Next batch of lounge shows, final scenes filmed

It's been an interesting few days, getting to grips with the new show. I've performed, 'Getting Lost In My Hometown' three times as a lounge/work in progress piece over the last week and, whilst I'm happy enough with it, it's clear I've still got a bit to get my head around. The performances were at Michelle's, Inge's and Lee's - the latter two were in front of audiences pretty much of complete strangers. The performance at Michelle's felt good, eventually - I was very comfortable, if a touch rusty, in front of such lovely people. It worked at Inge's and Lee's and the performances were very similar; by the end of both performances everybody I spoke to had nothing to say but positive things about it, there was plenty of laughter - in theory this should be a case of 'job done.' But the opening of the show feels like a problem still; it takes about 10 minutes for things to settle (although tonight I got an unexpected early laugh about me being a generic man because I like "breasts and Pro Evo"). Yet, on paper, I'm really fond of the material and I think the start is snappy enough, so it must be my performance that's the problem here...and it is; it's a composure thing. I appreciate there's a certain element of the audience needing to get used to me, they have no idea what to expect, but it's kind of my duty onstage to make them feel comfortable a bit quicker. Of course a key factor in all of this is that lounge shows are, as a concept, challenging...it's weird, for the audience, for the performer. It's thrilling when it works, it's a unique thrill but I look forward to them all with both equal excitement and dread. The biggest bonus is that these shows will be a lot trickier than anything I'll face on the tour or at the fringe, so I'll be heading into those in good form I reckon.

Also this weekend I played with Fred's House in Hemel Hempstead - I'll confess to not being fond of Hemel (understatement), but the venue was a brilliant theatre where the likes of Eddie Izzard had previously performed. We did well, we're in really good shape at the moment. Got lost on the way home, but we all expected that by now - the M25 junction was closed and I ended up in Enfield. Earlier on Saturday I popped in to London with my old chum Jack to see the outstanding Chris T-T play an afternoon concert at Union Chapel. Chris T-T's new album is brilliant, it was a cracking gig.

This morning, just before a meeting about a show, I was up early to busk some French reggae. This is all of course for the Oscar Pike film, these were the final scenes that needed nailing. Guilliame was back in character, and we were joined by Gaf from Fred's House on bass who really, really enjoyed it (to the extent he even added French backing vocals). The busking felt less intimidating than the open mic slot a few weeks back, people are generally used to seeing oddballs busking and we could do whatever we wanted. We made £2.10 in half an hour, but more importantly; we got some cracking footage. That's the film all done then - just need to nail the editing of it, and then work out what the hell we're going to do with it. I'm quite proud of how it's looking - it's a lo-fi film that doesn't really go anywhere, but it builds into something rather moving and there's a few chuckles along the way.

Anyway, sleep I think, haven't really done that for four days.

Dowsing, more filming, remarkably good gigs

I really should be sleeping; it's been a frantic weekend. But things are happening - things are moving in the right direction, you can just feel it sometimes, sleep isn't really a priority.

The weekend started in spectacular fashion with The Dowsing Sound Collective show at Trinity College. A sellout show, and not long after our Christmas gig, this was an acoustic show but with full choir, strings and stripped-down band. The set featured material we were confident with, the venue a stunning setting for those beautiful voices. I ranted a bit before on here, and to anybody who would listen, about how unhappy I was with my performance at the Christmas gig, but this one worked out really well - it felt tight but spirited, in control but rousing. Magical. It's an epic project, Andrea's vision is completely unrivalled. I'm a cynical git at heart, often leaving the stage with a niggle or two and totally wrapped up in a world of percussion whilst missing the bigger picture but on Friday night I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the joy in the room. A thrilling night.

The next night I was playing another acoustic gig, but of a very different nature. CB2, an intimate venue where I've performed literally hundreds of times (with comedy projects, plus the odd gig) was the home for Fred's House on Saturday. Sold out show, hosted by the wonderful and friendly Acoustic Routes team, we were informed beforehand that the show could have easily sold out twice over. On paper it's a small gig, we play a lot, we're exceptionally well rehearsed and very comfortable with what we do, but Saturday felt different - there was a sense of expectation in the air. The audience crammed in - all seated gig but with a lot of people standing at the back, there seems to be a buzz about the band at the moment. It was a gem of a show - that audience wanted it, we raised our game to match the occasion. Best gig of the year so far? Hhhmm, it's up there with...well, Friday's gig.

