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.
 

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.

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

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

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.

14/12/2011: Acoustic Brew at Katy Fitzgeralds with Sam Draisey and Elliot Burton

This is part of an experiment between me, Sam and Elliot; we've been putting together some good sets between us over the last few years, and after Codfest, I felt that the next step was to take the show on the road. We're trying to get gigs with some local promoters getting us all playing on the same night, to get people used to the idea that the 3 of us are playing together. We're tentatively calling it 'The Travelling Fools' at the moment. It was a modest audience tonight in Katies, no more than about 6 or 7 people at the most. Nonetheless, I felt the stakes for me were quite high after some truly storming sets from Elliot and Sam. Elliot dispensed with his usual covers in favour of his own material; it really drove home just what a good songwriter he actually is, and Sam was as ever immaculate. His Christmas song, which is called 'Nan's song' and is available to download, by the way, will set familiar memories off with a great many people...

It didn't get off to a flying start for me. Following the other's example I opened with my Christmas song The First Footprint, and proceeded to forget the words halfway through. Stopping to figure it out was a mistake that I really shouldn't be making at this stage, but as I said afterwards, in my defence I only play that song a couple of times a year anyway.

I then went in to Storm from the North. It was originally my intention to open with it because I wanted to experiment by putting it at a different point in the set. (Regular blog readers will know I almost always put it either 5th, or as close to the middle as I can.) I found the low E a little difficult to sing but other than that it went quite well. Elliot said afterwards that this was the song he remembered as having the widest vocal range, and from low E to high C I'm inclined to agree. I forgot he hadn't heard me play this one yet!

Next was Girl's Names. That country lick at the start's getting smoother! That song is quite familiar to me now and I had to make an effort to keep concentrating but I managed it.

I then tried We Will Survive with a 'slow' intro. I'll have to be careful where I'm going with that, I haven't forgotten the Crashpoint days where I'd come up with a fast rock song, then come up with a slower picked version of the same song and Emma would like the slow version better. It worked well enough tonight in front of what was let's face it a very familiar audience, but if people don't know what the song's supposed to sound like in the first place, I doubt it would make much of an impact and would be misleading to the people who then heard the 'real' version.

I realised too late that I'd played We Will Survive too early; and I had to put Get Out Of My Head and A Lonely Night - two songs that move at a very similar pace - together. Not something I would have chosen to do, but I haven't written a set list for near enough a year now so I'm bound to make mistakes like that on occasion. I played A Lonely Night, after refusing to explain what it was about (poor gig attendance) as the small number of people who were there would find it quite patronising. Dale and Sam listened to my lyrics and were amused when they figured it out, and Dale looked surprised, shocked, and not a little entertained by the foul language in the song which for once I was allowed to use. There were times when I was about a tenth of a second away from forgetting the words to it and came in quite late with the vocals, but with that kind of loose vocal style it didn't make much difference.

I tried Get Out Of My Head, I've taken to doing a 'buzzsaw' intro to it which I like, and if an audience has seen me before I think it's probably good for them to be going, 'Oh wow, what's he going to do now?' and then play something familiar. The song went pretty well actually, and my earlier mistake with the order of the songs didn't seem to matter.

I ended with Bitterness, after dedicating it to the Wharf Bar, where I sat for three and a half hours last Saturday and didn't get to play. As you can imagine, this put me in a foul mood, and I might have another song out of that if I can sort some music out to it. I was very impressed tonight when I started stomping in the quiet bit and everybody else started stomping along with me, and imitated the 'bang bang bang' bit on the tables! That's probably the best I've ever ended a show, and Sam told me afterwards it was the best he'd ever seen me!

Overall I'm very pleased with how I played, it was once again an example of a time where I've played to a small but appreciative audience and really enjoyed the experience.

With the set lists, by the way, perhaps in the future I might be able to organise my set a little better if I, you know, write one. But the most I usually play is 7 songs, and it only really helps if I've got a band with me who need to know what they're supposed to be doing. So at present, I'll stick to what I'm doing...

See you a week on Friday at the Holly Bush in Cradley Heath!

24/10/2011: Gig at Katy Fitzgeralds

I was booked to play Katies once again within a couple of days of the gig, and I really wanted to demo my new song A Lonely Night, so I was more than happy to do the show. As there was only me and Sam Tilley there that night I had longer than the usual set, and I was the first on that night so I had the task of entertaining the crowd and setting the tone for the gig. Most of the people who had come specifically for the gig were there for Sam but for Katies that was just about the right number of people there to feel comfortable and guauge how good a show you're playing.

