up after being together for four and a half years. I’m going to keep the reasons for this to myself, as it’s not for me to post the inner workings of our relationship online, but the breakup did affect me quite profoundly. There was a lot of sadness, a lot of tears, and a lot of wondering whether or not we’d done the right thing.

The Fakes. We're alright, really.

I tried to keep it quiet from most people who didn’t have a lot of investment in the situation, since I didn’t want them to feel awkward when talking to me. But there was one group of people for whom this would never have remained a secret, and that is The Fakes. On our first band practise after the Christmas break, we were talking about our holidays, and the story came out. After the obligatory “Sorry to hear that,” the band decided to cheer me up by running though our version of She Hates Me (not actually the case, I hasten to add!) by Puddle of Mudd. And it worked! It was quite nice, having my most consistent group of friends for the last eleven years around me and just getting on with what we do, which is playing indie songs not very well and taking the piss out of each other. That sort of thing can’t be bought or looked for, and the fact that I have it makes me feel a lot better.

It’s also given me a lot of material to write songs about, so you might be hearing some new songs from me later!

I was hoping to be able to tell you about some gigs I’ve been doing. I’d had two of them booked and they were both cancelled. One was a solo gig, and one was with No Questions Asked. Where I was given the reasons, it seems that a lot of the pubs were looking at their January budget and deciding that they can’t afford to pay for the shows, so they cancel them.

Now here’s where I feel inclined to go off on one about how live music often gets the roughest part of the deal. It’s true that I felt let down by the cancellations. I’m blaming nobody I’m in contact with for this; they were invariably the middle-men having to deliver the bad news and had nothing to do with the decision, but I actually quite like playing live and was disappointed not to be able to do it.

Still, it’s not a significant problem for me. All it means is that I didn’t get to do a gig. I haven’t lost much. I rarely got paid for gigs up until NQA, and have not touched any of the money that they’ve paid me so far. Relying on a pub band for income is a dangerous game indeed – NQA is a walking case in point for this – so I’ve saved all the money they’ve paid me for a rainy day. It’s there if I need it.

But I wonder what might happen to those people who are counting on their live work for income. If live acts can be cancelled as easily as that, it’s hard to see how one is supposed to make a living from playing music. It makes me glad I have a reasonably steady day job, since at least I’m sorted for the year.

That being said, I try to understand the pubs that have to cancel us. *My opinion* is that live music isn’t a great draw anymore. It might have been at one point but entertainment is not hard to find now, in fact rarely involves moving. I’ve said it before but not for nothing: The only way I can usually get anybody to come to a gig is if I drive them there myself. So it won’t necessarily help the pubs to have a live band that they have to pay because there’s no guarantee of extra footfall. When the budget comes through for the last quarter and some things have to go, why shouldn’t they choose the live bands that aren’t making a difference anyway?

Finally, I’ve been told that Mike is leaving No Questions Asked, and we’re currently looking for a new singer. We’re doing our next gig with Rich Sadler, and Mike will do the one after that. We’re looking into some people and I’m going to try to learn as much of the set as I can so I can help out on vocals if need be.

At least I’ll have one gig to talk about next month…

*edit*

December: NQA Gigs, Big Band Bass Playing, and Soundcloud

It’s been a busy month for me!

My #viewfromthestage at the Olde White Rose in Bilston.
That was a good night!

I’ve been gigging almost every weekend with No Questions Asked, and I’m actually getting a lot tighter on the bass now. I was always good at it – I think I’ve said it before, but I’ve got a natural affinity with bass that I just don’t have with guitar – but now that I’m practising and playing on a regular basis, I’m feeling the improvement my skill level. That can only be a good thing! I’ve also been working on my slap bass technique. Not for any particular reason, as there’s not much call for it in NQA, but it does seem mandatory to be able to do it and it sounds awesome, so I thought I might as well give it a try. I’ve actually been doing it a lot on the acoustic guitar as well, so a lot of the technique was there – I just needed to do it on the heavier strings and wider frets.

With regard to the band, we’re making progress as a unit, and we’ve got gigs booked to next December. It’s encouraging to see the places re-booking us; it’s always appreciated. We’ve not had any rehearsals this month so there’s no new songs on the list yet, but we’ll see what happens next month. After a tough month of gigging, I think certain members of the band were rather looking forward to a break!

One of the things I was involved with in DPA this Christmas was a rare staff concert. It came about because the roof of Dudley Town Hall had fallen in meaning we had to re-locate the Christmas concerts to two different areas, and was a joint concert between the staff and the choirs of six different schools. Del, Russ, Kelly and I were providing the rhythm section for both; I was on bass guitar.

