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.
 

Why I don't do competitons, or Battle of the Bands

I saw that Open Mic Uk had posted up a songwriting competition. This apparently was like their regular competition, a kind of X-Factor-lite talent show, but with the onus on the quality of songwriting coming out rather than the overall performance. I approached this cynically as I clicked the link to investigate, and then closed down the web page as soon as I saw that there was a £10 charge to enter. I rarely have a good opinion of these things anyway, and having to pay for the privilege of standing in a queue for eight hours to play two minutes worth of a song only to have the judges tell me to clear off is not something I wanted to be involved in.

It did, however, remind me of how much I don’t like ‘Battle of the Bands’ style competitions and talent shows, and how unlikely I am ever to enter one again. I thought I would share that with you today.

So what is my problem with competitions? Well, even if I could conceivably get a band together that could play its own material good enough to participate in the contest without being laughed off the stage for being fat and old, I don’t like them anyway because of the way they tend to be judged. The competitions I have been involved with in the past almost always decide their winners in one of three ways:

1. Whoever is the youngest girl, (this tends to happen in acoustic singer-songwriter-style settings,)
2. Whoever is playing the most indie,
3. And most commonly, whoever has sold the most tickets.

Now, I’m demonstrably neither young nor a girl. I hate indie.[1] And the only way I can usually get anybody to come to a gig is if I drive them there myself. So, on the basis that this is the standard by which these competitions tend to be judged; I’m knackered before I’ve even applied to take part. There’s very few of them I’ve taken part in that haven’t made me think “What a waste of time.” Judges tend to vote for the bands that have sold the most tickets because the organisers need to be making money. But that doesn’t help me, as my general reward for inviting people to gigs is every version of “I can’t be arsed” under the sun.

And it doesn’t help anyway. The prize for winning tends to be about 4 hours studio time and, if the band is very lucky, some cash - never more than £1000. I was there the night that Junkyard Morning won the Wolverhampton Battle of the Bands in 2008, and where are they now?[2] Even with the high-profile shows like the X-Factor, I couldn’t even name three people who’ve ever won it.

At this point I will give a shout out to a mutual acquaintance Ben Vickers, who runs an open mic at the Copcut Elm in Droitwich. There was a competition held there in 2011 which I took part in, it had a serious panel of judges who were going on the artistic talent of the people involved. The prize for winning that was a slot at a festival later on in the year; there was no pretence, no over-promising. But that was very much the exception, rather than the rule.

The only reason I would take part in a Battle of the Bands now is if I did happen to be in a band that wrote original material good enough to participate in the contest without being laughed off the stage for being fat and old. I would be against it in principle, but if the other guys in the band were intent on putting themselves through this rigmarole under the erroneous belief that something good would come out of it, I wouldn’t ruin it for them by refusing to do it.

I actually entered the Open Mic UK competition in 2011, I think it was. My intention was to do my audition in Birmingham, then drive over to Wolverhampton to play the main stage at Codfest where I had been booked to play. I arrived in plenty of time, and after having waited in an unmoving queue for an hour or so, I decided to get away and play my set at Codfest. As I think I’ve got quite a good working relationship with Sam Draisey, and he’s also a really good friend, I can say with a large amount of confidence that abandoning the talent show and playing my friend’s festival has done more for my career as a musician than not turning up to Codfest and throwing in my lot with a so-called talent contest.

Funnily enough, I have no idea who won Open Mic UK that year, either. I rest my case.

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[1] Or rather, I hate what indie became during the last decade when record deals were being handed out on a silver platter to anybody who could mash the top four strings of a Telecaster.

[2] I actually looked at their Facebook page and it looks like they’ve not been active as a band since about 2010. So, how much did winning BOTB really help them?

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?

Matt's Songwriting - Stripping it Down

What makes a good song?

Many things, and taking it back to basics and delivering it with one instrument and/or one voice is a good place to start. This isn’t my idea, and I can’t remember who said it, but for me, the acid test for any song is: If you strip it down and have one guitar or piano and one voice, do you still have a good song?

This came up when I was talking to Dave from No Questions Asked a few days ago. I’d posted on Facebook that I was practicing a Queen song for my solo slot; Dave asked what it was and if I would like some accompaniment. I told him privately that it is Who Wants To Live Forever, and I’d rather see how it sounded with one guitar and one voice.[1] That’s how I’ve been doing my acoustic show for years; only rarely do I have someone else playing on stage with me. I try to capture the essence of the song in this format; if it does, then I include it in my set. If not, I move it on.

