youtube infamy awaits.

I was clearing out some hard drives at work when I found these:





I'm not a big youtuber, but I thought I'd stick them up. They are far from perfect, but I wouldn;t have any up at the moment if I waited for perfect. If anyone really enjoys them I can do more video and see if I can get the output fomr the desk into the camera for super good(then compressed) sound.

Practice with Fraser

Last night I cooked a pretty decent Lasagne and Fraser and I sat down to try to dicuss getting some focus on writing some music. It;s something which continues to to escape us. Our other commitments both musical and non-musical usually get in the way. Rather than just knocking together some chord structures and lyrics, we are trying to move away from guitar strumming and have some music that exists without the guitar. I'm so used to holding up a singer at an open mike with guitar chords, and it's become mundane.

To cut a long story short - we've come up with yet another reason why we can't just sit down and write. In order to limit the ambition a little in order to get something done, we're going to try to at least meet a little more often instead of just meeting when we have a gig to prepare for.

Monday night practice fuelled by Peking Duck

Fraser came round with a whole peking Duck last night and some Japanese beers. On fuel like that it was impossible for it not to have been a good practice.

We video'd the songs to get an idea of how they are sounding. I really need to learn to use the video functions on my camera though - cos the 5 minute video was 2 GB... so it's almost impossible to do anything with.

We've moved yesterday's songs from the level where we can't sing them, to the level where we can't sing them but people might just appreciatte that we put in the effort. One of the biggest cheers we've had at the Open Mike is when we did Somebody to love by Queen. I think people liked the fact that we played it even though it was clear that we would never do it justice.

Anyway... the sun is shining... we're practised and it's the Open Mike tonight....

Sunday night practice

Fraser was round last night and we had a practice for Tuesday's open mike. It's been a while since I even played an acoustic guitar never mind practiced with Fraser.

After watching a documentary on the greatness that is Thin Lizzy, I gave Boys are back in Town a go. We had tried it many moons ago and it hadn't worked, but I surprised myself and it seems to come together. It's pretty fast so you really have to feel the rhythm if you're going to spit out the lyrics in time, but I think it should hold itself together and the crowd should enjoy it.

The other one I have been toying with is Two of Us by the Beatles. I think it’s an excellent duet, but it’s a bit high for one of us and I'm not convinced we'll get it pinned before Tuesday.

We’ve been wanting to do an Elton John song forever. My favourite(due to a love of the film Almost Famous) is Tiny Dancer – but it has a bridge that we just can’t get to sound right. We also tried Your Song….. but we couldn’t pull it off. We’re now giving 'I guess that's why they call it the blues' a go, but even that is proving quite difficult – Elton’s deceptively hard.

I’ve been listening to loads of Stone’s recently. I wanted to do Prodigal Son, but we’re not going to have time to get it prepared. Under My Thumb is a lot simpler, but it needs some orchestrating to make it interesting.

Anyway… we’ll work it all out tonight and anyone that fancies hearing them can pop into Mollys on Tuesday

Open Mike @ Mollys - August 2010

For the second month in a row, the Open Mike has been so busy that we’ve been turning people away from the stage. Everyone who has ever hosted the Open mike was there last night - Fraser, Sandra, Tamira and Javier. It’s just a shame that the night was such a success that we didn’t get to play more together cos I really enjoy jamming with all those guys. Fortunately we had some great talent on the stage and I got to listen for once.

 Fraser and I opened with yet more Queen(Fat Bottomed girls)

…then Tamira joined us for Boots are made for walking and Blue Suede Shoes. Craig Coe then played for his second month in a row(He must have enjoyed last month):

He did a good job of fitting in the with out vision of the Open Mike night, not only does he get extra points for continuing the Queen theme, but he managed to put together 2 impromptu pairings, firstly with Sandra on Nobodies wife by Anouk, and then with Fraser and I on Somebody to love. 

We than had some new comers: Andy and Mike from Cheshire who performed some very nice harmonies despite the ropey onstage sound:

After that Marco, Javier, Fraser and I jammed out a few songs with Mandolin, 2 guitars and Bass which was a lot of fun. For the remainder of the night; Lee Clark wowed everyone with his self penned numbers; Amsterdam “weel kent face” Cindy Peress classed up the place; Sandra showed us that a month on the road keeps your music skills at maximum potency and Fraser and Tamira fired out some gems that they had been sneakily practicing on the side.

To close the show, the extremely able Giovanni and James played us out with Fraser supporting on Bass and vocals. Thanks to everyone that came along, musicians, listeners, hecklers and drinkers alike. Does anyone have any ideas for next month? A theme? Suggested Covers?

Open Mike July with N.F.S.

We had a great Open Mike last night. I think we've now being doing them for a year, and it was Fraser, Sandra and I for the first time in while definitely the first time this year. As usual we were ably assisted by Javier and several other friends. So many people wanted a spot on the stage that we were turning people away. Andy from the Stun was there so there is a write up and photos here.

Starting as we mean to go on....

In an attempt to start as we mean to go on. Fraser Javier and I went Jam Studios(MUZYQ was booked) to make some noise. I forgot how much of a slog it was to carry guitars and cables to the studio