The Paul Jeffery Band had a well-earned week off last week, whilst I did just the one solo open mic on Tuesday at the Priestley, sorry, Bradford Playhouse (as it's now called). A welcome return for a great venue, which is still unfortunately in administration. The night was too quiet to make a fair judgement on to be honest. I played just 2 songs (Shadow and 7 Shades). The night badly needs more support to be any good.

This coming week there's 2 gigs with the band on Friday and Saturday, at the Cricketers (Horbury) and The Peacock (Hudds) respectively.

I had a lovely day out on Saturday, as there was no gig. And I'm so glad I didn't waste the day as we were hit with something approaching decent warmer sunny weather! I was in North Yorkshire, eventually making it out to the coast to a beautiful little cove village called Staithes. I'm more and more enamoured with quiet, out-of-the-way places like this. Wouldn't it be a great place to write and record in? Perhaps....

I'm in the process of setting up a flickr account to share photos (as if I needed another job!!), but for now I'll just share a couple of photos. Have fun til next week, when it will indeed be March!

At The Hop

Most of the snow has shifted now, it took a while, but it didn't affect the weeks' activities thankfully, so there's now just a handful of piles of dirty ice to go at.

My band was back in business with 2 gigs. We finally found a venue with an audience, a full pub (can you remember those?) on Saturday night in the shape of The Hop in Wakefield. This is a fairly new pub in the Westgate area and I was very impressed by it. It was nice to have an audience to bounce off for a change. We had a very good night and it just goes to show that no matter how you play, the crowd makes all the difference. Nice to see a pub that isn't struggling at the moment too. Definetly a 7.

The following day we were back at Berry Brow Lib club for another passable gig. We've done this one a few times now and it's remained pretty consistent. I'll say 6 for that one.

We now have a week off but I will keeping my end up (matron) on the open mic circuit this week.

Other than that, I've been working on tracks for what will be solo album #3, I do hope you're keeping track of my discography...at this rate it shouldn't be too far from finishing. The Paradise Street album is now into the 'promotion' stage, which I must say I'm really enjoying. Web Promotion and album promotion was to start with my least favourite area but now I find myself looking forward each week to doing a bit of marketing. It's a steep learning curve but that's part of the fun. It's just nice to have songs released and then have them some exposure and hopefully keep finding new fans.

See you next week!

The London Trip

Snow is over-rated. Sure it looks pretty on a postcard or when you look out of the window, or when you see a Polar Bear sliding about on it, but when you actually have to contend with it and buggers up your plans, I think we could have waited another 18 years for some to fall.

Yes, the worse snowfalls for 18 years in Britain, sounds bad doesn't it. Until you consider how crap we are at dealing with it, myself included I'm afraid. On a practical level, it meant our Tuesday night gig at the Junction, Queensbury was cancelled. This was a blessing really, as Queensbury is climatically linked with the arctic circle and I'm sure it would have been a Captain Scott-esque adventure getting the vans up there. 'I'm going to push a Mercedes Sprinter, I may be some time...'

With my impeccable timing, it was also the week of my visit to London. This was planned well in advance and to be fair part of it went to plan. I had 3 gigs booked, plus a visit to watch Bradford's opening match of the season at Harlequins. That's Rugby League for the un-initiated, a summer sport, confusing isn't it. The rugby was cancelled so I had no choice but to cancel my Sunday night gig in Hitchin. The previous 2 did go ahead though and ran pretty much to plan.

I played at Club Acoustica at The Crown, Twickenham having driven down through the sleet in the afternoon. Thankfully it was a good night. I got a good reception throughout and managed to sell a few CDs. I played 'Shadow', 'Cold Day', 'Whiskey', 'Gods&Angels', 'Coming Out' and 'Freefallin'. During the last song, I was joined by the house band 'The Deputees', whom I have since found out are a very experienced bunch of great musicians, one of which has co-written with Status Quo. I think this was a definite 7 out of 10.

Saturday was at the White Bear at Rickmansworth. This one was more along the open mic format but had a sizeable crowd and most people listened to my set. I did 'Shadow', 'Cold Day', 'Whiskey' and 'These Eyes'. It wasn't quite as magical as the previous night but still solid. 6 out of 10.

Following on from here, I decided to pay a little homage to one of my musical gods. Around 10 minutes' drive from Rickmansworth is the Northwood Hills Hotel where one Elton John, then Reg Dwight, performed his first ever gig. I hoped for nothing more than a swift drink and that there may be some recognition of their place in our musical heritage.

Wrong. The place is basically now an Indian Restaurant with a public bar. It is very bright, shiney and noisy, with a DJ and big screens. It was heaving, but I didn't fit in, so feeling a bit intimidated I had a quick drink and left. I doubt if anyone present, staff or customer, even knew who Elton John was. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Indian restuarants, or that in it's pub days it was any good, but I did feel like there should at least have been some kind of momento-instead any soul and heritage seemed to have been ripped from the place- a feeling I get in Greater London about a lot of things.

That just about covers the latest adventures. With a bit of luck the band should be playing this coming Saturday in Wakefield, then Sunday afternoon in Berry Brow. As long as it doesn't keep on snowing or whatever else is thrown at us next.

Paradise Street album is here!

Yes, after months of eager anticipation the new Paradise Street album is now released and online. Titled 'Catharsis' the album is a collection of songs I've co-written, sung by female singers.

Think of it as a side-project to my solo work. I've written far too many songs than I can record, mix and release over the years, and many are in different genres. People are sometimes shocked when I tell them that I've written dance, pop, country and even r&b songs as well as my own stuff.

This album is somewhere along the lines of artists such as Dido, Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Alison Moyet. So if you like that sort of music, you should like the new CD. Speaking of Cds, the album is currently available online in both mail order and mp3 download format. Just click here to go straight to the album page!

There's 13 new songs on there, and you can hear 4 of them at the Paradise Street myspace page.

I'm very proud of this album, which is self-produced too. I hope people latch onto the fact that I like doing different projects across genres, so hopefully it will appeal to both existing fans (both of you) and new people too.

If you would like a free download and news on the new project, you can email me here and request to be put on the mailing list.

I think that just about covers everything Paradise Street-wise. I just did the one open mic last week which was at the Chemic Tavern on Thursday. I played 'Prisoner', 'Gods' and 'Can't Stand Losing You' and whilst I don't give open mics a mark out of ten this one is surely one of the best going at the moment. I opened the night and got a good response with a listening audience too. It was a very good sound too which always helps.

I had a quieter weekend for once, with The Primrose gig being cancelled on Sunday. The snow had started by then so I wasn't too bothered about missing out. It's come on harder today so we'll have to see how things go regarding the band playing in Queensbury tomorrow night. Although it never really snows in Queensbury does it?
More importantly there's my trip to London this weekend where I'm going to be playing a couple of short solo sets Friday and Saturday night. You can check my giglist for more details. We'll just have to see if London has thawed out by then.

I'm sure you're both wondering what I did this weekend if there were no gigs. Well, I went to see 'Frost-Nixon' at the cinema on Saturday. It's hardly an action movie but if you've an interest in these characters (as I have) then it should strike a chord. I really enjoyed one of my very rare trips to the cinema. Yesterday (Sunday) I stayed up to watch a very exciting first half of the Superbowl before the highlight of the show:Bruce Springsteen's set! These short sets in front of billions always inspire me, just as it did with Tom Petty last year. They are 2 of my biggest influences so at least it shows they're still popular, very popular.