In between those shows I've been filming for the Oscar Pike film. On Friday I hit a problem in the sense that Izzy has a heavy, lingering cold and just needs sleep. Replacing her seemed like a daft idea - and 'replacing' is such a harsh word, because she is a remarkable actress, but given certain restrictions (one of the locations only available for a couple of hours on Saturday morning) I just felt the need to stick to the schedule. Unexpectedly, Vikki Jones was available and stepped in. Vikki is of course the singer of Fred's House, she's a trained actress - but in musical theatre which is slightly different. She read the script in the car as I picked her up, and completely nailed it. It was a great day of filming - her manic...loudness suited the character well, and worked nicely against my awkward rambling. My landlord Marcus even had a cameo role, he took it very seriously, he did his shouting very well indeed. Today more scenes were nailed - this time with Jess and Dan. These were difficult scenes to film - outdoors quite often, and other scenes which involved reliance on technology (washing machine, microwave). It worked - they did a great job, their scenes nailed in under four hours. With the exception of a little more French reggae footage (to be filmed next weekend), that's everything in the can for The Many Struggles Of Oscar Pike. A feature film, made on an iPhone (an iPhone 4, not even a good one), I need to put aside a lot of time for the editing, but it could work, I think it will.

Weekend ended with a show at The John Peel Centre in Stowmarket. Flaming June were supposed to be playing this but sadly Louise was poorly, so the replacement was Fred's House. A packed audience, but more on the attentive side of things, it was the perfect end to the weekend - nice and relaxed, lots of happy people chatting to us afterwards. A brilliant weekend.

Filming, more lounge action, drummin'

I started filming The Many Struggles Of Oscar Pike at the weekend - my solo scenes, and also scenes with Abi. It went remarkably well, but mustn't get too carried away with that. It looked messy, as intended, it's awkward, as intended. Abi's performances were spot on, as I expected. On Tuesday I filmed the French reggae scenes with Guilliame. Going to an open mic in a city pub, not telling the audience it's a spoof, and playing 2 terrible French reggae tunes is just...dangerous. I'm glad we got out without receiving too much abuse, but it didn't go down too well, it was really touch and go at times...

This weekend I'll be filming with Jess, Dan, Marcus, Izzy...if this all comes together as quickly as I want it to it will be a bloody miracle. But I feel, creatively, on good form at the moment - on Saturday night I performed the new show around Rob's house and whilst there were clearly bits that still need work (but that's the whole point of these lounge shows) it really is starting to gel. A couple people even called it "profound" - but that was possibly because it was I had such an amazing, creative, inspiring audience...other lounge shows will have a lot to live up to, audience-wise at least.

But it's not all about the poncing about on stage/camera, is it? Band-wise things feel focussed, really moving in the right direction this year. Fred's House have a drive and an ambition that appeals, the album sounds exceptional and the venues on the tour are proper nice venues too - I'm looking forward to it very much. And a sold-out gig with Dowsing tomorrow night at Trinity College, an unpredictable beast, as always, but as always I predict magic. Proper Dowsing magic.

The sweet randomness of life

It's been a great week or so, if a little weird. On Sunday night I played with Fred's House at the Cambridge Corn Exchange - it's a big old space, and the sixth time I've played there now. It was a rammed show and we were performing as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. We're not Chinese but were made to feel very welcome indeed, it was a slightly intimidating and wonderful evening with a dragon, lots of dancers and it ended with us joining all joining our fellow performers on stage for a traditional folk song. Still can't quite get my head around it, but happy enough. A night before that I met up with Grace and Ali to chat projects; Grace is buying a narrow boat soon and we're going to tour in it, as you do. A couple days before that I tried out my new fringe show, Getting Lost In My Hometown, in the living room of the house I live in, in front of my landlord/housemate and his girlfriend. That was an odd evening. That was quite a run of odd evenings, actually.

Things this week feel back to normal; outstanding session for the new Flaming June record on Monday night (she's gone all indie, it was a joy to drum on this), on Tuesday played in Nottingham at the wonderful Malt Cross with Fred's House and got very lost both ways (on the way back, due to an A14 closure, I went via Leicester (twice), back to Nottingham, Watford and then eventually home), last night I had a photoshoot for the new show in the capable hands of Distant Cloud photography - they make me look fairly reasonable, which is just how good those guys are. Today I've been getting my head around the scripts for the filming of my debut feature length, The Many Struggles Of Oscar Pike. I'm filming my scenes with the lovely Abi on Saturday, next week I'll be joined by Jess, Izzy and Dan. I wrote it early last year, it's amazing how much of it I dislike now though. Ah yes, and there's another project, which involves meeting lots of former Spurs players, but I'll tell you more about that another time, I have proper good backing from a proper established publication for this one now, which is exciting but equally means I have to do this properly. I could just do with a little more time, you know?