I started off with a cover of Yesterday Went Too Soon by Feeder; not a song that I think I've ever played live before. Mixed bag with this, I made the mistake I make every single time that I play this song, which is start singing it low then realise it's too low and then start singing it high. The line 'But I'm missing yesterday...' ends with a very long top E note, which is about as high as I can go, and my voice started to break a couple of times. Perhaps this one would have been better employed mid-set when I'd warmed up my voice a little bit? None of the crowd recognised the song; it's not one of Feeder's better known songs to the layman but it's a beautiful song and the crowd really did appear to enjoy it. As an opening statement of intent, I could have done far worse.

I then carried on with Get Out Of My Head. This one went down as well as it ever does and I don't think there were any mistakes when I was playing it, although as I know the song a lot better now having had the song over a year, it means I'm concentrating a lot less. Not a major problem, but sometimes I forget to take the appropriate amount of breath and wonder why I'm running out of breath halfway through a line. Something I need to take care of!

Commenting on the fact that I've got new strings on my guitar and they sound awesome, I went in to We Will Survive. One thing I really want to do with this one - and to be fair I'm asking a lot out of an acoustic show - is to get people clapping on the 'We're still here and we're still standing' bit. Not that easy when your hands are tied to a guitar, I won't lie to you. But I try anyway by stamping my foot on the floor. So far it hasn't worked, but I'll keep trying! Other than that, the song went really well. I'm actually quite surprised about how well I'm playing these days!

Then I had a go at my new song, A Lonely Night, after once again telling the story of how it came about, because a lot of the people who go in Katies are musicians themselves and would probably appreciate the sentiment of feeling a little peeved because no one has come to their gig. This one was quite interesting to play because of the words to it. Obviously I need to get them all right, and word for word, this didn't happen. But I managed to cover the lines I couldn't exactly remember with words that fit just as well. The result is a performance that's equally as convincing either way, and actually a lot of the final edits for my songs were done by playing them live and playing the version that feels most comfortable to play, rather than the ones I've written down. Get Out Of My Head and Storm From The North were two such songs, I might talk about that another time. For now, the song went down very well, and Sam told me she really liked it because she likes songs with a lot of lyrics in them. Might need to tone the swearing down in future though...

Storm from the North was next, and I played that with my usual bravado and swagger. I had a bit of a problem hitting the low notes at the start, and I really needed to concentrate on that in order to do it, that's something to be aware of in future. I noticed when I was recording it last week I had some trouble remembering what chords to play in the chorus and I ended up playing the wrong chords on more than one occasion; this has happened live as well but thankfully did not happen tonight. Nothing like a recording drill to really give you an idea of what your own song sounds like.

Then I gave them Chapter One. A bit of a massive slowdown given the song that I'd just played, but this far in to the gig I reckoned it was just what it needed. As to how it went down, I'm not so sure. It didn't go down badly... but I think people are used to hearing fast rock songs off me now, so as soon as I start to play anything that sounds like it ought to be played on acoustic guitar, I become as run-of-the-mill as the next guy with a guitar who writes songs. I lose my edge; the thing that sets me apart from the crowd. But do you know what, I don't care; I wrote that song for a very personal reason and as long as I enjoy playing it I'm going to keep playing it live.

Followed that up with Girl's Names; a bit of a return to pace here I think. Not much else to say about it, but I'm becoming more confident in playing this one all the way through without messing up the 12/8 bit. Bearing in mind that, of all the songs that I play live that I also recorded, this is probably the one that I play the least, I think that's no bad thing.

I then did something that I've never done before and played Motorcycle Emptiness by the Manic Street Preachers. I think they've put a new album out so there's interest in the band again, and I wondered how well this one would go down. It's not one I've played live before because I think the key part of that song is the lead guitar and the song loses something without it, I played it because I wanted to so something I've never really done before. I played it reasonably well considering I hadn't rehearsed it, though I wonder how well the open two strings/power chord combo really sounded. I don't think I'll be doing this one again too soon, not without the lead guitar at least.

Finally, I wrapped the whole escapade up with Bitterness; a little predictable but I can think of far worse songs to be remembered by! This one is getting really tight now including the fast strums, so I'm pleased, and it's always good to get a nice big cheer at the end. What was also nice to see was that more or less the same number of people who were at the start of the gig were there at the end; not common at any gig I play really so this was a refreshing change.

