Quiet gigs, amazing gigs, hitting our stride

After a reasonably dull week of admin for the solo tour (and tweaking the script, plus recording some new material under the title of 'The Paul Richards Notepad' - one of the pieces can be found here), the weekend was pleasantly busy. It was busy from a musical perspective, which was nice because I've been spending too much time in a dark room writing and learning lines over the last few weeks. The Fred's House 'Bonnie & Clyde' tour continued on Friday/Saturday (the dates are initially quite scattered, but kick in properly this week with a good run of shows), Friday's show in a big venue felt odd and empty - I felt we played well, we're well rehearsed (and continually rehearsing/changing things to keep the set fresh) but this can happen sometimes. On Saturday though it was a different gig altogether - playing at the Ent Shed in Bedford, sold out show supporting the wonderful Emily Maguire, it felt like a real high point; the seated audience gave us a standing ovation, there was just a warmth in the room...if the rest of the tour is like the Bedford show we're going to be feeling very good about ourselves indeed. We're hitting our stride, it feels both comfortable and exciting. In between those two shows I played two very strange gigs in different allotments; I've recently started dating a stunning young lady (well, she's 6 months younger than me) who I met at a recent lounge show and I went to watch her brilliant ukulele band play at the 'Big Dig' events - only to find myself drumming for them whilst there, it was brilliant, random fun. I feel happy at the moment, suspiciously so.

Final lounge shows, gigs

My diary commonly reads, 'more shows like this please' these days, which is a positive thing. The last few lounge shows were really strong - I felt perhaps at Maria's I was still uncertain of the material and garbled a bit, but then by the time I performed at Andy's, Matt's and Colin's the momentum was building and my confidence hit the expected performance standard. I've got about 7 weeks now before this show tours properly, I need to hit my stride a bit quicker but on paper this show works; it's my best work to date, no doubt about that, I just need to have the stage presence to go with it. It's all progress though, 2014 is a year of progress.

In the meantime our little sitcom, And Then Things Got Complicated For Emily & Michael, has been brilliantly received. Not huge audience figures, but random people have come up to me, or messaged me, to say how much they've enjoyed it, which is lovely. Looking forward to bashing out another 4 episodes soon, these characters have a lot of life in them yet. Watched our film, The Many Struggles Of Oscar Pike, again the other day before the premiere in a few weeks time. It works, better than it should so, but it's so tragic at times...is it possible to have a feel-bad comedy that eventually turns into a feel-good movie? If so, I think that's what we've created.

This weekend it was nice to be back as a drummer again; full-on rock gig with The Prisoner Of Mars on Friday night in Cambridge, acoustic folk gig with Fred's House in Chesham on the Saturday. Both great evenings for very different reasons...I'm happy enough right now.

Fred's House filming, gigging with Trevor, more lounge shows, sitcom launched

Last week I purposely kept a good few days free simply because my car had it's MOT. You shouldn't have to leave so much time for such things, you shouldn't expect cars to be...well, broken, but I know nothing about these things. Amazingly, it was fine - no problems at all (which considering it doesn't even start some days is a miracle), but I have to admit - the free time was nice. The time was used wisely - booking more tour dates, tweaking the solo script, jam/new material sessions with Grace and Ali - some of those tracks are starting to sound really strong now.

By the weekend things were back to their normal manic ways. On Friday I played my first gig in bloody ages with Trevor Jones (and Tony on bass of course), back at the Dragoon in Brampton. Rusty start, can't deny that, but when we got into it I think we were really tight. In the audience there was a drummer over from Holland who was visiting relatives, he was incredibly supporting of my talents to the extent that his whole family were encouraged to demand a drum solo. I obliged, of course, because as entertainers we provide a service, but it was a very strange way to end the gig. Nice to be back drumming for Trev though, various commitments (his twins, Tony's family, my drumming/comedy schedule) mean this probably isn't a regular occurrence but we now have a monthly residency at that venue which is nice.

On Saturday I spent the day at St. Faiths in Cambridge to be in the promo video for the title track of the Fred's House album, Bonnie & Clyde. It's an incredible tune, one that has grown on me a lot, really delicate but builds to something stunning. It was a fun day, we were working with filmmaker Chris Jones and had invaluable help from Tom and Sam. A long session (even longer for the others, I had to dash at 6pm to do a show elsewhere) but what a fantastic team! I can't give away any details because it'll spoil the plot of the video but I can't wait to see the finished product.

Performed the solo show a couple more times this weekend as a lounge/work in progress show. Since the last batch of shows I've fiddled with the script a bit more, in fact the show now starts completely differently - but for the best I think. Both performances were completely different - at Jack's on Saturday it felt positively rowdy, loud and with lots of booze, on Sunday at Boris' house my audience was lots of scientists. A very studious bunch, but oddly the show felt more relaxed than ever and really nice chatting to them afterwards. People are great, aren't they? I think this could be the draft of the show that ends up on tour, six drafts in and it finally feels like it's really working. Four more lounge shows this week though (the final batch), let's not get carried away.

Ah yes, and that little sitcom I made with Izzy in January is launched today on YouTube. We made four episodes, here's the first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN91MfomKqU