Midnight Sessions

I’ll go back on what I said a few weeks back about not having a to-do list; I’ve bloody well gone and started one but thankfully things are being ticked off very nicely indeed. One of the ideas I’ve had for a while now is to record an overnight album, an idea that came about when I noticed that studio owner Adrian at the brilliant Sham Studios in Somersham was offering overnight sessions for a very reasonable fee. So on Saturday we took advantage of this situation and I gathered some of my best friends – Trevor Jones (singer/guitarist), Ali Bunclark (piano/producer) and Chris Lawrenson (bassist/chef) to form a makeshift band (with myself – drums/energy drinks, of course). The plan was really simple; to record a late night soul album. You know, the kind of album you’d want to listen to when driving back at 2am on big empty roads. Something soothing, but with a twist of quirkiness. Between Trevor and Ali we had enough equipment to turn the large rehearsal space into a studio, and at 10pm we started recording. By 6am we had 12 tracks – 10 of which were really very lovely indeed (and 2 which were perfectly in time and pleasant enough but probably won’t make the cut). By 7.30am I was home (having found ourselves locked in the grounds of the studio for a bit, hence the delay between finishing and getting out). People keep asking about why I’m not tired and in theory I should be – I’d barely slept at all that weekend (on Friday played a storming gig with The Prisoner Of Mars in Cambridge, Saturday I was too awake making plans), but when you’re in a spacious studio, surrounded by outstanding musicians at the top of their game, with tunes and ideas flowing, the hours to literally fly by. The release is to be simply called, ‘Midnight Sessions’ and this band are known now as Bleary Eyed By Dawn. I haven’t heard the final recordings yet, but at the time it felt like a world beater. If it’s any good we’ll release it in the summer.

January has been a fruitfully creative month; I’ve written and filmed/edited four episodes of a little sitcom with Izzy (to be launched end of February), I’ve written the first draft of my Edinburgh show (first reading of it tonight), I’ve recorded the album as mentioned above, I’ve spent good time in the studio finishing the jazz project with Pillars and I’ve gigged with Fred’s House and Prisoner Of Mars. I’ve also confirmed my Edinburgh fringe run and booked tour dates in May/July and had very interesting meetings about a few other little projects. Next up – a film, a novel and a musical. Possibly in that order. Plus of course the Fred’s House UK tour in March/April is looming. So far though; 2014 – one month in, you’ve started well. Keep it up.

Currently reading: Harry Redknapp – Always Managing

Currently watching: Uncle, House Of Fools, Dad’s Army

Currently listening to: Hospitality – Trouble; The Cinematic Orchestra – Live At The Royal Albert Hall; Sophie Ellis-Bexter – Wanderlust (I’m not generally a Sophie EB fan but when I heard this was co-written by the genius that is Ed Harcourt I thought I’d give it a go – it’s a wonderful, mature, adult, theatrical piece of work, an absolute gem – I defy anyone to listen to, ‘Young Blood’ and deny it’s anything but perfection.)

And Then Things Got Complicated For Emily & Michael

I've spent the first few weeks of the year writing, and then filming, and then editing, a lovely little sitcom with Izzy. It's called, 'And Then Things Got Complicated For Emily & Michael' - we've made four episodes, filmed over three weekends. The concept of it is really simple, but I won't spoil it for you on here just in case you happen to watch it when it goes live...but it's set in a car, she's a bit stroppy but as the series evolves we see a more vulnerable side to her, he's a bit awkward but as the series reaches it's climax we find out why.

It was filmed on an iPhone, it shouldn't work - you can't go around making sitcoms on your phone, but this does - really does, we were a bit surprised. In fact we liked the way the first episode looked so much that we decided to film it again with a slightly stronger performance. I'm actually really pleased with our performances in this show, we clearly get more comfortable doing this the more we did (episode 4 is really, really nice - and hopefully it'll stir a couple of emotions too).

That was a nice little project for January anyway, perhaps an unhealthy distraction from my progress with the new solo show, but a creative distraction, at least. I've also played a couple lovely gigs with Fred's House this month (a private function, and then a folk club show), good things are happening there, you know.

