Late night Jammin'

I had today off to go to Scotland for the weekend and Fraser had to take a flight early this morning, so we swapped roles and I did a late one at the Jam Session. It was fun seeing what happens after I leave for once. It tailed off towards 2am and then once all the local bars closed, it got busy again until about 4am... it was a great night and I didn't stop playing... It feels good to wake up with tired fingers.

The perfect Saturday

Today might have been my favourite day of the year so far.... except for our Easter Sunday.

The day started badly with finance problems fuelled by false requests for municipality taxes. Sandra soon brightened the gloom and doom by arriving with breakfast… so we has one of those breakfasts that lasts until lunch time. Sausages eggs, bread, fresh fruit, veg…. and South Park… with the sun blaring in through the window.

Oops…. This is a music blog.

We dragged ourselves from the Breakfast table about 1pm(told you), we then headed for Dam Square, where some film makers were recording footage of Sandra busking for a youtube magazine show that is starting…

 

from there the film makers joined our entourage of happy wanderers and we headed to Amstelveld where Sandra has been asked to play at wedding:

The wedding was at Café Nel, and the plan was to play for 30-45 minutes. We had prepared a set of songs and I expected it to be a fairly relaxed affair. Once the guest started to arrive, I was feeling pretty underdressed:

We played a great set sitting in the sun with the wedding party all very happy and the children perplexed by the multi-coloured musician that had graced their party:

We walked back from Amstelveld with “music earned” money in our pockets on a lovely day, so spirits were high. We found Tamira and Hanan and decided that white wine and Greek food was the perfect solution for the lovely day. Sandra serenaded people(and Lincoln Continentals) along the way…

We closed the night about 3 am with a burger after a night in the mine with Anna and Coco. 

Jam Night @ the Mine... more folk than last week

The Jam Session fairies were kind to us this week and it was a great night. 

The night started with a take away pizza session at my place with Tamira, Sandra, Karolina, Fraser and I… it always feels great eating with the band(or some of them) before a gig… preparing the army for battle or something like that.

We had the perfect balance of Fraser and I getting to sing songs and lots of people coming up to play. Tamira has really found her voice, and sang several tunes…

 

Wedding Practice then tricky session

Sandra came round. She wants me to play guitar for her at a weddding reception on Saturday. We're putting together a set of suitable songs about "love"...

We decided against:

• Tainted Love
• You give love a bad name
• Will you still love me tomorrow

It's harder than it sounds.... 

We've developed a new way of practicing. Rather than run through the same song for the third time.. we started phoning people on Skype and playing songs to them. When we phoned Tamira, we decided to go to the Tricky Theatre open stage:

Tamira played her 2 new songs, and then we headed to our respective homes for an early night.... leaving Sandra to wow the crowds with songs, cookies and sunshine.... 

Sunday Session at Wagging Tail Studios

Having gone to the mine last night to reward myself for a days hard mixing, a plan was hatched for Javier, Sandra and Tamira to come round for a Sunday session. We worked on a few songs for this weeks jam session and then had a few fun Jams on Last Kiss, a song by Sandra and Blitzkrieg bop....

 

 

I've added the reuslts to my backlog of mixing work. 

A day spent mixing

I made rough mixes of all tamira's stuff... it took me ages... but it's sounding excellent... if only I was good enough or someone was stupid enough to pay me to do this for a living.

Two recording sessions in one day

Yesterday I managed to have 2 recording sessions.

Tamira(the drummer from Wednesday's Jam Session) is something of a multitasker and she came round to play me some of her songs. They were so good that I recorded them. She also brought the most interesting guitar I think I've ever seen; a Bacolite and Alluminium number from the early 60's. It's quite a challenge to record a 40 yr old plastic guitar with a rattle, but it was certainly fun. 

 

If dogs are like their owners... are guitars???? 

I had hoped that Sandra would come round and I could coerce the two girls and Karolina into forming an all female power pop trio, but alas the timing was slightly off. 

As Tamira left, Sandra arrived, and she was on very good form. She managed to put down some guitar parts and overdub some vocal parts. I now need to overdub some other stuff oer the top when I'm feeling a little more creative.