Gig report - SGP 09

Date: 23rd July 2009
Band: The Damsons
Venue: The Secret Garden Party
Type Of Gig: Festival (major)
Venue Vibe: Hippie
Audience: Where were they?
Set List: Dark Outside, Show Me The Way, In The Meantime, Hold Me, Going Places, Goodnight Baby, Be True.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

It's all good, things are getting exciting in my small little world:

SECRET GARDEN PARTY: Playing tomorrow with The Damsons, the rehearsals and warm-up gig have been good, there's a nice vibe in the band. I'm looking forward to playing in front of a decent-sized audience, playing on a big stage, and eating those festival burgers, it is simply what I live for.

EDINBURGH FRINGE: The show seems to be in remarkably good hands. I've not made it to a rehearsal for a while due to other busy stuff, but our director Pam seems incredibly upbeat about it all. Cracking cast, cracking director, my best script yet, finally - have I got it right? Well, there's every chance people will hate it, but that's another fear for another day. And the first Cambridge warm-up date is 2 tickets away from selling out too, hurrah.

BLUES ALBUM RECORDING: Got sent the first mixed track from the Matt Corrall album last night that we recorded a few weeks back. Now, I know we played well, but considering it was a live recording in a small room I wasn't expecting much in the form of audio quality. But B L I M E Y - Marto has done a cracking job, sounds crystal clear, and very, very releasable. Hurrah, again.

It will wear off, this optimism, but for now I'm bouncing along nicely, thank you.

First Damsons gig

Been an odd week that one, had so much time to achieve stuff but my body seems to have demanded a bit of a break, and alas, I've spent a few evenings simply drinking beer and wading through classic episodes of 'Rising Damp', which is still unrivalled for me in it's simplicity - better than the original Reggie Perrin? I'm not sure, perhaps shouldn't even be having this argument with myself, but either way the comic timing of Leonard Rossiter is probably something we'll never see again. So, a lazy one then, which almost makes me feel a little guilty because those brilliant actor types are working incredibly hard, so I hear, on the Edinburgh show, it's creeping up - I'm getting all excited. Have found the time though to work on the first couple of chapters of an exciting novel idea that has been buzzing around my head for a while now, more soon once I actually feel like I've got a 'product' to shout about.

First gig tonight with The Damsons, the band I've been rehearsing with for the last month or so. The show doubled up as both a warm-up for next week's Secret Garden Party festival slot, and also as part of a charity night for under privileged children in Ecuador. Not the first charity that springs to mind to be honest, but fair play to them - once I listened to the organiser (who I think was called Sarah, although she could be an Emma, or a Kate? Whoever she was, she was very friendly and kindly gave me a nice bottle of wine for playing) chat about the difficulties that surround the lives of these young adults I felt guilty about stressing about my own rather worrying financial situation - it's easy to say so, but we've got it easy, really, and it was nothing but a pleasure to be part of such a worthy event. The night itself was slightly scary - I'm no snob but Romsey Labour Club, on Mill Road in Cambridge, is a fucking scary place. I'm amazed my car was still there by the end of it, without any scratches (apart from the one I did to it in another curb-related incident on the way out), and some of the locals didn't look like they were going to be in to it. Amazingly, they were, and we played to a rowdy, but ultimately supportive audience who made us feel like we did well tonight. Did we actually play well? I think we did, you know, certainly better than a band who has only had a handful of rehearsals anyway. The Damsons are growing on me in a big way, as people - all of them are frankly lovely, and I'm starting to enjoy to myself/relax a bit with them more and more often. This is why I love being in bands - people are, just generally, a bit great. So, first gig out of the way - felt like a home tie, next week The Secret Garden Party gig is a whole different kettle of fish altogether, as much as I never understood that term.

Also, from now on I'm going to try and keep a record of the setlists from the gigs that I play; gigs are a strange one, I do so many and they can easily get forgotten, obsolete in a world of other shows, and yet each show is so individual at the same time and it would be wrong for all the effort to go to waste with out remembering it somehow. So, quickly, match report of tonight's show is below:

Date: 18th July 2009
Band: The Damsons
Venue: Romsey Labour Club, Cambridge
Type Of Gig: Charity gig
Venue Vibe: Phoenix Nights
Audience: Scary, but nice
Set List: Dark Outside, Show Me The Way, In The Meantime, Hold Me, Going Places, Desperately, Goodnight Baby, Be True.