I love the full-on rock production, but in most cases if you stripped rock songs down to they would still be good. Some of my favourite songs to cover are: Thick as Thieves by Kasabian, Closer To The Edge by 30 Seconds To Mars, A Little Respect by Erasure/Wheatus, and The Boys of Summer by Don Henley. They all sound great in a stripped-down format. And it comes across in my own songs. Bitterness would be a Crashpoint song if we hadn’t broken up soon after I wrote it; originally it was a punk-style rock song and I remember Cj doing a good job on the drums. Get Out Of My Head began in Perception, jamming a Led Zepplin-style riff on my guitar with John on the drums. It didn’t sound anything like how it eventually ended up – but I used the chord progressions from what we jammed out.

I see it in other people’s covers as well. Steve who comes to Sam Draisey’s open mic sometimes does a finger-picked acoustic rendition of Sweet Child ‘o Mine. I think that, in many respects, his version works better than the original. Granted, I will almost always say that about anyone who sounds different to Axl Rose; (I can’t stand his voice,) but the lighter finger-picking and the gently-delivered vocals capture the essence of that song more than the rock song that everybody recognises. I love Slash’s guitar playing, and the riff to Sweet Child ‘o Mine is fantastic. But Axl could have been singing toothpaste; his voice would have sounded just as bad, and the guitars just as good.

So what about bands where this doesn’t work? Two examples: Pendulum and The Prodigy. The latter, as far as I know, haven’t written anything resembling a ‘song’ in the usual sense. And Pendulum relies on the drum and bass sound with the keyboard riffs; without that, the band wouldn’t work. I’m not saying either of those bands bad. I enjoy listening to Pendulum, and I wish I’d seen The Prodigy at Download Festival in 2006. But I will say that those bands have a good sound – not necessarily good songs.

The problem, of course, is with those songs that are great but have extra parts to them that I can’t strip away. I’ve only played Motorcycle Emptiness by the Manic Street Preachers live once, and it functioned – but without the lead guitar, it’s nowhere near as good. I’d love to play Waterfall and This Is The One by the Stone Roses, and Marvellous by the Lightning Seeds, but I think those songs lose something without their backing vocals.

But I don’t think that with Who Wants To Live Forever, despite the arrangement of the original. Taking it down to one guitar and one voice – as long as both are properly managed – can make it as good as the huge amount of production that went into the record. I’m hoping that comes across if I play it at the gig.

What do you guys think? Is this a good benchmark for whether a song is any good or not? Or is the way the record sounds more important? The answer, I suspect, lies somewhere in between, depending on the context of the band. Just remember, the vast majority of songs that we listened to when they first came out and are still sounding good decades later could all be stripped back to their rawest form, and sound every bit as good.

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[1] At the time of writing I haven’t actually done the gig yet so I have no idea what’s going to happen when I do.

September: Social Media, and Depping in NQA

Back again! As blogging can be more work than fun if I try to do too much of it, I’m trying to limit my posts to 700 words or thereabouts. Thinking about it, I’m not convinced people would want to read much more than that in one sitting anyway…

 

September was a little quiet for me on the gigs front. I did a couple of Sam Draisey’s open mics, which went reasonably well and I’m becoming very fond of The Rainbow Inn as a place to play. I also did a short set at Codfest on their Open Mic stage; this didn’t go too well, largely due to me forgetting my capo and my hands being freezing cold. I’ve added Wetsuit by The Vaccines to my repertoire of acoustic songs; it’s a challenge for me to sing but I’m getting used to it.

However, two major things happened in September that I want to tell you about:

The first is that I’m now doing a run of dep gigs for the band No Questions Asked that’s going to take me up until the end of the year. Dave from the band asked me to come and play bass for an ‘audition’ for the singer they’re currently using, Mike. I knew Dave at school and we’ve kept in semi-regular contact since, mainly at jam nights he helps to run, some of which I’ve played bass at. Though it rarely takes me long to learn simple songs for my acoustic set, I’ve got an affinity with bass that I just don’t have with guitar; I can watch what Luke on guitar is doing to know what notes to play, and sometimes even the keyboards as well. I can lock in to Fred’s drums and keep the rhythm going, and provided I’m not concentrating too hard, I can put on a show with it as well.

The upshot is that Dave seemed really pleased with what I was bringing to the band, as I played all the songs he’d asked me to do and many more besides, and Mike was pro-active in establishing his involvement with them. Dave asked me to play the gigs they’ve got booked up to the end of the year, and as I can play all but three of them, that is what I’m going to be doing for most of the weekends between now and then! I’m not a permanent member of the band yet; I’m going to see how it pans out over the next few months and how much investment I have in the band before I commit to it entirely.