It was a good experience for me because it reminded me of two things: First, I’m quite good at sight reading, and Chris was very complimentary to me about that. And second, cutting my bass-playing teeth in the Ounsdale High School Jazz Band was a great experience that I appreciated at the time and appreciate even more now. The ‘Staff Concert’ section of the performance was a lot of swing/big band songs, and much of it was in the keys of E flat, B flat and A flat. These keys, as I understand it, are fine for brass and wind instruments, but they’re not very friendly for stringed instruments like guitars because the open strings are no longer fair game. Nonetheless, I’d had a lot of experience playing in those keys in the jazz band, so they don’t frighten me. Nearly 10 years since I last played with them, it all came back to me for this staff concert; I won’t pretend there weren’t mistakes, but I did a good job, I think. Apart from anything else, I was really enjoying playing the big band material; I could get in to that!

In other news, I’m now on Soundcloud! I put together the account purely for the purposes of being able to upload my Christmas song to it so I could share it on I think Monday 5^th, and having done this I thought I might as well upload some other recordings. I’ve put my entire Bitterness EP on there, which is a little after the fact as those songs were recorded over three years ago. But it’s all I’ve got that remotely resembles a professional recording, so there you go! Here’s the link to my profile, give them all a listen and tell me what you think: https://soundcloud.com/matt486

And incidentally, the photograph that I used was a bit of a funny choice but it’s the only picture I have near that time that doesn’t make me look like I don’t quite know where I am. It was taken at the Varsity in the Summer of 2010 when I was a little thinner than I am now, and I think the image came from a video John Gordon took of me playing Walking On The Sun by Smash Mouth.

 

We’ll see what happens in the New Year. See you then!

November: Rehearsing, Reflecting, Jamming and getting Crashpoint back together

November’s been an interesting one…

Back when I was thinner. Anyone seen the bass player lately?

I’ve been talking to Cj about the possibility of getting Crashpoint back together. I’ve been against this for a while, but we’ve been away long enough for me to not mind too much about my previous misgivings about it. It won’t happen this side of Christmas; I’m committed to gigs almost every weekend up to that point, and with Cj now living in Crewe it would be a logistical nightmare to even get as far as one gig. And it’s unlikely that you’ll see the definitive line-up; we’ve spoken to Emma and she doesn’t think she’ll can do it, and nobody’s seen or heard from Jay since he originally left the band. But it’s on the radar for next year, so we’ll see what happens.

Sam Draisey is producing another Christmas album; it should be on sale soon at his gigs so look out for it. Sadly I’ve made the decision to sit out of it for this year. I remember doing The First Footprint for the Christmas album four years ago in 2010, and I was as surprised as anybody that it was actually quite good. I wrote what I felt the most strongly about Christmas – the entire song could be summed up with “Stop trying so hard to get it right, and actually enjoy it” – and somehow it’s never been as good when I’ve tried to write a Christmas song since then. For the last two years, nothing has come, so rather than force one out for its own sake and it almost certainly being rubbish, I’ll leave the album to the other guys.

 

It’s been a quiet month for gigs with No Questions Asked, but as expected we did manage to use the time to learn some new songs. As ever, most of them are by Queen, but there are some others as well so if you’ve seen us before chances are we’ll be playing something new for you!

We do a number of jam nights around the area; at the Old Bush in Wombourne and the River Rooms in Stourbridge. I usually enjoy these, in fact I reckon it’s at least partly because I turned up to them that I remained on Dave and Richard’s radar long enough to be in the band now. However, the last couple have felt flat in terms of their attendance. No one turned up to the last time we did the Bush and it was basically the band playing to ourselves. The last one at the River Rooms, the only people to turn up to play other than the band was the people depping for various members who will be missing in the coming weeks (myself included) due to other commitments.

I try not to take it too hard; it’s not like we wasted the time. We practiced some of the newer songs and it’s always a pleasure to play with the band. Also this is a very tricky time of year; around Christmas people tend to be so busy that it’s hard to be bothered with things like jam nights when you can just catch the next one. But I remember going to the jam nights at the much-missed Broadway with Jack’s Legacy. We’d get there at 8pm, and often at 10:30 we’d still be waiting to go on because there were so many people there. I know it was nine years ago, but I do wonder what happened to that music scene!

Ending on a positive note, the last gig we did in November at the Lamp Tavern was absolutely brilliant; the best one I think we’ve done with this line-up. A lot of it was because around 40 minutes into it we ignored the set list and just played whatever we thought the night needed. And what that particular night needed was high-energy popular songs. I think we did a fine job of making sure everybody was having a good time, all of the time. This is why I do gigs!

So, some things to learn, some to consider and some to reflect upon. I really hope that both the band and I can build on these experiences and make ourselves better.

I couldn't find a 'definitive line-up' picture with CJ in it
so here he is at our first gig. How young does he look?

October: Gigging with No Questions Asked and Singing Lessons

Well it’s been quite a busy month for me!

