June 2015: New Students and an Amazing Food Bank Gig

After the hustle and bustle of May, June was something more of a relaxed affair, though there were still two very important developments:

Firstly I’ve taken on a new private student; the first one I’ve had for a while. I don’t usually do this as I would be in breach of either my Terms and Conditions or Code of Conduct for Dudley Performing Arts. The rule is that I’m not allowed to work in direct competition with DPA. Normally this would mean that I couldn’t do any private lessons for children in the Dudley area, but this person lives in a different area. I won’t be saying anything else about them for legal reasons and respect for people’s privacy, but the experience has been something of a revelation to me in a couple of respects:

 The first is that my friend who put me on to the student’s parents was my friend Leeanne, and I used to be in a band with her sister Hannah. So the seeds of this working relationship were actually sown in April 2010 when we put that band together! Sometimes it’s worth staying friends with people. I hoped to be able to help her in kind by backing her kickstarter project, sadly that didn’t work out.

The second was an indication of how far I’ve come along since I started teaching all that time ago. It’s no surprise really; I’m always learning and no one’s ever the finished product, but my lesson pacing in particular has improved a lot since I first started. Add to that some much-improved lesson content, and a lot more of my students have the potential to do very well indeed. A good thing, since in these situations I’m accountable to whoever’s paying me and they are going to want to see some return on the investment!

The second development for me was a very important gig that I did for my vocal coach Vie…

This came about as a fundraiser event for the Black Country Food Bank. Now, I think in this day and age it is deplorable that people have to rely on food banks. But they are real people, with real problems, and those problems aren’t going to go away just because I don’t like it. I heard, for example, about a family who were referred because the husband had returned from working in the armed forces and was struggling to get a job elsewhere. They’re certainly not what you hear about benefit scroungers, or whatever it happens to be. They’re not going to appear on a Channel 4 Documentary. They are real people.

Vie chose to do it as close to the Summer Holidays as she could, because the food banks really struggle during the summer as people tend to forget about it. It’s not so bad around Christmas – good will to all men, and all that – but during the summer, you can actually see through the shelves. And it’s not just food either; people tend to forget about things like shampoo, nappies, and deodorants and can openers. I’ll put a link to the site here, please give it a look and find out how you can support it – people will continue to need it in the future.

May of Vie’s vocal student performed a short set at the Calvary Church in Kingswinford, and the standard was incredibly high. It’s great to see how well her students are getting on; I might catch the end of someone’s lesson on the off chance I turn up early for mine but other than that I don’t get to see it very often. It was great to do so this time.

My performance was an incredible experience. At this point, I’ve basically been playing in pubs for the last eleven years, where there could be about fifty people in the room and maybe ten of them will be half-listening to you and applaud out of politeness. At the church, there were roughly 140 people there, and every one of them was listening intently. I played Like I Can and A Little Respect, but the one everybody remembered and spoke to me about afterwards was Storm from the North! Giving the song a bit of context helped – it was the song I wrote about Crashpoint – and I’ve made a slight change to it that now means it’s a little more comfortable to sing, which improved my delivery. But unless I’m playing to a gig where the audience consists entirely of musos, it’s rarely the original material that goes down the best. So thanks to everyone for watching me that night; you couldn’t have given me a higher compliment.

Looking forward to a gig with The Fakes next month, and some of my students have exams. So do I, as it happens…

Fly Away On The Pied Piper, 21/6/2013

Having developed a very good working relationship with Sam Draisey over the time I’ve been gigging acoustically, it was always a matter of when, not if, I would turn up to one of his open mics. It seems a lot of the regular ones I used to do had moved on, and for this reason I found myself playing in Cannock for the first time at the Pied Piper…

The crowd wasn’t huge; there were I think about 9 people in the room all night including Sam, but that isn’t exactly unknown and I’ve played to smaller crowds than that with a full band! This being the 21^st of June and with the weather being reasonably nice, Sam surmised a lot of people who would normally come to the pub and listen to some music have got all their barbeques out and stayed at home, and why not? It’s not like we’ve had all that much sun this year. Plus, smaller crowds give me the opportunity to mess around with the set a little bit, since I have a presumption in those cases that there is less at stake.