All in all a good gig, and if I managed every gig like that I'd be happy. I've got another one coming up next Saturday at the Royal Oak in Stourbridge, thanks to the Prickly guys for putting me on there, and on Sunday I've got a charity show I think with Natasha and the 82s on Sunday at the Four Ashes Pub, just North of Coven. Hope the weather's a bit better than it was last time, but we'll be in to November by then so this is hardly a guarantee! See you then!

14/9/2011: Katy Fitzgeralds

To quote the Honda advert, "Isn't it nice when things just... work?"

I was opening the gig tonight and there was a very strong line-up with an appreciative audience; I felt just about the right amount of pressure to deliver the goods with this one. It might seem strange therefore that I started the gig with Believe, but there was a reason for it. I basically hadn't played guitar much at all that day and my hand wasn't warmed up; starting off with Bitterness or We Will Survive would have been a recipe for disaster and I knew it. I thought it better to start with a relatively sedate one for me, although that last chorus seems to soar and I was really feeling it tonight. I guess I haven't opened with that one before, or if I had then it hasn't been for a while, so there would have been less of a feeling of going through the motions than there may otherwise have been.

THEN I was ready to play Bitterness. I think I've got that song down to a fine art now, from the fast strums right down to the positioning of my mouth to the microphone for the quiet to loud bits. It was probably one of the more memorable moments of the set and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it.

Get Out Of My Head was next. This one is another one that I'm playing very well these days; I don't know if it went down quite as well as Bitterness - a lot of the guys in the audience were quite young - but the subtleties  of that song make it a very enjoyable one to play. Thinking about it, it's also the only one I currently play that relies on a riff rather than a chord sequence to carry the verse, not often in acoustic music does that happen. Not music that I listen to anyway. It's something I'd quite like to develop, and I'm well on my way to doing so with another song that's in the pipeline which hopefully people will hear soon.

Next I tried a song by the Noisettes; not sure what it's called, it's either Never Forget You or Always Remember Me, but I play it in the 82s and I really like it. It actually went down really well, a lot of the guys in the audience recognised the song and they can't have heard it live often; I don't hear it played by many - if any - of my contemporaries. There's some bits that need ironing out, namely the strumming pattern in the second verse; I could feel myself rushing it but I couldn't do anything about it without stopping, but it didn't spoil what I would otherwise consider to be quite a convincing delivery.

For some reason whenever I do a 7-song gig these days, Storm From The North is always the 5th one. Actually I know exactly what the reason is; it's the mid-set epic and therefore needs to be in the middle of the set. I don't know if that's becoming a little predictable now that I've been playing it for a few months, and especially at Katies where I play a lot, but I honestly can't think of a better place to put it. I played it well, I think, and the audience is familiar enough not to clap too soon!

I was torn then between playing Girls Names and Chapter One. I went with Girl's Names because it's faster; I was having a really good gig by now and I wanted to keep up the pace. I'm struggling a lot less with the 12/8 bit; fewer are the times when I mess up the chords and I'm used to singing it now to the point where I can make it sound good (if you haven't heard the song, that part is quite low and I find it difficult to project my voice.) It went down as well as it ever does, it's familiar at Katies so I do play it quite a bit.

I wrapped it up with We Will Survive, and I seem to be getting far more precise with this one as well. It's come from all this gigging, I'm sure; sometimes it's the only time I play guitar these days but as the stakes are always higher on the stage than they are in my bedroom, no matter how good the gig is, I'm under a lot of pressure to get it right when I do play it. That kind of experience have really put some of these songs at another level which after all this time I am very pleased with! And fortunately so were my audience.

Well, blowing my own trumpet a little bit here but I think I set the bar quite high for what was to follow! I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards telling me how much they enjoyed the show which is always a nice feeling. I wouldn't normally do this on this blog, but big well done to Georgia and Will, who followed me, and Sam, who wrapped up the gig very well indeed with a sing-along chorus. It really was a great night and a fine reminder of why I play live.

Gigs from 26/8 to 5/9

So this is by far the busiest I have ever been with gigging. I count it 10 in 11 days, and to be perfectly honest blogging up a track-by-track review of all of them would be far more work than it would be fun, even if I could remember what we played! So what I'm going to do instead is give a brief run-down of what they were, where they were, and how it all went down...

