No, not me...but please take a listen to the song by my new project The BitterSweetShop.
www.myspace.com/bittersweetshop
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Last Week:
3 days last week (Friday to Sunday) were given over for the love of 'The Greatest Game' in Cardiff. That of course being Rugby League, which was venturing into Rugby Union territory which of course is not the greatest game. In all I watched 7 matches over the 2 day-event, covering about 600 miles getting there and back. Of course the Bulls were the victim of yet another dubious set of decisions en route to squandering an 18 point lead in the last 20 minutes. To make matters worse, Huddersfield won their game. But things are looking up and should be a big improvement on last season.
Needless to say there weren't any gigs this past few days. I'm still working on the next track for the BitterSweetShop, which I'm mixing at the moment. Not as we speak obviously.
This week:
Again, no gigs whilst I'm so busy with recording and a heap of new songs to work on too! I've also been finding some time to practice (yes, strange I know!) so hopefully I'll soon get chance to go out and play some solo gigs and play what I've been working on. I'd also soon like to do some more videos along the lines of the last batch: singing and playing the songs at home. If you didn't see the last videos here are the links to them:
Your Shadow
Cold Cold Day
Whiskey Coloured World (which is also the video on my myspace page)
Young Lost And Hopeful
Nobody Said
A-Z of Music:
Still near the end of the alphabet at the moment with Yello. Again, one of my early musical loves, I've been enjoying delving into albums such as 'Stella' from 1985, which I feel is one of their best.
3 days last week (Friday to Sunday) were given over for the love of 'The Greatest Game' in Cardiff. That of course being Rugby League, which was venturing into Rugby Union territory which of course is not the greatest game. In all I watched 7 matches over the 2 day-event, covering about 600 miles getting there and back. Of course the Bulls were the victim of yet another dubious set of decisions en route to squandering an 18 point lead in the last 20 minutes. To make matters worse, Huddersfield won their game. But things are looking up and should be a big improvement on last season.
Needless to say there weren't any gigs this past few days. I'm still working on the next track for the BitterSweetShop, which I'm mixing at the moment. Not as we speak obviously.
This week:
Again, no gigs whilst I'm so busy with recording and a heap of new songs to work on too! I've also been finding some time to practice (yes, strange I know!) so hopefully I'll soon get chance to go out and play some solo gigs and play what I've been working on. I'd also soon like to do some more videos along the lines of the last batch: singing and playing the songs at home. If you didn't see the last videos here are the links to them:
Your Shadow
Cold Cold Day
Whiskey Coloured World (which is also the video on my myspace page)
Young Lost And Hopeful
Nobody Said
A-Z of Music:
Still near the end of the alphabet at the moment with Yello. Again, one of my early musical loves, I've been enjoying delving into albums such as 'Stella' from 1985, which I feel is one of their best.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Last Week:
The gig with Atlanta Soul at Manchester University last Friday is likely to live on in memory for a long time to come. It was what can only be described as a proper gig! The Martin Harris Centre is a purpose built music theatre with the sort of sound that doesn't need eq-ing on the desk. A proper theatre venue, with an easy load-in (walk through the door and you're there!), fully seated, soundman, crew, gear in place, dressing room, steward to give you the 5 minute call....I felt like a real musician...
All we needed then was an audience to match. At first things didn't look too good, with talk of low ticket sales which thankfully turned out not to be true. OK it wasn't full but there were more than enough people to make a go of it with. Then there remained the question of what the audience response would be. Even at the best of gigs a crowd can take a bit of working and warming up. There's very few where they're onto you straight away. The latter have usually been venues with a bar and a standing crowd...this was a theatre with bar outside. I feared they'd take some warming up.
Not true. Even from Song 1 there were some out of their seats dancing. This continued and by the middle of the first set I think just about everyone was on their feet. By the second set many had come down to the front to dance. This was a world away from what I'd expected and thus was a very pleasant surprise indeed!