At the time of writing I’ve done my first gig with them and it went quite well. Watch this space for more!

The second thing is that because of some of the training I’m getting working for DY3 Solutions, I’m now making a much more structured use of social media. I now have a dedicated Facebook page for my music: https://www.facebook.com/mattdoonermusic and I’ve been making much more use of my Twitter page as well. I’m advertising the gigs on there, trying to pace out my content and keep people engaged with what I’m doing musically. This is where all my regular updates will be posted. I know it is a folly for musicians to rely on social media entirely – but when it can be done from the comfort of my bedroom, it shouldn’t be ignored.

The Rainbow Inn, Coven: 24/9/2014. There's Sam and Kayla.

As a part of this, I’ve also started making use of the hash tag function on both, uploading pictures I’ve taken from the stage. I’m hoping people will find these photos, tag themselves in them if they were there, comment on them if they weren’t, and generally increase the level of engagement when I’m not actually doing gigs – which as this is at the very most a few hours a week, is actually not that much. So, watch out for the #viewfromthestage tag – if you were at one of my gigs, chances are you were in one of the photos too!

Some big news coming up for next month, but I’d like to see how that pans out before I announce it. I’ll try and get these blogs out on the first weekend of the month after the one I’m taking about, if that makes any sense.

See you at the next gig!

Matt

A Lonely Night for my G String at the Robin 2, 25/6/2013

While some run-of-the-mill rapper and his wife who is famous but I really don't know why name their child North West, (Jesus wept,) some real musicians were getting it done at The Robin 2 on Tuesday Night. So I just want to say before I get started on my own performance what a great night it was and how well the other musicians did; I didn't catch all your names but it was a great night from all of you and long may it continue.

I've played The Robin 2 a few times now and I've always managed to feel like I'm punching a little above my weight, playing to a large and therefore not very densely packed room. The audience has always been polite enough, and were quite friendly tonight, but there's always been a feeling like there's a little more at stake here than there were at some other venues.

The set list was:

The Boys of Summer
Zephyr Song
A Lonely Night
Bitterness
Morning Glory
Never Forget You

I have to say I've been doing quite well for songs at some of these open mics! I'm used to getting 3, maybe 4 songs, and the last few I've been doing 5 or 6 at a time. Not bad!

Didn't get off to a flying start tonight though, as I broke my G string (it would have to be) not 2 minutes into the first song. After the obligatory growl of 'Bollocks' to the audience, pulling the string out of the way of the guitar and skewering my hand on it, I struggled through the rest of the song with 5 strings. Thankfully it didn't stop me playing the bit in the middle of The Boys of Summer where I rely on an octave in the 'C' chord shape to try and emulate the keyboard part in the song, but I know from checking my tuning afterwards that my guitar wasn't well in tune.

Thankfully Sam had a spare guitar and I got through the rest of the set with a decent if unfamiliar Takamine (I think.) I needed a few minutes to adjust the strap, and because there was no strap button on the top of the guitar it was secured on with a piece of string around the headstock. This is one of my pet hates of acoustic guitars, and why I did most acoustic gigs prior to last April sitting down. The problem I found with it was the balance of the guitar, I couldn't hold the guitar in a comfortable enough position to play it as well as my own. I did OK with it though.

When it came to playing my own songs I decided not to put the 'Dani California' bit into A Lonely Night. (If you haven't heard the song, after I realised that I blatantly copied the tune in the verse off Dani California from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I decided to be even more cheeky with it and put the chorus to their song just before the last chorus to mine.) Tonight it was because I'd only just played Zephyr Song, and I didn't want to put 2 Red Hot Chili Peppers songs next to each other. But thinking about it, as I'm doing mainly covers at the moment, putting another cover into one of my own songs... I don't know, the tongue-in-cheek humour intended might actually come across more like I'm taking the piss out of myself. I do far too much of that already!

I'm not sure if Sam appreciated me banging on his guitar during Bitterness, but he was clapping along to the appropriate part so that was good as well.

I'm still not too sure about Morning Glory; I played it solidly enough but I don't know whether Oasis has been done to death, or it's just the way I'm playing it because it isn't within my comfortable singing range (actually, very few things are!) I'll play it another few times to try and gauge it; it's a good enough song good and I need to give it a chance. Thankfully Never Forget You never fails to raise a smile, if not from the audience then from me and that's always a good thing!

