Gigs from 26/8 to 5/9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24/8/2011: The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham

So for the second time this month, I find myself playing a new venue. I’d been to the Sunflower Lounge before to watch Pan and the Poets, and I was aware of the fact that the venue does take itself seriously, but even without this, the stakes are always higher if it’s a new gig. I was therefore wondering for a long time what to play; whether to play my faster songs which would fit about half of the audience, or my arty ones that would fit the venue. In the end I just decided to play whatever the hell I felt like, and fell back on almost exactly the same set list I played in Cradley Heath last week. If it ain’t broke…

Kicking of with Bitterness was probably the best decision I made all night. The guy who was on before me was quiet all the way through his set so suddenly bursting on to the stage with this one was probably just what the audience needed at that point. I did hear the sound guy having fun with the mixer – my pickup has never been the favourite of sound engineers, and for what it’s worth the sound was great for the rest of the night – but apart from that it all went very well. I got the roar at the end of the song exactly right, and it’s nice to be in an environment where I might get away with it.

Followed that up with Get Out Of My Head. I was conscious of the fact that Sam Tilley, who had gone on first, was a fan of Maroon 5, who inspired most of the music for this song. He didn’t say anything but it appeared to go down well; a lot of the guys in there were quite attentive and I can’t fault them for that.

For the first time for quite a while I’d actually managed to get some people to come to a gig, in this case Hannah and John who used to be in Perception with me,* and Mark who does That’s Sound recording. For my two former bandmates, neither of whom I’d seen for months, I played my rendition of Let’s Start A Band, a song we used to cover. I fluffed up a chord at one point but other than that it went OK and there was at least one other person in the crowd who knew what I was playing because I saw her singing along. A good one to remember! Thanks very much to the three of you for coming, I appreciate it.

I gave Chapter One another go next. My ‘Does anyone come from Perry Barr?’ spiel seemed to work, although that’s probably because I was prepared for the fact that actually probably none of them came from Perry Barr and scripted my response accordingly. I wouldn’t necessarily do it in, say, Northumberland, but around the Midlands it just might work. I played the song a lot better than I did last week, I did fluff up the words again but I was able to cover up my mistakes far more effectively so I’m pleased; I’d be happy to play it again live. I think maybe the song is a little too quiet for an environment where I have to plug my guitar in; tonight for example the sound on my guitar had to be right down for the heavier moments which means that when I was playing quietly the guitar would have been almost inaudible. But that won’t necessarily always be the case; I’m in the market for a new guitar after all!

I then followed it through by playing the same chords in to Storm From The North. One very careless blunder while I was playing this: It was going very well indeed. No sooner had this thought entered my head than the plectrum started to slip out of my hand. Thankfully I rescued it – but that could have been interesting! I had a feeling, this being a new gig, that I’d get clapped over the last quiet bit, but this time when it happened I just let the audience get on with it and came back in when they’d quietened down. That was far more effective than mentioning it during the song, though I did make a point of thanking them for applauding twice for one song once I’d finished.

I wrapped it up with We Will Survive, which I think is one way I can make absolutely sure that whatever else happens, I will go out with a bang. The thought entered my head as I was playing that it’s been a while since I last changed the strings on my guitar, and I can consider myself very lucky to still have all six at this point. I need to keep an eye on it because I’m very busy in the coming weeks.

So this one was certainly one of my better gigs in recent months. There were people there who were playing better than I did; doing all sorts of things with open tunings that I wouldn’t even try at this stage, and singing better as well. But that still didn’t stop a rather proud feeling of setting the bar quite high for the act that was to follow…

I’ve got a gig with the 82s at Pulse Festival in Four Ashes on Friday, so if you want to see what all the fuss is about I’d say that would be a pretty good place to do it.

*Perception never officially broke up, but it will be a long time, if ever, before we play together as a band again. It’s a shame, but I think we were reluctant to admit that we just weren’t moving in the same direction musically, and sort of necessarily let it die over the past few months.

19/8/2011: The Victoria Inn, Cradley Heath

All quiet on the gig front due to Holidays and such, but I'm back...

This was to be my first gig supported by PricklyMusic P Romotions (I know;) and as I'd never played the place before nor had I done a solo gig for a while, I was in 'New Gig' mode...

