Comings, Goings...

Janeiro Junk
It's going to be fun at rehearsals today. We've parted company with Javier from Janeiro (it's in the news and everything) so we now need a new keyboard player. While it's true that I obviously have lots of confidence in Janeiro as a band with a future, I can see Javier's problem - he needs money, and Janeiro isn't going to be hugely profitable overnight (just read the tales of what happens to manufactured pop acts!). He needs to be able to pick up paid gigs at the drop of a hat to keep cash coming in: in london, it'd probably be easier for him, but oxford just ain't that big.

So, today I make my way up with a keyboard player named Terry - spoken on the phone, sounds like a friendly chap. Jake knows him from a few years back (Neil F does too) and speaks highly of his talents: Terry makes a living in London and has satnav, so I think it's probably fair to say he must be pretty damn good! I can only hope he can spare the time...

Since we're going to be doing this touring thing soon, there's going to be a lot of hard work coming up, in terms of time and travelling: I'm going to have to make it up as I go along regarding work - good job I've got flexible working times.

Andy's Birthday
I've never decided if it's proper to keep marking the years after you hit 30... mind you, I'm the one who advocates doing what the hell you like as you get older, and not subscribing to "sensible stereotypes" as an excuse not to do things that scare you or threaten the cozy semi-detached status quo.

So I'll be celebrating this year, just not sure how yet.

I'll be buying some form of bass though! 2 options currently exist...
1 - a Ned Steinberger upright bass, either the NS or EU series
2 - a 5-string fretless, not sure what yet, possibly one of the new Yamaha carved-top series. Pretty. :)

I think option 2 is gaining ground purely because I'd like a pro quality fretless - I'd be able to tinker with the 4 string I made then, and use it as a back-up bass.

Either way, I want this bass to be something really special - right up there with the others, they've all got value to me both in sentimental and sonic terms. The 5 string Hohner B-Bass V sounds great now I've cranked up the output level (I set it way too low years ago when all I compared it to was the Aria passive).

It's all go...

Bleurgh! Head Cold! Still, happy.

Like the title suggests... I got a head cold, starting Tuesday (I was supposed to be in a 3G training course until Wednesday, so I shall remain unenlightened until I catch up on notes, I guess) and it's still with me now. The full sweats, sneezing, upset stomach feeling I always get with a proper cold. I've decided it's my body's way of telling me to slow down for a bit - I'm doing about 13 hours a week in the car, covering nearly 500 miles in that time. Lots of concentrating, then it's usually big concentration required at rehearsals and work, so I think my Red Bull habit (I did cut back to only one before rehearsals 3 times a week) might have been a sign of something!

I'm a red bull addict, and my name is... hang on, I'm so bushed I'll have to look it up... oh yes, I am Andy. Hear me sneeze. CHOO!

Well, we played the Summer Shutdown Fesitval last saturday. Great fun, although the weather was really REALLY bad - at times, heading up there from Crawley Towers, I thought we were going to have to do 15MPH cos the wipers couldn't clear the screen fast enough! Seems like monsoons are now the norm for end aug/start sept - global warming my arse, God is trying to drown us Ark-style for keeping MPs in jobs!

Anyhue (tm Nic) we got there OK, I brought ALL my kit (including the 100Kg of amp stack) and as we drove in I realised my Skid Pan Training (many tas to Nic's folks, that was great fun) was going to come in handy - REAL mud gets a bit slippy ;) It could be regarded as a positive, but they wanted me to use a Crate 300W stack on the stage instead of setting up my stuff: it was loud enough, but, surprise surprise, pretty FUBAR'd - the input socket missing the retaining nut ring (why do theoe bits always end up going missing?????) and the thing having the general patina of wear from a punk existence :)

I do like to keep my gear top-notch if I can, it means it doesn't let you down when you need it most. (should have repaired that Q-tron sooner - it's perfect now!)

So, I acquiesced and used their Crate. Just as well, there was nowhere dry to stash gear, really, so I left mine in the car pretty much up until we went on: if I'd had to carry any of the stack I would have ended up arse over tit, with anything up to 39 kilos of amp bit on me. Not good.

The set went really well - the sound actually settled down about 2 songs in, which is pretty good for a totally fresh stage with no soundcheck - and we soon settled into the usual grinning madly stuff. Jamie and Richie went mental during "Funks me Off" and played behind their heads(!) - they do keep each other going, it's great fun to watch. Yours truly really got the meat out in the bass solo, I even inserted some 2-handed tap Billy Sheeham style into it!

We stuck around to see the next act, who were a London based bizaare jazz-hiphop collective who mixed live drumming breakbeats with decks (and a respectable MC) and - get this - a 6 foot statuesque sax playing laydee who could blow a mean BARITONE sax - this thing was almost as big as she was!

All in all, an excellent day. The organiser loved our set, and said very nice things which I posted on the Janeiro Website which I've been updating while I've been ill. Much bigger now, with a lot more content and better navigation. I just need to put more pix on there - we've got some great ones!

Nic's away in NY (although she should be on the plane back as I type this) - so it's been a bit lonely apart from having the cats about, and they haven't moved from my side the whole time!

Managed to harvest a few apples as well - this weekend sees Nic & I off up to Tom's to sell him a Xantia and make lots of cider. Wheee! There's so many apples on the tree it's groaning under the weight, so I put Nic's secateurs (sp?) on 40ft of pole and ran a string up to the handle. I can cut apples off the tree 30ft up!

Unfortunately it's so tiring it just makes my cold come out with all fists swinging.

Well, I'm off to splutter somewhere else. Peace out... as they say

A

Jongleurs - too much electricity, not enough...

Great gig last night, full of fun (the music), frills (Jake's fluffy hat) and frickin' power losses!

I'll lay out the scene in some form of chronological order as usual, before it drops out of my head entirely.

I got to the venue for about 4:20pm, which is a record for me - the A34 was kind, bless - to find Dan and Jamie had been there ages: the stage was set up, and Flash Harry's PA company had arrived with the rig - the same rig that gave us a GREAT sound last time we played in Jongleurs. So it was spit-in-yer-palms time and unload the car.

I should add that last night in Oxford was like taking a more or less constant steam bath. The whole place felt like hanging your head over a kettle, so everybody got very VERY hot and pretty sweaty. This is good to see in an audience, but not so great when unloading and setting up for a night's fun.

Once everything was set up, the usual soundcheck stuff started. Dan's kit sounded great from the off, and we even got the chance to jam a couple of numbers and I've got to admit, the sound was actually really good. Only slight glitch was taking the bottom end boost off my bass under advisement from our esteemed sound engineer: after the first set everybody kept asking why the bass was so low - so I cranked the Warwick's boost up again and all was well :)

We've seen the pictures Marchello (sp?) has been taking of us all along (right back to the first gigs at Bridge next door) - they're actually pretty good, especially the B&W ones. He nearly incurred the wrath of Jake as some of his pics of Georgie definitely home in on what might be called her photogenic assets... some of the B&W contrasty shots look like perfume adverts, they'll go great as promo shots, etc. Jake has cut a deal to actually get us the pics, very reasonable price too. Marchello gave us quite an impressive photo montage on a Mac G4 powerbook, backed by Jake's recordings - mesmerising stuff. Fortunately there aren't too many shots of me - I'm more impressive sonically that physically! I do need to shop for some impressive stage clothes though.

So. We're soundchecked, and the sound is pretty good, except for a rather low amount of bottom end ;) We now have about 2 hours to kill until 8pm when we agreed to meet back up: Jamie was nippin off to a local pub where he gets subsidised beer (Sponsorship deal in the offing? "This Jamie was brought to you by Carling Black Label!") and Richie, Dan and I all headed for Oxford's Noodle Bar. Top nosh, and a very smiley waitress who seemed to be enjoying herself. Good place, I can recommend the mixed meat yo min noodles. Wierd names for their dishes in their - "yo min" "mai fun" "ho fun" - sounds like Snoop D D's kinda place!

After food we decamped (in the increasingly scary enclosing darkness of a storm-to-be - smell the ozone!) to a lebanese restaurant (they have chateau Musar wine, yet! Supposed to be really nice) where we indulged in cider and an apple hubbly bubbly session - my first time on a hookah! Left me with a huge smile, it's a very mellow way to pass some time after a meal. I can recommend the one in Oxford!

While we were in their the clouds emptied a huge load onto the town, which cleared the air a bit. Luckily we got back to Jongleurs in the dry-ish. We had some of those great debates you can have between really relaxed people when you're out for the evening - I need to egt out with Nic like that more, like the West End in London - dinner and a show, that sort of thing. You know how you sort of kick back, don't walk too fast, talk and take in the scenery, the people, the vibe - all the stuff you don't get time to do in modern life when you're always trying to get somewhere or get something done. Just filling a little time between pleasureable pursuits!

We started pretty late, with a decent and enthusiastic little crowd getting really into what we were doing. Jake donned the pink fluffy hat again (which found its' way to Dan in the second set!) and Georgie contrasted herself nicely from the last Jongleurs gig by dressing entirely in black!

Great first set - like I said though, not enough bass, as I found out in the intermission from good friends! - with "Disco" getting an airing, at last (one of my favourites, a real rolling funk thunder) - and receiving an unscheduled drum break which melted beautifully back into the track! Dan's a trooper.

So we rolled of the stage after the first set, happy things are going well. I actually broke my golden rule and had a strongbow(!) 'cos the place was like a high-set sauna.

Second set starts out, and I've cranked the bottom and top valve boost back up on the Warwick, and it's sounding very sweet indeed.

