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

Matt and Ellie Don't Stop Believing at the Hare and Hounds, Lye 4/5/2013

One question that I don't get asked very often at all, but I wish I did, is: Do you miss being in a band?

To clarify the position, it's been nearly a year and a half since I've gigged with a band on anything like a regular basis, and that was a joint effort between Natasha and the 82s and Aki Maera that meant I was doing roughly one gig a month. Contrast this with, say, this time four years ago when I was very busy with Crashpoint to the degree of a couple of gigs a month at least, and before that with Jack's Legacy where we'd try at least one a month to keep the momentum going, and you can see why it's easy enough to forget that I am, actually, still with The Fakes - which averages out about one gig a year in this day and age.

Either way, the answer is: I do and I don't.

What I miss most about being in bands is this: it's basically all I've ever wanted to do with my life. I know that, at 27, I should have left the 'Rock Star' dream behind a long time ago, and I'm aware of others thinking the same about me even if they don't say it. And even though the day I give up on it completely will be a very sad day for me indeed, when I consider what I'm doing with myself these days - guitar teaching, war gaming, role playing, my girlfriend - even I have to admit that it might be a little too late. So, the only thing I've ever really wanted to do with my life is out of my reach, probably forever. Which isn't to say I don't enjoy doing what I'm doing now. It's just that teaching guitar to kids in schools is about as good for me as it is ever going to get. Not what I wanted to be saying at 27. So I do miss being in bands because that was what kept that dream alive.

However, a lot happened during the last week to remind me of some of the things I don't miss about being in a band. Last Sunday (28/4) an old friend Ellie Hawthorne put out a call on Facebook asking if anyone would play guitar for her on Saturday night, which I answered. Over the course of the next few days, the following happened:

• Ellie sent me a list of songs she wanted to play. There were 11 songs on this list. I knew one of them. Of the others, two of them were by Paramore - and I used to be quite vocal about my intense dislike of that band, if I am a little more cryptic about the reasons for it. It's personal. But I was not going to spoil it for her by refusing to play them. It's certainly not the first time I've sold out!
• No problem, I thought. If I learn roughly 3 per day and we can get together for a rehearsal then it should be OK. I had learned all of them except one by Wednesday evening when Ellie messaged me again saying it was off because she had to work. (At least, I think that's what she said, but she left out the word 'work' from the message, which thinking about it could potentially have been any verb conducive to the general effect of not being able to do the gig.)
• Thursday night she messaged me again telling me it was back on and could I do it? Well, I'd lost two days practice by then, since I was busy that evening, but there should be no reason I couldn't give it a go. So I said yes, and we'd have to arrange a time for a rehearsal possibly the following afternoon? Ellie couldn't make it because she was working. Fair enough; I've not forgotten what it was like to have shifts on appallingly unsociable hours. We'd just have to wing it on the day.
• 10 minutes later - count them, 10 - my Mom told me that my brother was coming home for the weekend and we were all supposed to be going out for a meal on Saturday night. Sometimes the word 'bollocks' just doesn't cover it. They did at least say that I could do the gig and I didn't have to worry about the meal, but it wasn't a decision I wanted to have to make.
• Finally learning the songs on Friday Night, I went to the gig and found that when Ellie said we were on at 6pm - and this is perhaps the strangest part of all - we were actually on at 6. The result was that I had finished by 6.45, and even though I'm not in the habit of disappearing straight after a gig, I did that day and managed to go for dinner with my family after all.

It took me straight back to being in bands. I remember being stressed out of my mind having to play gigs we weren't even close to being ready for, having to re-arrange shifts at work in order to be able to do it, and deal with fucking arsehole band-mates who would duck out of it at a moments notice leaving me to either re-arrange it or manage without them. You know who you are. And somehow that responsibility almost always fell on me, especially with Crashpoint and Jack's Legacy. I don't miss that at all.

Now so far this post will have come across to many of you as cynical and negative, so let me make one thing absolutely crystal clear: I have no bad feeling towards Ellie at all for what happened in the week. I am delighted she gave me a chance to play live again, and I really did enjoy the gig when we were doing it, more on that later. In fact, I think the fact that I fought tooth and nail to make it happen is indicative of a) how much I wanted to do it, and b) how much I've missed gigging and not realised. So, on the whole it is good to be back.

One of the things that made the gig for me was my new guitar; a Hofner Electro-Acoustic. I'd been saying for years I needed to retire the old Hondo, and now I can plug in a guitar and save all that tedious mucking about with that pickup. Both are there if I need them, but now I have an electro-acoustic that sounded better than I could have possibly imagined. (I had played it before but never plugged it in.) I think what was conducive do this was the fact that I left the pre-amp alone, and let the sound guys do their thing. Sometimes electro-acoustics don't sound all that good, either woolly or abrasive, but mine sounded OK and that was because I decided I'd leave all my EQ controls at a flat level (which is 5, by the way,) increase the volume of the guitar until sound was coming out of the PA and let the sound guy boost the treble and bass if they needed to, which I'm not sure they did. The result was a sound that as far as I could tell was as clear as it needed to be, without getting in the way of the vocals. I'm not saying I'll never mess with my EQ, but after all, the sound guys know what they're after, and I'm usually happy with a sound...