"That's not the blues"

There's really only one thing better than a plan coming together, and that's when there isn't really a plan but it still turns into something rather lovely. That was very much the case on Saturday; the recording of Matt Corrall's harmonica-led album. To say we had very little idea of what we were actually going to record was understatement, the rehearsal on Wednesday night (which only featured half the band) was good fun - but let's face it, it was just a jam with very little structure. Having lost a bassist during the week, we called around and, at stupidly short notice (Friday afternoon) were lucky enough to secure the services of Mr. Marcus Hood. But there was still no set agenda - apart from to record a whole album, live, in the space of 8 hours, that showcases the impeccable harmonica playing of the boy Corrall. Naturally, our plans leant towards simple 12 bar blues, because you don't need to rehearse that at all. But Saturday sooned turned into something all the more brilliant, if I may be so arrogant to suggest such a thing without listening to the final mixes. My old chum Marto Randle was our engineer for the day, Matt had a case full of harmonicas, Kerry (Dear Old Blighty) was in genius mode, Claudia McKenzie from The Winter Kings guested on bass for 2 hours, Marcus was generally very chatty, I drank lots of caffeine, and all in all great things were created. Maybe it was because Matt, Marcus and myself had appalling hangovers (well, me and Matt did, Marcus really should of done if he didn't) following our "couple of beers" on Friday night to discuss the project. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because you can lock 6 above average musicians in a small room in Huntingdon for 8 hours and it's either a case of creating mass tune-age, or sitting in silence. Whatever it was, we're very proud of the project - 12 songs nailed, fusing very different genres, from psychedelic rock to good old fashioned piano-led New Orleans jazz. Claudia, a blues bassist by trade, was very quick to say "that's not the blues" on a couple of occasions, but none of us had a problem with that. What we've created will never rip the charts apart, but would certainly serve as a fascinating instrumental soundtrack to an eerie movie, and it's a credit to Matt's playing that I was never bored with the noises he was creating, despite being limited to about 20 mouth organs. That twinkly keyboard song Kerry had up his sleeve that we recorded right at the end was nothing short of beautiful, if you're a Guillemots fan...

Otherwise, a nice enough weekend. Last night Rob Toulson's party in Cambridge was a joy to attend, particularly the bongo and didgeridoo jam with Bill 'The Legend' Campbell. Today saw 'Bruno' in the cinema; the more I think about it the more I like it, at the time though I was too distracted by cringing, in a being entertained way.

I actually have a day off work tomorrow, I just fancied some sleep as I don't seem to get much these days. If the sleep thing doesn't work, I'm gonna write a masterpiece instead, we'll see. I think I'm acting arrogant over the last few days and I'm not sure why, probably because I'm excited about things generally. If I tell people my arrogance is merely because I'm insecure, that makes it okay, yeah?

Some new DOB recordings...

Understated but charming enough, the results of a recent recording session involving Kerry Lambert, myself and engineer extraordinaire Rob Toulson can be found here:

http://www.myspace.com/dearoldblightypresents

I thank you.

Direction, please. I'm just too excited...

Still not entirely sure what I am; a writer or a musician? People keep telling me to focus on one, but you know - I'm really enjoying myself with both at the mo. Popped my head around the corner at the Edinburgh Fringe rehearsals the other night and everyone seemed in fine form, great to confirm a warm-up date as well - TUESDAY 4TH AUGUST AT THE CELLAR OF CB2 RESTAURANT CAMBRIDGE if anyone reads this, performances at 7.30pm and 9pm. A relief to actually find a day when the whole cast could make it, as much as the '2 shows in 1 night' trick is always potentially dangerous when audiences can't be arsed to turn up. The Facebook attendees list looks pretty sparse so far. I know Facebook isn't the world, but it does give an indication of how busy the night is going to be. Or in this case, how empty it could turn out...

Still, with 'New Adventures In Sat Nav' ready to be sent to every film producer I can find the address of, the Edinburgh show in the bag and with a head/notepad full of ideas for future projects I feel creatively in good shape...

Drum wise rehearsals start tonight for Matt's blues album, which we will record during 8 hours on Saturday - a tall order, but an exciting one. Damsons rehearsals have been great ahead of our gig next Saturday then the Secret Garden Party after that, and more work soon on the Dear Old Blighty (formally Rory Bullard) recordings very soon - young Kez and I have big ideas, only time will tell if it works, but good fun trying these things out all the same.

In a strange kind of summer-based way, I feel all festive.

First draft of the Edinburgh Fringe flyer

I'm liking this - once again, for the 4th year in a row, Matt Corrall has done us proud...

A second Edinburgh Fringe show?

I really shouldn't, should I? It's only 6 weeks till the fringe, I'd have to write a script, find a cast, a director and then work bloody hard to make sure the show actually happens, not to mention flyer design, press and accommodation for any additional actors that would be mad enough to do it. No, Paul, it's a silly idea, stop being so greedy, one show is enough and that one is still requiring a bit of work (flyers, press etc etc), we can't even fit in a local warm-up date for that one because it seems to be incredibly hard to find a night this side of August that all 4 actors are free, which is just crazy - found one evening free (24th July) and it turns out that's the night another Edinburgh show from Cambridge is premiering - at the ADC Theatre, which is likely to have the same audience as us, that's a no-go. Bugger, bugger, bugger. But back to the 2 show idea, how good would that be? Hi, I'm Paul Richards, I'm taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe this year, no actually - guess what, I'm taking two up there, because I'm fucking good. It can be done, I can take 2 days leave to write it, and then beg some people to be in it? Am I too old to beg actors these days? Maybe they'd want to do it? I don't know. But the offer of a second show is there, it's just too tempting. Really, too tempting. Oh, I do wish you'd stop putting these ideas into my head.