But wait! I can't hear any keyboards and Richie's guitar's gone quiet! We'd tripped a fuse on one side of the stage. Quick as a flash (arf arf) our Glorious PA Demon from Flash Harry's rolls an extension from the still-working side of the stage and.... that side goes out too! We're silent! Only Dan can keep things rolling now, and he gives a little drum tech solo which gets some people movin nicely! We tried to run lines from the bar, but everytime that right had side of the stage was plugged in we'd go out like a dodgy bulb.

Turns out it's Xavier's keyboard - and it's happened before(!) I need to get my soldering iron on that thing, it's in need of more TLC than Eastenders plotlines. Once we isolated his keyboard (we had the Korg there, thankfully!) we could continue with no problems. Nice. "Funks me Off" saw some of the best solos I think we've done - I was actually smiling at the end of mine - but I really want some fingerstyle in there as well... it's too easy to just beat the hell out of the warwick mith my thumb in some vaguely syncopated Dorian grooving!

Big finale... and we're off. The breakdown of the PA, drums etc takes us up to about 1:30am, and I'm home by abour 2:40 as I had to pull over on the A404 briefly for a "power nap" - not done that before, but I was worried about falling asleep at the wheel! - it worked perfectly, the remaining 20 mins of my journey I was alert and awake no problems. I can recommend just pulling over and stretching out having set an alarm on your mobile for 20 mins hence!

Keep it peaceable Funqy People!

view from the event!

wow, what a day. I've shaken hands with a bloke who was in blue, the excellent drummer from McFly, KT tunstall who was really nice (she's from St Andrews like me), Tyler James who gave us some great advice as he sat behind his car, parked next to ours, in the VIP parking lot, and Lucie Silvas who jake thinks is stunning and was really friendly! She has nice boots, kurt g from selfridges.

Don't be disparaging about McFly's talents, they're amazing on stage, live and really tight!

There's more detailed recollections of what I remember on the Janeiro website at the Janeiro website. We had a great time, arriving on the amazing JaneiroBus - pics to follow! - but we were really pushed for time so we didn't get the chance to motor about Oxford in the stunning Janeiro logo emblazened routemaster london bus! Great fun coming into town in it though. A million thanks to Nic's dad, my dad-in-law, whose passion it is to keep such an iconic piece of engineering running.

The song went really well, Jo from the FoxFM morning crew was utterly splendid all day, she schmoozed on our behalf more than I could have hoped in my wildest dreams! We chatted for hours, and boogied together backstage during McFly's set, although I got the cues wrong. oops!

George now has at least one mobile number of a handsome superstar... and not just the rest of the Janeiro! heh heh!

A fantastic weather day too.

Right, off to see the rest of the band in a restaurant in oxford. just dropped off all the gear at the studio, thanks to the herculean efforts of my gorgeous wife Nic, who has, in the last week:
1. made up Tshirts, 18 of
2. created and organised all the artwork that went on the bus, including putting the vinyl prints on mount board late last night
3. drove all the way up to Greetham in Leics where her folks stay, arriving at 10pm last night and staying up until 2am(!) getting the ads on the bus
4. drove me back to the studio here in Crawley 2 drop off the gear.

she has a massive headache now, no shock with the massive workload in the last few days!

applause!

right, I'm off into oxford! see you around, come to jongleurs next wednesday!

peacey'all

A

It's the night before P-day... and all through the house

The only creatures stirring are me, three cats and three rats!

Well, tomorrow all the prep comes together. Nic has shot up to Greetham with art materials to adorn our "special advertising vehicle" which we'll be turning up in - this'll get Oxford talking - I hope! Nic has been truly spectacular this whole week, especially given the trouble I've had sleeping all week - which, I might add, has nothing to do with nerves! I've been to the doc again about my throat, it seems to have stretched really badly and I'm waking up with huge headaches and a thumping heart... so I want to get fast-tracked to laser scarring for the back of my crap throat to pull it back into some kind of shape that lets me sleep again - if only on my side!

We got another shout from the lovely Jo Thoenes this afternoon after I revealed we'd be coming along in an "interesting vehicle"! She'll get to see what it is no doubt! Thanks to Dan ze Drums for being alert of ear and hearing that one this afternoon.

I've been madly working on the Janeiro website - which now contains a link to our mini-site on Arkade where the demo of Cream of the Crop has gone on sale at the staggering sum of 99p! iTunes here we come! ho ho!

Jake's been getting his car covered in the Janeiro logo, Nic has been making T-shirts so that people with flyers look like they're associated with the band (there's a few close friends and family going to be there!) - if the flyers attract even 1% of the crowd we'd fill Jongleurs on the 31st 3 times over!!!!!!!

Hopefully we can create a tsunami of interest which will sweep us to big things!

Meantime though, I've got to keep playing in a new set of strings I've just stuck on the 6 string, which I'll be using for our little one-song slot tomorrow. I've been practising hard, and it feels pretty good: I'd say I'm at one of the highest levels of one-ness with the bass that I've ever had. It feels so natural at the moment: it's something I get sometimes when programming, but it's not as visceral a feeling as really nailing a tune with 6 other people and watching faces in the audience get carried away by the sheer fun coming off the stage.

I've always loved this.

Funky Funky Funky!

Last night Janeiro did a lot of talking during rehearsals of the 1 track(!) we get to play on Sunday: we've got some interesting things planned!

We've nailed down our track, it should sound great with plenty of crowd pleasing moments squeezed into the small slot. The vocals are sounding really good!

Now I have to start ringing people and organising stuff... I wonder what the Oxford Mail's number is? We've had almost a full page spread in their newspaper (the 22nd Aug edition) - and they archive online! See it here...

Gotta scoot. The day job required my attention! Could it be I could move to music full-time?.... I keep hearing adverts telling me it's never been easier to register as self-employed!

Woohoo! Tunnel long... light is bright.... getting closer?

30,000 people to impress and only the rest of the week to organise and practise for it!

Gulp!

A

Another gig - in the sun - I got to DANCE!

Yes, I finally had an area big enough to jump in! "Do Your Thing" always makes me want to jump around... and in the studio I have to watch my head, and all the gigs we've done so far I've had to stay static!

Great fun, we played on the back of an artic flatbed with the plastic stuff on. Good PA, a bit of feedback, but not too bad, apart from the gain on my amp being at full for some reason after a bass change(!) luckily I noticed the volume change!

Dan's kit went on in one piece - the scaffold was put together offstage in a little area ( they'd fenced it off for holding our gear before getting it onto the flatbed - a fair lift for a 38 kilo bass cabinet! ) then lifted whole onto it, not too shabby and very useful potentially for the sunday Party In The Park gig - I'm guessing we'll have to set up even faster than usual. Phew.

Jake and George were both a bit crook for the gig and rested up before coming down for the soundcheck. Once we got going Jake became his usual crowd pleasing self... it's like watching Dr David Banner turn into the Hulk sometimes, he's a monster onstage :) He even crossed to Javier for his solo (the flatbed wasn't that deep so we kind of spaced out all the way along it!). Dan's drum solo was outstanding! I even managed to get mine about right!

After the show I got called over by some really cute kids who were going to the PITP thing on Sunday - they said very nice things about the band and wanted CDs! We've got to get a pro recording done! It's all moving so fast...

In fact, yesterday moved so fast I didn't have time to say Hi to Dean, who I spotted after the gig.

And... for the first time... I GOT PAID!! It covers diesel and a bit more, but very welcome it was too.

And many thanks to Sam for posting pictures of the gig (good 'uns too!) on the Janeiro Yahoo Newsgroup! Join to see 'em via the link at janeiromusic.com...

HOLY CR*P!

HOLY CR*P!,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

My sincere apologies for the title/subject. It's just that...
WE WON!
Yes, we're goin to be taking the stage at the Party in the Park in Oxford South Park on the 28th of August, alongside such pop luminaries as Rachel Stevens, Liberty X and McFly!
Now, this is something heh heh! I'm typing this as Nic drives her wired husband home!
The Story of the Night, by Andy
OK, it's me. but I only know what happened to me!
Nic and I got to Banbury at 3pm! Really early, but I knew the other guys were in town already trying to get flyers to all the hairdressers in town! There you go Jamie, your efforts are immortalised!
After a quick walk around town, during which I bought a couple of music bits (couldn't resist it! boss SYB5 synth we got into the venue via the backdoor and loaded all our gear. Rich and I gorged on Bernard matthews best from Farmfoods to get change to park the van!
The soundcheck was very late, which was actually lucky, I was REALLY paranoid that since we were on at 7 we'd have no audience!
No time to get paranoid and nervous, we were on 10 minutes after we soundchecked! A huge shout to the talented guys doing the sound on the night, you ran out of channels but not ears, we had a great sound! Iuckily the Janeiro gig machine carries too much gear so Javier mixed himself to mono (eek!) and we just squeezed in!

I had great fun dancing 2 everybody else!
At the end of the night, the voting happened! SO MANY GORGEOUS PEOPLE!
The fox dj's voted 4 us, then the people voted 4 us!
All hell broke loose!
I wanted to thank every single person there, l just jumped down and started hugging everybody single person at the Janeiro end of the bar!
Anyone I missed out I THANK YOU!
Nic's banner with our logo designed by my bro Mark was top stuff, right next 2 the O2 banner at the back.
RIGHT! We've hit the A404 so this entry ends here!
We are all utterly panning ourselves.

Adult Pampers, anyone?
gulp!

Q-Tron's fixed!

I ran a soldering iron over the internals of the Q-Tron in an effort to stop it cutting out. After some rather heavy handed abuse (click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-kick-thunk-kick-click-click-) turning it on and off, it still hasn't gone silent yet.