So all things considered it wasn't a bad set, let down by my string breaking. I shouldn't have let that happen, but because I had some problems with the bridge pins afterwards, if I'd tried to change the strings before I came out then I wouldn't have come out at all. The audience... well, there were about as many people there as I might expect for an acoustic gig, and certainly more of them than some of the audiences I've played to when I've actually been booked to play, but because of the layout of the room, their reaction was difficult to gauge. I did get a couple of guys afterwards though, telling me that I do the 'Angry Young Man' thing very well! As they weren't actually playing themselves, it meant a lot to hear that for people who were just there to see the open mic!

What's next? I think Rich Sadler's doing an jam night for the first time at the Blue Brick in Brierley Hill next Tuesday, so I'm going to go along to that and see what he's got going on down there. I've played there before with The Fakes, and on my own as well if you count the time when the Fakes had actually finished and I got my acoustic guitar out and played a couple of Oasis songs I didn't really know the words to to a few people who's last one should have been about an hour and a half ago, who were only too happy to fill in the words for me.

Let's hope this one stays a little more sober!

Matt

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.)

Christmas Time in Coven: 18/12/2012

It's Christmas Time...

Hi there, it's been a long while! I wanted to talk to you today about a gig I did last week, again for mygood friend Sam Draisey. See, I've been involved again in the production of this year's Christmas Album, and what with Sam promoting it at his open mic at the Rainbow Inn in Coven and I wanted to go and support it myself, by playing my song and generally contributing to the night. As it was over 3 months since my last performance, I was coming at this one with a little trepidation. However, given my track record, this was probably to do with the fact that I hadn't practiced enough; something I avoided mentioning on the night simply because having to apologise for the way you're playing your songs - particularly your own - gets old and lame after the third or fourth time you've heard it. This is pretty much the only gig I've ever done where I've read the majority of my set from a music stand, a fact I'm not particularly proud of but I guess a lot of people do it. So here's what happened:

I opened up with Once In Royal David's City. This is a song I don't remember singing since I was in primary school, singing Christmas Carols off the same tatty carol sheets they used to hand out every year. My last Christmas there was 1996 so I doubt they survive now, and I don't usually go in churches or anything like that so I have no occasion to sing those songs any more. Which is a shame, 'cause I kind of miss doing it. I sang the first verse unaccompanied, and then brought in the guitar after; I had a capo on the 1st fret and played it in E flat so my voice was just about high enough to hit the top notes. The guitar could have done with a bit more rehearsal; the accompaniment for that song was originally done on piano or organ, and while translating it note for note onto guitar is all but impossible, I should at least have paid more attention to the unusual timing of the chord changes, but I managed without any monumental disasters so that was OK.

I then sang what I'm tentatively calling my classic: The First Footprint. This one will always be special to me because it proves a point that I've long tried to stick to while writing songs - write about what you know. This came from Adam Levine from Maroon 5, if you want to know. It was nice to sing it again and since a lot of the people there had heard it there was a nice sense of familiarity about it. It's something of a running joke that I can't seem to play it live without forgetting the words at some point, and tonight was no exception, although at least this time it happened between verses.

After that, I played my contribution to this year's Christmas Album, which funnily enough is called Next Year. I wrote it as a sort of sequel to All I Want For Christmas Is You, relating it to my current situation with Amy, where we're looking forward to moving in together but until then the distance between us pretty much forces us to spend Christmas apart. There was no small amount of Feeder in the melody and chord progressions, but you know what, they're my favourite band so that's inevitable. It went OK, Sam likes the song and I can see myself playing that in years to come which can be no bad thing.

I wrapped it up with another Christmas Carol Silent Night. This is one that's always been a staple Christmas song and there have been some appalling versions of it recorded in the past, so I really tried to capture the essence of what I feel the song is about. When I try to describe it, words escape me, but it is a beautiful song and I think I compensated for the fact that I find it hard to hit the high notes while singing quietly well.

So, not a bad night at all, I was very pleased with how it went.

Have I put a date on returning to gigging yet?

Well, I have and I haven't. To a certain extent it's going to depend on whether or not I'm still in the Midlands by the time I get back into it. If I'm not then I'll be far too busy trying to sort myself out to worry too much about gigging. But I'm looking at maybe April for what I'm pretentiously calling a 'Comeback.' That will mean I've had a year out and hopefully will have achieved what I wanted to achieve from taking it out in the first place.

Time will tell, but until then, see you all soon...

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...

New Songs or Old Classics? Gigs at the Rose and Crown and the Robin 2, March 2012

This is the first gig I've done for a while with the guys from Screaming Harlot - formerly Prickly Promotions - and I wanted to make it count. It was an unfamiliar audience to a degree, though Sam and Elliot were there making it a Travelling Fools gig as much as anything else, and it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere to be honest.