The set list was:

Journey: Don't Stop Believing
Ally and AJ: Someone To Fall Back On
Paramore: The Only Exception
Taylor Swift: Love Story
Adele: Someone Like You
Demi Lovato: Skyscraper
Miley Cyrus: The Climb
McFly: Love Is Easy
Jeff Buckley: Hallelujah
Paramore: Still into you

And then Ellie finished off with an a'capello version of Rolling In The Deep.

It took a couple of songs to pick up momentum, I think, not least because we started with the two I was least sure about, but considering we hadn't practiced any of them before, or even met in person for almost a year and a half, it went as well as I could have expected. There were mistakes, of course - sometimes I'd play the song incorrectly, sometimes Ellie would come in a little sooner than I was expecting - but we managed to pull it back together quickly and we at least ended all the songs together! I think - and I'm not sure, because I wasn't really concentrating on the reaction from the crowd - that The Climb went down the best. Nobody ever went wild for us, but I didn't expect them to. It was what it was - an event in the beer garden of a pub; the crowd only ever half-listens to you and I was prepared for that. I thoroughly enjoyed playing and I could get in to the role as the side-man again; with all the attention on someone else I can do what I want.

So, am I back now? Yeah, I guess so. There were things I wanted to do before this happened. I wanted to lose some weight, but I've been careless and not done it. I wanted to write some new songs but I've not come up with anything particularly memorable yet. But I will try and hit a few open mics in the coming weeks, and see what happens. I might even try one the week I'm in Swindon.

See you all again soon. And thanks for your patience.

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...

The Maverick, 4/5/2011

Well this one was interesting...

Some of you may remember my previous blog I did when I played a jam night at the Maverick back in February. While they are nice people in there and the night works very well, it's not one I've made much effort to return to. Possibly because it was the first time in quite a while I'd felt out of my depth when I've been playing live, or maybe it's because the music tends to be of a 'Classic Rock' nature, and I'm not a big fan of Classic Rock. I never understood what was so great about Led Zeppelin or Bad Company, for example, glorified blues bands don't do all that much for me. I prefer Roxy Music (who were doing it just a little bit differently and not basing it so heavily on the blues) and AC/DC (who put a LOT of energy into their music.) So it's not often I go to the Maverick.

On this occasion, I asked the guy running the show if there was any chance of a few songs, and he said yes, all well and good, I went to sit down and wait for my go. Stood next to me was a guy I recognised, who turned out to be Pete from House of Eternity, who I'd seen play Katie's Jam Night some time ago. We shook hands and said hello, I told him I was playing later. "Do you need a drummer?" he asks me. Well, I'm playing my own stuff solo with an acoustic guitar... but do you know what, I play those same songs every week, why not try something a bit different? I asked the gaffer if it was OK for Pete to join me as well and he said that was fine.

Of course, with a drummer it's also germane to have a bass player, and Pete suggested we ask Matt, the resident bass player for that Jam Night. So on his way to the bar I accosted the guy and asked if he'd play bass for me, he agreed, and I had a rhythm section. We got as far as the stage area and a young guy called Ash on guitar was hanging around there, and I thought we might as well let him play too. So, for the first time, I played my songs live with a full band...

We started with Get Out Of My Head, after telling the guys that we're looking for a slow, funky feel, like Maroon 5 or Simply Red. I started playing the chords and the guys came in very well indeed, Pete and Matt holding it together while Ash was riffing quietly over the band. The chord changes might have thrown them a couple of times but as it was the first time any of them had heard the song I can hardly begrudge them that. We kept it together and stopped at the same time, it was brilliant.

Then we tried Bitterness. I told the guys we were after a fast, punky, MCR sort of sound, although without wishing to sound patronising I don't know if any of the 'band' knew who I meant! This suffered from a false start; because the song goes quite fast and uses a capo, it can be a bit difficult to follow if you don't know what you're doing. So I stopped the song and took the capo off so that Ash and Matt could follow my barre chords. In a song that fast they're not going to keep up all the time, and this was probably the one that showed the most mistakes, but they seemed to enjoy it!

I had to think on my feet for the next one, the original plan was supposed to be Storm From The North but I didn't want to have to explain the odd times to anyone before playing it. I eventually settled on Prisoner of my Mind. I told the lads we're looking for a shoegazing Radiohead sort of sound and that it changes key. This was probably the highlight of the set for me, grim though the song is, when I told Ash to play a solo and after turning the amp up he complimented the song perfectly with his guitar - despite the fact that we're in F minor, not a guitar-friendly key. Pete told me afterwards that he really liked this song too, though, again with the patronising, Pete looks about the right age to have Radiohead as an integral part to the soundtrack to his life.

So, matt486 plays with a band for the first time, and I think it went really really well given the circumstances. I'd love to do it again; despite the best intentions from all concerned I doubt I'll ever get this lineup together again but I'd love to give it a go, and if it can be arranged perhaps develop it in to something more permanent. But I was immensely satisfied with the fact that, simply by being arsed to do go out and do it, I managed to get a whole new reality onto my music...