Speaking of which, here was the set:

• Morning Glory
• Zephyr Song
• Go Mr Sunshine
• Storm from the North
• Hall of Mirrors

The first three were the three songs I learned for when I started gigging again, and what I found was that playing them in my bedroom and playing them in front of a microphone are two very different experiences. Given how low my voice needs to be to effectively sing all three songs, I’m not convinced I was cutting through too well; what sounded good at home I think sounded rather weak. That having been said, I got through them all well enough and with few mistakes.

I think, of the three, I probably played Zephyr song the best. That’s an interesting one to cover, since the Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics that I’ve heard tend to be quite abstract, that is to say the songs appear to be about everything and nothing at the same time. So, because I can’t say for definite what I think the song is about, I find it harder to remember the words because I’ve got nothing to give context to the song! I ended up doing it in the end by looking at each individual line, picking out the noun from it and picturing the image in my mind, that would help me remember the words. E.g:

“Can I get your hand to write on,

Just a piece of lead to bite on,

What a night to fly my kite on

Do you want to flash your light on?”

I picture a hand, a lead rod, a kite and a flashlight. That helps me to remember what’s supposed to be in each line, so even though the song appears to be somewhere between an acid trip and complete bollocks, I can at least sing it!

Following it up with Storm from the North was a wise move, because I found for the first time that night I actually sounded like I meant it. I’d never even played that song on my new guitar so I had no idea what was going to happen. I remembered all the words OK, although I fluffed the chords at some point and made horrendous error of calling myself on the mistake straight away. But of all the songs I played that night that was probably the best one. Funny how I learned a bunch of cover songs, but it’s my own stuff that’s arguably going down better, simply because I’m playing it better!

After some good-natured Britain’s Got Talent-style piss-taking from the friends of one of the other lads who played that night, I played Hall of Mirrors by the Distillers. I love the song, but it is my thing to try to capture the essence of the song on an acoustic guitar and with that particular song I reckon I’ve always fallen short of the mark. Then again I don’t think I’ve played it at all for two and a half years, which probably had a lot to do it.

Now I might come across as a little hard on myself at this point, and I don’t think it was exclusively because I was playing covers because thinking about it, the covers I played a couple of weeks ago at the Copcut Elm actually went reasonably well. But as I’d known how to play both Boys of Summer and Never Forget You for 1-2 years by then, it was a different matter entirely. And both of those songs were new once as well. My point is while I don’t think I played Morning Glory, Zephyr Song or Go Mr Sunshine particularly effectively this time, that doesn’t mean I never will. I’ve just got to keep playing them because I’m going to learn more from doing that than I ever will from playing those songs in my bedroom.

This is with the possible exception of Go Mr Sunshine, which I think will lose something without the backing vocals no matter how well I play it.

So it was a valuable experience, if not my best performance. I probably won’t experiment that much again in front of anyone other than Sam, and even then it would only be in a smaller setting like that, because at all other times I need it to work

Not sure what’s coming next, I’ll see what’s going down next week…

 

(Copyright to the Lyrics to Zephyr Song belongs to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and are published on this blog with no permission whatsoever.)

1/9/2012: I held Codfest in my arms...

So hang on, haven't I stopped gigging?

Well, yes, for now. But here I found myself ready to take the stage at Codfest once more! What happened was that I went to Sam's open night at the Hartley Arms on Monday Night, partly for something to do but mostly because I needed a word with Sam about one or two different things and this was as good an opportunity as any. He mentioned right at the end that one of the acoustic acts for the Back Porch stage had pulled out and I offered to do the set for him. Sam gladly accepted, gave me the 2.55 slot and at 2.50 on Saturday after getting lost I managed to get on the car park and hurry on to the stage. Here's how I got on:

I'd specifically chosen a set of songs for this that I thought complimented both my current position of semi-retirement and the fact that I'm fortunate enough to get on stage at quite a big festival (in fact, for this level of gig, Codfest is about as good as it gets.) I opened up with You Held The World In Your Arms by Idlewild, one because it's an absolute belter, and two because my interpretation of it is being given one chance to break out of a very boring lifestyle. Not that my life is boring at the moment, far from it, but it was my first gig in over 4 months so I needed to hit this one with everything I had. What a shame then, that I managed to forget the words to the first verse. In my defence they are near enough the same all the way through with only minor variations but there was a definite feeling of [Brian Griffin sarcasm] "Well, we're off to a good start." That affected my performance for the first couple of minutes but I pulled it together after that and I did see one guy singing along to the chorus so that was pretty good.