I've noticed a worrying precedent - unless I write my set list down straight away, I pretty much forget what I've played of a night. I remember they were all originals, I deliberately chose not to put any covers in this time. I remember forgetting the words to Get Out Of My Head, and then remembering them just in time. I remember playing A Lonely Night, and the whole thing held together quite well, but other than that not one of my more memorable shows.

I also did Sam's Open Mic at the Robin 2 the following Tuesday. I do remember what I played here, though this had more to do with the fact that it was almost completely different from usual. The set was:

Right Where It Belongs (Nine Inch Nails)
Prisoner of my Mind
The Edge Of My Universe
Bitterness

Now I know what you're thinking - What's The Edge Of My Universe? That's a new one... yes, you're quite right, that's my latest song. In fact I wrote it when I got to the Robin 2; I disappeared into the 'Noddy's Bar' bit at the back and wrote it there. I had to read of the words and I'll need to work on the delivery of those lines a little bit, but other than that it worked quite well!

I also got told by someone who saw me play there the last time that my 'wit' that I have on stage is really good and I should keep on doing it. That's nice to know, it's actually quite difficult to guauge if people find me funny or not!

So, my gigs are more memorable if I put new songs in there? Well, we know what to do...

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.

Because The Night belongs to the Robin 2... That was terrible. 22/2/2012

So there I was minding my own business when Sam put out a call to arms for everybody he knows to come down to the Robin 2 once again for his open mic night. Well, I can't turn down an offer like that...

I got four songs this time, rather than three, so I began with Get Out Of My Head. This didn't go too badly at all, I made one daft mistake with the chords playing Em when it should have been E, but if that's the worst thing I did all gig then I'm not doing too badly at all. The rest of it was note perfect, and I'm beginning to appreciate the value of this song as a 'warm-up' piece, if I haven't been playing any substantial amount of guitar all day it's useful to play this one before all the fast strumming of my other songs kick in.

Sam had earlier told me that he'd compiled a CD of songs that he'd recorded from the sessions he'd done, and that the song he'd used from my session was Storm from the North, so naturally I felt compelled to play it! One of the regulars from the Woodman who hadn't seen me for a while said that it was the first time he'd actually been able to listen to the lyrics, and that he thought it was really good and that was the best he'd ever seen me. Well, as far as compliments go, that's about as good as it gets, so thanks! I do enjoy playing that one actually, the different verse structures makes it a bit different from my usual songs and feels less like I'm going through the motions. Impossible to think that about a song when you write it, but I think I struck gold with that one!

Then I had a go at Because The Night by Patti Smith, preceded by an explaination to having to drop £800 on reparing my car over the last few weeks which was loosely relevant to Bruce Springsteen, who sings about cars, and also did a version of Because The Night so it's a long way round but I did move in the direction of relevance in the end. I'm playing this a lot better these days, though I still have to concentrate. It's another of the songs I do that's popular but not covered all that often, so when people hear it they think 'Wow, I haven't heard this for ages!' and if they grew up with that style of music - which in many cases they did - then so much the better. This one's a keeper!

I ended of course with Bitterness, expecting and in fact fully intending to break my G-string along the way, much to the amusement of the crowd. It's always the G string for some reason. What's actually happening is that the brass winding around the string is coming off at around about the second fret of my guitar. Any day now... The string survived, and I put the ever-increasing amount of venom into that song to make the required amount of impact.

All in all, I think I did quite well here! A really good night and I enjoyed it, tired though I was!

There's A New Sensation... in Bilston. 17/1/2012: Open Mic at the Robin 2

This is Sam Draisey's latest venture, bringing his ever-brilliant Open Mic nights to Bilston. It felt very different to the ones he's done before in various different places, not least because the Robin 2 is huge. The sound system was really good; never before had I actually been happy with the sound I was getting out of the monitors! (I have this thing about not complaining about my sound, because it probably doesn't sound anything like that at the front, and telling a sound engineer 'can you make the monitors sound any less shit?' probably won't go down well at all.) But with such an eclectic mix of personality and styles tonight, it was all about the songs...

The first of mine was Storm from the North. I picked this one because I'd actually gone on quite late and I had seen that the audience took music and themselves seriously enough to appreciate a track like this. Sam also got a video of it for your enjoyment! I think I did quite well, although if you look at the start where I was about to start the song and I didn't... it wasn't because I'd forgotten the words, it's because I literally couldn't remember what I was doing. I don't know, it's a sort of mental state where I completely blank out and think about nothing but I'm still capable of idly jamming on guitar. It's probably not something I should try again when I'm on a stage, especially not one of this prestiege!