I was on first, a position I wouldn't normally take out of choice but it gives me the rest of the night to kick back and relax. As it was a new gig, I started with Bitterness, and I saw quite a few people sit up and listen to the whole 'rock star with acoustic guitar' thing that I have going on. It was as I was singing the line 'With long red hair and wild eyes that could tear my soul apart,' that for the first time since I've been playing this song I happened to notice a young lady in the audience... with long red hair. Laughter ensued from that particular group, who turned out to be one of the bands that was on later, but I made a point of saying in the musical interlude to the song that it was extremely unlikely that she was the person the song refers to. Other than that, it went quite well.

As ever, I followed it up with Get Out Of My Head, which now that I had the attention of the audience was met with the kind of appreciation that I think this song deserves. I didn't play it all that well, I fluffed up a couple of chords and dropped my plectrum, so I had to finish the song with my fingers, but again, the crowd seemed to like it.

I then road-tested my new song Chapter One, after announcing that it refers to moving out of Perry Barr. I think it is a good song and it went down quite well, though probably not as well as it would have done had I picked a faster song to keep up the momentum. I also fluffed the words to the first chorus; I was halfway through singing the wrong line before I realised I couldn't do anything about it; the mistake must have been noticeable even to an unfamiliar crowd, but at least I made it all the way to the end of the song which is more than I've managed on some other occasions I've chosen to showcase a new song! I was also reliably informed by Aaron from Pheonix Rising that the PA cut out halfway through the song - I didn't notice, but it wouldn't have helped that I was making a deliberate effort to keep quiet. (Oh, and Aaron, if you're reading this - sorry if I've spelled your name wrong; there's about 20 different spellings of the name so I just had to pick one and hope for the best.)

Followed that up with a much better performance of Storm From The North. Interestingly, given my last Katies blog, I came surprisingly close to Emma hearing that song for the first time tonight - In Between Seas were actually on later, but because they also had a gig in Birmingham on the same night they didn't arrive until just before they went on. I imagine when that eventually happens, the ensuing discussion will be very interesting. But for tonight, all that happened was the same thing that happens every time I play the song in a new place, which is that people start clapping just before the last 'quiet bit.' At least I spared them Nothing Else Matters, though I was seriously considering it at one point...

I finished up with We Will Survive. I think I'm going to have to stop putting the Battle Royale reference before it; I know what I mean but it always feels really clunky to explain. That was probably my best song of the night, an opinion shared by Cal from Prickly; looks like I've got the first and last songs sorted out, it's just the rest of the set I need to figure out now!

So, an enjoyable return to acoustic gigging. My next one is at the Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham next Wednesday, see you there!

The Fakes: 29/7/2011 The Earl of Dudley Arms

Two gigs with the Fakes in the space of a few months is rare to the point where I actually think it’s unprecedented, nonetheless we were delighted to have the chance to play the Baseline at the Earl of Dudley Arms in July once again. It had gone well last time, we learned from our mistakes, and we were ready to give this gig a really good go. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way…

Being honest, this wasn’t one of our better ones. The problem was we went on far too late; we were last on a bill of 4 acts, and things were taking a long time to work through, so by the time we took the stage, the alcohol had been flowing, we were tired, and to be quite frank we weren’t concentrating. It didn’t start off too bad, our usual combo of set openers worked quite well and even though it wasn’t the best we’d played them, it was good enough. The problems began, I think, when I left the stage to go to the toilet. Reason I did this was because the rest of the band were playing Come As You Are, which I don’t actually play on. (I turn up late for near enough every band practice so the lads usually play this one while they wait for me.) By the time I’d come back, it had all one to pieces, we were making mistakes in the songs that we knew far better than to make, and it generally wasn’t working very well at all. I don’t know if leaving the stage had anything to do with it but by this precedent it’s not something I wish to repeat.

Not that there was nothing good about the show; the audience enjoyed it and the one person who was causing problems got thrown out just before we went on so I was able to be a lot more relaxed. The biggest thing I was pleased about, though, was the fact that we called it a day when we did. The original plan was to go back on stage after we’d finished our main set and do another 6 songs, but we decided not to. We finished once again with Dakota by Stereophonics, which to be fair we always play well no matter how badly the rest of the show went. We got off the stage, and the gig felt like it was over; there was no reason to go back on. Compare this to last time, where we over-extended our welcome by at least a few songs, and I think that was a mature decision and a noticeable progression from last time.

So, not so great this time. But in the Fakes we’ll never let something like that get us down, we’ll get back into the practice room next Monday, have a run through some songs, and look forward to the next gig, whenever that may be. There’s no plans for another Fakes gig yet, however I’m playing tonight at the Victoria Inn in Cradely Heath; it’s an acoustic gig, come and have a look!

See you soon.

20/7/2011: Katie Fitzgeralds Acoustic Brew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13/7/2011 Katie's Jam Sessions

Just a quick one...

