6/7/2011: Open Mic at the Hartley Arms

I'm behind again! Good lord...

I actually came to the Hartley Arms tonight because I needed to talk to Sam about something, but while I was there I figured I might actually play some guitar as well. This not being a conventional gig, nor one that I was taking too seriously, I decided to break out from my usual conventions...

I sound-checked - and thereafter played - my rendition of an old Dastards song Shoot From The Hip. What Wake would think of me playing his songs I don't know, and it seems strange to play a song from a relatively unknown band I haven't actually been in for nearly 4 years, but do you know what, I like playing it, and it stuck a very poignant chord with me that to be honest resonates with me to this very day. Plus it's simple, enjoyable, and judging by the reaction I got, people like to hear it. I don't know whether they necessarily wanted to know that it wasn't my song, but I wasn't going to play this song without giving the writer some credit.

I followed that up with Dear Mr Manager, which I haven't played for ages because it doesn't really have much  of a place in the gigs I've been doing over the last couple of months. I had to concentrate because the guitar work, while easy as pie to any halfway-decent fingerpicker, is still unexplored territory for me. However, it was I think at this point that I realised how attentive my audience actually was. They weren't being loud and giving me standing oviations at the end of every song, no. They were paying me the far more appreciated compliment of being absolutely silent for the time I was playing and showing a real intensity in their listening. I might attribute some of this to the fact that a few people there had seen me play before and to start playing quiet songs all of a sudden was a new experience for them...

Next came One More Show, I've been waiting to do this for a while because of Sam's off-hand comment about me looking like Boyzone when I play guitar sat on a stool and writing a song in what I consider to be in the style of the aforementioned boy-band of the 90's. Laugh if you will, I grew up in the 1990's, and if you listened to the radio or TV at all during that time at some point you'll have heard No Matter What, which is where I got the idea for the key-change from. I don't think it's one of my best songs, and I rarely get more than polite applause from it, but I definitely wanted to play this one for Sam. Inspiration can come from the strangest of places!

I wrapped it up with something a little more familiar to the venue which was Storm From The North. Not much to say about this, other than I avoided putting in the 'Nothing Else Matters' bit in at the end. I've said before that I'd need a somewhat familiar audience to make it work, and I stand by that. But I also believe that said familiar audience will only find it funny once. I may do it again at some point but not for a while!

All in all I think the gig was a little more interesting for me in that I changed the set list around from what has now become the norm. And I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can go and change things like that in a venue like The Hartley Arms where I can get away with it. It wouldn't necessarily work around the so-called 'big' venues, because the stakes are higher and I need to be on form. But I think tonight, I couldn't have done it better. Cheers Sam, and well done for passing your driving test, see you again soon!

3/7/2011: The Copcut Elm Music Competition

Well, I'd asked Ben Vickers if I could do the competition at Copcut a few weeks before, but as I've never been to the place before (their open night usually falls on the night I have Aki Maera practice) I had no idea what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised as Ben appeared to be running a very tight operation. He'd asked everybody to get there for 7.30, and everybody was there for 7.30. The show was scheduled to start at 8.30, and by all the Gods, it started at 8.30. The changeovers were slick, all the acts were consistently good, and the sound quality was absolutely brilliant for a venue this size. Compare that to, say, one or two places I've played in Walsall, where they ask us to get there at 6.30 and absolutely nothing happens whatsoever until 9.00 at the very earliest, and I've ended up walking out halfway through the show at the time it was supposed to have ended - even though the last two bands had yet to go on because they'd taken far too long faffing around with the sound - and you'll appreciate how significant I find all of this. Not only that but there were some serious and professional judges for the event, one of which was Kiki O'Connel I'd seen at Katies a while back, and at the Sence Bar in Birmingham as well now that I think about it.