Next was a cover of Do The Strand by Roxy Music. This went very well, I'm getting better at playing it. That guitar part is exhausting and that top F is a little higher than I can comfortably reach, but I'm building up the stamina now, it all comes with practice! I need to be careful who I play this song to, though. If the audience is old enough to remember Roxy Music, they'll be like 'Oh yeah, Roxy Music! I haven't heard this for ages!' and really enjoy it. If they're not old enough, but mature enough to appreciate the style, or at least the challenge of a song that let's face it pisses all over any semblance of song structure, they'll enjoy it as well. Thankfully, the room tonight appeared to consist of both of those things. But I wouldn't necessarily play it at a Prickly gig. Except perhaps in a sound check.

To finish off I played A Lonely Night, giving what I described as a rare performance of the un-edited version of it. This one went well, in fact I think tonight was the least I've messed any gig up for quite a long time now. This is one of those times where the audience helped by being attentive; pretty nearly everyone had been on by then and some people had left, but the people who remained behind were as interested in everybody elses performance as they were in their own, which is really pleasing to see. When I got off the stage, one of the guys who'd been on before told me they really like my lyrics. Well, compared to my contemporaries, I'm not much of a guitar player, and I rely on the quality of my songs to carry the gig, so thanks, you couldn't give me a higher compliment.

All in all tonight went very well. The next one won't be for a while but it's nice to come home from my second gig in a row where the feedback that I've given myself has been mostly positive. Compare that to where I was this time last year and I've not done too badly, have I?

See you next time.

17/12/2011: Grand Theft Audio at the Fordhouse Cricket Club

I didn't think to write my set list down for this one. Let's hope I can remember it...

This one came about because someone dropped out of the gig that Grand Theft Audio were doing at the Fordhouse Cricket Club in Wolverhampton, and Sam was kind enough to ask me to fill in. I was only too happy to oblige...

By the precedent of the gig we had done last Wednesday, Storm from the North appeared to be working quite well as the set opener, so I decided to go for it again. I'm not entirely sure but I think this one might have suffered a bit from sound problems; because of circumstances beyond any capacity or desire to control I didn't get a soundcheck and to me it didn't sound all that good. I played it OK as far as I know but it wasn't coming through the foldback monitors very clearly. That being said, it probably sounded nothing like how it comes out the front, and nobody said anything to me afterwards, so it was probably OK.

I introduced Bitterness as 'A reasonably polite version of the song that should be familiar to anyone who's seen me before,' which was about half the people in the room. So one of my biggest guns was fired early... possibly not too good a choice now that I think about it, at the time I reckon I'd have thought that I needed to keep the mood cheery and didn't want to lower the tone by playing a spiteful tirade of abuse, swearing or no, right at the end. (By the way, I chose to do the clean version because there were a significant number of small children in the room.) I played it OK, probably not my best but not bad at all.

Get Out Of My Head was next, but for once this one was pretty nonedescript. I can't really think of anything to say about this one, although thinking about it I've actually gone and relegated it to the mid-set jobbers...

And then I went and mucked it all up AGAIN by forgetting the same lyric in The First Footprint that I did the previous Wednesday at Katies. This was something of a let-down for me, especially since I stopped to think about it. I crawed through the song, thinking that though I'd teased the audience by singing the first line of All I Want For Christmas is You - a song I neither know how to sing nor play - I couldn't helpt thinking I'd have been better off singing that one.

I decided not to go out on a limb and play the slow intro to We Will Survive, as I needed to recover from the last song and it was not the time for experimentation! This one was actually quite worrying as I found myself unable to breathe for those last couple of choruses. Thinking about it, I've got another gig tomorrow - I'll check this one again. If this is something to do with the weight I've gained over the last year then I guess this will be as good an excuse as I need to do some exercise, stop eating crap and drop some of it...

I know the tone of this blog will have come across as quite negative, so let me just say it wasn't actually as bad as all that. I'm picking myself up on things I need to improve but it's not like these little mistakes spoiled the gig for me or the night for anyone else. It actually went OK. That's probably the last gig I'll do for Sam this year so I want to take this opportunity to thank him for all his support this year, I reckon about a third of what I've done couldn't have happened without him so well done, the music scene in Wolverhampton would be a poorer place without him!

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!

