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!