26/8/2011
It all started on what I can only describe as a soggy afternoon at the Pulse Festival, just North of Coven, with Natasha and the 82s. This was a relatively short set for us, only 10 songs. I was suffering from having not long changed my guitar strings, and it kept going out of tune in the weeks running up to it and had only just began to settle; not helped by the fact that I hit the thing rather hard! The highlights of the set were definitely Word Up and Sound of the Underground, where I pump up the gain and really let loose on the guitar. The mistakes were there and we knew it, but it was our first gig so we weren't going to be too hard on ourselves.

27/8/2011
The following day I was at The Malt Shovel in Great Barr, playing a Summer Jam festival organised by the Kiesters Brown who I'd met in Stafford a few months before. Lots of summer festivals! There was a distinctly 'British' feel to this one, i.e. it was pouring it down with rain. The festival also suffered from a few pull-outs, so there was quite a bit of time between bands which meant I didn't get to see them all and unfortunately I missed the Kiesters. My set went OK, not the most inspired I've ever felt while playing a gig but my song order was by then becoming quite predictable. That being said, it's the best feeling in the world to see your own lyrics being sung back to you while you're playing, and as a lot of the guys with the Kiesters had seen the video of me that we did in Stafford Uni, a lot of the guys knew my songs already! On the downside, I've really got to stop tapping my foot while I'm doing A Little Respect. It hurts after a while!

28/8/2011
After band practice with Aki Maera we went down to Katies to play their summer festival, and despite it happening in the upstairs bar because the downstairs area was flooded, I actually had a really good time with this one. I almost reversed my setlist, instead opening with Girl's Names (I can play it well enough now to put on a far more convincing performance) and enjoyed it a lot more for all that. Also Dale recorded me singing Wide Open Space, and Amy recorded me singing Girl's Names, so there might be a couple of you-tube videos and a duet with Dale in the runnings before too long...

31/8/2011
That was supposed to be it until Friday but it turns out Emma wanted to book me for the Sunflower Lounge again due to another pull-out. I remember feeling very morose for this one because my mouth was in searing pain, and I adjusted my setlist to put all my miserable songs in there. It actually worked quite well because there was some semblance of consistency in my set, and it was nice to play Dear Mr Manager again; I don't often play it but it fit the bill for tonight. I asked the audience at the end whether they wanted a fast song or a slow song to finish off, somebody said 'fast' and I brought it to a close with Bitterness, a good decision because it always goes down well, Mitch liked it and so did the other guy who played that night!

2/9/2011
Another 82s gig, this one was at the Sneyd Inn and was pretty much our first full gig. It went OK, we were playing the songs better than we did the Friday before. There were booking agents there who were giving us some very useful feedback, for which I am grateful, but there are other things to sort out. For a start, if Rich and Sue are going to do a Name That Tune thing before we start the song, it would really help if they tell me and Jarv first, because if your own band doesn't know what you're playing it doesn't bode well for anybody else. But there were a few people there who really enjoyed what we were doing so if nothing else, I know we're playing the right songs very well. Hopefully there'll be a keyboard player pretty soon as well...

3/9/2011
A quick note about Open Mic UK: I was scheduled to audition, and if I pretend that the reason I didn't was for anything other than I didn't get up early enough I'd just be kidding myself. But, given that I had a slot booked at Codfest for 3.20pm, I'd parked my car at completely the wrong end of the NEC and I didn't really owe those guys anything (quite the other way round in fact, given that I had to pay to enter,) I ended up walking out.

So, Codfest. Easily the best of the summer festivals I played for all these two weeks. Sam and his friends had really done a good job getting it all sorted out, and the festival was the most enjoyable day I'd had for a long long time. My set was good; no one is going to go mental for an acoustic set but it was easily the largest number of people I'd ever played to in one gig, and the amount of them who came up to me afterwards and said they'd really enjoyed it was astounding; something I'm really not used to on that scale! I also did a couple of slots at the 'Busk Stop,' singing Disney songs of all things and getting other people up to sing with me, which was a very nice feeling indeed. At the end of the day it had all been one massive party; all the artists were good, everyone knew each other and got on reasonably well so there was no trouble, it was a whole music scene inside one field and one very large group of people that appreciated it. Long may it continue, and well done to everybody involved.