I’ve had a good run of gigs with No Questions Asked, the band I was depping with and now a semi-permanent member. We’ve done a few gigs around the area, and I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those bands that is conducive to my development as a musician. It’s certainly the busiest one I’ve been in for a while in terms of gigs; not since Crashpoint have I managed for than three gigs a month with a band! While I still feel there is potential in the band yet to be realised, we’re having fun playing live and making a bit of money off it as well.

One thing I did realise during my first gig with No Questions Asked is not to be a dick about my gear. Specifically, my multi-effects pedal. It’s a Digitech BP50, not amazingly brilliant but does a good job for the money I paid for it (£80, eight years ago.) I tend to use it as a stage tuner, but most of the effects on there are amp simulations and compression/noise gate, and most of them do quite a decent job. There are a few modulation effects there, including a phaser which I wanted to use on the bands rendition of Dancing in the Moonlight by Thin Lizzy.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of room in the Mitre where we were playing that night, and due to the length of the power lead that comes with it, there’s no way I could have plugged it in without getting in everybody’s way. Dave said to me something like “Just manage without it; you can play the Thin Lizzy song without it and it will sound as good,” and that’s when I realised: There’s no need to be a dick about it. The effect would have been nice, but not essential. And remembering some people in my past that would have refused to play without their effects made me think: Don’t be that guy. I used my clip-on tuner, managed without my effects and it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference to the show. So there you go!

As for the money I’m making, well, not much is happening with that at the moment. The actual amount I get depends on the venue and how the money is paid, but I’m savvy enough to know that to rely on a band as a source of income is a dangerous game indeed, as work goes up and down. So I’m doing what I do with all the money I get outside of my job, and saving it. It’s of little use to me for day-to-day spending, but if I save it, the money will add up – and it’s there if I need it.

In other news, I’ve now started having singing lessons with my friend and colleague Vie Watson. After singing for 10-12 years, including studio recordings, live performances with various bands and the many solo performances I’ve done, I’m finally getting someone to teach me how to do it. It’s so far had the effect of increasing the range I can comfortably hit – and how to hit those high notes I sometimes struggle with. But more than increasing my level of skill, I’d love to be able to teach singing as well. That will increase the skills I can bring to my work with Dudley Performing Arts, and also increase the amount of skills I can bring to any future jobs. At this time I’m still looking for work in Swindon, and I’m hoping my chances of finding it will increase if I have more to offer!

I’ve not visited an open mic this month as I was busy on the one night I could attend, but that didn’t stop me doing some acoustic slots for NQA on their gig in Tividale when the support pulled out, and playing at the Jam Night they organise! Some people who haven’t seen me play for a while have noticed an improvement in my playing and delivery, so that’s always good to hear!

Next month will be a bit quieter for me in terms of gigs because of some cancellations and a generally lighter schedule, but I’m hoping to use the time for a little rehearsal with NQA.

Matt's Songwriting - Stripping it Down

What makes a good song?

Many things, and taking it back to basics and delivering it with one instrument and/or one voice is a good place to start. This isn’t my idea, and I can’t remember who said it, but for me, the acid test for any song is: If you strip it down and have one guitar or piano and one voice, do you still have a good song?

This came up when I was talking to Dave from No Questions Asked a few days ago. I’d posted on Facebook that I was practicing a Queen song for my solo slot; Dave asked what it was and if I would like some accompaniment. I told him privately that it is Who Wants To Live Forever, and I’d rather see how it sounded with one guitar and one voice.[1] That’s how I’ve been doing my acoustic show for years; only rarely do I have someone else playing on stage with me. I try to capture the essence of the song in this format; if it does, then I include it in my set. If not, I move it on.

I love the full-on rock production, but in most cases if you stripped rock songs down to they would still be good. Some of my favourite songs to cover are: Thick as Thieves by Kasabian, Closer To The Edge by 30 Seconds To Mars, A Little Respect by Erasure/Wheatus, and The Boys of Summer by Don Henley. They all sound great in a stripped-down format. And it comes across in my own songs. Bitterness would be a Crashpoint song if we hadn’t broken up soon after I wrote it; originally it was a punk-style rock song and I remember Cj doing a good job on the drums. Get Out Of My Head began in Perception, jamming a Led Zepplin-style riff on my guitar with John on the drums. It didn’t sound anything like how it eventually ended up – but I used the chord progressions from what we jammed out.

I see it in other people’s covers as well. Steve who comes to Sam Draisey’s open mic sometimes does a finger-picked acoustic rendition of Sweet Child ‘o Mine. I think that, in many respects, his version works better than the original. Granted, I will almost always say that about anyone who sounds different to Axl Rose; (I can’t stand his voice,) but the lighter finger-picking and the gently-delivered vocals capture the essence of that song more than the rock song that everybody recognises. I love Slash’s guitar playing, and the riff to Sweet Child ‘o Mine is fantastic. But Axl could have been singing toothpaste; his voice would have sounded just as bad, and the guitars just as good.

