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

November’s been an interesting one…

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The last 2 gigs of 2011

Hi there ladies and gents,

Important milestone for me, this. As the Facebookers among you will have all seen, my New Year's Resolution for last year was to play a gig every week. And Dec 30th, 2011, I played the last 2 gigs that saw me play a gig every single week of 2011, apart from the 2 weeks I was on holiday. If you don't believe me, read the rest of my blogs!

The first of the gigs was actually quite special. This was a fundraising event for Cancer Research, put on by Prickly Music Promotions at the Royal Oak in Amblecote. I opened the event, (right up until the last moment this was subject to change, but anyway,) and played 5 songs, as is usual with Prickly gigs. The set list was:

REM: Man on the Moon
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody
Amy MacDonald: Let's Start A Band
My Chemical Romance: Cancer
Elbow: On A Day Like This

In the spirit of the event I decided to do the set entirely made of covers. Some worked better than others, but the highlight of the set was most definitely Cancer. There weren't many people at the event at this point but I expect they had all either been affected by cancer, or someone with cancer, at some point, or had heard my story of how that song strikes a particularly poignant nerve with me. I probably won't play it again, certainly not in any other environment, but it served it's purpose for what I needed it to do.

Then I scurried over to the Rose and Crown in Wordsley to open for Recollection, thanks for giving me the gig guys! I played a set largely comprised of covers, though I did throw a couple of my own songs in there as well. The set was:


REM: Man on the Moon
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody
Bitterness
Amy MacDonald: Let's Start A Band
Feeder: Yesterday Went Too Soon
A Lonely Night
Erasure/Wheatus: A Little Respect
Storm from the North

It went OK, I managed to get through the gig without messing up too badly. I do think, though, that I need to be a little more careful with what covers I'm playing in an environment like that. I started out OK but when I started playing the more contemporary songs like Feeder and Amy MacDonald the audience - who specifically asked me for things like Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple - basically lost interest.

However, that ties in to my New Year's Resolution for 2012: Learn a New Song Every Week! Looking forward to the next few gigs... see you soon! And Happy New Year!

24/12/2011: Mary Stevens Park

This was an open air gig at the bandstand in the park, hosted by Acoustic Brew. I'm not going to do a track by track on this one, because unfortunately I was let down by losing power to the sound system and I have a feeling my set was a constant stream of feedback - and not the constructive kind. But for the record, the set list was:

We Will Survive (slow intro)
Girl's Names
Walkin' On The Sun
Storm from the North
The First Footprint
Get Out Of My Head
Bitterness

A couple of things though:

I'd borrowed Dale's guitar because mine wasn't coming through very well in the open air environment, and it was the first time I'd done an acoustic gig - or any gig, thinking about it - with a guitar in Eflat tuning. For the most part it worked OK but with some of those capo'd songs, the close proximity of the frets really did make them harder to play accurately. Then again, that also coincided with the first time I've ever played Walkin' On The Sun in the right key! I mention this because when I get my new guitar (hey, a guy can dream) I'm thinking of keeping it in Eflat tuning. I'm not sure how good an idea this is because it's just so I can play things like Smash Mouth, 30 Seconds To Mars etc... I've never actually written anything in Eflat. Though if I ever do get round to doing Crashpoint again it is something I could consider as it fits my voice a little better - in that environment. On the other hand, if I had a guitar permanently in Eflat, chances are I might write something in the tuning!

I also made the exact same mistake I did when I played a similar set up in Stourbridge - not wear fingerless gloves! My fingers were absolutely frozen and honestly I'm surprised I managed to keep the notes as accurate as I did! Fair enough I only do this once a year, but it wouldn't be a bad investment, all things considered.

A nice day, in all. No one went mad for it but no one would in this sort of environment, and as an acoustic act I was basically background noise for a couple of hours out in the park. Glorified busking really. I've had worse days!

November Gigs

Once again I find myself behind in my blogs, and I've got a whole months worth of gigs to talk about and another two to go. Trying to blog them all individually would of course be more work than fun, apart from anything else some of it was weeks ago and I literally can't remember what happened, so I'm just going to give a quick run down of each one:

5/11/11: The Royal Oak, Amblecote: Another Prickly gig, thanks to Joy for booking me for this one! My guitar actually doesn't sound too bad through an amp. Didn't play so well, unfortunately. I think probably I was distracted with the thought of the fireworks display that I was going to afterwards, and I was on first which would never be my, ahem, 'first' choice. It wasn't bad... but by no stretch of the imagination was it my best one. I said to Amy afterwards, I think I was mistaken in my assumtion that I can play a reasonable show (I did Katies a couple of weeks before,) not play my guitar for a week and a half and expect to be able to play just as good a show when I get it out again. Something to remember for the future, though it will be a while before my next scheduled acoustic gig.

6/11/11: 82s at Just Kroozin Fundraising Event, Four Ashes: Nearly forgot about this one! This was the time where we were trying out our new bass player West. He seems to fit the bill OK and having the keyboards there does fill out the sound quite a bit. We played OK, as ever I did make some mistakes but I was rather more concerned about being upstaged by Almost Easy who were on before! Terrific fundrasing event to raise money for research into Lukemeia, so I was glad to have been a part of it, though it was freezing cold!