4/9/2011
This gig I was supporting Gwyn Ashton at The Foundry in Dudley. Nice to do a home-town show at last! For me at least there was a feeling of What Goes Around Comes Around, as Gwyn had jammed on bass with Jack's Legacy years ago at The Broadway while they were waiting for me to turn up, and five years later I'm supporting him. I'm also seeing a lot of Emma in In Between Seas, which is hardly surprising as we know the same promoters. It was a good gig all in all, I was probably the least technically able of all the guitarists who played that night but none of them deliver their songs with quite as much venom as I do with Bitterness, once I'd played that the gig was mine for the 20 minutes or so I had left. Only drawback really was the fact that I'd shouted myself hoarse at Codfest the previous day, and it came across in my singing. Oh, and by the way, if you get a chance to go and see Gwyn Ashton play, for God's sake do it. He is incredible.

5/9/2011
I wrapped it up with a trip to Katies with the intention of doing Wide Open Space with Dale. He wasn't there, but it's surprising how much of the Katies crowd I have a friendly familiarity with now. All things considered singing Man That You Fear by Marilyn Manson wasn't one of my better moves as it really hurt my throat, but I also gave them Bitterness and We Will Survive, and the guys I spoke to afterwards reckon it sounded pretty good.

So there you have it. Busy busy, but let's be honest, this is what I wanted all along, being able to gig every night. It'll probably slow down a bit now the summer is behind us, but hey, I'll keep doing gigs every week, and there's talk of a recording coming up soon as well so we'll see how that goes, it's about time I got a CD out!

20/7/2011: Katie Fitzgeralds Acoustic Brew

Here's a turn up for the books: I'm writing up a gig literally a day after I've done it, rather than the usual 7...

So I think it was last Tuesday I was emergency-booked for Katies again, and as I had band practice with Aki Maera that night I had to ask for the late slot. Turns out I needn't have worried as they were running late anyway but I got to play a show to the few remaining people left in the bar...

I began with Get Out Of My Head. Even though I'm playing that well now, and tonight was no exception, I ended up making mistakes with the chords in the most stupid places in the world. I reckon it's because I wasn't concentrating, which isn't surprising as I usually open with this song so if there's anywhere in the set that I'm 'going through the motions' it's here. Nonetheless, I don't think it went down too badly at all.

I then went on to Girl's Names. I really didn't feel like following it up with Bitterness, so I changed the set around a little bit. I've started putting a little country-style lick in the intro, which I noticed one person in the audience nodding along to so this was probably one of my better ideas. I played it well, I've never thought this is my most inspiring song but it usually does go down well here, once again tonight was no exception. So far, so good...

Storm From The North was next. Apart from one fluff of the chords at one point, I played this very well indeed, it's getting better and better... I started off by revealing that the song was actually inspired by Emma who used to be in Crashpoint, who I understand now plays a few acoustic shows on her own in and around the town, including Katies. I speculated to the audience afterwards whether Sam would put me on the same night as Emma and wonder if I'd play it. Hell, I don't know the answer to that question at this point; ask me again if it comes up.

Mark had his graduation on Tuesday, and the moment where a young and recently disabled man walked - with some assistance - from one side of the stage to the other to get his degree and shake hands with the Chancellor was truly inspiring. I wanted to dedicate a song to the guy, and the only song I could think of that was in the slightest bit appropriate was Trail Of Broken Hearts by DragonForce. It was actually quite nice how people who were preparing to leave stayed to watch for this one, then left. I played it OK, I could have done without fluffing up so many of the lyrics but it hardly matters with DragonForce as they're all near enough the same anyway; it was an impromptu decision to play it and it seemed to work.

Things were going a bit quiet now so I followed suit with Right Where It Belongs by Nine Inch Nails. This went down with passive indifference but I wasn't exactly trying to change the world with it if I'm perfectly honest, it did what I needed it to do which was basically a musical interlude with vocals.

I then had a go at asking what little of the audience remained (which ironically enough was a larger number of people than I'm used to playing to) what they wanted to hear, a fast song? A slow song? Somebody at the bar shouted 'Reggae!' and I ended up playing 7 Nation Army with Ska chords... I actually do this with some of the bands and it works really well with the 82s, less so with The Fakes. It worked for a while with the acoustic guitar but I found out too late I haven't really got the stamina to make it all the way through. My acoustic guitar isn't the easiest in the world to play and my fingers were excruciating by the time I'd finished. I also need to play that chorus a lot more accurately. But the crowd seemed to like it and I saw a few people dancing to it which for an acoustic gig is mega!