6/12/2011: Open Mic at the Hartley Arms

The open mic at the Hartley Arms that Sam runs has now been moved to Mondays for various reasons, most of which pertaining to the pub's domino team. Since then, the turnout has been modest, at best. That doesn't mean we can't have a laugh with it though...

As I did the last time I did an open mic with Sam, I decided to do a set of mainly covers. I told the people in the pub that I reckoned that some of my covers need a bit of practice; no time like the present. I began with Linger by The Cranberries, where I was once again reminded of how silly I feel singing the 7 syllables in the word 'finger.' I played it OK but to make that song work I really need to get that A6 chord in the right place. One to keep in mind for next time I'm playing with a girl singer though!

Next I did a Christmas song, The Power of Love, after a not-so-quick scramble to tune my guitar up. I fudged the E11 chord a couple of times, and I know I'm missing some chords because I'm pretty sure there's a Bm in there somewhere and I didn't play it once. It's also a little too high for me to sing, but that didn't stop me trying!

I followed that up with my one original song for the evening - The First Footprint, which I wrote for the Christmas album last year. Given the fact that it's been near enough that long since I last played it, I was surprised that I remembered all the words, though I did mess up a couple of chords. I certainly enjoy playing it more than my new one, which I haven't learned properly yet and doesn't really capture that same Christmassy spirit...

I explained to the audience that despite my intentions to enjoy Christmas last year when I wrote that song, I found it very difficult owing to the onion in my basement, and spilling oil over the engine of my car. Realising that I was moaning far too much, I decided to cheer up a little bit with A Little Respect, the one cover I do that I can play near enough perfectly because I play it so much. Need to be careful with those Bflats, other than that I'm there.

When I went up for my second set, I began by playing a song that I hadn't played for years and certainly never played live, Let Robeson Sing by the Manic Street Preachers. It's one of the ones I learned to play when I was just starting to learn to play guitar, and for that reason I think has stuck with me since then; I'm still getting most of it right including the words. Not bad, not bad!

I then reduced the volume to barely even a whisper and played Mad World, closer to the Gary Jules version as much as anything else. I have to be careful when I'm doing this, and I certainly don't do it much, but in this case it really worked because the room went quiet and you could hear a pin drop. I'll certainly break this one out again for a suitably morbid gig!

Then I decided to play some Feeder, settling on Yesterday Went Too Soon, which I'm enjoying playing more than High at the moment. I should probably learn some of the songs of their more recent albums to cover their later career; people barely recognise Feeder songs anyway so it's not as though it will make much difference to the impact of the show. In any case, Yesterday proved a little too high for my voice tonight, and I could feel it breaking in some places. Still love playing it though!

I finished off with probably my favourite Stone Roses tune, She Bangs The Drums. That one always goes down well no matter who I play it to, which says something given what a 'scene' band the Stone Roses were. One I think I shall keep and do again in the future.

Not a bad show, all in all, though it was a case of experimenting with some different songs to a small but familiar audience. It's certainly been useful for finding out what covers work and what don't, so I know which to break out in the future!

26/11/2011: Coven Beer Festival, Coven Memorial Hall

Now I know what you're thinking: What the hell am I doing in a Beer festival?

How this came about is that Sam was doing an open mic for the day there. It transpired that not all that many people turned up for the open mic (probably too busy with their Christmas Shopping) so when Sam texted me at 1.30 asking people to come then I was happy to oblige. I got there around about 3 and found that Sam had been more or less playing on his own for an hour and a half, with a short set from Baden to break things up a little bit. So, I took the quite impressive stage, and began:

Because of what was happening, I decided to do a set of mostly covers. I began with an old favourite, High by Feeder. Again I suffered from not concentrating; it's not a hard song to play and for that reason I tend to keep playing the wrong chords; I probably get away with it to a certain extent because the Gsus chords cloud the sound anyway but I shouldn't really be doing that at this stage. It went down to a kind of passive indifference, as is so often the case with Feeder songs, but they rarely go down badly.

Followed that up with the song that I now know is called Never Forget You by the Noisettes. This went absolutely fine until the key change and then I kept fluffing up the chords once again. I do get a bit confused with this one; as I've said before I do this song in the 82s and we do it in a different key to the original to fit the vocal style a little better. Fine, except sometimes it's hard to remember which version of the song I'm actually playing and I end up making a complete mess of it from time to time, in both the band and the solo. The answer? Practice more...

Wanting to play one of my own songs but not wishing to let down the cheery atmosphere I then went on to play We Will Survive. I played it ok, I think, and it was the best reaction I could have expected given the environment. I felt exhausted though. Need to work on my fitness, I shouldn't be knackered after three songs!