So, how did I get on? Well, one thing I didn't know until about 10 minutes before I was supposed to go on was how many songs I was going to get, and when it turned out to be 2, I had to pick and choose carefully. I was always going to play Bitterness, however. I always do if it's a new gig to exploit the "Rock Star With An Acoustic Guitar" thing I have going on and since nobody there had ever seen me play before, this seemed the ideal choice. This actually went down very well indeed, I saw quite a few people in the audience (which, by the way, numbered in their hundreds,) dancing to this and I was told later that it struck a chord with at least one member of the audience who had recently split up from his wife. I decided to do the thing where I talk to the audience in the 'quiet' bit, this was a bit of a mistake in retrospect. It works when the crowd know me, but as Kiki pointed out to me afterwards, it looked like I was completely lost in the song up until that point and so was everybody else until I'd started talking, and it lost momentum. In front of a more familiar crowd it would probably have worked a little better but in this sort of environment I'd have been better off letting the song itself do the talking. Other than that, I played it very well, with the blood-curdling shriek I've been putting at the end of it feeling less and less welcome - and therefore more likely to occur - every time I do it.

My other song was We Will Survive. 'What?' you say, 'you played Bitterness without following it up with Get Out Of My Head?' Actually yes I did, and there was a reason for that - I've been trying to develop an awareness of what works better in front of certain audiences. There's a lot of factors in this and I still haven't got it down to a precise art, but quite a good thing for me to keep in mind is this: The younger audience tend to prefer my fast rock songs, and the older audiences tend to prefer my slower, arty songs. Most of the time both the audience and my set include a mix of the two split straight down the middle, however tonight there seemed to be quite a lot of younger people in the audience who I thought would appreciate We Will Survive better. I wasn't wrong in that respect as I could visibly see a lot of them enjoying themselves. It didn't do me much good in terms of the competition though, as I'd put my two pounding rock songs right next to each other and the lack of variety cost me; I would have done better with Get Out Of My Head or Storm From The North. That being said, this is probably the first time I've ever got through a set without making any mistakes at all, which shouldn't have taken a year and a half to achieve but I got there in the end!

I didn't get through to the final in the end, but honestly I don't mind. I have no doubt that the judging was done on the quality of the music, which was the first time this has ever happened as far as I'm aware.* The other acts on - and there were 8 - were all very good; obviously some better than others but none of them were rubbish, and there wasn't a single act among them who I didn't think had a chance. The guys and girls who did get through thoroughly deserved it and best of luck to all of them in the next round; I don't envy the responsibility of the judges for having to pick between those guys! Best of luck to all of you and I'm sure we'll see you again...

*Every other substantial competition I've played that hasn't been judged by a drunk has come down to how many tickets each individual band has sold. The organisers can say what they like about it being about the music but at the end of the day the venue has to make money so they'll invite back the people who draw the larger crowds. The Copcut competition was a refreshing change from this!

22/6/2011 Katy Fitzgeralds Acoustic Brew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13/6/2011: Katy Fitzgeralds Open Night

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

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

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

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

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

8/6/2011: The Hartley Arms Open Mic Night

Sometimes when I'm doing gigs, it all seems to come together. This was one of those nights...

I kicked off with Get Out Of My Head again as usual, but this time I decided to start it with the 'drum' beat on my guitar while singing the first verse and chorus. I didn't hit the first chord quite as well as I should have done, but for those who have heard me play that song before (and there were at least 6 of you there!) it should have been a refreshing change to keep things interesting. It did seem to go down very well!

Bitterness was next, and I was told by Amy afterwards that this one was very good indeed. Apart from fluffing up one of the chords I didn't notice anything different, but I don't expect I had to; this one's a crowd pleaser that I really ought to do at every show. I interrupted the song with the quiet part by telling the audience of my fears of my hand going through the guitar when I do the 'bang bang bang' bit; it will be as good an excuse as any to get a new one, but it will be a shame if that happens to my Dad's old Hondo! This is one of the songs that lends itself well to a band environment, and I remember jamming it with Cj in the latter days of Crashpoint; that part would have been done by the kick drum. Funnily enough Elliot turned up later and when he asked me what I played, he identified this song by singing the 'Hey now' bit... catchy!