We'll call that a win.

Unlike England's cricketers... yesterday evening's rare spot of Hollyoaks mental flatlining turned out to be cricket flatlining instead, which was actually pretty cool.

I don't know why everybody was getting do wound up though, the crowd were behaving like it was a football match, which is just surreal when you see 13 white figures standing in the middle of a field doing pretty much sod all for long periods of time...

Well, I'm winding myself up nicely for Thursday's final in Banbury. Nic's been making a banner for the stage, which looks excellent: we took the Janeiro logo (as seen on the group site, and soon, the website) and used the projector to blow it up as big as we could - nearly 2 metres wide. Nic has been applying fabric paint to fill in and it's looking pretty good! A large black border and some blackout material backing and it'll be something we can hang behind the band which at least says who we are... rather than gigging at Jongleurs under their sign and being paranoid :)

We've made the final selection of songs, now all I have to do is try to practise my parts. No sniggering at the back.

Another good result?

Another good result?,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

To my shame, I wasn't listening last night. I was enjoying a pint at a pub in Bourne End called 'the bounty bar' which you can't get to by road. It's by the thames, serves totally mental real ales like 'grumpy cow'!
so who won last night's heat? I don't know, but Jamie said it was another shock result, so l assume the Ambient Oxford Iads got through!
If that's so, then it's time 2 rehearse like never before and make sure 'Disco' holds 2gether! This is like some dream, it's all moving so fast!

ttfn
a t bp

Jongleurs, Light Ropes, Q-Trons, Monitors, Dressing rooms, Door Staff...

It's all in an evening's work for Janeiro!

I've decided what we commited last night were random acts of funk. Random google ahoy!

I got there about 5.30pm, to find Dan, Richand Jamie were well and truly set up! The running theme of the beginning and end of the evening, which was the three of them expending vast amounts of energy carrying nearly everything from place to place, was established early on. I'm not supposed to have roadies yet!! They're great lads, my car was empty within 5 minutes of parking round the back of Jongleurs. Those back stairs are scary though.

Disconcertingly, the staff of Jongleurs appeared to be having a training course on customer awareness. A frighteningly attractive bunch, they were being assailed in David-Brent style presentation, with the secrets of conflict resolution and how many different words there were for the names of various illegal chemical substances they could expect to find up people's noses etc. A bit wierd to listen to while you're plugging stuff into other stuff. When she mentioned ecstacy I wanted to stick my hand up and say "doves!", which nobody else got. Then when she mentioned crack I just about creased up. It's all in the delivery. Not the crack, the lecture.

After some jiggery and a little pokery we located a solid wooden table we could perch my monolith Warwick stack on. See, the stage in Jongleurs is sort of built for comedians. Who'da guessed? (shrugs) :) So my stack ended up obscuring part of the jongleurs logo, which was cool as from the right angle, I thought we'd get confused for a band called jongleurs, which wouldn't sit well with the venue chain. Basses were perched behind Jamie's stack on the right of the stage. In all, a tight little set-up, with a little room for George and Jake (looking browner than the sauce after their holiday!) for boogie at the front. Javier's set up teetered precariously on the left, and Dan's drums looked spectacular dead centre.

We sorted out Rich's marshall amp problem, the crackles and drop-outs are in the pre-amp. Seeing as he uses a POD all the time, he plugged straight into the poweramp direct in, and bingo! perfect.

And I brought the light rope! I curled it a couple of times around the amp and ran in up the mike stand. Not bad, I called it my funk cable, giving vibes to my vocals from the basslines. It's only a conceptual thing... heh

The dressing room (my god, yes, we had a dressing room) was the built-for-one job the comedians use, so a 7-piece had to work in shifts ("George, are you done yet?.... I really need to go!" {crosses legs} - then "George, did you have to? Pheeeewwwww!" Lots of giggles there etc heh heh) but it did fine, I even managed to shower my head after getting overheated setting up, etc. Nic brought me a care package, bless, as well as herself (it's improtant I can see her at gigs, good grounding in reality, plus her eyes are riveting even at 30 feet away, you can still make out the wolf rings!) - a bottle of Tesco diet Kick drink (buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) and deodorant, halleluijah!

First set went really well: Jake's idea of starting out with a quiet-ish track meant we'd warmed up nicely before ploughing on. Jav's soloing on the night was really nasty! Tasty chords and really off-the-wall sequences, the lad's a genius. The ends of "hooked on you" got extended but sounded really tasty, flowing grooves.

When we came off stage I was beaming! Lots of good noises. People popped downstairs to Bar Risa but they all came back up again when we restarted, which took far too long as a couple of sad muppets posing as Virgin Records A&R men (one of whom was apparently rather interested in Georgie) wasted Jake's time ("vanished again? I'll find him!" quoted his mum. Luckily, as ever, Dan seemed to know where he was) - but they were ejected from the building by our very very good friends, who protested that even if they were lawyers or the some of some tosspot sheik they were still vulnerable to a good kicking and would they please kindly apologise. Which they did. Yay!

Also during the intermission, I was on my way to the Gents downstairs and met up with a couple of young oxford "laydeez" who were off to get some cash. The doorstaff suddenly seemed to prickle as they tried to get outside, but lo! It was actually good natured ribbing (as demonstrated by the fact they got back in!). We were paying the lads to look after security, and they were great. Really dry senses of humour, big lads with scary haircuts but obviously pussycats under the surface (of course, as anyone who has dragged a cat out of a tree will tell you, they've got some serious weapons).

Second set was a little more wobbly but with stacks of energy (although I really do need more rest before gigs like that - I'm not sleeping well at the moment, for other reasons than stress, etc! Even Tesco Kick in large amounts wasn't working at that point) - but the bloody Q-tron cut out the clean signal I was using at the beginning of "Disco" so I got paranoid about batteries running out and started fiddling with levels before I finally cottoned on and kicked the nerfing thing back into life! It did suck a little out of my sails though, I was rather embarrased.... :) I'll be dismantling that and fixing it this evening. Sigh! So much for buying good quality FX in San Francisco. Haight Ashbury that was too!

Jake's dad (Mr Big himself!) did a stupidly good job of blowing some very hot harmonica on "long train running", where the Q-tron redeemed itself a little with nice squidgy noises. I tried to keep myself reigned in at least a little, you can go a bit mental on that one.

With I'd had the opposite feeling during the solo in "Funks me Off!" I'll leave it there. I know I've mentioned I should lock that solo down, but this is crunch point: by the 18th (presuming we do that track - we definitely don't have to, and I can see reasons why it's not really a festival track!) I WILL have that solo LOCKED DOWN AND PRACTISED. Dan's solo was stunning, a real tour de force. His confidence in what he's playing has been starting in the last 2 weeks, I would almost swear he's not scared of that solo anymore! His dedication makes me hang my head in shame. A bit.

Lots of good feedback (vocal, not PA) at the end, not least about the sound, our best yet. After a brief period swanning around and finally getting a beer in (my apologies to Dean, I'll get that drink off you on the 18th mate ;) I finally got away at just after 1am, rolling into home at 2am and not being able to sleep until 3!

But by god, it's worth it. I was talking to Dean about this blog: it really has been a resurrection. The funny thing is, it's now becoming so resurrected I need to start considering my options in other areas of my life: a flower is growing, a little dream of an idea I had thought I lost a while back turned up in an unexplored corner of my heart on the way to the rehearsal wednesday afternoon. I could really do this and keep doing this.

I couldn't stop grinning and laughing as I drove up the A34. It's real, it's alive, something is actually happening! The hair on my neck stood up, I realised it's in my blood!

Oh, and someone told me Party in the Park can get 30,000 people. Permission to cack my pants sir.

A t' B P

from the dressing room!

from the dressing room!,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

wow, so this is where Jim Tavare got ready for his act... we actually have a room to get ready in, but i reckon if we get ready in shifts we'll make it heh heh! i might post again with a pic from the stage!

Woohoo! Wierd voting a gogo...

Hello!

First Janeiro (www.janeiromusic.com folks - currently redirecting to our YahooGroups mailing list until I put a proper site in place!) win the monday heat, then last night we hear a stupidly good track exit the FoxFM BOTB competition as well!

Funny thing. We were all together last night, first rehearsal back together with Jake and George back from holiday (both bronzed and fit-lookin', perfect for tonight's gig in Jongleurs), so we tuned in for the entrants into the tuesday heat. First band was a singer/songwriter from Banbury (so if he'd been in the final he'd have been on home turf) with a really polished track (actually I reckon it might even be more polished than our 1-week-to-record-and-mix rushed demo), second was three guys with a rather melancholy but melodic demo which sounded pretty rough.

To our shock surprise, band 2 obviously galvanised support from a lot of corners and win with 75% of the vote, so the robbie-williams quality track is out... bizarre, that act sounds like it would be killer onstage! I wonder what the 3-piece will sound like...

You can only shrug and accept good fortune.

Well, I'm off to Jongleurs to set up. See any of you who will be there, there!

A

Oh dear god.

We won! We won the semi-final heat last night.

My heart was in my mouth, eurovision-style, as they played the whole track at 7:30, our one was on first. It sounded pretty good through a 38Kbit windows audio stream, the bass came out well and the width of Jake's well-mixed layered vox came out well too. The extra compression added by Fox didn't swamp the track and the kick was still crisp enough to do the job.

Then the Wailing Jacks track played, a real blinder in the style of the Strokes (as Debbie the Fox DJ pointed out). Then all hell broke loose texting people to tell them what to text and where to text it to!