I'll post the links to the sitcom (we'll stick it all on YouTube) soon, probably next month, when we try in vein to tie it in with our various other projects...

So, this is 2014

If the New Year celebrations were an indication of the 12 months ahead, then 2014 is going to be a very enjoyable (if drunken) one, surrounded by creative, exciting people whilst drumming, a lot. I'd be happy enough with that. I was perhaps a little grumpy at Christmas for no other reason than that I had been feeling festive since mid-October what with the tour show and by December 25th I just wasn't in the mood anymore. I also had issues with everything being so sleepy; it's nice, relaxing, isn't it? I've heard it's good for you. Chilling out, going home to see the family (who are only about 3 minutes down the road from where I live these days, that in itself feels a bit strange...indeed I couldn't even get to the end of, 'Driving Home For Christmas' on my car stereo whilst actually driving home for Christmas), catching up with many great friends...it's just I felt a bit agitated by the slow pace of it all. Things got frantic again though by New Year's Eve - a really long gig with Fred's House in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere (near Rugby), gastro restaurant/bar, well-dressed people, good food, amazing company. The gig itself, which lasted nearly three hours by the end I think, was very much a show of two halves; the first was quieter as we were the backing to dinner (still with warm applause after every song though, impressive considering as the audience were all eating), the second was full-on party stuff. There's something really special about being the band that plays, 'Auld Lang Syne' as party poppers explode across the small function room, I get a real buzz out of being part of the entertainment - it's much more fun on stage than it is in the audience I'm sure. After the show, we (the collective members of Fred's House, plus friends of the band - Diana, Ania, Josh, Tom, Claire - none of whom I'd met before but all of whom were exceptionally good company who I'll be keeping in touch with) stayed in an amazing house that had an underground bar, hidden rooms, slightly tricky windily staircases and we drank whisky till 5am enjoying the good banter. The general consensus is that this was the best New Year's Eve ever. I think I agree.

So I kind of lost the first day of the year with a hangover, but this year has started productively enough already. My main show for the year is a solo show called, 'Getting Lost In My Home Town', - I started work on it whilst on the Christmas tour and it's a show that means a lot to me. I'm doing this show in steps - it'll open as a lounge/house show with a run of shows now booked for late February/early March to test it, before a full UK tour in May, and then a smaller tour (including an important, and now confirmed, London date) in early July, before a full Edinburgh run in August. I'll probably be taking three shows to Edinburgh again this year, but I'm still working on the other two, this one will be the only solo production though I think. Last night I took a break from writing the stuff I should be writing and decided to launch a new occasional podcast series. We're not doing our new material nights this year so it's a nice excuse to write new material and then get it out there in an instant - there's something really satisfying about writing a short story, taking an hour away from it, reading it again and then recording it, having it online by the end of the evening. The shows go under the title of, 'Long Rainy Summer' - I'll be doing a new piece every couple weeks or so, the first one can be heard here. This weekend I start filming a new comedy idea I've had for a while, looking forward to working with Izzy again (we don't catch up as much as we used to now that we're both doing solo shows), this is a series of 4-5 minute shows called, 'And Then Things Got Awkward For Emily And Michael'. In the meantime my new book, 'The Stationary Seller & Other Short Stories' is with the proof-reader, Abi, she's very thorough but has predicted that I'll have it back by the end of the month before publication in March, and at some point we all need to get around to finishing off our radio sitcom, 'Technically Single' which is something we're all very excited about but equally we seem to have the busiest cast in the world...soon though.

All of this writing tomfoolery of course has to be planned very carefully around what has turned into a very busy gigging schedule for 2014 - mostly Fred's House (the album comes out in March, it's wonderful, with an immense run of gigs to promote it), with gigs also lined up with psychedelic rockers The Prisoner Of Mars. There will also be shows and recording with Flaming June and jazz bands Pillars and Grace Williams & The Bare Bones Band, and at the end of this month I am drumming for Trevor Jones and Ali Bunclark in an overnight recording session (starts 9pm, ends 10am) - it just seems like a fun idea to book a studio overnight and record a soul record. OperaConga is still on the cards too, although I'm not sure how we'll pull that one off...

2014 is feeling exciting already. I've done away with to-do lists; these days if I have an idea I'll just drop what I'm doing and get on with it, rather than write it down and mull it over for a few days. If anything, it saves on paper. Happy New Year everyone, let's do this!