Back to the covers for the next one, which was A Little Respect. This is where it started to work a bit better for me, because I could see some people singing along and getting in to it a little more than they were before, the difference obviously was I was playing something they actually know. This was probably the best song I played for the afternoon, I sang it fine and didn't mess up the guitar playing at all.

Sam was kind enough to give me another couple of songs so I went with another of my own, Bitterness. I always wanted to play this one anyway, but I've been taken to task before now for playing that one next to We Will Survive, and I had plans to end the gig so I needed to make sure I had enough songs to play it before I did! This went well; needed to edit out the swearing as it was a family event, but that's cool, and with a more energetic song I felt able to put a lot more into the performance.

Finally wrapped it up with On A Day Like This by Elbow. This was only the second time I've played that song live; it's a bit of a gamble because people need to sing along to the last part, otherwise it doesn't really work. Last time I tried it, it really didn't. But this time it did; some people were singing along with it and made it work! Trouble is it's been that song since I played it I forgot the sequece of vocal variations in the song, but never mind, we got there in the end.

So, not a bad one, and certainly quite good for an impromptu show like that. I think I need to practice some of those covers more if I'm going to take them out live though, those earlier songs were a bit sloppy.

Gig with Aki Maera tonight, Wheatsheaf in Walsall. Starts at 8! I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, but we'd appreciate your support if you could make it!

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!

18/10/2011 Recording: Bitterness EP

I think this is going to be my 'gig' for the week. Now that I've spent this evening not doing anything at all it feels like a bit of a cop-out, but the fact of the matter is that the only night this week where I can hit an open/jam night is tomorrow, and I need to be up very early on Thursday.

Still, enough of that, on with the recording! I was as surprised by this as anyone when Sam Draisey messaged me on Facebook yesterday asking me if we were still on for recording tomorrow; I thought we'd pushed it back 'til November but I figured what the hell; I didn't think there was much to be gained from not doing it today. So I arrived at Sams this morning and we began:

The 5 songs I wanted to put on this CD were Bitterness, Get Out Of My Head, Girl's Names, Storm from the North and We Will Survive. I'd changed my guitar strings, and after a not-so-quick scramble to get another sound card plugged in to the computer (the one Sam was using was crackling for some reason) we went on with the recording. I was surprised at how many times I managed to mess up the most basic things like chords, and I also noticed something that I've heard a lot about in studio write-ups about how the 2nd or 3rd take is about as good as it usually gets; any after that and you stop concentrating and start messing things up. That was the case with me, though thankfully it didn't come up too often, and it wasn't too hard to 'drop in' on the bits where I'd really got it wrong. My playing was OK, not the best I've ever played, Bitterness in particular I've played more accurately live before than I managed on the CD, but it did what I needed it to do. Perhaps, if I'd had a week in a studio, I'd have gone for more accuracy, but to be honest my gig write-ups are festooned with admissions of mistakes, so leaving them in was actually probably a better representation of the artist it showcases!

Then it was time to record the vocals. I haven't got the most inspiring voice in the world and I know it, and I suspect that if I were to play back that Jack's Legacy demo I did way back in early 2006 I would find that nothing's really changed about it. But at least if I'm doing my own thing then it's on my own terms! I actually became more and more comfortable with it as it went on, when I managed to convince myself that it's OK to get in to it, close your eyes and pretend that there's nothing else in the world but you and the song. Once I'd broken that barrier, it was plain sailing, and I even managed to do some songs in one take. As ever, with more time I'd have gone in to a bit more depth, but for what came of it, this was as good as it was ever going to get.

It was nice working with Sam as the atmosphere was far more relaxed. You book a studio for a certain number of hours and you know that the clock is ticking from the moment you enter the studio, and that puts a lot of pressure on you to get it right, especially when you're working with an engineer that you've never met and has no idea what you want to sound like. Whereas I've known Sam for a year now and he knows what game I play with the acoustic guitar, he knows what I like to sound like, and also he's not far from home either so we could take as long as we needed. If I did need to come back and do something on another day, then that option was there. It made for an atmosphere far more conducive to a good performance out of me.

I won't be posting the songs up on the internet yet because a mixing error caused the first half a second of Bitterness to be chopped off, Sam's going to sort that out and send me the file, other than that it sounds every bit as good as I have a right to expect for what it is. It's something I should have done a long time ago and I'm glad I've finally done it as I can get this round to promoters now and hopefully get a few more gigs. I might even try and make a bit of money out of it if I can!

See y'all next time