With a 10:30 finish, and not much gear to load out, I was away and home before midnight. Now I could get used to that!!
The weekend was fairly quiet after this. We went to look at a nuclear bunker in Cheshire on Sunday. I guess we needed cheering up! It's a museum now, but still contains all the earie atmosphere you'd expect from something like that. Full of Cold War memorabilia and a fascinating insight into the era and it's potential deadly outcome. Amongst a handful of government posts who had a desk there was the Inland Revenue. You may survive the Bomb but the taxman will still get you in the end.
This Week:
A slightly quieter week for gigs with this weekend being given over to the Cardiff trip. The opening weekend of the Super League season which can't come soon enough. It has been and still is a long winter.
The BitterSweetShop has finally got a song online from the new album. You can click here to visit our myspace site (still very new) and take a listen to the song.
A-Z of Music:
I've gravitated from Jean-Michel to Yello now. Another of my favourite European Electronic groups, I'm going to have lots more fun getting even more nostalgic. I've also been listening to Billy Joel's 1989 album 'Storm Front', largely because of hearing one of it's tracks on the radio recently. It's a great album from an era I admire a great deal.
The gig with Atlanta Soul at Manchester University last Friday is likely to live on in memory for a long time to come. It was what can only be described as a proper gig! The Martin Harris Centre is a purpose built music theatre with the sort of sound that doesn't need eq-ing on the desk. A proper theatre venue, with an easy load-in (walk through the door and you're there!), fully seated, soundman, crew, gear in place, dressing room, steward to give you the 5 minute call....I felt like a real musician...
All we needed then was an audience to match. At first things didn't look too good, with talk of low ticket sales which thankfully turned out not to be true. OK it wasn't full but there were more than enough people to make a go of it with. Then there remained the question of what the audience response would be. Even at the best of gigs a crowd can take a bit of working and warming up. There's very few where they're onto you straight away. The latter have usually been venues with a bar and a standing crowd...this was a theatre with bar outside. I feared they'd take some warming up.
Not true. Even from Song 1 there were some out of their seats dancing. This continued and by the middle of the first set I think just about everyone was on their feet. By the second set many had come down to the front to dance. This was a world away from what I'd expected and thus was a very pleasant surprise indeed!
With a 10:30 finish, and not much gear to load out, I was away and home before midnight. Now I could get used to that!!
The weekend was fairly quiet after this. We went to look at a nuclear bunker in Cheshire on Sunday. I guess we needed cheering up! It's a museum now, but still contains all the earie atmosphere you'd expect from something like that. Full of Cold War memorabilia and a fascinating insight into the era and it's potential deadly outcome. Amongst a handful of government posts who had a desk there was the Inland Revenue. You may survive the Bomb but the taxman will still get you in the end.
This Week:
A slightly quieter week for gigs with this weekend being given over to the Cardiff trip. The opening weekend of the Super League season which can't come soon enough. It has been and still is a long winter.
The BitterSweetShop has finally got a song online from the new album. You can click here to visit our myspace site (still very new) and take a listen to the song.
A-Z of Music:
I've gravitated from Jean-Michel to Yello now. Another of my favourite European Electronic groups, I'm going to have lots more fun getting even more nostalgic. I've also been listening to Billy Joel's 1989 album 'Storm Front', largely because of hearing one of it's tracks on the radio recently. It's a great album from an era I admire a great deal.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Last week:
I'm so glad January has finished. I know it's still winter and there's the ever-present threat of more snow (depending on who you talk to) but I always find it a long, cold, dark and generally crap month. I'm sure it's no coincidence that it's a lot brighter today and even a little bit warmer. I don't really take much notice of the weather forecast, just in case it's bad news...after all you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
I know a couple of people who revel in telling everyone it's going to snow 'later in the week', even if it's already Friday. They place great faith in the Country File Five Day Farmers' Forecast, told by a suitably youthful forecaster of course. Why I don't know, as it's all from the BBC Met Office, the same people who do the forecasts day in day out. But somehow because it's for farmers it's taken more seriously as if they're the only ones who have the right to know the real weather.