I finished up with a super-quick adrenaline inspired rendition of Bitterness! I played it well and those fast strums are getting ever more accurate, but I ought to know better than to let myself get carried away like that.

So, while not the best I've ever played, this was one of the most enjoyable gigs I've played so far this year. Bring on the next one!

22/6/2011 Katy Fitzgeralds Acoustic Brew

And there I was thinking I wouldn't get a gig in this week when I get emergency booked to play Katies once again, and Amy came with me as well which was fantastic. Here's how it went:

I opened up by saying I wanted to make this one really good, and kicked off with So Long Astoria by The Ataris. There was a very specific reason for this - if you listen to the lyrics it's all about remembering a place that is special to you, I think it is anyway, and with Amy about to move from the house we'd pretty much been sharing and having a wealth of memories there which I'm sure we'll share for a long time, I thought this appropriate. I didn't play it too well as it has been literally years since I last tried and it showed, but it was good fun to play it once again.

I followed it up with the Get Out Of My Head and Bitterness combo, in that order. If it's a new gig I'll do it the other way round but I'm no stranger to Katies! Also, because I play them at every gig I do, I've practiced them to the point where they'll very rarely go wrong now, and Mitch who was on before me loved Bitterness so that went down very well indeed, I was pleased with that!

One More Show was next, and I was hoping for a warmer response than I got the last time I'd played at Katies. It didn't go down badly, but my better songs seem to be remembered for their quirks and attitudes, and apart from the key change and the naughty words, One More Show doesn't have much of either. I'll keep playing it for a while and if I find an audience that likes it then great, but it won't surprise me if I have to retire this one in the future.

Again for Amy I played Home for Summer by Feeder. It's funny, I heard this song for the first time five days after Jack's Legacy broke up. I've waxed lyrical many many times about how hard I took that, but this song is special to me because rather than the bitter, spiteful fury that I feel with most music that reminds me of my former band, this one actually mellows me out a little bit. The message seems to be that you did what you did, and however well it worked out, it's all over now... and what you've got left is significantly different to what you had when it all began. The relective lyrics will always strike a chord with me, and the title was suspiciously appropriate, given the subsequent vacation of Amy's student house. It seemed to go down very well, and I can't thank Katies enough for that!

Storm from the North is fast becoming a live favourite of mine, despite what the audience may think. It's made all the more interesting by the way I play it slightly differently each time, though I may settle on a 'best' way to play it in the future. Tonight it seemed to go down with passive indifference, but putting it ahead of the previous song might make playing a loud, aggressive one like this seem a little out of place. Always fun to play though!

A bit cheeky here where I asked how many songs I had left knowing it should only really have been one. Sam was good enough to let me play two though, the first of which was Girl's Names, which as I've said before I kind of feel obliged to play when I play Katies now. Not necessarily always a great move, but I played it quite well to polite applause so I can't complain!

I ended with We Will Survive, no surprises there but apart from Bitterness that's the chorus that everybody sings on their way home in a drunken mess. Actually I'm lying, that doesn't happen at all as far as I know. But it's a nice sing-along chorus that people can enjoy, energetic enough to feel like I mean it which is crucial at the end of a show, and for those reasons can certainly feel like the more memorable part of the show if I get it right! This time, I appeared to get it right, and I left the stage feeling confident that I'd done a good show.

Well done to Mitch who was on before me, and Josh who was on after, who also played very well!

13/6/2011: Katy Fitzgeralds Open Night

I came tonight with the intention of airing a new song that I like to call One More Show. I think I might have blogged the actual song itself up ages ago but I've not had chance to play it live yet simply because I haven't practiced it enough. I've had enough of playing songs before they're ready and forgetting the words, and did not want that to happen the first time I played it so I went to some lengths to make sure that I'd got it right. All things considered, I doubt it would have made much difference. Due to the running order I'd actually gone on quite late, and most of the clientele were out the back, so I was playing to near enough an empty room, and the people who remained behind were paying very little attention. Here's what happened:

I began with Storm From The North; a break from the norm but as Katies Open Night attracts a lot of the local musos I figured they might appreciate  me playing this one tonight. I played it well, though I left out the Metallica bit; not the right atmosphere, and the pounding verses and the choruses attracted some glances, but other than that what was left of the audience remainded largely impassive.