And we waited until after 8pm for the results... 2 extra songs after 8pm later and Debbie announces the winner has a big margin, with 93% of the votes cast and nearly two throusand of them! Of course, I'm still in "don't get excited" mode so I assume Wailing Jacks have mobilised their fan base out of Brighton... then Debbie plays our chorus again, and I'm stunned. This must be what it feels like to win the lottery!

So Nic and I break out some bubbly and field a fair few texts and calls: then Jamie the Guitarist's voice appears out of the speakers, he's managed to call in and plugs our gig tomorrow night in Jongleurs in Oxford! Great!

All in all, a triumphant night. I couldn't sleep, I think I've only have about 3 hours and I'm still feeling elated. Hopefully I'll manage to stay awake at this evening's important practise, the first in a week with all of us there as Jake's been on holiday to Malaga - I can just see him and George in Magaluf!

Phew. Must calm down. Coffe and flapjack!

hee hee!

Little fluffy clouds and Foxes

A great weekend. The folks finally managed to get both of themselves (an odd transition from singular there) up to our place at Dorney, along with Benson the non-driveable retriever. When I say non-driveable, I'm not referring to any engine troubles or perhaps the lack of steering wheel. He just gets incredibly nervous in cars... so they're feeding him gentle doggy tranqs before travelling :)

Taking advantage of the BBQ still being up after last weekend's stupendously rained-on BBQ (the half-oil drum job in under the gazebo still!) but not feeling the worst effects of the weather, we fired up one-third of it and comfortably fed 6 people (my bro and wife came over too). Then we all sat about drinking far too much until close to midnight with the garden electrics comfortably lighting up the whole patio, along with Nic's glass lanterns. Top.

Janeiro Update
Dan got a call from Fox FM telling us we're into the next round, so we're into the last 8! Apparently it was a unanimous vote from all the judges, so Jake's polishing and slight lyric change - "So get the fox on your box", yet! - seems to have done the trick. He and George put really good layered vox on there - we'll need to coach our vocal talents to get it sounding as good onstage!

Javier got himself a paying gig last night so he wasn't about last night. Jamie, Rich, Dan and myself had a great time blasting through some tracks without vox and keys, which is actually a good challenge. We even played a track at half speed just to see if we could do it. Not bad, it only started to reggae at the end :)

Then we retired to the control room upstairs to audition other tracks of Jake's to see what we thought about other ones - there's so many of them we had to use iTunes star rating to mark out the ones we think'll translate quickly and effectively to the band as a whole!

Everything's set up for the gig at Jongleurs in Oxford on wednesday 10th. A better venue than Bridge, I gather - with any luck, it'll have a good effect on our sound, which has been a little.... overwhelming, shall we say? heh!

The FoxFM recording is complete!

Complete, and mastered, and handed in to Fox FM (who apparently have very foxy secretaries, according to Dan). It's sounding very polished! Lots has happened, so I think I'll use a list...

Since the 27th: (takes deep breath)
- Confirmed gig in Jongleurs in Oxford on the 10th August
- Recording of "Cream of the Crop" finished, Jake managed to lay down vocals and mix it before he left for a week's holiday in the sun with George
- Stunning rehearsals with Dan, Jamie, Rich and Javier - the pause while we were recording left us hungry to really funk out live. Last night's was outstanding, Dan's solo left my chin with carpet burns
- I've seen a piece of paper from Ark Records! Didn't read it though, I was (as ever) in a hurry to get home before the witching hour...
- We now have a proper name - "Janeiro" - as in Rio De. Everybody seems really happy with it!
- I went geek-mental and registered the name with bandname.com, registered the domain janeiromusic.com - janeiro.com is being squatted on by a feeble search engine - and started a group on yahoogroups for use once we get a devoted following ;)

Someone finally pointed out last night I should have a boosted patch for taking the solo in "Funks me off". They're so right, I'm so lazy.

Thursday approacheth....

... when I get to record another version of my take from Monday. Hopefully this one'll be locked in and tight, Jake, Dan and Rich were all chopping drum loops for the authentic drum track after we finished recording. Jake's been back trying to get the definitive drum sound.

It's all rather fun!

I'll really have to try to get some time in this evening so I can be solid tomorrow: this would be one of the hardest tracks to play, it's got to be spot-on, and there's still something of an issue for me about the last section of the track to make the feel slightly different after the Black-Eyed Peas style breakdown section in the middle. I used to go back to the original bassline, but I tried a little emphasis in the first half of the bar on the guide bass on monday and quite liked it.

The studio at Crawley, by the way, operates flawlessly. There's a 4 way headphone amp downstairs with talkback from the control room upstairs coming back down the 16 channel flylead with full balanced XLR breakout box on the floor in the recording room.

All it really needs it some soundproofing downstairs and a little bit of kit to isolate the drums a little more.

More Ben Folds on the 'Pod at the mo. "My Philosophy" always makes me laugh. Ben plays it really well live, you'd think playing tracks from a few years back to tens of thousands of people would mean he had less fire in his belly when playing it, but I swear when he played "the luckiest" his empathy for the track assumed physical form and moved across the crowd. Spellbinding.

Recording! And the age old question...

Recording! And the age old question...,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

...What do we call the band? Yes, Gigolo needs another name! We've got a couple of ideas, but they're not ready yet!

Recording...
We're recording a lil rough demo as i type this into the P910, so we can use it to get gigs, and George just learned from Jake that when you yawn your throat is like an opera singers. "i can't wait until i next yawn", she quipped laconically :) never a dull moment here!

I just pretty much aced my take. Only a small bit of the 2 handed tapping lost a note, and the feel on the chorus isn't going to match the bass kick, but this is only a rough quality demo to get some gig action, including a crack at the oxford Party in the Park! Closing date for demo entries is the 5th of August, so we're getting our freak on! Working on "Cream of the crop" at the moment. Not sounding too bad, but I can hear my little timing problems! argh!

As you can tell, I am typing as I listen.

I will post again when I have completed cringing! heh

Sheesh, I'm brown!

Heaven is...

This is the pool where Nic and I have been skulking for the last couple of weeks, in a little cottage in Metochi in the south of Crete. Miles away from Heraklion and Malia (the faliraki of Crete!), this little quiet haven is a great place to do nothing but alternately attempt to bake and drown yourself, smearing white stuff on yourself in between.

In short, heaven. All of it here...

I took a couple of issues of Bass Guitar Magazine with me, some interesting articles in there including DIY tips for fitting aftermarket EQ systems, although admittedly only into Fender basses, which leaves mi slightly out in the cold as I've tried all the Jazz basses and wasn't impressed... if you remember, gentle reader, it was after trying all 3 "grades" of jazz bass I ended up buyiong my adorable Warwick :)

We're back now, I didn't want to post to the blog from the phone (the GPRS service was patchy too) I thought I'd wax lyrical once I got back.

Gigolo stuff...
Oooo - meetings are starting! We've got 7 gigs between now and the end of August, we need to cram 20 in by christmas so that's a great start. First rehearsal back was monday, and it went well considering I haven't played a note for 2 weeks: even remembered the excellent new midsections for a couple of songs we worked on before I left.

Jake looks tired though, I'm worried he's doing too much, not just with the band but all the other work he's doing.

The Crawley Retreat Studios look fantastic though - the extra room upstairs is now a chillout area(!) and the multicore is installed between downstairs and upstairs - all 16 channels of it with 3 talkbacks for headphones - and I'm told the drum sound is good, kit's fully miked up.

Wicked. There's so much going on! Nic's settling into her new job, seems like she might enjoy it, and she's still trying to decide between a fully loaded new look Citroen C5 or a Jag S-Type twin turbodiesel. These are not choices I expect to make off music salaries anytime soon (or indeed, at all!)...

Knackered but still happy.

Alas, my falsetto is getting falser by the minute... can't seem to shake this cough! I was saddened to hear of the death of Richard Whiteley: although not an avid watcher of Countdown, it's one of those shows which has entered british conciousness so deeply that even the format of the show is used in stand-up comedy (a sure sign of a much-treasured cultural gem). He also had the capacity of use his demeanour to great effect when delivering some quite surreal humour, I seem to remember. Good on him.

The Band
Things continue to continue! No concrete stuff about deals, signings etc but Dan and I are developing quite a bass/drum rapport: his right foot, coupled with the extreme spring he puts on his bass drum pedal, means he can really pile in the kick drum rolls. Combine that with the re-emergence of my machine gun triplets using slap and snap, and we're locking together in an almost primus-type way. The stuff we were writing last night had a stone cold groove to it!



The Studio at Home
I have started to unpack! The monitors are out, the speakers are out, and just breaking the back of getting a few things out of boxes has made me feel like I will get it all done eventually!

I'll be coming home from the rehearsal tonight slightly earlier than usual, I think: this level of tiredness can't continue... I may be making myself ill, and it's off on holiday soon to Crete! We've got various parents who are being kind enough to mind old pond towers for us. I tempted my Dad by offering the services of the projector so he can fly his flight simulator on a massive screen :) He was quite interested. Heh!

3 showers in one day? I don't take a bottle at all...

What a weekend... had to go into the loft in the soaring heat of the emerging English Summer. Outside temperatures hit 30-something degrees, and inside temperatures hit this 30-something :)

Ah, the joy of stashing boxes. I had to have 3 separate showers on Sunday, with an evening rehearsal with Gigolo. Which was OK, we actually started writing some new stuff which I've captured onto minidisc. Good groove, and the beginnings of some structure! We've all decided it's time to get a multicore connected to the studio upstairs from the rehearsal room so we can get recordings done easier. We could even do some semi-pro bits for gig promo stuff. That'd be cool.