So what about bands where this doesn’t work? Two examples: Pendulum and The Prodigy. The latter, as far as I know, haven’t written anything resembling a ‘song’ in the usual sense. And Pendulum relies on the drum and bass sound with the keyboard riffs; without that, the band wouldn’t work. I’m not saying either of those bands bad. I enjoy listening to Pendulum, and I wish I’d seen The Prodigy at Download Festival in 2006. But I will say that those bands have a good sound – not necessarily good songs.

The problem, of course, is with those songs that are great but have extra parts to them that I can’t strip away. I’ve only played Motorcycle Emptiness by the Manic Street Preachers live once, and it functioned – but without the lead guitar, it’s nowhere near as good. I’d love to play Waterfall and This Is The One by the Stone Roses, and Marvellous by the Lightning Seeds, but I think those songs lose something without their backing vocals.

But I don’t think that with Who Wants To Live Forever, despite the arrangement of the original. Taking it down to one guitar and one voice – as long as both are properly managed – can make it as good as the huge amount of production that went into the record. I’m hoping that comes across if I play it at the gig.

What do you guys think? Is this a good benchmark for whether a song is any good or not? Or is the way the record sounds more important? The answer, I suspect, lies somewhere in between, depending on the context of the band. Just remember, the vast majority of songs that we listened to when they first came out and are still sounding good decades later could all be stripped back to their rawest form, and sound every bit as good.

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[1] At the time of writing I haven’t actually done the gig yet so I have no idea what’s going to happen when I do.

September: Social Media, and Depping in NQA

Back again! As blogging can be more work than fun if I try to do too much of it, I’m trying to limit my posts to 700 words or thereabouts. Thinking about it, I’m not convinced people would want to read much more than that in one sitting anyway…

 

September was a little quiet for me on the gigs front. I did a couple of Sam Draisey’s open mics, which went reasonably well and I’m becoming very fond of The Rainbow Inn as a place to play. I also did a short set at Codfest on their Open Mic stage; this didn’t go too well, largely due to me forgetting my capo and my hands being freezing cold. I’ve added Wetsuit by The Vaccines to my repertoire of acoustic songs; it’s a challenge for me to sing but I’m getting used to it.

However, two major things happened in September that I want to tell you about:

The first is that I’m now doing a run of dep gigs for the band No Questions Asked that’s going to take me up until the end of the year. Dave from the band asked me to come and play bass for an ‘audition’ for the singer they’re currently using, Mike. I knew Dave at school and we’ve kept in semi-regular contact since, mainly at jam nights he helps to run, some of which I’ve played bass at. Though it rarely takes me long to learn simple songs for my acoustic set, I’ve got an affinity with bass that I just don’t have with guitar; I can watch what Luke on guitar is doing to know what notes to play, and sometimes even the keyboards as well. I can lock in to Fred’s drums and keep the rhythm going, and provided I’m not concentrating too hard, I can put on a show with it as well.

The upshot is that Dave seemed really pleased with what I was bringing to the band, as I played all the songs he’d asked me to do and many more besides, and Mike was pro-active in establishing his involvement with them. Dave asked me to play the gigs they’ve got booked up to the end of the year, and as I can play all but three of them, that is what I’m going to be doing for most of the weekends between now and then! I’m not a permanent member of the band yet; I’m going to see how it pans out over the next few months and how much investment I have in the band before I commit to it entirely.

At the time of writing I’ve done my first gig with them and it went quite well. Watch this space for more!

The second thing is that because of some of the training I’m getting working for DY3 Solutions, I’m now making a much more structured use of social media. I now have a dedicated Facebook page for my music: https://www.facebook.com/mattdoonermusic and I’ve been making much more use of my Twitter page as well. I’m advertising the gigs on there, trying to pace out my content and keep people engaged with what I’m doing musically. This is where all my regular updates will be posted. I know it is a folly for musicians to rely on social media entirely – but when it can be done from the comfort of my bedroom, it shouldn’t be ignored.

The Rainbow Inn, Coven: 24/9/2014. There's Sam and Kayla.

As a part of this, I’ve also started making use of the hash tag function on both, uploading pictures I’ve taken from the stage. I’m hoping people will find these photos, tag themselves in them if they were there, comment on them if they weren’t, and generally increase the level of engagement when I’m not actually doing gigs – which as this is at the very most a few hours a week, is actually not that much. So, watch out for the #viewfromthestage tag – if you were at one of my gigs, chances are you were in one of the photos too!

Some big news coming up for next month, but I’d like to see how that pans out before I announce it. I’ll try and get these blogs out on the first weekend of the month after the one I’m taking about, if that makes any sense.

See you at the next gig!

Matt