One More Show was next. I was pleased with the fact that after all that I actually DID manage to play it all the way through without any mistakes. Unfortunately my confidence had been knocked by the way the night had been going so far and I didn't feel right introducing the song as new, or even introducing myself. I think what we had here was the nature of the night having a knock-on effect on the way I was conducting myself, and because I lacked that connection with the audience I was what I was; a guy on a stage playing a guitar and singing something. So whether the song went down well or not, I couldn't honestly say.

I finished off with Right Where It Belongs by Nine Inch Nails, inspired by one of the other guys who was playing Hurt earlier. This is one I've known how to play for a while but never really played before; it needs a bleak and melancholic atmosphere to make it work I think. Sam commented on it when I'd finished, saying it was really nice. The rest of the people in the room had to be reminded to clap.

All in all, not one of my better ones, I think! I don't expect too much from Katies Open Night anymore but this was a disappointment. However it's not something I think any amount of planning and preperation (and for what it's worth, I don't do a great deal of either) could have effected; it just wasn't my night tonight. Let's hope the next one works a little better.

28/5/2011: Katiesfest

For how many times I've played Katies so far, it's nice I think that I can find something different to say about it each time, and each time find new and more adventurous ways to make the gig interesting. In this case, not only did I play in the Marquee, but for the second time I also brought on a guest...

The plan was to do a regular set, no surprises, no going out on a limb, because it was a festival setting and I got the feeling from it that the stakes were higher and I really didn't need to be screwing it up. I needn't have worried because the mid-afternoon turnout was modest, nobody other than the staff had seen me play before and whatever happened was all going to happen for the first time for those guys anyway. Nonetheless I stuck to the plan and kicked off with Bitterness followed by Get Out Of My Head, preceding the latter with a statement that those who had seen me before (by then Stefan had turned up,) wouldn't be surprised by this at all. It's nice that Stefan recognised it was me on hiw way in because I was playing Bitterness!

Next I played Let's Start A Band once again. I wanted to put a cover in there simply because I didn't think it was the right environment to play Prisoner Of My Mind, and to be fair it went quite well! The song's not familiar enough to me yet for me to be 'going through the motions' while I'm playing it, in fact I don't think I've ever actually practiced it at home, but I seemed to play it OK and it's the kind of song that I would expect would go down well at Katies. It's good to be right about that sort of thing.

Then for lack of a better option I played Believe. Not really the right atmosphere for this song either, considering what had gone on before and after I played, I could forgive the audience for thinking I'm taking myself a bit too seriously with this one. Me? Well, I've been playing that song since 2006. It has superceded the many many MANY songs I've written since then and quite a lot of the much smaller number of songs that I've road-tested and don't play live anymore. So quite frankly I don't care if anyone else likes it. I just need to be a bit more careful with it's deployment...

And now for my guest... How this came about was Daniel Mohr - who I'd seen play at Katies a couple of times before and know by sight though up until now had never spoken to him beyond the rudimentary 'Good set, mate' thing you do on open nights - came and sat with with me and asked me to play lead on a couple of his songs. I did this, and it went pretty well considering I'd never played with the guy before. I felt obliged to ask him to play on one of my songs in return, and was then left with the task of choosing which of my songs needed lead guitar. None of them, really... but there was that tin whistle part in Storm from the North. So I asked him to put some lead in to that. How did he get on? Well, on the gig, I honestly don't know. There was no foldback and I could barely hear what he was playing. However we had a quick run through before either of us went on and I know the sort of thing he was likely to have played, he wouldn't have gone wrong. He's got a melodic awareness resemblant of Mark Knopfler (except he uses a plectrum,) and to be perfectly honest any guitarist would thank you for saying something like 'Noodle around E Minor.' So, I gave him appropriate congratulations and I look forward to working with him again, if it ever comes up.

This being Katies I also feel obliged to turn around and play Girl's Names. It's been a while since I played this one and I remember fluffing a chord at some point but other than that it went as well as it ever does. It's funny how this is usually the song I say the least about...

I finished with We Will Survive, my staple 'ending' song. Not really much to say about this one either so instead I'll talk about the position of my leg, which has been giving me some food for thought over my last few gigs. Usually when you play a steel-strung guitar sitting down you have both legs out in front of you and balance your guitar on your right leg (if you're right-handed, of course.) I balance my guitar on my right leg as usual... and then for some reason stick my left leg out behind me as though I'm running. I don't really know why this is but I would imagine it would have something to do with the fact that I'd rather be moving around a lot more than my lakc of a guitar strap allows.