Ah, Gigolo... the name... apparently it doesn't go down well with the company men who came to see us in Oxford last wednesday, so we might be looking to rename again... I'm still fond of Neo, which was one of my suggestions and made it to the final round ;)

Tricky thing, naming a band. How do you get across that urban groove/soul/funk feel in a name?

Any suggestions... hey, email me!

In other news, Jake likes my website and thinks I'll do the Gigolo one. I'll make sure it's plastic enough so I can change the name at a moment's notice... heh heh!

Darkened stage...

Darkened stage II,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

Thought I'd post a pic of the stage after we soundchecked. You can just see my Warwick Stack on the right, behind the slats of the strange wall thing. The PA stacks look so mean!


- - - - - Slideshow!!!! - - - - -
Found out Flickr's slideshow feature looks fantastic - fades in and out and everything ;) - you can check out the slideshow of my Gigolo pics...
[ ..:: Here At Flickr! ::.. ]

Music Music Music Music!

We gigged last night. Bridge again...

Fan-tas-tic gig! I've uploaded all the pics I took with the VS3 I had in my pocket to flickr - [ The Flickr Photos are Here! ] - not a bad haul, but I really need to get my hands one some of the pics taken by the club photographer, a thoroughly gallic lookin fella who can crawl around a stage without being noticed taking closeups of hands, faces, drums... pretty pro with the flash going off in the corner of my eye during several songs!

We've got some interest from a French label as well, a bunch of "senior" guys were there last night with Neil, Jake's ex-manager (don't know what their relationship is now; Neil seems like a friendly sort, and apparently they spent a long time working very hard to get Jake noticed in London).

As ever, lots of good feedback from people in the audience - the club was full! My lord, Oxford seems to have some beautiful people in it... also the usual rash of drunken dimwits ;)

My "funks me off" bass solo came off really well for once - I introduced a hamonic rhythmic slap section into the middle, and it worked! I really, really need to congeal that whole solo and practise it until I know it backwards!!!

I loaded 100 - and - something kilos of gear into the car (cabs, amp, basses, stands, mic stands, mics, recording equipment, cables, clothes - I wore the dreadlocks! - a mixer which might have been used, jake's keyboard, which I'd fixed the night before) and forgot my shoulder bag, which contains all my cash cards. The Xantia was almost empty - oops - so I had to cadge 20 quid off Abid here at work (bless him!) so I could get to the gig and back! Fortunately it stretched to Pizza Hut salad plate at £5 as well, so I totally loaded it up with pasta and stuffed myself with good carbs, which definitely kept me going until 2am when we finally finished breaking down the 5Kw PA system (loads of overhead: didn't have to run it flat-out, therefore fidelity sound, good reproduction and less boom! Nice) which Nobby the Great had brought and mixed up for us at 24 hours notice - what a star. Good gear too, mackie 32 channel live desk, the works.

Jame and Richie were kind enough to let me scoot off once I'd loaded the car (we'd already done Nobby's stuff). Getting it unloaded back in Dorney was an exercise in tiptoeing around with 30 kilo cabs and amps! :)

All in all, a deeply rewarding experience, although not financially... yet. We had to pay for the PA last night (well worth it it was too!) - I've got to keep an eye on how much I'm spending on diesel, rehearsal rooms etc, just in case things get tight and I need to work out what to do - just having moved house to a place far away from work (well, compared to Rosemore) I'm unsure how money will get spent from here on in! This is the first month... cross fingers ;)

Man cannot live on smiles alone...

But if he could... I'd be totally full up right now!

Not Strictly Musical...

Not Strictly Musical...,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

Well, the resurrection is in full flow with the Gigolo project, so allow a little leeway, gentle reader.



The kittens we adopted this year finally went in for their ops. once healed, they can finally venture out and bring back dead things instead of toy mice. the new pope could use that as a great counter-doctrine!



Either way, this is Talisker in her darth vader outfi.

Slightly Disturbed Amphibian

Slightly Disturbed Amphibian,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

0K, I admit it. I am really just testing the P910i posting to the blog.



But the picture does express my feelings at the jamster crapheads who pollute every single ad break with the noise I stuck on my handset 18 months ago...



Good rehearsal last night, but I must start checking the levels I'm using into the MD recorder before I start recording! digital distortion is not pretty.

Rehearsals.... more rehearsals....

No, not a "water, water" desert type moment, I'm really enjoying them at the moment. Had a legitimate 2-handed tapping moment on monday, so good I recorded it on the new P910i I've just got - top handset, it's actually restored my faith in SonyEricsson after the joystick on the T630 started acting up after only 8 months.

Ooops, got to go - another rehearsal!

Must start thinking about a Gigolo website. Something stylish. Don't want to put shockwave all over it though, pain in the arse.

Music update!

Well, it's about damn time...

The Band
OK, it's time I referred to the band by their correct name, Gigolo - a name I didn't initially warm to, but which encompasses a lot of the touchy feely funk/soul style I enjoy. I can see myself in a band called Gigolo now, and visualisation is half the battle. Hmmm, bit poncey, that. :)

There's all sorts of really exciting stuff being said, but being "experienced" (see: "not fooled again"!) I'm taking them with a pinch of salt. Jake does have great contacts though, he spent a lot of time in London trying to get signed, big showcase gigs etc: these contacts are apparently very impressed by what we can do.

And after last night's rehearsal, I think they'll be even more impressed - a spontaneous breakdown section was inserted into one of the tracks: I started playing a really simple motif on the top C at the 12th fret of the 6 string Tobias bass, then Dan started playing a really heavy metronomic beat. Now the guitarists both start harmonising with the motif, Javier starts this brilliantly squidgy little synth thing, then....

I dropped my left hand and added the bass in while keeping the top motif going with my right! Two handed tap, in the tune, and both parts were really poking out nicely. That bass is a beauty: good to look at, fantastic to play, and top sound. All this with the Q-tron on for more max squidgyness.

The breakdown sounds so sonically dense, and yet the parts lock really well: you can pick things out and really groove to it.

This is so much fun - I've never been in a band like this. Let's hope it's all going to get even better!

Give Me Road Pricing And Give Me Death...

Of out-of-town shopping centres, anyway. I got ranty with some mates on a mailing list so I thought I'd lazily post it here. It's got... feeling. ;)

It relates to recent stories regarding road pricing proposals here in teh UK and a press release from Friends of the Earth...

- - - - - - - - - -

Well well well. One sentence mentioning alternatives to the car. What a surprise. We've spent the last 20 years becoming more mobile so we can contribute to this wonderful open economy. No more jobs for life, etc, live farther from where you work.... And now...

Big stick, no carrots.

Don't get me wrong, we've got to change the way society thinks and works, but we've come too far. Out of town shopping centres, lack of bus and train (and moving them into private, profit making hands) links and services (thanks Dr Beeching) - all these things came as a consequence of the wonderful physical mobility which (pardon my simplifying) essentially tory doctrine about upward social mobility (have a car and house, be successful) created.

It's interesting that alternatives really aren't getting mentioned, apart form the usual glib crap about the railways never having carried so many people (ask a commuter while he's breathing someone else's armpit) and more investment than ever (stat crap)... Labour would hate to give the impression they want to nationalise a resource like trains which might, if actually taken seriously as in other european nations, get people from A to B and creating wealth like good little ants...

Oh - and 2p a mile sounds great. Now, how the hell do I work out how to get to work on B roads which are carrying all the other traffic which doesn't want to pay £1.35 to get past J11 of the M4?...

And I haven't even talked about the technology involved (part of which is in my technical sphere) - any estimates coming out of government about how much this will cost, when it will work etc should be laughed at with an Uzi.

I've had enough typing reasoned responses to stuff like this. Unless we stand up as a nation and tell these overstuffed lawyer career politician crapheads to go get a real job for a while and come back to earth where the rest of us live, we're doomed to be force-fed half-baked politically-warped ideas like this one. Voting is pointless.

There, I said it again ;)

"The Feeling" - you and a drummer approaching telepathy

The posts are coming out of me thick and fast today. I suppose I should adopt a less wordy style and start sticking buzzwords in like other less verbose bloggers...

bt i cnt b bthrd. :)

Dan the Drummer Dies Divinely Demented
Dan and I have started having those "moments" that drummers and bassists should have (and which I haven't really known for a long time, not having rehearsed extensively with one drummer for a long time now). I'll put a little background in.

This song, "funks me off", is a real funk blast, but it's the tune where we get a solo each with an intro spot from Jake. You know, the music hall number. The guitarists are big fans of rawk and/or roll and they've come up with an impressive harmonised twin guitar offensive for part of their solo spot. Dan (bless him and his slightly injured hand - another thing we have in common, my right, his left) plays much more driving bass drum parts during this stuff, so I decided to stop being quite so Flea and instead kept a tight low E to octave E with his bass drum.

When we finished working through that the first time Dan shot up from his kit, eyes blazing and proclaimed loudly that he was in love (bless) with that section of the track now, and could we play it again?

This we did. Dan's got a really solid right foot, he doesn't wander too much bar to bar and that's the real trick.

However, at one point we stopped as someone called time (they wanted to say something) and Dan ended the drums with a little fill across the whole kit, which I matched beat for beat by accident on the bass. Javier (keys man, and some player) was freaked and said we'd started to achieve some mental symbiosis of some kind :)

This, as any bass player knows, is exactly where you want to get to. And in perfect time for the gig on wednesday. Nice.

Dan gets the stitches out from his left hand today. With any luck this won't impede his progress at all... cross fingers. Me, not him.

Know your amp. Or at least the size of the %!?& thing!