Then, fulfilling it's role as the mid-set epic, I played Storm from the North, after explaining briefly to the audience of how the song came about, and that writing about how I'll never be a band with my former bandmates again is kind of ironic since I'm now in a new band with Cj and another band with Rich. But, we'll never be Crashpoint again, that's my point... and I also decided to have a bit of fun with it and go into the introduction to Nothing Else Matters when the song goes slow again. Sam thought it was really funny once he realised what I was doing, this could have taken longer than it was supposed to because I didn't play it very well. I won't do that too often; it has to be the right kind of demographic to get the joke and it would only really work if I'd played my own song to the same crowd enough times for them to realise that I AM only joking and not trying to rip off Metallica. But it was good fun when I did.

While I was 'finishing off' with We Will Survive I had a bit of a think about what to do afterwards; people seemed to be playing 5 songs tonight rather than the usual 4 so not wanting to be left out I wanted to play something else at the end of the set. I'm happy to say that the fact that my mind wandered did not hinder my performance at all; I'm finally in a position where I can play this song all the way through!

The song I finished with was Just A Day by Feeder, because after playing a set like that I was in far too good a mood to play anything else! I hadn't practiced this for a while, certainly not with the intention of playing it live; the mistakes were there and I know it. But it's good fun and I delivered it with the conviction that it needs to make it a good performance nonetheless.

All in all very pleased with how it went tonight. If only all gigs went this good...

1/6/11: The Maverick Jam Night

And now for something completely (but not really) different...

I decided to go down The Maverick again and was pleasantly surprised to see Andy Fisher from Wordsley School down there; a really great guy who runs a terrific music department at his school. I also came across Pete who'd played drums with me before, so after recruiting Matt once again on bass and dashing off to my car to get my Strat, we began...

To be honest this suffered from the electric guitar. I guess when I'm playing my own stuff on my acoustic I take it for granted the dynamic range of the instrument, e.g. if you play soft you get a soft sound and if you play hard you get a more aggressive sound, whereas with the electric it basically depends on how the amp is set up and how loud it is, which for Get Out Of My Head was far too loud. Also, because the amp I was plugged in to was on the opposite side of the stage to the bass player, that made it almost impossible for Matt to see what I was doing, so he was finding it hard to follow my chords. They did their best, fair play to them, but by comparison I think it sounded a lot more messy than it did when I did the same thing with the acoustic guitar a few weeks past. Bitterness didn't sound too good either for the same reason, though at least the electric guitar was the sound I had in mind for it when I first wrote the song. The sound of the guitar was far too bright but as I was borrowing an amp, I shouldn't complain.

I didn't want to play Prisoner Of My Mind again after the last time (if you missed that blog, VERY broadly, the band liked it, the audience not so much.) and I was at a loss to which other of my own songs to play. We Will Survive would probably fit the bill but I need a guitar player capable of playing the DragonForce style pyrotechnics I'm planning for that one! So I decided to switch to covers. After establishing that none of the band knew Walkin' On The Sun, I elected to run with Local Boy In The Photograph, since we'd been talking about Stereophonics earlier and it's easy enough to follow the chords. This went fairly well and was probably the best song we played on the night, not necessarily the right venue (it seems to prefer classic rock,) but hey, it worked.

Nobody told me to leave at that point so we did Come As You Are by Nirvana, making this my only guitar solo of the evening. I need to make up my mind which 'voice' I'm going to use when I sing this; do I go with the safe low version which I know I can do? Or do I do the higher version which cuts through better but I can only do if I'm up for it? I actually did the one that I shouldn't have done, which was a mixture of the two and therefore lacked consistency. Also because I was playing it in standard tuning it threw Matt, who is used to playing it in D.

All in all, not one of my better ones, and I'll need to give it some serious thought before I play this one again. But it's all learning experience and Pete really wants to play drums with me on my own stuff. It's something I'll keep in mind but with anything up to 4 bands at the moment, this isn't looking likely right now.

28/5/2011: Katiesfest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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