I dropped the capo after that for my next song, Storm from the North. Of all the songs I recorded with Sam last year that one's his favourite and I owed him for the gig so I played that one and I'm pleased to say that I've lost none of my attack in the time it's been since I've played it last. I noted in the program, by the way, that Sam described my songs as 'observational.' Well, he knows what this one is all about and the metaphor of the ship fits the situation quite well, and this is something I intend to play up to in future songwriting endeavours!

After that I did Get Out Of My Head, because that's Kayla's favourite. I did it with the a'capello first verse and chorus, which might not have been a wise move given the setting - a festival audience is by their very nature largely unfamiliar and it might have been better to give them the "real" version. However, it's not like I had to worry too much about continuity. Besides, taking the Rammstein approach to it, the recorded version is the best I could make of it at the time but since then I've discovered ways of playing it live that make it all the more enjoyable for me. Given the amount of people who've actually listened to the recording, (2 people on my last Myspace count,) I don't think it's wrong to play it the way I enjoy it as audience expectations are pretty much a secondary consideration!

I've got a bad habit of fiddling with the capo between songs. I knew perfectly well that after the first song I didn't needed the capo after that, and after every song I'd pick it up, put it on the mic stand, get half way to putting it on the guitar before remembering I didn't need it; should not be letting that happen!

Because I played it at the last year and it went quite well, I played Colours of the Wind from the Disney film Pocahontas. Granted I can't sing it quite as well as Judy Kuhn, but I think I did an OK enough job of it. I did notice, though, that it went down better last year when I did it at a later hour; everyone was drunk and wanted to hear songs to sing along to. It was great to play it again though. Intrestingly, what I'd actually intended to do at that point was I'll Make A Man Out Of You from Mulan, but because of my guitar, there was no way I could have done it comfortably without putting the capo on halfway through the song. Barre chords are a pain! However, you can all be rest assured that I can't sing it as well as Donny Osmond either. I haven't got enough teeth.

I finished off with pretty much the most appropriate song I could think of in the circumstances: The Boys of Summer by Don Henley. This is quite a good 'rounding off the summer' song, and being the first day of September I could hardly have picked a better time. It's a nice one to play, not so nice to sing because I can never remember the changing line of the chorus. I know what they all are but I keep forgetting what order they all go in, which resulted in a few stumbles. However, a lot of the audience recognised it and I enjoyed playing it!

So ended my Codfest set. Am I back? No. That was a favour to a friend and I wouldn't like to say that I'm back yet as bar the covers I'm still doing what I was doing when I quit. But it was nice to get on the stage again. Given what Sam was saying about observational songwriting I might try getting in to that again and see if I can get something together that I'd be happy to play on stage. I'd like to drop a stone and a half in weight as well. Until then, it's one-offs like this, or perhaps a gig or two with The Fakes if we can organise it.

So, thanks to Sam and the comittee for organising the festival, biggest and best one yet, couldn't have asked for a better end to the Summer Holidays. See you next year, whether I'm playing or not...

Heading for the End part 1: A Stormy Misdirection at the Hartley Arms. 23/4/2012

Hi there.

Not done a blog in a while; I'm afraid being obliged to write down the details of every single show I do can feel a little overwhelming at times, and I don't always get time to do it. I did a gig at Four Ashes a couple of weeks ago for example, and headed down to Amy's straight after. While it would not be literally true that I didn't have time to write a blog while I was there, she certainly wouldn't have thanked me for it. Which is a shame because that show influenced a lot of what it coming here:

I'm going to be taking an indefinite break from playing live. I can think of a few reasons for it but they basically come down to the fact that I've had enough. I gigged every week all of last year, and I've not done much less than that this year so far. Some shows I've enjoyed more than others, and what I've got out of it is refining my set to the point where I can put on a far more convincing show than I ever could before.