D'oh
I decided the 4U case from Stagg wasn't the best for the job, so I decided on a pukka (excuse Jamie Oliver quote) SKB flightcase from Flightcase Warehouse. Top speed delivery, it arrives today.

But you see, gentle reader, the case is a 2U effects rack. So not only is it not deep enough (I need 455mm) it's also not tall enough (I need 3U).

What was I thinking? D'oh!

Turns out, though, that FCW guys have a great attitude and good returns policy. As soon as I get the invoice I can return a copy of it with the goods for a full refund, and I'll be ordering a replacement 3U full depth case from them ASAP. I the meantime I'll just have to put some extra support into the stagg case somehow... I do have some ideas. :)

The Band
I love being in this band. Everybody is so full of energy, it infuses me with thoughts I haven't had for a long time. Last night, for example, I actually found myself planning a solo in "funks me off", replete with big machine gun triplet outro!

It's just so much FUN!

Blimey! Of speed and where the loud things are...

Holy crap, that woke me up - the blogger new post page loaded ultra fast!

It's all good news, well almost.

The Amp Saga
I've decided to end this long-running battle to have my amp and have it working. To recap, the final story is now:
1) Get amp delivered 5th April
2) Finally purchase cabs for end of April.
3) Discover amp not working, just mains hum from the speakers.
4) Take amp into london bass centre myself (31 Kgs of it) at overall cost of around 40 quid
5) Amp takes 3 weeks to get back to me despite my leaving them my address and receipt details of transaction for guarantee job
6) TNT don't deliver despite Nic being in all day
7) Amp finally gets back to me and TNT have managed to play football with a 31Kg flightcase.

Seriously, the box the amp in the flightcase had fragile tape all over it, and it was fully of holes where crap had pierced the box. Nightmare worst case scenario for 1250 quids worth of amp.

All that was wrong with the amp initially when I took it back in was an internal connector which had fallen off. When I looked inside the Amp after removing its slightly bent (I kid you not) form from the case, 3 connectors and the frickin power tube were all flapping around in the case of the amp. Thankfully the tube wasn't broken.

I put the poor thing back together and it seems to be working fine - big volume test last night at rehearsal, it sounds excellent - but it's been shafted more by trying to get it fixed.

I'd recommend that if you buy anything from the Bass Centre, ask them explicitly not to ship by TNT, and that if they do, you'll send back anything which looks like it's been shat on by a neanderthal asshole in a luton transit.

I've decided not to go any further. The amp is currently working. If it stops, I'll get warwick to fix it, not the bass centre. There are dents and scratches on the body of the amp which give me the impression that it may have had some rough handling before it went back into the flightcase as well, but that's a different story.

I'm mightily pissed off with all of them, the useless bastards!

Still at least it's working, looks great and sounds better.

... and now it's couriers that are the problem. Oh yes.

Yeah, right. Apparently it did get despatched on friday, 24 hour delivery, so it should have arrived yesterday. My guess? The driver was too pissed to drive and left the van at a pub.

Bet it's broken when it arrives as well.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I'm so PISSED OFF with EVERYBODY!

In other news....

Music
We've got quite a VIP for the gig on the 25th. Major vocalist from leading band! No more to be said...

Curse the Bass Centre. Curse them and their nose hairs.

This isn't funny anymore. I rang on Friday from Rosemore during packing of the last dribbles of crap, only to be told they don't have any contact details for me at all (lost the stuff I filled out when I dropped it off) - not even a phone number.

This was actually useful in a perverse twist, as I could get it delivered to the new house. So I quoted them the new address, and was told "despatched friday for delivery on monday". Fat chance... no sign of it yet, now I'll have to ring them AGAIN.

They don't even stock the strings I need anymore: last time they had to get them shipped in from Birmingham!

Time to buy elsewhere, I think. Why is it always this way? You find somewhere you can get what you need, then they either get conglomerated or just bought out, and BANG... there goes the stock range down to the lowest crappy denominator (korean built bass fest for 14 year old kids with daddy deep pockets and only 4 and 5 string sets of strings)... same happened with Sound Control when I used to shop there.

Pah.

Moving completed... BUT...

Well, I'll include the odd non musical posting as well.
The New House
It's wonderful, the pictures do it justice. The internals are in a better state than Rosemore's, and very shortly we'll have a new boiler as the current one has been trashed by bits of chimney falling into it - they forgot to line the chimney (oops!) - we found this out the hard way when we tried to fire up the boiler on tues only to be rewarded with a thin wisp of black smoke on top of the house and an overpowering fuel oil fume smell inside it :) Luckily a little air cleared the smell.

Turns out this is a silver lining - new boiler = more efficient, plus it'll have separate timers for heating and water, which suits me.

The old house is quite forlorn: I didn't think I'd have any moments where I regretted moving out of it, but to be honest I don't think I realised how much I like the place. Got a little something in my eyes looking at the rabbits frolicking on the back lawn. Then I went back to moving furniture we're ditching about :)

Nellie the Virago is taking the luxury path to the new place courtesy of specialist bike movers, who sound like they really do actually care about the bike!

The new house is, of course, totally full of boxes, but Nic is doing a spectacular job of working through them. She managed to get the 2-man-lift TV out of the box and onto the TV unit thing herself, which means I'm now a little scared of her.

Music
Had to miss weds practise, which I was really looking forward to, but to be honest my stuff was all over the place (the move guys were enthusiastic to say the least!) and I was exhausted after 12 hours of packing and moving stuff. I drank about a litre or so of red bull type linctus-sweet drink, so i figure I probably had about 400 MGs of caffeine.

The studio does not exist yet, but will soon. The new Warwick Pro Tube IX amp, BTW, still isn't in my hands but should be delivered (to the new address) on monday. Luckily they didn't have my address (or phone number, I might add - lost that bit of paper very well. I think the Bass Centre may be losing it a bit, esp since they became part of House of Guitars. Seems like they're not really on the ball any more) - so I could ask them to actually deliver it to the new address.

This sunday's rehearsal will be top fun, and the first run up the M40, so I'll be measuring miles and time. We've got to learn loads of new tracks in time for the first gig on the 25th, three half hour sets need to be filled.

Enough!

Bloc Party Addiction

Wow, I'm getting completely addicted to Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. Heard of them last year when in Amsterdam with a bunch of miscreants I knew at Uni. Great week (orange day at the weekend, stupendous fun, I'd recommend it to anyone, the whole centre of the city becomes like one big festival site).

MTV was on most days and nights, and Bloc party's "Banquet" seemed to be on all the time, it hooked me immediately, all spiky and catchy.

Now I can't stop listening to Helicopter!

The Band
Things are getting even more interesting. Jake seems to have red bull for blood, he's on the scent of something big, I reckon. Dan tells me he and Jake have been sorting loads of stuff, and we've got our residency gig sorted, it seems: starting on the 25th, I gig each week, a greater gig frequency than I've ever had before.

This will be where hard work actually starts!

Also, I hear stuff from the guys that the gig on the 25th will be pretty special, with lots of "interesting people" coming along... I'm trying to concentrate on my part to play in all this, rather than getting carried away.

Still, it's great to have something which has some speed building up behind it, rather than the years since I left uni, which have been filled with small short-term alliances (although the ones in london were fun, I can say I've gigged in london - and the wedding reformation of Citrus Waltz was top fun)...

I'm a little scared. Bear with me. This is actually a good thing, maybe this'll push my technique to new places. I've always wanted to be as fluid as Zender... maybe this'll do it.

Currently I'm listening to Belle and Sebastian... odd stuff.

Clouds and sunshine...

Hmmm, a bit of a hackneyed title, but I'm no lyrics man.

Stuff has happened. Not all good stuff, but life is supposed to challenge you a bit and I've spent too much of mine so far trying not to get into situations where I have to make decisions: I'm pretty sure at some level I'm always petrified of making the wrong one.

El Stacko
Well, I got some speakon cables last saturday (ta maplin) - pity they didn't have any 2.5mm diameter conductor ones so I'll have to see how these 1.5mm ones work out in the short term - they're all I could get. I also took the time to buy some "proper" XLR to XLR balanced mic cables.

I spent a portion of the weekend meeting up with some old friends down on the Reading meadows, where they were chasing around after coloured plastic discs which sail when thrown. I thought only retrievers did that, but there you go, there is a game called frisbee.

On arriving home, yours truly eagerly hooked up all items, and turned on the amp (mute on, of course, although I'm sure the amp has speaker protection). Preamp lights are on, we're go across the board. Plug in the 6 string (no pod yet), hit the mute to turn it off and....

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Bollocks.

I fiddled with cables (checking their polarity and wiring against the helpfully located labels on the amp and cabs) for about half an hour, but nothing could elicit any noises from the stack. The poweramp section is buggered. Arse.

So, I rang the bass centre in london (or now, the "house of guitars" as they are known) and yes, they are open on sundays, but the amp guy doesn't get in until tuesday (bank holiday monday y'see) so I could drop it off.

Wanting to get things moving as quickly as possible, I got up early on sunday, and tried to get into london (ealing broadway by car, then overland to paddington and circle to liverpool st, then a shortish walk to their place). Took me 3 bloody hours, lugging 26 kilos of busted amp. Thankfully the luggage shop ("left luggage") in Paddington has baggage trolleys which will take 30 kilos, so after I hit paddington things became a tad more comfortable.

So far all I know is the amp guy is looking at it. Grr. I'll ring him in a minute and see what I can find out...

The Band
Things seem to be moving apace: our residency at Bridge in oxford looks to be in the bag - 25th of May is our first gig. Last night, however, we played something of a mini-showcase style gig for some assembled contacts of Jake's. It's gone awfully well... but I can't reveal any more than that right now. We really did play blindingly well though, Dan's drumming is becoming something of a revelation!