All in all not a bad gig, I enjoyed it. The highlight was the guest spot, definitely. Time to road test some new songs, I think...

15/4/11 Katy Fitzgeralds

Whew, am I ever behind in this!

I came back to Amy's from the Bull Ring on Friday to find that Sam had messaged a few people for an emergency booking. I asked if there were any slots left and they were kind enough to give me five songs. Interestingly this was downstairs at Katies; it's not Acoustic Brew so there were supposed to be full bands on. There wasn't a band tonight, but hey, I do what I can.

It didn't get off to a flying start as I kicked off with Bitterness and forgot what song I was playing. It sounds silly but there is a reason for it: Apart from the far larger amount of spite and agression I put in to Bitterness, the intro to it sounds almost exactly the same as Girl's Names, same chord and everything. (Which, incidentally, is why I never put those two songs together in the set list.) So it took me a minute to remember what to do next, which thankfully I passed of as the overlong introduction I sometimes do to Bitterness when I play it first. Apart from that, it all went OK, but my mind probably wasn't in the right place when I kicked off that night!

I followed it up with the fairly predictable Get out of my Head, which actually seems to be more consistent with how well it's going down these days, pleasing to see. Can't say why, maybe I'm playing the relatively difficult song with more confidence these days and it's coming across. I'd like to think so. However, because of the way the sound was mixed, I noticed a few errors. One thing I really shouldn't be doing is playing the A string when I hit the D minor chord, but those bass frequencies were really ringing out through the monitor so I could hear I was doing that a lot. This is especially important in a solo situation because I haven't got a bass player to hit those low notes; it's all coming from me. I shouldn't be wanting Ds and playing As. That one might need a bit more practice.

Then I lent my cement-mixer-like voice to The Kill by 30 Seconds To Mars. Since I've been playing this song I've since discovered that there is an acoustic version of this song already by the band themselves, but in front of the right audience this will never go down badly as long as I play it correctly. Tonight was no exception and when I spoke to some people after the show, this was the one that they remembered. Fine, but I don't like to play the same cover twice in rapid succession; I'll end up boring myself and anyone who comes to see me more than a couple of times a month. Still, that's a good one to break out if it's going a bit flat and my audience is roughly my age or younger!

Girl's Names is a song I think I will play every time I play Katies because this is the one people tend to remember and sing along to when I come back a month later. I enjoy it a lot more now than I did when I first started playing it live, even the 12/8 bit doesn't sound so pretentious to me now! It didn't go down a storm, but then again my mid-set jobbers rarely do once the novelty has worn off. To be honest I don't think I could have done this one much better, and I'm thankful for that!

I finished off with Storm from the North. This one takes me back to my Crashpoint days, not least because the song is about the band, but also because of its position in the set. I remember when the band wrote Get This Manic Off Me; we had one more gig at the Wharf Bar to do before J left the band. J came up with the riff, we wrote the song and thought, "Wow, this is actually really really good!" It was a bit of a gamble but we started the set with the song that we usually finish with, and ended the set with the new song, because we knew it was amazing and we would play it well whatever happened. It was a bit of a shame I never learned the words to it so I could carry the song on after Emma left the band, but then again we were never really the same after that last show with J anyway. We got a little bit better, but...

To return from my digression, I've noticed a couple of things about this song, the first of which is that I forget the words to it; it's always the last bit as well. Thankfully, that night, there was only Amy in the audience who knew what the song was supposed to sound like in the first place, so nobody else seemed to notice that when I was plucking a melody on my top strings it was purely because I didn't know what else to sing. The second thing is that it's a little too low for me to sing comfortably. Normally in this situation I would use a capo, but that's not an option for me with this song. Remember those instrumental sections between the chorus and the verse? Well, that's supposed to have a tin whistle in them. The whistle that I have, whether I like it or not, has a range of D to about high B, I think, the same as a descant recorder. Which means that the best key for me to play in is G or Em. So I can only really play the song in Em. Is it possible to work on my voice so I can sing lower and still make a convincing sound? Time will tell...

Well that's it for the time being, I've got two more gigs to write up but I'm going to have a break for now. See you soon...