12/11/11: The Wharf Bar, Walsall: Regular readers of my blog will know that it is a rare time indeed when I speak kindly of The Wharf Bar. There's never usually anyone there, the whole place smells of sick (which comes from the canal, by the way; it's not actually their fault) and the only people to watch me tend to be the other bands who are either leaving the venue or counting down the minutes until it's their turn to go on. Quite often, the best I can say about it is that at least they do still book me for gigs. So imagine how pleased I was when not only were the modest audience actually listening to me and, as they told me afterwards, enjoying it, but I actually found myself enjoying it as well! That was certainly the best I'd ever played at the Wharf Bar, I've got another one there on the 10th so I'm actually looking forward to it. That's almost unheard of!

16/11/11: 82s: Cover Band Showcase in Cannock: We have - not a deal - but a good working relationship with some booking agents in the area, who invited us to play this showcase to several booking agents who may or may not want us for gigs in the future. We got all our big guns out, which were Word Up, Trick Me and Sound of the Underground. Quite far removed from what we orignally put the band together to do, and I think there is a concern that it's not representative of the set, so you may see some changes with this in the future.

22/11/11 Recording Christmas Song with Sam Draisey: Sam's putting together another Christmas album of original material and I went up today to record mine. I hadn't rehearsed it nearly enough and I know it, the guitar took a few goes, but my vocals I did pretty much in one take. I don't know whether I like the song or not; it's hardly full of Chirstmas Cheer and lyrically it's very lazy, there isn't a single line I haven't copied off someone, not least of whom myself! Still, it will hopefully work for the album, and it will be interesting to see what the other guys come up with this time.

So, there you have it! Aki Maera's first gig is coming up next Wednesday, which will be... interesting. See you all there!

8/10/2011: The Brierly Hill Project at Stourbridge Cricket Club

I’d got started on this one through Hannah who I used to be in Perception with. The band may be gone, but the spirit still remains…

We began with Scars by Papa Roach, which we played quite well in spite of the fact that I was in mortal terror that Hannah would put some Dudley colloquialisms into the lyrics and give me the giggles. Thankfully this didn’t happen, and we played it very well. Hannah seems to regard this as her signature tune, and I think she could pick far worse songs than this.

We thought we were only going to get two songs for this one so we played another song we did in Perception; Because The Night by Patti Smith. I’m really starting to enjoy this one and it might find its way in to my set in the not too distant future. I think this was the best one we played in terms of accuracy, and there were plenty of people in the audience who knew the song. (And if you choose to interpret that remark as ‘Plenty of people in the audience old enough to remember when that song was released, well, that’s up to you I suppose.) It’s a good one!

And then we discovered we were allowed 3 songs after all, so we played the other one that we’d rehearsed, which was Love Me Tender, the Norah Jones version (or at least as near as I could get to that, having not really heard that or any version of the song enough times to feel justified in emulating it.) The song actually fits Hannah’s voice quite well and it sounded really good; I had a very positive feeling about our performance when we had finished it.

I had the same... not a problem, but a little niggle all the way through the show – Hannah was reading from her words on a music stand. I don’t know what that meant for her performance, but what it meant for me is that I kept looking over to it, and reading the version of the chords that Hannah had got written down, which if I’m honest weren’t all that accurate. So because of that I played the wrong chord a couple of times. But hey, if that’s the worst mistake I ever make at a gig I think I’ll have done quite well, and none of it spoiled the night; it was really good fun and I’m looking forward to the next one.

24/9/2011: Royal Oak with Mezzotonic

Fallen behind a lot with this, and the problem with writing gig blogs a week and a half after I've done them means I can't remember what the hell I actually played. But hey, here goes...

I do seem to remember varying my opening songs with this one, kicking off I think with Girl's Names and Get Out Of My Head. The knock-on effect of both this and the fact that I wasn't really concentrating on my set list was to have consequences later, but for the moment this seemed to be a solid performance.

Next came the song that I'm pretty sure now is called Always Remember Me. I've been playing this quite a bit lately and people seem to like it, I'm not sure how fond I am of my guitar playing on this one as I tend to either rush the verses or not articulate all the sounds in the chorus when I know I can do better. That's something to practice, but to be perfectly honest I'd rather get my own material down to a T...

The rest of the gig went by in something of a haze, except that I remained on the stage for longer than my usual 7 songs. At one point I did High by Feeder while a Commodores video was showing on the screen above, made a snide comment about Lionel Ritchie's haircut beggaring belief (It was 3 Times A Lady if you want to have a look) and forgetting the words, which shouldn't really have happened but comical observations are something I have been trying to do lately and the lads from Mezzotonic, who's gig it was, at least found it funny...

Of course, I ended up using all my mid-paced songs up and putting my 3 fastest ones towards the end, which would have just been dull. While this did result in a rare and not-altogether-welcome outing of Prisoner of my Mind, it shouldn't really have happened and added to the idea that tonight I just wasn't concentrating. Next time I do a full gig (I've got a couple booked for the Wharf Bar,) I will have to think about that a bit more; I don't want to fall flat on my face for not being bothered to write a set-list!

Kudos to Mezzotonic, though. The gig itself suffered from a poor turnout - the night started with about 15 people in the room, half of which walked out just before I went on, and the rest of them walked out just before the band went on. It's never easy to play a gig when there are less people in the audience than there are in the band, but it meant the band got to try some material and covers that they wouldn't normally play, and I felt quite privelidged to see that. There were some other lads who showed up at one point, but there was football on in the other room, so, you know...