Phew! Enough for now.

It's all together. Zipe.

More Musical Matters.

OK, now I need to fill in the important stuff.

Wrist recovery
This is continuing to go really well. My slap came back much quicker than I'd hoped: it seems to be pretty much back up to scratch apart from the fastest of the triplet stuff, which is fair enough considering that I still can't use my right hand to lift really heavy stuff at the moment. Fingerstyle is going just fine. The only thing I need to do is make sure my nail beds don't get quite so hammered with my slap style: I fear I need to work on that or I'll end up peeling them back horribly. My index finger is showing the strain today, and I've got another rehearsal tonight!

Recording session!
Had another session with Joost for his college project, doing Stevie Wonder's "MasterBlaster". Good fun, but I really wish I'd had more time to work on it (I squeezed it into a couple of evenings work, which meant I got the feel, and the couple of unison riff areas in the tune down OK). First take! And I was sat in the control room playing along with a MIDI interpretation of the tune Joost did as a placemarker to record against. Totally hysterical vocal lines, and this massive lo-fi choir patch in the second chorus which meant I lost my place in the run-through before the recording!

Still not sure if I got the second unison bit right, though. Oops, just checked. Joost's MIDI was right, I forgot the high section! Blast. Wonder if he wants to re-record it? Thing is, with moving and the oxford funky pop act, I really don't have time to do much of anything at the moment, including "proper" practise. The rehearsals are pretty much all I'm doing at the moment (which is very very bad of me).

Audiences at rehearsals!
I mentioned this in passing before. Jake does seem to know a lot of guys who can do the sorts of things we need to be able to do. His previous agent (he was based in london a while ago from what I gather) used to scout for EMI, and he's going to pay us a visit during rehearsals. The audience we've been getting recently are involved in the club "Bridge" in oxford where Jake is trying to get a residency for the band. I think our guitar players didn't realise how good we'd get after a few rehearsals. The original material is sounding really great, the interpretations the whole band are making of the recorded versions (from Jake's studio) are original and fresh. Sounds like our erstwhile 6 stringers have a fairly successful paying rock act which gets a fair few gigs: I've told Jake I don't have any other acts and I'm concentrating on making this a goer. It's cool, he's actually demanding a level of loyalty which I'm starting to enjoy.

New Gear - the Stack from Hell
Well, I don't have the cabs yet, but at least I've paid for them :) Didn't hear anything from Mad Monks for a couple of days so I rang them - turned out they'd emailed me at home (my ebay account is registered to a home email account) rather than the email address here at Pana where I wanted them to mail me. After treating me like a lost friend, they quickly ironed out payment, and I managed to get 60 quids worth of polycarbonate 4U rack mount (Stagg, I think it is) for the Warwick Pro-Tube IX head to sit in. Which means even my feeble wrist will be able to lift it easily (and comfortably).

Bit of advice: if you buy an amp head which says it's rack-mountable, but it has rubber feet on, don't skimp and leave a rack out of the order: get one to fit, the amp head will be incredibly awkward to lift and carry!

Now all I need are a couple of speakon cables to hook the whole shebang up. And some floor reinforcement. :)

Must stop buying things!

Location, location, location...

Lots more rehearsals later, we're getting the occasional audience out at jake's place. I thought I'd post some interesting details, and some not so interesting ones, in the spirit of keeping things up to date :)

Movin' movin' movin'

It's going to get more interesting in the very near future, Nic and I are moving house: out from under Newbury, and up the M4 to just north of windsor to Dorney (Multimap), a tiny village just over a hill from the M4 (feels really rural for its' location).

With the rehearsals being in the studio in Crawley near oxford (Multimap) this is going to make life a little tough - I suspect the M40 is going to get used in preference - but if I continue working at Panasonic for a while (Multimap) trying to stop myself from going insane, then the drive up there of an evening ain't so bad.

The house is so worth it though. Check this baby out!



A stunning house. It even has a grapevine and a sky dish!

the cast is off!

Woohoo! I'm free! So now i just need to work on getting my slap technique back up to scratch. I've been playing bass the whole time, which might have helped my speedy recovery. 5 weeks, not the usual 6! I'm dead pleased, as you can tell. The wrist support is my own, the one i was using previously for snowboarding before the gloves which did such a great job of protecting my wrist from more harm. The nhs did supply one, bless them, but it isn't as good as this one. My typing has gone through the roof!

Great rehearsals at crawley with jake and the band. Last night's was a blinder, lots of fast tracks. Hopefully now i can play faster for longer. The cast got in the way a lot, had to play at very odd angles.

View from the cymbal

Shiny shiny...

rehearsals...

I'm still managing to play fairly well with the cast on. I thought i'd drop off a pic or two from wednesday's rehearsal, which went really well. The writing vibe is developing nicely, we can take something really edgy which jake has polished in the studio and interpret it a little to give it a funky feel which works well live. Not bad!

Another era of amplification...

Well, sort of! I've been through a few amps while I've been playing. Might be good for posterity to record them here (albeit in my rather crappy typing with this bloody cast!), so here's what I remember...

- = = 1st amp! = = -
A 15W guitar practise amp, plus a hifi speaker which I put in the corner of my room, speaker facing into the corner, and believe me that creates a great low-end port. I got a good sound out of that with my first bass, a spangly white hohner arbor bought in Sound Control Dundee. Top shop.

- = = Then... = = -
My first real amp, a carlsbro cobra 90 combo. Not the loudest amp in the world, but I got great mileage out of it. I even made up a parallel speaker cable at one stage when I was with a prog rock act called "Indecision" in St Andrews so I could run two speaker cabs off it and still keep the impedance at 8 ohms. I didn't blow it :) I did put castors on it though, rescued off a sofa :) they did a good job - the thing had a traditional single handle on the top, bloody awkward!

- = = And then... = = -
I bought a 120 watt valve amp (off the back of a magazine article), a "sound city", but couldn't afford cabinets (weeps) - the thing was a monster, I got it down leith walk in Edinburgh. Some good secondhand music gear shops down there then, not sure about now...

- = = And then... = = -
Back to Sound Control Dundee! I traded in the Carlsbro and the Sound City for a Peavey TNT 150 plus a 2x8" 20W powered bright box. The TNT saw me through the rest of my university life and on until I was living in reading! The bright box I still have - it's incredibly useful, and the fretless sounds great through it. At one stage I used it for vocals in a gig in the beer bar in St Andrews with Citrus Waltz!

- = = And then... = = -
I sold the TNT to a contractor at work, and I bought the Warwick CCL I use at the moment. 1x15 and 250 watts solid state. The thing has side handles (finally!) and a built-in trolley (which is bloody useful). I bought an 8 ohm Trace Elliot 2x10 cab from the Bass Centre (when it was still in wapping, and got it back to Ealing Broadway on my own on the tube!), and as a system it sound great. But... I need more power for big gigs. So...

- = = The announcement = = -
I just bought the Bass Centre's LAST special half-price offer Warwick Pro Tube IX 900 watt stereo tube/solid state head. Turns out the line is being discontinued, so BC got a good deal on clearing the stock, and I get the benefits. Sweet! Keep an eye on ebay shops, that's what I say! Next, I'll get the classic arrangement of 1x15 and 4x10 cabs, both warwick, and for the first time in my playing life I'll have that pro looking stack, with the power to match. The head gets great reviews, with versatile routing capabilities. Nice!

Otherwise, it's still rehearsals as usual in Cowley: I've been using a Trace V4 combo, which sounds incredible. Hope the twin pre-and power amp tubes in the IX give that kind of growl!

Life is good. Now if I can just get this damn cast off I can practise properly!

Back to the Music... sort of!

well, if you've followed the other blog I was running at andy-boards-in-canada.blogspot.com you'll know typing is a royal pain in the arse with only my left hand :)

I've fractured my radius snowboarding!

Actually, it's not totally SNAFUd, thank god. The gloves I bought just before I left saved my wrist from needing any work done on it other than a cast. And the good news is I had a rehearsal with the JC Band in Oxford yesterday evening, and it went off OK. No slap, obviously, but my fingerstyle is still up to about 70% of what it should be, so I'm going to be able to keep my end up (so to speak) for the three weeks or so until my cast comes off, at which point I'll go ballistic getting my right hand limber.... as...

We've got a gig in a 700 capacity club in Oxford in about 6 weeks!

The rehearsals are going to ramp up to the full 2 a week ( for me ) with another one for the rest of the guys, and we are now up to an 8 piece, with keyboards and a second backing vox/tenor sax player!

Think I'll have to dig out my rusty sax writing skills from the days of the apostles of funk... hope I can remember what I did!

I'll keep you posted. I managed to play hard enough yesterday to get a fine blister on my right middle finger!

The studio lurches into life!!!

Yay! I've finally completed arranging and plugging in the workstation. The PC is back up, but I haven't started truly hooking the desk up to it yet. I'll need some more cables to sync the clocks of the soundcard and the desk via digital connections. I have a feeling I might be able to get the groups coming through as well, but that remains to be seen...

also not tried the MMC Midi Machine Control stuff yet.

But, I did do a bit of work on Pete's vocal track from the Citrus Waltz sessions the four of us had a few months back: I think the mic must have been fading in and out (possibly thanks to my slightly cranky old spirit folio desk) so I had to run through pete's entire vocal performance boosting gain with a ramp in / ramp out filter to smooth in my work!

Probably took about 25 minutes of intense concentration for the 2:30 duration of the track, but well worth it. You can actually hear Pete all the way through now!