But the real point to me relating this is that they always seem to want it to snow. I'm sure it's so they can then crow about their vehicles' snow-driving capabilities while the likes of me are planning any possible excuse not to get out of bed that day.
Oh, last week, I was supposed to be talking about. Well the Paul Jeffery Trio played it's first full gig as planned at the Rose & Crown, Greetland on Saturday night. It went really well, the first full band gig of this sort I've done since about last March. It was good to do a gig at a venue that has the right attitude to putting on live music, and I'll be happy to play there again soon.
Last night (Monday) I also played a solo gig at Milo in Leeds. I arrived just in time to be greeted by about 50 people decending from a meeting upstairs. 50 people is a lot in there, and then I found out they were all musicians in bands or producers. I played the last set (headlining we call it if we're wanting to show off) so most had gone by then, but it was still a good night and a really good sound too for my set.
This week:
It's a bit quieter with now just the big Atlanta Soul gig at Manchester Uni this Friday. I'm doing some more writing of late so there's all that to fit in, plus the recording of the demos.
A-Z of Music:
What a great treat on Sunday night on BBC 4. I'd just walked in from the pub when an hour-long programme about Mark Knopfler started. It kind of restored my faith in him to be honest. I don't know if I mentioned it here but I saw him at the M.E.N last year and was a little disappointed, mainly because he just isn't an arena performer. Some great interview segments, and of course some great playing though, and I always like to listen to what seasoned musicians and songwriters have to say. Especially one as intelligent and articulate as he.
I'm so glad January has finished. I know it's still winter and there's the ever-present threat of more snow (depending on who you talk to) but I always find it a long, cold, dark and generally crap month. I'm sure it's no coincidence that it's a lot brighter today and even a little bit warmer. I don't really take much notice of the weather forecast, just in case it's bad news...after all you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
I know a couple of people who revel in telling everyone it's going to snow 'later in the week', even if it's already Friday. They place great faith in the Country File Five Day Farmers' Forecast, told by a suitably youthful forecaster of course. Why I don't know, as it's all from the BBC Met Office, the same people who do the forecasts day in day out. But somehow because it's for farmers it's taken more seriously as if they're the only ones who have the right to know the real weather.
But the real point to me relating this is that they always seem to want it to snow. I'm sure it's so they can then crow about their vehicles' snow-driving capabilities while the likes of me are planning any possible excuse not to get out of bed that day.
Oh, last week, I was supposed to be talking about. Well the Paul Jeffery Trio played it's first full gig as planned at the Rose & Crown, Greetland on Saturday night. It went really well, the first full band gig of this sort I've done since about last March. It was good to do a gig at a venue that has the right attitude to putting on live music, and I'll be happy to play there again soon.
Last night (Monday) I also played a solo gig at Milo in Leeds. I arrived just in time to be greeted by about 50 people decending from a meeting upstairs. 50 people is a lot in there, and then I found out they were all musicians in bands or producers. I played the last set (headlining we call it if we're wanting to show off) so most had gone by then, but it was still a good night and a really good sound too for my set.
This week:
It's a bit quieter with now just the big Atlanta Soul gig at Manchester Uni this Friday. I'm doing some more writing of late so there's all that to fit in, plus the recording of the demos.
A-Z of Music:
What a great treat on Sunday night on BBC 4. I'd just walked in from the pub when an hour-long programme about Mark Knopfler started. It kind of restored my faith in him to be honest. I don't know if I mentioned it here but I saw him at the M.E.N last year and was a little disappointed, mainly because he just isn't an arena performer. Some great interview segments, and of course some great playing though, and I always like to listen to what seasoned musicians and songwriters have to say. Especially one as intelligent and articulate as he.
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