What else does that get me? Not a fat lot. I have very rarely been paid for playing a solo gig, (thanks to Sam Draisey for being the only one who has so far,) I couldn't sell a CD to my own mother (she's heard it all!) and usually the only way I can get anybody to come to a gig is if I drive them there myself.

Now I know that perhaps I should be doing more to change that. Burning off some CDs would be a nice start; getting a proper Facebook page, really promoting those gigs, get a decent contract on my phone so I can actually afford to send mass texts to people who might want to come. But the way it's been going so far hasn't put me in particularly high spirits and offering much incentive for me to do that. Plus I've been doing a lot of other stuff as well; I'm more in to my games now than ever before and it's taking up a lot of my time, and in many cases proving a lot more enjoyable. I think I need a few months off, give me some time to miss gigging and actually want to get back to it, during which I need the following things to happen:

• Get a proper Facebook music page
• Get a Twitter account to use with the Music page,
• Get some CDs printed off properly with a cover and everything
• Sort my PRS stuff out - I'm nearly there, I just need my birth certificate
• Write some new songs. Seriously, I've been playing most of the regulars for nearly two years now, and apart from the new one that I wrote at the Robin 2 that I've completely forgotten the name of, my most recent one is A Lonely Night and that's about 8 months.
• Get some sort of mailing list system going when I'm doing gigs so I can actually keep in contact with the people I talk to. Fair enough by now that would be some 20 people but it's 20 people I don't have now.

Now in true Matt style ducking out for a few months is out of bitterness, spite and disillusionment with music and its current state, and we'll find out if it's all worth it or whether I've been shooting myself in the foot when I come back to potentially find that all my old contacts and venues have moved on and I'll have to start all over again. Then again, that won't necessarily be a bad thing...

I'll pick this up another time, it's probably about now that I should talk about the gig I'm posting this blog for in the first place...

Ok given all this recent development I wasn't intending on being any good tonight, thankfully it was at  at the Hartley Arms and in the company of Sam and his friends with whom I enjoy a friendly familiarity to the point where I could get away with it. The first song I did was Fall Back Down by Rancid. I've know the song vaguely for a while, the chords are easy enough. I've only got a basic grasp of the words, but then listening to the record I'm not conviced Tim Armstrong knows it all that well either... Sam recognised it and everybody else seemed to enjoy it so there are worse songs to play!

I then played something I'd barely played before in my life and was a bit risque, Dark Heart Silhouette by Vendetta Red, who I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen that they are the best band you've never heard. That's probably the most offence I've ever caused in one song, with the lyric 'And I watched him take her, beat her and rape her, and he said if you tell anyone I'll have God kill your Mommy...' so I need to be careful where I'm playing that! It seemed to go down OK but no one really knows the band so I was playing it to enterain myself as much as anybody else.

Feeling that I should probably get some of my own material in there I decided to play Bitterness. It went down reasonably well athough I was at that point suffering from the coke and pizza I'd had earlier, and singing so hard I felt like I was going to be sick. I don't know what was worse, that or telling everybody about it afterwards.

I finished up with a false start - and subsequent retry - of Storm from the North. Once I'd got it, it was fine, though I shouldn't let that happen a great many times. Only last Friday I managed to get the giggles half way into it. I was conscious of the fact that Sam was filming this one and I wanted to give as good a performance as I can. If what Sam filmed comes out barely passable, I'll put it on the blog and see where it goes from there.

So I probably won't be at the Hartley Arms again too soon. I might go to the Robin when Sam puts it on but Wheaton Aston is a little far for me to go just to watch. Still, it's been good to me and has given me a nice platform to spring some new material from so I'm grateful for that!

Might see you Thursday, might see you Sunday...

