Playing
After splashing a little cash on some website and sending out some contacts to people in the area I had some really nice responses, mostly wanting to chat about playing some music and liking the idea’s I was pushing for a band.
I’ve got to sit down and type responses to them now to see who’s really interested, but its exciting to get a positive response (thanks to any who replied as I know some of you read this site) I hope to meet a few of you ASAP and see if there is anything we can do together.
Good positive post for once.
My recent posts have been all based around my musical work and my struggle to find the right people to play with. Not having the right people to play with can stifle the desire and skill of writing music, as no purpose makes you a bit slack, I’ve had to drop a few songs or ideas because I’d allowed myself to write sloppy or lazy parts.
This weekend I’ve taken a step forward, a friend who is a singer in band decided to part from his own band, one of the reasons I’ve never spoke to him about it. I’ve sounded him out about the project and he seemed interesting, great news. With a singer and front man who you know you can play with that’s a hard box ticked. I’ve also manged to track down the drummer I had lost due to a crappy musicians website, when I say tracked down, I’ve found a phone number which should belong to him, but he’s not got back to me yet. I’ve also decided to contact a known excellent bass player to do some session work and help me write proper bass lines for the tacks I’m working on. As I’m trying to put a 3 component band together for the music the bass line is a really core part and needs to be beyond what I can write, so hopefully he can help progress some of these songs to be ready to be played by a band.
Nothings done yet, but it does seem a lot more positive than it has been for a while in terms of working with other musicians.
If anyone is actually reading this blog they will know how hard I am finding it to find a regular musical flow. I’m writing music and songs left right and center but I am spanning this out over a crazy long period of time due to other commitments. This is not an ideal way to work. As I’ve got over an albums worth of songs now close to being finished but still in a fair state of flux, I thought I’d try to look at a different take on music. I’ve cleared down my ipod apart from a few key “must have” albums and chosen some of my lesser listened to and certainly lesser influenced music to see if it helps me finish some of the songs in progress but also maybe find a few new and different ones. It’s music inspired from my youth mostly, stuff that was fun to listen to in a pub or club but not much fun to play as a fast fingered long haired progressing guitarist, but may now give an older and better player a different avenue to look at.
I’ve also filled my normal ipod with a lot of music that I listen to on my gym ipod, this is stuff that I would never really play or listen to outside of te gym normally due to poor musical content, howver I’ve found that there can be some good hidden gems in there with interesting rythems and lyrical progression, I’ll probably delete these soon, but it’s certainly worth exploring.
Did a fun little gig on Tuesday at the St James Wine Vaults in Bath, once again backing Ed Cesar doing some solo acoustic gigs. Quite an interesting night, from a personal point of view it wasn’t the best I’ve played due to a real lack of practice of the songs and a few slight changes to them about 2 minutes before the gig and a real problem for the first half of the set with the monitors not working so not being able to hear a thing. That said it was fun and a little dissapointing that as the night got on a fair bit of the crowd had left, but it was an acoustic night on a Tuesday night not in the centre of town, so I can’t complain.
I enjoyed some of the other people playing, in particular Simon Allen, who did a fun set on the night and really engaged the crowd. His EP is worth a listen to, he gave me a copy free – so thanks Simon, if you have a few quid buy it and check out “Shooting Star” – I think it’s a really really good simple song. He doesn’t do himself favours by not putting any of his strongest songs (in my opinion) on his myspace page so don’t judge on that (or do if you like them).
More positives the Taylor now sounds fantastic live, a little play with the EQ and the right selection of cable and it really is a great sounding acoustic when plugged in as well as unplugged. I think there are some photos on facebook and myspace of the gig, I’ve not seen them yet
It’s been a while between posts, hopefully this messasge will explain. I’m currently suffering from “musical lethargy” where I cannot seem to inspire myself to complete musical projects in hand. I’m still writing songs, I’m still recording, but I’m not finishing what I start, I find myself just messing around or playing someone elses tracks for pleasure. The main problem is no reward for the work so far, so I’ve lost focus, at present there is no-one to play these songs with, or record them with, I am not, nor do I want to be a solo act, I get the thrill from writing and then playing with other people, receiving critisism and input from the people I play with to make the songs better. Currrently my options for musician kinship is very limited so without the end goal in sight of playing and recording I’ve found myself getting side tracked. I’ve got double the songs written since my last post, yet the over all finished product of the song (not recording) is not as good as I’m not spending the time to put the re-work in to make an idea a track, I’m just making THE idea a track, which is lazy. This weekend I will try to revisit all work in progress and give them the attention deserve.
I’m hopeful that publicly noting this down will drive me to find the people I want to play with, while also giving me a kick in the arse to finish the work in progress and not allow myself to get distracted from the writing process just because of a lack of imediate gratification.
Played an impromptu acoustic gig last night at the Porter Celler Bar last night with Ed Ceasar from the Dusty Stars band and some of his friends. quite a lot of fun, we had about an hours practice before hand and then just played the gig. It was a support act for a Bath band called “CuteLoony“. Turned out quite well and some nice comments of randoms. Quite nice to be playing out and about again but playing simple songs with easy parts, not having to come up and polish clever/complex parts to fit in with a band or fill out a sound. Nice to sit down and play the songs and not worry about making the guitar parts good – just play the songs. Few awkward moments playing, the monitor in front of me failed about 2 seconds after we started and for such a small venue I’m shocked how little I could hear without it, had to play a good portition of the set watching other peoples hands/movements, mostly due to not knowing the songs %100 and not being able to hear where we where up to.
Nice evening, few drinks and met some new people, plus it was nice to give the Taylor a run out, it’s been getting rusty sat on the shelf not being played. I’ll see if anyone has any photos, but I don’t think they have.