I even started trying to fatten out Smurf's guitar. Must install a load more VST effect plugins - in particular, I need an aural exciter from somewhere....

At least the studio is coming together. Unlike my MP3 portable HDD, which is about to die - panic offloading to the server in the house, etc - I've purchased a replacement which I'll be loading with the lot as soon as it's ready to go.

And in other news...
The Oxford Funk Carter Project now has a keyboard player!!! Jake says he's got the services of a good keyboard player from a local covers act, and knowing the guys Jake has picked out so far, he must be good. When I get back the whole thing's going to kick off, gigs and everything. I'm looking forward to it!

Current listening pleasure:
Would you believe I'm listening to Tay FM over the web? Talk about your blast from the past! I used to listen to them a lot driving to Perth Music College from St Andrews in the mornings... still got the best adverts I've heard, so much better than the terrible po-faced crap on 2-Ten FM here in Berkshire...

Nelly the Virago packed her trunk...

Well, she would if she had one.

Just testing a flickr photo-to-blog thing. Seems to work fine... so I've posted a pic of the virago all the time, trouble and cash is going to see me cruising along the congested berkshire highways on :)

My studio line...

That one'll be totally lost on anyone who never saw the adverts for the haircare product line :)

Life is full of ironies... I spend a small fortune on a centrepiece of top tech (the new mixing desk) and my time gets constrained so I can't actually plumb it in until a week later! The poor thing's been sat on the floor leant up against a variety of things while I dismantle the studio and try to work out how to rearrange things.

Jake's set up in Crawley is pretty good. I don't need a keyboard right in front of the desk though (the cheetah would no doubt go through any desk I put it on!).

I do like the idea of using some other piece of furniture to make the desk deeper, then I could place the monitors further back and perhaps raise them. This little escapade is starting to persuade me I do need two flat panel jobs, so I don't have half the problem I've got with space taken up by the old CRT monitor.

Decisions, decisions... hopefully I'll have something I can use by the end of sunday.

..:: The Crawley File ::..
Well, it's a break in rehearsal for a few weeks while various people (including me, off to canada) go on hols. The last rehearsal was stunning - like I said in previous posts, I was deeply embarassed when I heard myself playing from the previous sunday. So I backed off, adopted some kind of strategy for building a bassline towards the end of a song, didn't experiment wildly... and it felt really good. I'll be spending more time listening to the tape I made then and getting some solidity cast about the parts I play.

I've also been entertaining ideas of using all this nice new studio equipment to record other people... perhaps for cash?

Speaking of cash, my pile of ebay-ables continues to grow. I need to leverage the unbridled power of this 1.1GHz laptop to get the calibration and customisation of that pile of GD35s into some sellable state!

And my dad loves his birthday present!

More rehearsals....! Oh, and -

I passed the motorcycle theory test OK.

More rehearsals? Well, there's something I haven't been able to write about in a long time :) It's going really well. On sunday, I even took the old 4 track with me, miked up the room and DId the bass in to the other side so I could have a reference to what I was playing.

I was not very impressed!

Ach, it's like hearing yourself talking on tape for the first time if you haven't done it for ages. I decided I need to pay more attention to song structure, tension, build and release, etc. Especially when the songs are played live. The recorded versions have build in them, but live it becomes a bit more organic.

What I heard on tape wasn't too bad in places, with some good ideas, but basically I heard someone going batshit after too much time practising at home. For shame, Andy! Far too busy, needs more consistency. I need more time to actually learn the song structures and think about what I want to play. At the moment I'm still doing a lot of improvisation, which isn't what I have in mind for this project.

So right now I've got the 4 tracks on the CD Jake gave me on rotation here while I type to help me get more perspective. In particular, I'm going to cut back on the "run before you walk" aspect of my slap playing :) Some of the tracks also need some small amount of melodic variation introduced via the bass, perhaps.

Another rehearsal tonight. Hope my poor exhaust doesn't drop off... actually, that's a good point. I'd better take a closer look at that later, it's the pipe into the back box that's got fumes blowing. I might have to implement that temporary repair sooner than I think...

And Joost is coming over tomorrow night for some funk as well! Things have suddenly exploded and no mistake. The good news is I must have been practising a decent amount before all this started because my hands are fine: the fingers of my right hand are getting so strong I can feel the muscles in them as I type :)

I started dismantling the studio yesterday evening, I need to rethink the arrangement of things in light of a new Mixing desk I've purchased. I wanted something to replace the old folio 12 channel stereo mixer I've had for years, and get some automation with Cubase going - some control surfaces rather than trying to use mice scroll wheels to mix with.

And Dolphin Music stepped in with an offer on the Soundcraft 328XD which couldn't be missed (well, once my traditional scottish reserve stepped in and I checked the deal for holes three times, also checking the online downloadable manuals for mentions of Cubase and the possibilities therein)... so I ordered it last thursday, and it arrived on friday. Impressive. The flightcase will take a couple of weeks though.

Great live desk, and I haven't even hooked it up to Cubase yet(!) - this is why I'm reorganising the studio.

In non-musical news, the car is costing a fortune at the moment. 320 quid of hydraulic servicing (regular stuff, spheres, filters, new LHM etc - just all at once), 200 quid on new Michelins, and now the exhaust needs replacing... and I've got a service coming up in 800 miles and want to get that poor bluetooth car kit fitted which has been kicking around the boot for about 12 months or something... argh! Oh, and we're running out of heating oil, but who wants to refill a tank at 500 quid when you're just about to move out? Not us.

Grr. Oh well, I'll just go mad in Canada and pay for it for the rest of the year :P

Of Bands and Bikes...

Well, wish me luck. In 5 minutes I pack up for the day and roar off in the Xantia to go do my Motocycle Theory Test (gulp).

I'm not overly worried, but it's only human to have some butterflies.

. . : : Music News : : . .
In other news... had the first "whole band" experience with Jake's troop up Crawley way. Fan-tastic! The sort of high-octane funkery I've been missing for years, with musicians who can lay a groove down (great feeling for a first get together, I can tell you) and a pretty talented writer in Jake, who MCs the band really well. The man's got stage presence up the wazoo.

And he likes the Q-Tron, which is also brilliant.

Seriously, I was exhausted by the time we finished at 9:30pm, I played some of the best funk I've played in ages, and I get the feeling if I stay with them I'll start making some huge leaps in ability and bassline writing, especially in slap terms. That sort of "laid back" slap approach that pop/funk often needs, without insane triplet action - I played some of that last night, it felt like grabbing a rope that was just in reach before swinging across a chasm, then losing it for a sec, then getting it again... I want to nail that sort of bass playing!

Drummer's great, really solid - but hi hat patterns for soul music seem to wear him out :) In his defence, it sounds like he's really busy, with showcases, etc.

The only thing they're worried about is if I can commit to the project (love that phrase!) - right now, I think I'm committed, but what about those pressures... the upcoming move house thing, trying to ensure Nic doesn't get muscled out as I continually play gigs and rehearse, the crappy day job (which I'm having enough trouble getting connected with at the moment as it is)... can I tell Jake I can guarantee my fidelity? Hmmmm. I should be straight with him, definitely.

Oh - and I've ordered an automated Soundmaster mixing desk to control Cubase at home. Dog's proverbials! More later - gotta go home and get the paper bit of my licence. Oops!

Andy the Happy

Could it be...

Well, went to see Jake in his Crawley studio yesterday. Great guy, full of frenetic energy and very definitely keen on funk and getting people dancing. Crucial, that. Great studio, too. Protools on a Mac G4, automated desk, plenty of good outboard effects. Sounds great.

I got put on the spot when he rolled out a track he was working on (nice twisted beat) and attempted manfully to try to get busy over the top of it... cue sweat moment, that actually felt like the audition bit :)

Then Jake picked up a parker fly guitar and started reeling out some stone funk choppiness and the funk, it flowed into me in ways I haven't felt since I was with the Apostles back in St Andrews - real jamming, playing with the beat and the interplay was great: real chemistry.

I'm hoping this'll be the start of a great friendship, and the opening of a wonderful musical chapter - gigs, recording, and the redevelopment and sharpening of my funky bass identity. I'll keep trying to play Jazz for the chops, but I'm
focussing my energies on this project: I want to make a real go of it.

Jake's got so much material backed up and waiting to go - he's just trying to get the band together to play it.

Possibility of harmony vocals too: can't wait to really stretch myself.

I'll be pouring a lot more energy into things from now on, I hope...!

At last! Likeminded Funk Folk!...

Well, it finally happened... I hope!

I got the call last night - all those websites I registered with, and it turned out to be ads in the local freeads paper which do the business. I had that one call from the south coast about ferry band slots, which sounded like fun - but perhaps not compatible with even my relatively easy going flexi-time at work - and now...

Jake.

I got called by a guy putting a funky act together in Oxford, which isn't too far to drive for the right style of music - and this is it. My influences seem to align with what they need, which is great (and certainly welcome! I'm not compromising again, I've spent time in bands I just didn't enjoy and it grates - it's actually detrimental to your playing, you wonder why you're doin' it at all...) - and I'm going up on sunday to try out, and show some chops.

Not sure what I'll be called upon to do yet - hopefully I can think on what to play on Saturday. Prob some Jamiroquai will fit the bill... wonder which one I should drag into the light :)

I'm rediscovering the Warwick again after an extended period of 6 string playing. I should really practise slap more often though, either that or work out how to wrap my index finger so the nail bed doesn't get completely knackered when I snap!

Now, to put a little more effort into the new practise regime... I need to print it so I damn well use it!

Snowboarding in a month... counting down... and my Motorcycle theory test is in a week . Time to settle down for some serious study there as well.

Oh well.