17/5/2011: The Yardbird Open Night

I was a bit cheeky with this one; I knew the open part of the night didn't start until 10pm so I went to the city, couldn't park my car, turned up at around 10:15 and asked for a slot. There were some other guys on so time was tight, but I did at least manage to get a couple of songs in so big thanks to Jason for that.

It was a bit tougher this time; I played Storm From The North first considering how well it went down last time and I actually played it significantly better. Partly because I know the song so much better now. Mostly because I got all the way thorugh it without forgetting the words or breaking a string. It seemed to go down OK but considering I went down a, er, Storm, last time I played the Yardbird, somehow the same magic just didn't seem to be there.

I had one more song and because it had gone down so well when I did Full Volume the Friday before, I elected to play We Will Survive. I don't think this was the right decision to be honest, I'd have been better off with Get Out Of My Head. There's usually a substantial divide between audiences; people looking to be 'entertained' tend to prefer the fast rocky songs like We Will Survive, and people looking for a bit more depth in their songs - and this tends to coincide with the audience being a bit older, though not necessarily at the Yardbird - prefer my 'arty' songs like Get Out Of My Head. In hindsight, I'd suggest that the Yardbird falls under the latter category, and I abstained from playing one of my more complex songs in front of an audience that would really appreciate it. That being said, I played it OK, got a cheer from someone when I said I'd played it at Stafford University, and I saw Amy singing along to the chorus as well so that's always a nice feeling.

All in all not my best, but given the circumstances I don't think I can be blamed for that. At least I was better than the two lads who were on before me singing about having threesomes...

New Song: Storm from the North

I'm in quite a lot of danger of turning into a folkie with this one...

So as I hinted at last night, I have a new set of lyrics, called Storm from the North. The idea for the song came to me last night while watching my old friend and former bandmate Emma Simpson play a few songs on an acoustic guitar at Katies. Somehow, I managed to analogise Crashpoint as a ship, one of the old pirate ships built out of wood. Crashpoint obviously broke up as the members went their seperate ways, like parts of the ship getting old, worn and falling off, and even though we tried to make repairs by getting new members in, in the end the damage was done; the ship became a wreck, and the individual members little more than driftwood, that may end up either as something else, or cast of as waste.

The driftwood analogy is particularly appropriate because there's been a lot of different things going on with the former members of Crashpoint. Cj's been trying his hand drumming for various different people, it's not always worked out well for him though. Similar story with Luke. Rich has been going around different bands as well but I wonder if he'll ever really find what he's looking for. J, as far as I know, has abandoned music completely. I've been going around a few different bands, with limited success, and been doing my own acoustic shows because I can't hold it together. I've barely spoken to Emma since Crashpoint but seeing her play last night reminded me yet again that we're all just floating around trying to make something of doing what we enjoy...

So the lyrics to the song are all based on this shipwreck analogy, the Storm from the North being the collective set of circumstances that eventually forced us to call it a day. There's quite a Dire Straits-style storytelling nature to it, which I quite like because I always wanted to write a song as good as Telegraph Road. It starts with the ship being built, (getting the band together,) being sailed around various different places (gigging!) being weathered and eroded (the damage we were doing to Emma's voice and J's departure) and sailing on through shallow and rocky waters (when the band was basically over and we were only keeping it together for it's own sake.)  It ends with the idea that even though we're all pieces of driftwood now and we'll almost certainly never be a ship (or band) again, it's important to remember each other and what we managed to achieve before the end.

Musically the chords are nothing to write home about, but I'm changing time signatures quite a lot in this from a 6/8 ballad to a 4/4 stomper, and back to 6/8 for the sad bit at the end. I'm thinking of putting a tin whistle solo in there as well. Yes, I have one, and yes, I can play it a bit. In fact I could hear it working with a whole folk group set-up, with violins and bodhrans and everything... but one thing at a time. When will we hear it live? Hopefully soon, though my record for new songs this year hasn't been 100% and I'd really rather not screw this one up. I'll play it when I play it, but I doubt that will be before March.

I hear there's a new video of me on Youtube, must check that out...