Dale turned round and said to me last time I was at Katie's that the Jam Sessions that run on Wednesday needs some more bass players, so I decided to take my bass down tonight and have a go. What tends to happen is that a band is booked to play a 'featured set' and whoever else is there jams around the slot; not quite the concept of a Jam Night you'd pick up from the Maverick but that's how LC is making it work so there you go.

I got up with LC on guitar and Rob on the drums, and started off with some disco-funk, and it worked once we'd found a key we were happy with (the guitar-friendly E.) Moved on to some classic rock style, er, rock, which worked really well as well. I've jammed with these guys a couple of times before and sometimes in can feel like we're a band already because of the ease at which we communicate! I tried some ill-advised riffs on the bass that didn't work too well, plus some slow jamming which worked but wasn't very exciting, before LC turned up the metal, drop-tuned his guitar and played some really heavy riffs to jam along too. I didn't follow this one so well as this sort of thing tends to break away from the trends of where I would expect to have to go with a bass guitar, then again I don't play this style of music very much so perhaps this isn't surprising. But, I kept up, and the guys waiting to go on seemed to like it!

Whew, that's all my blogging done for the day. It'll be a while before my next one as I'm not sure when my next gig will be, though I do need to get down the Yardbird again before too long. See you soon!

11/7/2011 Natasha and the 82's at Boney Hay Working Men's Club

Just realised I haven't blogged anything about my new band at all...

OK Natasha and the 82's came about as an idea from a former Crashpoint member Richard Shepherd. He's known Natasha, a popular pop/soul/motown singer, for some time, and wanted to try putting a band together for her to perform with. The 82's are therefore Rich on the bass guitar and musical director, myself on guitar and Jarvo on the drums. Over the last couple of months we've been rehearsing a lot of pop songs over the last few decades. The songs we play and the instrumentation of the band allows me to inject our own style into the covers - we can't accurately produce a horn sound with bass, drums and guitar, but we can play the relevant parts as guitar solos instead, or turn up the effects on the bass to fill out the sound if need be. Last Monday we tried them on a stage and in front of a modest audience to see what we sound like on a stage (which is invariably significantly different from how it sounds in a studio, and we know it!)

Being in the band has improved my guitar playing a lot, for a couple of reasons: First, I've had to learn a hell of a lot of songs very quickly, which always does wonders for your playing. And also, this is the first band I've been in for a long time where the members are better than me. Rich and Jarvo are far better at bass and drums respectively than I am at playing guitar, which means I've got to deal with them differently and up my game in order to keep up with them. I'm saying this mainly by comparison to Cj from Aki Maera - granted, he's better on the drums than I will ever be, but there's not much we can take from each other any more. Not being funny, but we were in Crashpoint together for two and a half years; by the time it broke up either we'd learned everything we're going to learn from each other or we'd learned nothing. Playing in the band with Jarvo, who is quite possibly the best drummer I've ever worked with, and Rich, who's one of the better bass players and also has a very clear idea of what he wants his band to sound like, has forced me to be far more disciplined in my playing.

In spite of all this, I didn't honestly feel up to the 'mock gig' we did last Monday. Granted, I practice a lot less than I should, but the fact that we've not been a band for very long at all means that I don't think we're quite there yet with band cohesion. We're still looking at each other far too often for cues, and sometimes in my case chords if I don't know the song too well. The term 'set-list' was severely misapplied to what eventually happened, which was basically we played the songs in whatever order we felt like. There were some mistakes with setting up the sound, which it took some feedback from the audience to rectify.

That being said, kudos to Rich for setting up an environment where we could get away with it, and we did manage to play most of the songs we'd planned to do without stopping and wondering how it goes. (In actual fact this only happened once as I tried to remember how to do Ain't Nobody!) We did receive some very positive feedback from people who were genuinely enjoying themselves as we played. The point of tonight, I feel, was to see how it sounded live and come up with some development points for the band. Probably the most significant ones are:

1. Reduce the volume; there's no need to blow the roof off with this sort of music,
2. Top and tail the songs so that we know where all the endings are without having to look at each other,
3. Come up with a workable set list that will stand the test of a few gigs.

That last one I think will come with gigging experience as much as anything else, because we won't know what works and what doesn't until we've done it; that's part of the reason I keep this blog. But it does tend to get changed around a lot and that needs to calm down before we hit the road properly. We are what we are - a developing band that's still finding it's feet; we're not quite there yet but I'm sure we'll get there soon.

I'll keep you posted!